November 30, 2005

Consumers may feel bombarded by all the advertisements urging them to buy cashmere sweaters or flat-screen televisions for their loved ones. But some retailers are playing to one of the season's guilty pleasures: shoppers indulging themselves. This early in the holiday season, the retailers say, most of the shoppers are women, and the new advertising campaigns are aimed at persuading them to take a break from shopping for others.

Murray Chass On Baseball column discusses possibility that New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter will move to center field; photo (M)

Carl C. Icahn has a new, perhaps unlikely ally: Bruce Wasserstein. Mr. Icahn, who is leading a group of dissident investors in a campaign against Time Warner and its board, said yesterday that he had hired Mr. Wasserstein and his firm, Lazard, to help advance the fight.

William and Arthur Zeckendorf agree to pay record $430-per-square foot for 'air rights' to build 35-story apartment tower on East 60th Street in Manhattan; developers will pay more than $30 million to nearby Christ Church and about $7 million to Grolier Club for their unused air rights; deal will permit construction of taller tower than zoning would otherwise permit; separate deal with Christ Church will also give tower coveted Park Avenue address (S)

Prominent German archaeologist and aid worker, Susanne Osthoff, who has worked in Iraq for years, is kidnapped and threatened with execution unless Germany withdraws support for Iraqi government; abduction is latest in new wave of kidnappings of Westerners after yearlong lull; Osthoff is kidnapped with driver, and videotape delivered to German television shows two people in blindfolds; aid group Christian Peacemaker Teams confirms seizure of four workers, Briton Norman Kember, American Tom Fox and Canadians James Loney and Harmeet Singh Sooden; Al Jazeera video shows four with captors who accuse them of being spies; photos; more than 200 foreigners have been kidnapped since US invasion; dozens have been killed and about 20 are still missing; gunmen kill senior Sunni cleric in Falluja, Sheik Hamza Abbas al-Esawwi, one of few powerful figures in Anwar who urged Sunnis to participate in political process; two US soldiers are killed by bomb north of Baghdad; new German Chancellor Angela Merkel appeals for release of Osthoff, who has lived in Iraq for many years and broken ties with family; Osthoff was threatened in Mosul for restoring Christian site; she also upset Shiites in south for trying to protect sites and artifacts from smugglers (M)