TheChek News Flow

SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine — Russia’s move to seize control of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula on Saturday led Ukraine to call up its military reserves on Sunday and warn Moscow against further incursions as Western powers scrambled to find a response to the crisis. A day after the Russian Parliament granted President Vladimir V. Putin broad authority to use military force in response to the political upheaval in Ukraine that dislodged a Kremlin ally and installed a new, staunchly pro-Western government, the Ukrainian government in Kiev threatened war if Russia sent troops further into Ukraine. Russian troops stripped of identifying insignia but using military vehicles bearing the license plates of Russia’s Black Sea force swarmed the major thoroughfares of Crimea on Saturday, encircled government buildings, closed the main airport and seized communication hubs, solidifying what began on Friday as a covert effort to control the largely pro-Russian region. The announcement of the reserve mobilization was an attempt by the rattled new government in Kiev to draw a line against Mr. Putin, an effort expected to continue later on Sunday when NATO holds an emergency meeting on Ukraine and the British foreign secretary, William Hague, visits Kiev in a sign of Western support. What began three months ago as a protest against the Ukrainian government has now turned into a big-power confrontation reminiscent of the Cold War and a significant challenge to international agreements on the sanctity of the borders of the post-Soviet nations. Mr. Putin convened the upper house of Parliament in Moscow on Saturday to grant him authority to use force to protect Russian citizens and soldiers not only in Crimea but throughout Ukraine. Both actions — military and parliamentary — were a direct rebuff to President Obama, who on Friday pointedly warned Russia to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity. Mr. Obama accused Russia on Saturday of a “breach of international law” and condemned the country’s military intervention, calling it a “clear violation” of Ukrainian sovereignty. In Crimea, the situation was calm but hardly placid on Sunday morning, with fewer soldiers visible on the streets. Some heavily armed soldiers without insignia had taken up positions around small Ukrainian military bases, but without trying to enter them. At Perevalnoye, a small Ukrainian base some 15 miles south of Simferopol on the road to Yalta, scores of soldiers with masks, helmets and goggles, in unmarked uniforms, ranged along one wall of the base. Inside there were about two dozen Ukrainian soldiers, equipped with an armored personnel carrier. Col. Sergei Starozhenko, 38, the Ukrainian commander, told reporters the unmarked troops had arrived about 5 A.M. and “they want to block the base.” He said he expected them to bring reinforcements and call for talks. Asked how many men he has at his command, he said simply: “Enough.” In Sevastopol, pro-Russian “self-defense” forces were blocking the entrances of the main Ukrainian naval headquarters. There was no sign of Russian troops, Ukrainian officers were at work inside and armed Ukrainians guards were on patrol behind the closed gates. Pro-Russia demonstrators put up a banner reading: “Sevastopol without Fascism,” and urged Ukrainian officers to come over to their side rather than serve the “illegal fascist regime” in Kiev. The demonstrators shoved packs of cigarettes, candy and bottles of water through gate for the Ukrainian guards. “They have to make a choice -- they either obey the fascists in Kiev or the people,” said Sergei Seryogin, a pro-Russia activist outside. Kiev, he said, “is illegal power” and should be ignored by all military and civil officials. Russia kept up its propaganda campaign on Sunday in defense of the takeover, citing undefined threats to Russian citizens and proclaiming “massive defections” of Ukrainian forces in Crimea, which appeared to Western reporters to be unfounded. The state-owned Itar-Tass news agency cited the Russian border guard agency claiming that 675,000 Ukrainians had fled to Russia in January and February and that there were signs of a “humanitarian catastrophe.” Russia insists that its intervention is only to protect its citizens and interests from chaos and disorder following the still unexplained departure from Kiev of former president Viktor F. Yanukovych. “If ‘revolutionary chaos’ in Ukraine continues, hundreds of thousands of refugees will flow into bordering Russian regions,” the border service said, according to Tass, providing one more unsubstantiated justification for Russian military intervention. Late Saturday, Ukraine’s acting president, Oleksandr Turchynov, said he had ordered Ukraine’s armed forces to full readiness because of the threat of “potential aggression.” He also said he had ordered stepped-up security at nuclear power plants, airports and other strategic infrastructure. Prime Minister Arseniy P. Yatsenyuk, said he was “convinced” Russia would not intervene militarily in eastern Ukraine, “since this would be the beginning of war and the end of all relations” with Russia. While Ukrainian forces in Crimea offered no resistance, there is concern that Russia might use the same pretext of citizens in peril to move forces into eastern Ukraine, which has many Russian speakers and heavy industry with close ties to Russia. Large pro-Russia crowds rallied on Saturday in the eastern Ukrainian cities of Donetsk and Kharkiv, where there were reports of violence. In Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, fears grew within the new provisional government that separatist upheaval would fracture the country just days after a winter of civil unrest had ended with the ouster of Mr. Yanukovych, the Kremlin ally who fled to Russia. In addition to the risk of open war, it was a day of frayed nerves and set-piece political appeals that recalled ethnic conflicts of past decades in the former Soviet bloc, from the Balkans to the Caucasus. Mr. Obama, who had warned Russia on Friday that “there will be costs” if it violated Ukraine’s sovereignty, spoke with Mr. Putin for 90 minutes on Saturday, according to the White House, and urged him to withdraw his forces back to their bases in Crimea and to stop “any interference” in other parts of Ukraine. In a statement afterward, the White House said the United States would suspend participation in preparatory meetings for the G-8 economic conference to be held in Sochi, Russia, in June, and warned of “greater political and economic isolation” for Russia. The Kremlin offered its own description of the call, in which it said Mr. Putin spoke of “a real threat to the lives and health of Russian citizens” in Ukraine, and warned that “in case of any further spread of violence to Eastern Ukraine and Crimea, Russia retains the right to protect its interests and the Russian-speaking population of those areas.” In Britain, Prime Minister David Cameron said that “there can be no excuse for outside military intervention” in Ukraine. Canada said it was recalling its ambassador from Moscow and, like the United States, suspending preparations for the G-8 meeting. At the United Nations, the Security Council held an emergency meeting on Ukraine for the second time in two days. The American ambassador, Samantha Power, called for an international observer mission, urged Russia to “stand down” and took a dig at the Russian ambassador, Vitaly I. Churkin, on the issue of state sovereignty, which the Kremlin frequently invokes in criticizing the West over its handling of Syria and other disputes. “Russian actions in Ukraine are violating the sovereignty of Ukraine and pose a threat to peace and security,” she said. The secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, also spoke with Mr. Putin on Saturday and described himself as “gravely concerned” and urged Mr. Putin to negotiate with officials in Kiev. Mr. Yanukovych’s refusal, under Russian pressure, to sign new political and free trade agreements with the European Union last fall set off the civil unrest that last month led to the deaths of more than 80 people, and ultimately unraveled his presidency. The country’s new interim government has said it will revive those accords. Ukraine’s acting president, Oleksandr V. Turchynov, said at a briefing in Kiev on Saturday evening that he had ordered Ukraine’s armed forces “to full combat readiness.” A Ukrainian military official in Crimea said Ukrainian soldiers had been told to “open fire” if they came under attack by Russian troops or others though it was unlikely they could pose a serious challenge to Russian forces. Officials in Kiev demanded that Russia pull back its forces, and confine them to the military installations in Crimea that Russia has long leased from Ukraine. “The presence of Russian troops in Crimea now is unacceptable,” said acting Prime Minister Arseniy P. Yatsenyuk. Decrying the Russian deployment as a “provocation,” he added, “We call on the government of the Russian Federation to immediately withdraw its troops, return to the place of deployment and stop provoking civil and military confrontation in Ukraine.” Sergey Tigipko, a former deputy prime minister of Ukraine and one-time ally of Mr. Yanukovych, said he flew to Moscow in hopes of brokering a truce. The fast-moving events began in the morning, when the pro-Russia prime minister of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, declared that he had sole control over the military and the police, and appealed to Mr. Putin for Russian help in safeguarding the region. He also said a public referendum on independence would be held on March 30. The Kremlin quickly issued a statement saying that Mr. Aksyonov’s plea “would not be ignored,” and within hours the upper chamber of Russia’s Parliament had authorized military action. The authorization cited Crimea, where Russia maintains important military installations, but covered the use of force in the entire “territory of Ukraine.” Parliament also asked Mr. Putin to withdraw Russia’s ambassador to the United States. By nightfall, the scores of armed men in uniform who first appeared on Crimea’s streets on Friday had melted away from the darkened center of Simferopol, vanishing as mysteriously as they arrived. For the new government in Kiev, the tensions in Crimea created an even more dire and immediate emergency than the looming financial disaster that they had intended to focus on in their first days in office. A $15 billion bailout that Mr. Yanukovych secured from Russia has been suspended because of the political upheaval, and Ukraine is in desperate need of financial assistance. Mr. Yatsenyuk, the acting prime minister, had said that the government’s first responsibility was to begin negotiations with the International Monetary Fund and start to put in place the economic reforms and painful austerity measures that the fund requested in exchange for help. In Crimea, however, officials said they did not recognize the new government, and declared that they had taken control. Mr. Aksyonov, the regional prime minister, said he was ordering the regional armed forces, the Interior Ministry troops, the Security Service, border guards and other ministries under his direct control. “I ask anyone who disagrees to leave the service,” he said. As soldiers mobilized across the peninsula, the region’s two main airports were closed, with civilian flights canceled, and they were guarded by heavily armed men in military uniforms. Similar forces surrounded the regional Parliament building and the rest of the government complex in downtown Simferopol, as well as numerous other strategic locations, including communication hubs and a main bus station. Near the entrance to Balaklava, the site of a Ukrainian customs and border post near Sevastopol, the column of military vehicles with Russian plates included 10 troop trucks, with 30 soldiers in each, two military ambulances and five armored vehicles. Soldiers, wearing masks and carrying automatic rifles, stood on the road keeping people away from the convoy, while some local residents gathered in a nearby square waving Russian flags and shouting, “Russia! Russia!” As with the troops in downtown Simferopol, the soldiers did not have markings on their uniforms. There were also other unconfirmed reports of additional Russian military forces arriving in Crimea, including Russian ships landing in Fedosiya, in eastern Crimea. Crimea, while part of Ukraine, has enjoyed a large degree of autonomy under an agreement with the federal government in Kiev since shortly after Ukrainian independence from the Soviet Union. The strategically important peninsula, which has been the subject of military disputes for centuries, has strong historic, linguistic and cultural ties to Russia. The population of roughly two million is predominantly Russian, followed by a large number of Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars, people of Turkic-Muslim origin. In eastern Ukraine, which is also heavily pro-Russian, demonstrators in Kharkiv rallied and then seized control of a government building, pulling down the blue-and-yellow Ukrainian flag and raising the blue, white and red Russian one. Scores of people were injured as protesters scuffled with supporters of the new government in Kiev. In Donetsk, also in the east, several thousand people held a rally in the city center, local news agencies reported, with many chanting pro-Russian slogans and demanding a public referendum on secession from Ukraine. In Moscow, the parliamentary debate on authorizing military action was perfunctory, but laced with remarks that echoed the worst days of the Cold War. Underscoring the extent to which the crisis has become part of Russia’s broader grievances against the West, lawmakers focused on Mr. Obama and the United States as much as on the fate of Russians in Ukraine. “All this is being done under the guise of democracy, as the West says,” Nikolai I. Ryzhkov, one member of Parliament, said during the debate. “They tore apart Yugoslavia, routed Egypt, Libya, Iraq and so on, and all this under the false guise of peaceful demonstrations.” He added, “So we must be ready in case they will unleash the dogs on us.” Yuri L. Vorobyov, the body’s deputy chairman, said Mr. Obama’s warning on Friday was a cause for Russia to act. “I believe that these words of the U.S. president are a direct threat,” he said. “He has crossed the red line and insulted the Russian people.”

Buffett Hints at More Heinz-Like Deals in Annual Letter

The challenge looming over Warren E. Buffett is whether Berkshire Hathaway, the vast business empire he has built over five decades, can continue to make the sort of large acquisitions that will help it grow at a pace that will sustain his reputation as the nation’s shrewdest investor.

But Mr. Buffett, in Berkshire’s annual report released on Saturday, highlighted the large deals that his company made last year, including the acquisition of H. J. Heinz — and strongly hinted at how future big purchases might take place.

“With the Heinz purchase, moreover, we created a partnership template that may be used by Berkshire in future acquisitions of size,” Mr. Buffett said. Last year, Berkshire’s energy subsidiary, MidAmerican Energy, bought NV Energy for $5.6 billion. “NV Energy will not be MidAmerican’s last major acquisition,” he said.

Jeff Matthews, a hedge fund manager who has written books on Berkshire, said he detected a strong desire to make more acquisitions.

“I think it’s way more than a hint,” Mr. Matthews said in an email. “He clearly sees more deals at MidAmerican.”

Every year, Berkshire’s annual reports are devoured as avidly as best-selling novels. The main attraction is Mr. Buffett’s letter to shareholders, in which he often extols America as a breeding ground for rags-to-riches success and tells how he came to make certain investment decisions, using plain English and the odd dash of homespun humor along the way.

“Mrs. B was 89 at the time and worked until 103 — definitely my kind of woman,” Mr. Buffett wrote in this year’s letter, describing the now dead Rose Blumkin, whose family owned Nebraska Furniture Mart, a retailer that Berkshire bought in 1983.

The praise for working to a late age suggests that Mr. Buffett, 83, will not retire any time soon. Still, that will not have stopped Berkshire’s shareholders, and many others, from scouring the report for clues about whom Mr. Buffett has picked as his successor to run Berkshire’s operations. Two years ago, Mr. Buffett said that his successor had already been selected.

As he has done in past years, Mr. Buffett heaped praise on Ajit Jain, the head of Berkshire’s reinsurance group and the man many have speculated will take up the top post. “His operation combines capacity, speed, decisiveness and, most important, brains in a manner unique in the insurance business,” Mr. Buffett said of Mr. Jain.

A rising stock market and strong earnings from its companies helped Berkshire report record profit in 2013 of $19.5 billion, a 32 percent rise from $14.8 billion in 2012. Mr. Buffett has long used book value per share — a measure of Berkshire’s net worth belonging to shareholders — to assess the company’s performance. That rose 18.2 percent in 2013, much less than the 32.4 percent rise in the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index.

“As I’ve long told you, Berkshire’s intrinsic value far exceeds its book value,” Mr. Buffett said.

Even though the stock market is trading at highs, Mr. Buffett did not contend in the letter that stocks are overvalued, as he has done in past annual reports.

One way for Berkshire to grow is to make more acquisitions. But as Berkshire gets bigger, the acquisitions also must be sizable to make a noticeable difference to the company’s overall earnings.

The Heinz deal showed how Berkshire could make a substantial deal while sharing some of the financial burden with others. Berkshire bought Heinz in partnership with 3G Capital, an investment firm led by Mr. Buffett’s friend Jorge Paulo Lemann. The team-up could allow Berkshire to acquire more of Heinz.

Writing about the company, Mr. Buffett said: “Certain 3G investors may sell some or all of their shares in the future, and we might increase our ownership at such times.” Mr. Buffett, however, offered few details on how Heinz was performing, except to say its 2014 earnings would be “substantial.”

Berkshire can also grow by acquiring stakes in public companies it does not control. Its 15 largest stakes in such companies, which include Wells Fargo and Coca-Cola, are worth $98 billion.

Mr. Buffett’s annual letters are well read because they make investing seem simple, something he often tries to achieve with down-home anecdotes.

But for all his investing lessons, Mr. Buffett also suggested a very simple strategy for people who do not want to parse balance sheets. When he dies, Mr. Buffett’s cash will be put into a trust for his wife, Astrid Menks. Mr. Buffett said he had advised the trustee to put 10 percent of that cash into short-term government bonds and 90 percent into an S.&P. 500 index fund.

“I believe the trust’s long-term results from this policy will be superior to those attained by most investors — whether pension funds, institutions or individuals — who employ high-fee managers,” he said.

In addition to the investment victories, Mr. Buffett dwelled on an expensive failure. Berkshire, he said, had taken an $873 million loss on $2 billion of debt in Energy Future Holdings, a Texas energy company. Mr. Buffett said he expected the company to go bankrupt this year unless natural gas prices go up a lot.

He acknowledged that he did not consult his longtime investment partner, Charles T. Munger, before taking on the debt. “Next time I’ll call Charlie,” Mr. Buffett wrote in the report.

Pampered Guests and Feuding Hosts at Claridge’s Hotel

The entrance to Claridge’s, long known as a retreat for monarchs and celebrities.

Few trophies, it would seem, are more seductive to tycoons than Claridge’s, the grande dame of luxury London hotels, which has a long history of tempting buyers and provoking gentlemen’s quarrels.

Since the 19th century, monarchs and celebrities have retreated to its $20,000-a-night suites or indulged in tea and scones in its Art Deco reading room. Recently, the hotel starred in a hit BBC documentary, “Inside Claridge’s,” which chronicled the daily dramas of employees whose tasks include plumping bedding for foreign princesses (four duvets required).

But the real inside tale is grittier: a do-or-die battle for ownership of the hotel between competing British and Irish magnates who have vowed to win their epic feud or, if necessary, pass it on to their children and grandchildren.

“Claridge’s is a trophy and a corporate plaything,” said David Heathcote, an architectural historian in England. “It’s a flagship that says more about you than the money because it has this historical aura around it that makes it a super-brand.” In the British version of Monopoly, he added, the most coveted space in the board game is Mayfair, the exclusive London neighborhood of designer shops and swank restaurants where Claridge’s resides.

The twins David, left, and Frederick Barclay were knighted in 2000 by Queen Elizabeth. They are opposed by an entrepreneur from Northern Ireland in the fight for Claridge’s, the London luxury hotel. MICHAEL STEPHENS / EUROPEAN PRESSPHOTO AGENCY The real-life monopoly players in this case include, on one side, David Rowat Barclay and Frederick Hugh Barclay, reclusive billionaire British media moguls and identical twins in their late 70s. They own the Telegraph newspaper and the Ritz hotel in London and live mostly on a private island off the coast of France — in a mock Gothic castle protected by a moat.

Their adversary is Patrick McKillen, 58, an entrepreneur from Northern Ireland who parlayed a family auto-muffler chain into a fortune in Irish property and a 36 percent stake in Claridge’s holding company, which is known as Coroin and owns two other London hotels. Mr. McKillen is so publicity-shy that for years the only photograph of him that Dublin newspapers could publish was a 1989 shot showing him in a tuxedo and bow tie.

The squabble over Claridge’s is part of the legacy of Ireland’s economic bust, which left Irish tycoons’ property vulnerable to takeover when real estate values plunged and loans were called due. But it also is a saga of business warfare waged around the globe with subplots in Monte Carlo and Qatar and a cameo role for Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, who intervened to try to broker a deal.

Mr. McKillen says he has spent 20 million pounds, or more than $33 million, in legal fees fighting the Barclay brothers over Claridge’s and its sister hotels. It is not play money to the entrepreneur, who says that these kinds of historic buildings become available only once in a generation.

Patrick McKillen parlayed a family auto-muffler chain into a fortune in Irish property and has a 36 percent stake in Claridge’s holding company. MAX NASH / PRESS ASSOCIATION “I love these hotels and have put so much into them,” he said. “The Barclays saw an opportunity because of Ireland’s banking crisis to swoop in and try to take them for a steal in a highly aggressive way. I will not be pushed or bullied.”

The Barclays and their advisers and lawyers take a more cynical view. Mr. McKillen, they argue, is holding on so that his “good assets” will cushion him against his debts in Ireland of more than 800 million euros, or $1.1 billion.

While the two sides agree on little, they do share the same Monopoly strategy: Show no mercy in the war for control.

It was just a decade ago that these landmark English hotels fell into the grip of Ireland’s booming economy, then known as the “Celtic tiger.” Mr. McKillen was part of a highflying group of Irish investors led by a former Dublin tax inspector who organized the €890 million deal to claim the trophy hotels. At the outset, Mr. McKillen bought a 20 percent share in the consortium and enlisted other wealthy Irish investors, including the creators of the show “Riverdance” and the then-chairman of the Anglo Irish Bank.

These days, Mr. McKillen, who still takes a guiding role in the refurbishment of the hotels, strolls through the Claridge’s foyer — with its crystal Lalique panels — radiating confidence. Dressed casually in a signature black Dior jacket and crisp open-necked shirt, he looks more like an art dealer than a corporate titan. This is a very different world from the one he grew up in, on the west side of Belfast in Andersonstown, a Catholic stronghold that was a center of strife during what are known as the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

He followed his father into the family auto-muffler chain, DC Exhausts, and, like many Irish businessmen, skipped university to dive into his company, eventually helping to sell the chain. In the 1980s, he started making a name for himself, developing shopping centers and hotels. Bono of U2 is a joint owner with him of the Clarence Hotel in Dublin.

The purchase of Claridge’s holding company vaulted Mr. McKillen to a new level. With revenue of more than $220 million last year and a combined occupancy rate of more than 85 percent, Coroin has been valued at £1.05 billion, or $1.75 billion.

Mr. McKillen’s share of the three hotels is the jewel in his global portfolio of assets, which has been valued at more than $4 billion. The investments also include a 21-story office tower in Boston; a shopping center in Ireland; real estate in California, Asia and South America; and a 200-acre winery, Château la Coste, in France.

But the acquisition of Coroin was financed in part through loans from the Anglo Irish Bank. That bank would soon collapse under the weight of bad loans and be taken over by the state as Ireland plunged into economic crisis. With real estate values crashing and the banking system imploding, the original Irish consortium that bought the hotels started to wobble.

“There was so much faith in the abilities of these property developers, who had become so rich so quickly, that the banks were overlending,” said Philip Lane, professor of political economy at Trinity College Dublin. “The tragedy is that, after making large amounts of money in Ireland, they then leveraged that to make big bets elsewhere.”

This is when the Barclay brothers started circling. The twins, knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 2000 for their charitable contributions to medical research, are the sons of Scottish Catholic parents. The brothers got their start as house painters, moved into real estate and began buying old boardinghouses to convert into hotels. In fact, their backgrounds are not all that different from Mr. McKillen’s, although their personal styles contrast starkly.

In written testimony, Frederick Barclay recalls his first and only encounter with Mr. McKillen, in 2010 at the Ritz hotel, which has a formal dress code. “He was not wearing a jacket and tie and his shirt was hanging out,” Frederick Barclay wrote. “I made a joke that it was fortunate that I was there to meet him because otherwise he would not have got past security. Mr. McKillen took umbrage and the encounter turned distinctly frosty.”

Unlike some other Irish property magnates, Mr. McKillen cannily started diversifying his investments in Ireland before the downturn began in 2008. As a result, he stayed afloat, even managing to increase his share of Coroin to 36 percent, and avoiding the humiliating fate of one of his fellow hotel investors, Derek Quinlan, a former Dublin tax inspector whose houses were seized by bankers along with a Falcon motor yacht and an Andy Warhol painting of a dollar sign.

Mr. McKillen had a crucial asset: an ironclad agreement among the original investors that gave him first rights to buy any shares in Coroin put up for sale. At least he thought it was ironclad.

In 2011, the Barclay twins found a way to circumvent the agreement legally. They allied themselves with Mr. Quinlan, after seven meetings in the Cafe de Paris in Monte Carlo. With his empire collapsing, he shifted voting control of his 35.4 percent share to the Barclays, who bought the loans held by the Royal Bank of Scotland and secured by his shares. They also supported Mr. Quinlan, according to court documents, with loans of almost $4 million.

The Barclays further increased their stake in Coroin by buying a Cyprus holding company from a different hotel investor, Peter Green, again legally circumventing Mr. McKillen’s right-to-buy agreement by keeping the shares in the name of the holding company.

By the time they were finished, the brothers controlled 64 percent of the shares — enough to freeze Mr. McKillen out of power but not to gain outright ownership. So far, the courts in London have backed their right to take control despite Mr. McKillen’s legal challenge that the shareholder agreement was not respected. Thus, they have sway over board meetings, which Mr. McKillen now shuns.

In the last 10 days, there has been a flurry of activity, with both camps bidding to buy or repay Mr. McKillen’s personal loans of more than $336 million that are secured by his hotel shares. The loans are held by the state-owned Irish Bank Resolution Corporation, an institution that took over the shell of the Anglo Irish Bank and is systematically selling its loans.

Mr. McKillen is pursuing a legal claim in Dublin with a court hearing next week to block the Barclays from buying his loans. He argues that the loans should not be sold to them, alleging that state and banking officials leaked a confidential financial file about him to the Barclay camp. State fraud investigators are looking into the claims.

If the strategy fails and the Barclays are able to buy Mr. McKillen’s debts in Ireland, the game might well be over; they would simply call in his loans, which could force him to sell his stake in the hotels.

Mr. McKillen says he is lining up financial support from Colony Capital, an investment firm in California. “These hotels get into your soul and the importance is emotional as well as financial,” he said, adding that he is prepared to hang on for decades if it takes that long for Mr. Quinlan to declare bankruptcy, which would free Mr. McKillen to buy his shares.

The Barclays and their family-owned business also take the long view, though it is something they are loath to talk about except in court proceedings. (They declined to comment for this article.)

“This is a soap opera and has a few chapters left to run,” said Richard Faber, a business adviser and former son-in-law of Frederick Barclay, in an email submitted in the London court case that the judge called remarkably prescient.

With the standoff dragging on, the contest has evolved into a war of nerves. Mr. McKillen recently made a surprise visit to the Channel Islands, within boating distance of the Barclay brothers’ moat, meeting with locals involved in an unrelated dispute with the twins.

Mr. McKillen has enlisted the help of the former prime minister, Mr. Blair, whom he first met at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Last year, Mr. Blair negotiated with a former Qatari emir, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, to finance a takeover if Mr. McKillen could win control of the group.

But for now, the hotels are stuck in ownership limbo. That uncomfortable truth, though, does not intrude in the hushed tea salon at Claridge’s, where the concierge still jokes that when someone calls and asks to speak to the king, the standard reply is, “Which one?”

The day-to-day running of the hotel chain is managed by a chief executive, but Mr. McKillen still keeps a hand in the renovations underway at the hotels, recruiting designers and watching over the kitchens where he has helped to lure celebrity chefs — activities that, thus far, the Barclay brothers have not tried to stop.

And through it all, Claridge’s remains a refuge, a neutral zone where exiled nobles retreated during World War II.

In mid-December, with the lights twinkling on Claridge’s designer Christmas tree, Mr. McKillen said he encountered David Barclay and his son, Aidan, who manages businesses for the twins. As Mr. McKillen walked into the black-and-white marble lobby, he felt the eyes of the employees upon all of them. By his telling, he thrust out his hand to the men — only to be shown their backs.

A few days later, Mr. McKillen followed up the meeting by renewing his demand to buy out the Barclays. Only this time, he cheekily threw in an additional offer to buy the fabled Ritz hotel from the twins.

To date, he said, he has received no response.

Attackers With Knives Kill 29 at Chinese Rail Station

HONG KONG — A group of assailants wielding knives stormed into a railway station in southwestern China on Saturday, slashing employees and commuters and leaving at least 29 people dead and 130 wounded, according to Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency. The local government indicated that the attackers were Uighur separatists seeking an independent homeland in the Xinjiang region in China’s far west.

The attack, in Yunnan Province, was far from Xinjiang, and if carried out by members of the largely Muslim Uighur minority could imply that the volatile tensions between them and the government might be spilling beyond that restive region.

The violence erupted about 9 p.m. in the city of Kunming, when the assailants, all wearing similar clothing, entered the square in front of the station as well as a ticket sales hall, according to the official Yunnan news service.

“According to eyewitnesses, the group of males held knives and all wore the same black clothing,” said the China News Service, another state-run news agency. “They slashed at whoever they saw, and at the scene there were many people injured.” Photographs circulated by Chinese news websites, which they said were taken after the attack, showed men and women sprawled and bleeding.

If the Kunming government’s account is correct, the attack would be the worst violence outside of Xinjiang to stem from discontent by Uighurs over what they call repression by the country’s Han Chinese majority. The central government in Beijing said Uighur separatists were behind a small but dramatic attack in October near Tiananmen Square, when a vehicle plowed into a crowd, killing two tourists and injuring dozens. Three people in the vehicle also died.

The latest attack appears certain to prompt the authorities to increase the already heavy security across Xinjiang, which could deepen the divide between Uighurs and Han Chinese there that has been fueling violence in the region. News reports on Saturday did not identify the attackers, but on Sunday the Kunming government said that there was evidence at the scene “showing that this was an act of violent terror planned and organized by Xinjiang separatists,” according to Xinhua. Although the government’s statement did not say the attackers were Uighurs, it contained language often used to refer to members of the minority group.

Many Uighurs resent the government’s controls on their religious life and say the growing presence of Han Chinese people in Xinjiang has deprived them of jobs, land and opportunities. The authorities have consistently blamed violence there on extremist groups inspired and organized from abroad. Advocates of Uighur self-determination have said the Chinese government’s own repressive policies have seeded the violence.

After the slashing attack, President Xi Jinping of China said the government would “sternly punish the terrorists according to the law and resolutely put down their arrogant audacity.”

The Ministry of Public Security issued a statement vowing that there would be no mercy for the assailants. “No matter what the motive of the perpetrators, to spill innocent blood is to become an enemy of all decency under heaven,” the statement said.

According to an article in The Beijing News, a student who witnessed the attack, Wang Dinggeng, said the assailants included women. They pulled long knives from underneath their garments and began slashing at people.

“Inside the hall,” Mr. Wang said, “there were still many people lined up to buy tickets, and the people outside came pouring in saying, ‘Murder!’ ”