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IN THIS ISSUENo. 41,167

Business 13Crossword 11Culture 8Opinion 6Sports 10Style 12

ONLINE AT INYT.COMINSIDE TODAY’S PAPER

‘Power Africa’ project sputtersThe $7 billion plan to keep lights on inAfrica has yet to deliver any electricity,indicating how conflicts among nations,investors and institutions can hamperprogress. nytimes.com/africa

Amidsummer night’s coupleLily Rabe andHamish Linklater,increasingly cast in Shakespeare in thePark productions, have built a chemistryonstage and off. nytimes.com/theater

ESPN faces a talent drainBill Simmons, Keith Olbermann andColin Cowherd are leaving the sportsnetwork as it contends with increasesin production costs and rights fees.nytimes.com/media

Shoulder to shoulder in historyJackie Robinson stealing home. Aliknocking out Liston. Can you identifysome of the players in these famoussports photographs? nytimes.com/sports

Greek governing party’s rift showsPrimeMinister Alexis Tsipras andrebelliousmembers of his party tookpublic shots at one another asParliament examined financial andjudicial changes. WORLDNEWS, 3

Fighting poverty in IndiaNew programs aremaking it easier forthe Indian government to transfer cashto the needy, Siddharth George andArvind Subramanian write. OPINION, 6

Campaign fuels long-running feudDonald J. Trumpmay be leading acrowded field of Republican presidentialhopefuls in the polls, but he has alreadylost RupertMurdoch. BUSINESS, 13

From retirement to a debutThe German bass-baritone ThomasQuasthoff, who retired in 2012 at age 52,will make his conducting debut at theVerbier Festival on Friday. CULTURE, 8

TYLER HICKS/THE NEW YORK TIMES

BURUNDI TURMOIL A body in Bujumbura, the capital, on Wednesday. Areas where violencehad flared were mostly quiet as votes in a contentious presidential election were tallied.

E.L. Doctorow, author, dies at 84Mr. Doctorow’s popular novels situatedfictional characters in recognizablehistorical contexts. WORLDNEWS, 5

Stocks enthrall and appall ChineseAs themarket tumbles, some citizensperceive an unhealthymaterialisttendency in society. BUSINESS, 13

Ful l currency rates Page 16

Afghanistanstruggles tohold Talibanto stalemateKABUL, AFGHANISTAN

BY JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN

After suffering setbacks and heavy cas-ualties at the hands of the Taliban in2014, Afghan security forces came intothis yearwithwhat Afghan andWesternofficials acknowledge were relativelymodest goals: hang on till the end of thefighting seasonwithoutmajor collapses.Butwithmonths of heavy fighting still

ahead, 2015 is already shaping up to beworse for the Afghan Army and the na-tional police, even as President Obamais set to begin deliberating this year onwhether to follow through with a com-plete withdrawal of the United Statesmilitary assistancemission here in 2016.The forces are struggling to maintain

a stalemate: an at-least token govern-ment presence in the hundreds of dis-trict capitals handed over by departingNATO combat troops.Several Afghan officers described

desertion as such a problem that sol-diers and police officers in some criticalareas have simply been barred from re-turning home on leave, keeping themonthe front lines for months straight.And after a casualty rate last year

that the previousAmerican commandercalled unsustainable, the numbers thisyear are even worse: up more than 50percent compared with the first sixmonths of 2014. About 4,100 Afghan sol-diers and police officers have beenkilled, and about 7,800wounded, accord-ing to statistics provided by an officialwith the American-led coalition here.A range of interviews with army and

police commanders and regional gov-ernment officials in crucial battlegroundareas indicated that even though theAfghan forces have nominally met theirgoal of maintaining a presence in everycity and all but a very few district cen-ters, they are often functionally pennedin by the Taliban, rarely mountingpatrols, much less taking territory back.At the same time, they say the insur-

gents have increased their influence inmany areas, even near cities, givingthem the ability to move freely andmount intensified attacks on the Afghanforces.‘‘We are in a passive defense mode—

we are not chasing the enemy,’’ said aretired Afghan lieutenant general, Ab-dul Hadi Khalid. ‘‘Units get surrounded,andwedon’t send themsupport, so theyare killed.’’He described consequences ofmount-

ing casualties as ‘‘really grave,’’ under-mining the confidence of the securityforces and the Afghan public. ‘‘It willturn into a subversive war that benefitsthe enemy,’’ he added.The fighting this year has put in-

creased pressure on President AshrafGhani’s struggling government, even ashe has succeeded in opening initial talkswith the Taliban in the hope of begin-ning a formal peace process. For bothsides in the war, battlefield results willgovern how strong a hand they can

NADIA SHIRA COHEN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

The decline of Rome, again? Trash littering a street in the historic Trastevere neighborhood of the Italian capital. AMafia scandal, deteriorating services and a gen-eral sense that the city is falling apart, evenmore than usual, have led residents to criticize the reform-mindedmayor as an honestmanwho is in over his head. PAGE 3

Rising casualties leavetroops confined to citiesand embolden militants

Delays raiseworry in planto shut downGuantánamoWASHINGTON

BY CHARLIE SAVAGE

President Obama has been enjoying awinning streak lately, with the SupremeCourt reaffirming his signature healthcare law and Iran agreeing to curbs onits nuclear program. But one longstand-ing goal continues to bedevil him: clos-ing the wartime prison at GuantánamoBay, Cuba.The administration’s fitful effort to

shut down theprison is collapsingagain.Ashton B. Carter, in his first six monthsas defense secretary, has yet to make adecision on any newly proposed deals totransfer individual detainees. His delay,which echoes a pattern last year by hispredecessor, ChuckHagel, is generatingmounting concern in the White Houseand State Department, officials say.Last week, Mr. Obama’s national se-

curity adviser, Susan E. Rice, conveneda cabinet-level ‘‘principals committee’’meeting on how to close the prison be-fore the president leaves office in 18months. At thatmeeting,Mr. Carterwaspresented with an unsigned NationalSecurity Council memo stating that hewould have 30 days to make decisionson newly proposed transfers, accordingto several officials familiar with the in-ternal deliberations.But themeeting ended inconclusively.

Mr. Carter did not commit to making adecision on pending transfer proposalsby a particular date, including the repat-riationof aMauritanianandaMoroccan.Norwas it clearwhether he accepted the30-day deadline, those officials said.The approval process is complicated

by statutes restricting the transfer of de-tainees. They banbringing detainees to aprison inside the United States and re-quire thedefense secretary tonotifyCon-gress, 30daysbeforeany transfer, that itsrisks have been substantiallymitigated.The law effectively vests final power

in the defense secretary andmakes himpersonally accountable if somethinggoes wrong.‘‘The chances of getting it done on

Obama’s watch are getting increasinglyslim,’’ said Robert M. Chesney, a Uni-versity of Texas law professor whoworked on detainee policy for the ad-ministration in 2009.‘‘Whatever hope there is depends on

FRANK AUGSTEIN/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Fragments of a manuscript of the Quran that were found in the University of Birming-ham’s library. Experts say they may have been written during Muhammad’s lifetime.

SAUL LOEB/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

President Obama has said the prison fuelsanti-American feelings and wastes money.

Defense secretary has yetto decide on transfers,frustrating Obama’s goal

BEIJING

BY ANDREW JACOBSAND CHRIS BUCKLEY

In what lawyers call the most witheringpolitical assault on their profession in

decades, the Chinese government ismounting a broad crackdown on rightsattorneys, contending that they haveexploited contentious cases to enrichthemselves and attack the CommunistParty.More than 200 lawyers and associates

have been detained, with 20 still in cus-tody. Somehave been paraded on televi-sion making humiliating confessionsand portrayed as rabble-rousing thugs.A blast of commentaries in party news-papers accuse the lawyers of subver-

sion and running scams.The beleaguered lawyers say the gov-

ernment’s real goal is to discredit anddismantle the ‘‘rights defense’’ move-ment, a small but audacious group ofpeople who have used the law and pub-lic pressure to defend clients in a systemstacked against them.‘‘This feels like the biggest attack

we’ve ever experienced,’’ said ZhangLei, a lawyer in southern Chinawhowasamong thosequestionedand releasedbythe police. ‘‘It looks like they’re acting

by the law, but hardly any of the lawyerswho disappeared have been allowed tosee their own lawyers. Over 200 broughtin for questioning and warnings — I’venever seen anything like it before.’’Yet, in a telling sign of how much

Chinese society has changed since MaoZedong almost 40 years ago, the lawyersare not retreating. Despite the intensepolice pressure, and the previous impris-onment of lawyers under President XiJinping, dozens have organized petitions

More than 200 detainedin the most sweepingcrackdown in decades

Chinamoves tomuzzle rights lawyers

Newly discovered Quran pagesare dated to the dawn of IslamLONDON

BY DAN BILEFSKY

Fragments of what researchers say arepart of one of the world’s oldestmanuscripts of the Quran have beenfound at the University of Birmingham,England, the school said onWednesday.Theancient fragments areprobably at

least 1,370 years old, which could placethe manuscript’s writing within a fewyears of the founding of Islam, research-ers say, and the writer of the text mayhave known the ProphetMuhammad.The small pieces of the manuscript,

written on sheepskin or goatskin, sat inthe university’s library for about a cen-

tury until Alba Fedeli, a Ph.D. student,noticed their particular calligraphy. Theuniversity sent a small piece of themanuscript to Oxford University for ra-diocarbon dating.David Thomas, a professor of Chris-

tianity and Islam at the University ofBirmingham, said that when the resultscame back, he and other researchershad been stunned to discover themanuscript’s provenance.‘‘We were bowled over, startled in-

deed,’’ Professor Thomas said in an in-terview. The period when themanuscript was produced, he added,‘‘could well take us back to within a fewyears of the actual founding of Islam.’’

CHINA, PAGE 4

QURAN, PAGE 3

GUANTÁNAMO, PAGE 5

AFGHANISTAN, PAGE 4

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THOMAS L. FRIEDMANHOWWE CAN BACK UPOURWAGERWITH IRANPAGE 7 | OPINION

‘DEADWOOD’REVISITING THEHBOWESTERNPAGE 8 | CULTURE

VANESSA FRIEDMANTHESE MODELS ARE 13, 14AND 16. IS THAT TOO YOUNG?PAGE 12 | STYLE