Economist.com Cities Guide: Paris Briefing - February 2006

News this month

Corruption, root and branch

One of France's biggest corruption scandals—which many believe reaches all the way to President Jacques Chirac—went to trial on January 23rd in Paris. Forty-five businessmen, one public servant and three former public servants are in court for bribes allegedly given by contractors in the late 1980s and early 1990s to the Rally for the Republic party (RPR, now merged into the ruling UMP) in return for lucrative house-building deals. At the time Mr Chirac was both party leader and mayor of Paris.

The affair is a juicy one, filled with stories of suitcases of money allegedly changing hands in Mr Chirac’s presence; a judicial raid on the home of Jean Tiberi, the ex-mayor of Paris; harassment of the main investigator’s family; and a tell-all posthumous confession from one of the bribe-taking RPR henchmen. But the trial has come as a bit of a letdown, since no politician is in the dock. As president, Mr Chirac—who ignored a 2001 subpoena to testify in the affair—is granted immunity from judicial scrutiny. The cour de cassation, the highest appeals court in France, actually granted him immunity—from prosecution or the need to stand as a witness—for the duration of his presidency, as a result of his stance against this subpoena. Many wager that the president, despite his flagging popularity, will try to win re-election in 2007—if only to keep clear of the legal landmines that await him outside.

Immature thrill-seekers

The November riots that swept through France’s suburbs were “largely spontaneous” and the work of thrill-seeking youths, according to a French public prosecutor. Jean-Claude Marin made his judgment after analysing data on the 57 people brought before Parisian courts for infractions relating to the unrest. Three-quarters were aged 16 to 21, more than half had no criminal record, and 87% were French citizens. Unsurprisingly, the areas that suffered most at the hands of those arrested were also the most populated, with the north-eastern 19th arrondissement registering 30% of their crimes. Although the sample was small—the prosecutor analysed only those charged in Paris, rather than the suburbs—Mr Marin said it seemed that the perpetrators were “immature and out to have fun”. They were not involved in identity-based politics or acting in the service of a larger religious cause.

His conclusions contrast with those of Nicolas Sarkozy, the interior minister, who said in November that the violence was “perfectly organised” by mafia, gang elements or perhaps Islamic radicals. His political rival, the prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, has concentrated on trying to encourage job creation in the affected zones, where unemployment can reach up to 40%.

Health, happiness and the tramway

After a dismal year in which Paris failed in its Olympic bid and saw violent suburban riots, Bertrand Delanoë, the mayor, promised a brighter 2006. His traditional New Year's address laid out a busy 365 days for the capital, with an emphasis on improving traffic and public transport. The crowning jewel will be modern Paris’s first tramline, which should begin running on the southern perimeter of the city this year, after more than two years in the making. Mr Delanoë also plans to create more space on the roads for buses and cyclists, and less for motorists. For years he has sectioned off lanes on major thoroughfares for public transport and taxis only. Furthermore, he is creating “green zones” where car traffic is limited or totally blocked at certain times. City residents have been promised 12,000 low-priced parking spots, as well as the right to rent unused spots on public-housing estates. But 35,000 spots that are now free could soon attract charges.

The mayor’s rivals are already revving their engines ahead of the 2008 election. They have attacked his “war on the car”, and argued that traffic snarls on main thoroughfares, partly caused by construction of the tramline, have created yet more pollution. But Mr Delanoë and his Green Party deputy in charge of transport planning, Denis Baupin, are sticking by the claim that they are merely tweaking public space in favour of pedestrians and prams.

In the swim

City Hall has other, more exotic plans for 2006 besides traffic control. From June, Parisians will be able to swim by the Seine in a new pool on the Left Bank, at the foot of the National Library. The complex will sport a retractable roof and a large terrace for sunbathing, as well as a café. Meanwhile, what was once the world’s largest aquarium, l'Aquarium du Trocadéro, will reopen this summer after a 21-year hiatus, much improved with fresh- and salt-water environments overlooking the Trocadéro gardens.

Mr Delanoë has also underlined his high-tech credentials by drawing up plans to lay fibre-optic cables beneath the city to increase internet speeds. He says he would encourage service providers to offer free dial-up access for low-income households.Pollution improvements
Parisians worried about pollution can breathe more easily, after statistics released in January showed a small improvement in air quality. The quantities of sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide, lead and benzene have dropped radically, due largely to technological improvements in industry, vehicles and petrol. But Airparif, the body monitoring the city's air quality, said Paris would still not meet EU goals for 2010 since other pollutants have increased, notably nitrogen dioxide, fine particles and ozone. Philippe Lameloise, the Airparif director, said that ozone cannot be controlled simply by shutting down Paris traffic, since one-third of all the city’s ozone comes from other cities or outlying suburban areas.

Catch if you can

February 2006

Ron Mueck

Until February 19th 2006

Some things are better left unobserved, but the exacting eye of Ron Mueck makes sure you can’t miss them. The Australian sculptor is unflinching, if not unkind, in his reproduction of the human form in five new works designed specially for this Fondation Cartier show. These hyper-realistic works, which capture every wrinkle and blemish in silicone and fibreglass, are immensely disturbing, not least because they are often hugely oversized or remarkably small.

Mr Mueck's work in the past has included a towering pregnant woman, replete with saggy knees, and a brand new baby, pink and wrinkled. This show features a “wild” man, possibly homeless and confused; two old ladies in a park, stockings sagging; and a huge face, Mask III (pictured). Mr Mueck honed his skills making puppets for children’s television programmes such as “Sesame Street” and “The Muppet Show”, but the effect here is much more attuned to adults.

Fondation Cartier, 261 bd Raspail, 14th arrondissement. Tel: +33 (0)1 4218 5650. Open: Tues-Sun noon-8pm. Métro: Raspail. For more information visit the museum's website.

More from the Paris cultural calendar

Economist.com Cities Guide: Zurich Briefing - February 2006

News this month

Deadly dust

Switzerland’s reputation for clean, alpine air has come under scrutiny recently. In January the country’s environmental agency published figures showing a marked increase in air pollution, with high levels of potentially carcinogenic dust particles recorded in several cities. Emission levels in Zurich were more than double the permitted limit. The agency also warned that up to 3,700 Swiss were dying each year as a result of dust-related respiratory illnesses. As in the European Union, Swiss rules permit 50 micrograms of fine dust particles per cubic metre.

The recent surge in January's pollution levels was exacerbated by a high-pressure weather front, which brought smog to urban areas. The environmental agency warned that long-term measures were needed to prevent such a surge from happening again. Moritz Leuenberger, minister of the environment, has called on cabinet colleagues to back nine new proposals aimed at reducing particle levels, including more filters on vehicle exhausts and tighter regulations on wood burning.

Strong language

The teaching of foreign languages in Zurich’s schools is once again the subject of debate. The city came under fire in 2000 when its education department chose to teach English before French in the canton’s primary schools. Opponents argued that this would make it harder for youngsters from Switzerland’s different regions to communicate with each other. But in 2004 Switzerland’s cantonal education ministers ruled that cantons should be able to make such language decisions for themselves.

Now the issue is set to go before Switzerland’s federal parliament, after a national education commission voted 24 to five in favour of putting national languages first. Supporters of early English classes, who say that the global importance of English should take priority over nationalist sensitivities, have threatened to take the argument to a referendum if parliament follows the commission’s recommendation.

Web tussle

A Zurich businessman is caught up in a row with the federal government over the ownership of three highly desirable internet domain names. Stefan Frei has owned the right to www.schweiz.ch, www.suisse.ch and www.svizzera.ch (the names for Switzerland in German, French and Italian) since 1995. But the government is claiming an automatic right to the domains, citing precedents in which the federal court awarded the communities of Luzern and Montana the rights to www.luzern.ch and www.montana.ch

Mr Frei, who uses the sites to provide information about Switzerland—and to sell Swiss-related products—argues that these precedents do not apply in his case, as he is using the domain names legitimately and without any danger of confusion to web users. The government must now decide whether or not to take the case to court.

Dog gone?

The Swiss government looks set to approve a ban on pit bull terriers after a six-year-old Zurich boy was mauled to death in December. The federal veterinary office recommended in January that the breed be phased out, with tighter regulations for 13 other dog breeds. Pit bulls already living in Switzerland would have to be neutered and registered with the authorities. Importing the dogs from abroad would be banned and visitors to the country would not be allowed to bring pet pit bulls with them.

Not everyone is impressed by the plan. The Swiss Canine Association has said that greater controls should instead be placed on dog breeders. And the Cantonal Veterinarians’ Association argued that the measures would have little effect on the number of dog attacks in Switzerland, claiming that only 10% can be attributed to breeds on the government list.

Swiss role model

Peter Sauber, the former owner of a Formula One motor-racing team, was named “Swiss of the Year” in January. After 13 years in the sport, he sold his Zurich-based outfit to BMW in 2005, though he retains a consultancy role. Praised for his skill in surviving the financially sapping world of Formula One as the owner of a small, private team, the 62-year-old was also named the “Swiss Business Personality of the Year”.

The awards, which follow a vote by television viewers, have seen an eclectic array of winners in the past, including the founder of an Ivory Coast Aids hospice, a doctor who set up children’s hospitals in Cambodia, and Switzerland’s reigning world tennis number one, Roger Federer.

Catch if you can

February 2006

“La Finta Giardiniera”

February 12th-March 18th 2006

Zurich’s opera house joins in the worldwide celebrations to mark the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth, staging one of the composer’s lesser-known operas. Under the direction of Tobias Moretti, “La Finta Giardiniera” (“The Pretend Gardener”) will make its first appearance at the opera house on February 12th. It is a darkly comic tale of a young marchioness who disguises herself as a gardener in an attempt to win back her former lover—despite his decision to end their relationship by stabbing her.

Other Mozart highlights in the city include reprisals throughout February and March of “Così fan tutte”, “The Magic Flute” and “The Magic Flute for children”. Looking ahead, “Don Giovanni” will premiere on May 7th.

Zurich Opera House, Falkenstrasse 1, 8008 Zurich. Ticket hotline: +41 (0)44 268 66 66 (Mon-Sat 11.30am-6pm). Tickets: SFr35-270. For further details and performance times see the opera house website.

More from the Zurich cultural calendar

Economist.com Cities Guide: Los Angeles Briefing - February 2006

News this month

Holing out

At least one of Antonio Villaraigosa’s campaign promises has been kept, to the pleasant surprise of the city's hard-pressed motorists. As 2005 ended, the ever-energetic Los Angeles mayor was seen steamrolling tar into a pothole on Huston Street in North Hollywood. He boasted before TV cameras that it was the 80,173rd pothole filled in a 14-week campaign to eliminate tire-shredding gaps in the city's roads—at an estimated cost of $450,000. This well exceeds his campaign pledge to fill 35,000 holes.

Mr Villaraigosa, who is as omnipresent as his predecessor, Jim Hahn, was invisible, has entered 2006 with sky-high approval ratings. The challenge, of course, is to keep them there. This is why the mayor, a life-long Democrat, is cosying up to California’s Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, in an effort to get state money to refurbish the city's worn-out infrastructure.

Getting better

You might think LA has a well-deserved reputation for crime and violence. Where else are freeway shootings commonplace? Almost every day there are incidents of drive-by shootings and violence in gang-ridden south LA (crime is significantly lower on the affluent west side of the city).

Yet LA’s infamy may be a trifle exaggerated: according to figures released by the Los Angeles Police Department, murders in 2005 were down by 6% on 2004 figures, shootings by 6%, rapes by 16% and aggravated assaults by 40%. This means that Bill Bratton, the police chief, can rightly praise an under-staffed, over-worked police force that has helped reduce violent crime by 27%. On the other hand, these reduced figures might still alarm the law-abiding: in 2005 LA endured 487 murders, 928 reported rapes, 13,453 robberies and 15,502 aggravated assaults.

No place like home

Though the wealthy denizens of the film industry tend to hog the city's spotlight, a report by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority has prompted Mr Villaraigosa to declare LA “the capital of homelessness” in America. The Authority’s figures are depressing, despite being slightly below previous estimates: on any given day last year 82,291 residents of LA County were homeless, including 48,103 living within the city limits (half of them downtown). Although many have speculated that the city is a magnet for the nation’s homeless, owing to its warm climate and tacit acceptance of the problem, the report found that 78% of the homeless were actually from LA County, 24% of whom became homeless after losing a job.

One answer to the problem is to create cheaper housing. The mayor is now supporting a $1 billion bond measure to develop more affordable housing citywide. Money from the new voter-approved Mental Health Services Act, which places a 1% tax on earnings above $1m, should help provide housing and other services for the thousands of homeless who are mentally ill. Meanwhile, the Homeless Services Authority and an anti-homelessness group called Bring LA Home should release a comprehensive plan in March that is intended (with what looks like naive optimism) to end local homelessness in ten years.

A bit of a turn-off

One of the familiar symbols of Los Angeles Airport (LAX) is the cluster of around 30 pylons at the Century Boulevard approach to the airport. Installed five years ago in time for the Democratic Convention as a kind of “electronic Stonehenge”, they are meant to change colour constantly. Instead, they are either not changing colours or simply staying unlit. On January 3rd Los Angeles World Airports, which runs the airport, decided that the image of LAX was suffering (Century Boulevard is lined with international hotels), and so switched off the lights.
Fortunately, the darkness is only temporary: over the next few months a $1.8m repair programme will not only bring the system up to date but also make it more efficient, saving up to 75% a year in energy costs.

Becoming hip again

Hollywood Boulevard, long avoided by discriminating Angelenos as a shoddy, downmarket tourist trap, could get a make-over. This is partly owing to the “Holly Trolley”, a bus service (complete with booming hip-hop on the sound system) that for just $1 a night will shuttle young ravers on a circuit of Hollywood’s clubland between 8pm and 4am. This is part of a plan by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce to lure business to its own patch of nightlife, with clubs such as Level 3 and Mood. The aim is to overtake the better-known Sunset Strip, just a couple of miles to the west, with its proven hotspots such as the House of Blues and the Viper Room.

Catch if you can

February 2006

Masters of American Comics

Until March 12th 2006

The cartoon strip is not unique to America—think, for example, of French bandes dessinées or Japanese manga. But it is surely America’s cartoon strips, from Dick Tracy to Doonesbury, that dominate the medium. For a fascinating survey, visit the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) or the Armand Hammer Museum of Art in Westwood. The two museums are together hosting an exhibition featuring the work of 15 cartoonists, including George Herriman (“Krazy Kat”), Chester Gould (“Dick Tracy”), Charles Schulz (“Peanuts”) and that genius of subversive 1960s cartooning, Robert Crumb (“Fritz the Cat”). The show has some 900 drawings, page-proofs and Sunday paper editions.

Given the success of this exhibition, the museums should consider giving some attention to political cartoons. Traditionally a strength of American newspapers, they are now under threat as newspaper chains lay off their cartoonists in order to cut costs.

MOCA, 250 South Grand Ave, Los Angeles. Tel: +1 (213) 626-6222. Open: Mon, Fri 11am-5pm; Thurs 11am-8pm; weekends 11am-6pm (closed Tues, Wed). Entry: $8. See the website.

Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles. Tel: +1 (310) 443-7000. Open: Tues-Sun, 11am-7pm (Thurs till 9pm, Sun till 5pm). Entry: $5. See the website.

More from the Los Angeles cultural calendar

Economist.com Cities Guide: Chicago Briefing - February 2006

News this month

Pier review

The future of Navy Pier, one of Chicago’s most beloved landmarks, has come into question. The recreational pier, designed by Daniel Burnham (an acclaimed Chicago architect), opened in 1916 and was renovated just a decade ago for $187m. But on January 13th Forrec, a Toronto-based firm, proposed a new renovation, expected to cost as least as much as the last. Navy Pier is in need of a boost: it has been in the black in just four of the last ten years.

To draw more visitors, Forrec proposes adding several flashy attractions, including a monorail, a floating hotel, an indoor water park and a Ferris wheel. The plans have earned a mixed response from McPier, Chicago’s Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority. One official said these changes might turn the pier into “a bunch of junk”. Critics also point out that a private hotel might undermine the waterfront as a public preserve (indeed, a hotel was rejected ten years ago for this very reason). It remains unclear who will fund the project, or even whether any of the scheme will go ahead. McPier officials will decide by the end of the year.

School cuts

Arne Duncan, the superintendent of Chicago’s troubled school system, outlined a budgetary nightmare at a meeting on January 23rd. Imminent budget cuts for the 2006-07 academic year could lead to larger high-school classes, fewer new and vocational schools, and decreased support for special education, after-school programmes and full-day kindergarten. But with a $328m budget gap, Mr Duncan has little choice but to slash spending. Critics blame the deficit on declining enrolment as children of the baby boomers graduate from high school—the system has 20,000 fewer students than it did two years ago. Increased pension and benefits for teachers have been a further drain on funds. Mr Duncan already plans to fire 600 teachers because of dwindling enrolment; without a new infusion of funds, even more could face the axe.

But the state may be able to help: Rod Blagojevich, the governor of Illinois, says he will push the legislature to meet Mr Duncan’s request to increase state funding by $100m. Richard Daley, Chicago’s mayor, may also approve a property-tax increase, which could raise as much as $55m and allow high-school class sizes to remain at 28 students, instead of jumping to 31.

A bid for 2016?

They are costly, hectic and risky, so why would any big city want to host the Olympics? Los Angeles made a $215m profit from the games it hosted in 1984, but most Olympic hosts are left with severe fiscal hangovers. Now Chicago—undaunted by New York’s failed bid for the 2012 games—is considering throwing its name into the ring for 2016. Mr Daley suggested the idea in December.

At the centre of the bid is a new 80,000-seat Olympic stadium (the renovated Soldier Field, home of the Chicago Bears American football team, seats a paltry 61,500), which Mr Daley says can house a new National Football League franchise after the games. But no franchise seems forthcoming, and the stadium will probably sit empty. Chicago’s Olympic dreams may be grounded before long: the United States Olympic Committee could decide by this spring that it does not want to vie for the 2016 games at all.

Standing up

On January 18th fans of the Chicago Bulls basketball team watched Antonio Davis, a player for the New York Knicks, as he leapt into the stands at Chicago’s United Centre. Many may have believed they were witnessing a reprise of a more serious tussle in 2004, when a shoving match between two players in Michigan escalated into the worst fight in the history of the National Basketball Association. At the time, a fan had hurled a drink at Ron Artest, a forward for the Indiana Pacers, prompting Mr Artest and several team-mates to rush into the stands. As a result, in November 2004 nine players were suspended for a total of 143 games.

Sports commentators have been quick to draw a distinction between Mr Artest and Mr Davis: whereas the former, who had a history of erratic behaviour, actually pummelled a fan, the latter is a model player who threw no punches. Moreover, Mr Davis believed his wife was being harassed in the stands, apparently by a drunken fan. The fan contends he was sober, and that Mrs Davis provoked and scratched him. The incident ended with no serious injuries, but Mr Davis received a five-game suspension and the fan—who happens to be the son of a Chicago Democratic Party kingmaker—is suing the player for battery and defamation.

The people rest

After four months of testimony from more than 70 witnesses, the government will finally rest its case in the trial of George Ryan, a former governor of Illinois. Federal prosecutors hope to finish their arguments by the last week of January.

Mr Ryan and Larry Warner, a long-time friend, are charged with a 22-count indictment for racketeering, mail fraud and more; Mr Ryan stands accused of steering lucrative state contracts to Mr Warner and other friends in exchange for holidays and other gifts. Both men claim they have done nothing wrong. The chance of a total acquittal is slim, but Mr Ryan, now 71, may be relieved that the process is almost over: prosecutors launched their inquiry more than seven years ago.

Catch if you can

February 2006

Alexander Calder in Focus

Until August 27th 2006

Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Arts hosts an annual exhibition devoted to Alexander Calder, an inventive painter, sculptor, jewellery designer and mobile-maker. (He was also the proud creator of “stabiles”, the term he invented to distinguish his stationary sculptures from his moving ones.) This year's exhibit is devoted to works Calder created between 1927 and 1968. Unlike quite a few of his modernist peers, who drew inspiration from the city, Calder often found his muse in nature. His pieces transform snowflakes and birds into free-standing, whimsical designs. For an extra treat, this show includes an odd but compelling miniature circus he created in the 1920s, all of it made from wire and scraps.

Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 East Chicago Ave. Tel: +1 (312) 280-2660. Open: Tues-Sun, 10am-5pm (Tues to 8pm). Entry: $10 (free on Tuesdays). For more information, visit the museum’s website.

More from the Chicago cultural calendar

Economist.com Cities Guide: Buenos Aires Briefing - February 2006

News this month

Piqueteros v police

Two former Buenos Aires policemen, Alfredo Fanchiotti and Alejandro Acosta, were sentenced in January to life in prison for murdering two piqueteros, or jobless protestors, in 2002. Mr Fanchiotti, a former police commissioner, and Mr Acosta, his driver, were also convicted of attempting to kill a further seven demonstrators. Six other ex-officers received lesser sentences, mainly for covering up the crime. The murders occurred during a demonstration in the city’s Avellaneda district in the midst of widespread trouble in June 2002. The incident caused such outrage that Eduardo Duhalde, then president, had to cut short his term and call early elections.

The victims’ families and piqueteros celebrated the verdict outside the courthouse, but urged further scrutiny of the so-called “Avellaneda massacre”. They argue that police brutality was the direct result of government pressure to clamp down on unrest, which was rife at a time when almost 60% of the country was below the poverty line, compared with less than 40% in June 2005. Such complaints are in theory being dealt with in court: the judges in charge of the piquetero case ordered the province’s former justice minister and other officials to be tried for perjury, and a parallel case is examining the role of several politicians—including Mr Duhalde—in the massacre. But few expect these trials to progress: not only are the courts reluctant to convict their political masters, but there is little more than circumstantial evidence against them.

Standing firm

Aníbal Ibarra, the mayor of Buenos Aires, has shown surprising resilience despite being suspended from office. Hearings to impeach Mr Ibarra began in January: he is accused of letting building inspections slip, thereby creating the conditions for a fire at the República Cromañón nightclub, which killed 193 people in December 2004. Mr Ibarra argues that the charges are unfounded, that the trial is plagued by irregularities and that he is the victim of a witch-hunt by his opponents.

Many seem to believe him. After victims’ families staged a violent demonstration outside the mayor's home, about 100 neighbours staged a counter-protest in his defence. Demonstrators have also held pro-Ibarra rallies in the city-centre—though Mr Ibarra was the one to bus many of them there. Still, it is not just the mayor’s neighbours and cronies who support him: Ricardo Rouvier, a local pollster, found that over half the city's residents don't want Mr Ibarra removed from office, compared to less than one-third who do. Moreover, despite the charges against him and a mediocre two terms in office, more respondents rated Mr Ibarra positively than negatively.

Not-so-safe deposit

A gang of thieves robbed a Buenos Aires bank in January in a heist variously described as “the robbery of the century”, “the most spectacular in the last 50 years” and “the boldest ever”. On January 13th about half a dozen men seized the Banco Río in Acassuso, on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, and held 23 hostages for seven hours. Some 200 police officers surrounded the building and, after hours of negotiations with the thieves, stormed the bank. But it was too late: they had already robbed 145 safe-deposit boxes and escaped through a tunnel connected to a network of storm drains.

Police estimate the robbers stole $10m; lawyers of the heist's victims put the number closer to $70m. The bank, an affiliate of Grupo Santander, a Spanish company, has promised to reimburse its clients, but not by more than $50,000 per deposit box. Moreover, clients will have to prove how much was stolen in order to get their money—an effort some may be reluctant to make, in the event such holdings were the proceeds of tax evasion or worse. Estimates of how much was stolen are likely to remain fuzzy, so the robbers may be the only ones ever to know how much they took.

Mental case

The city government placed the Braulio Moyano women's mental hospital under emergency administration in late December after a news programme claimed that hospital staff had prostituted inmates, among other abuses. City authorities also said that patients may have been used as guinea pigs in trials by pharmaceutical companies. The hospital’s suspended director, Néstor Marchant, admitted that some of his 1,000 patients had been mistreated, but said that city officials had approved the use of inmates in drug tests—managing the hospital is, after all, the city’s responsibility. He was backed by the hospital’s unions, which declared the actions of the city government “a media show”. A court is now investigating charges of patient abuse.

Finger-pointing seems beside the point, however: conditions at the institution are clearly inadequate. The government, in addition to appointing a new administration, has allocated almost $1m for repairs, cleaning, new beds and clothing for the inmates.

Ranting and raving

Several authorities of Buenos Aires province have launched an attack on electronic music, calling for a ban on techno concerts. The province’s health minister, Claudio Mate, condemned raves as “associated with the consumption of ecstasy and other synthetic drugs”. Mr Mate was backed by Mónica Felices, ombudsman for the city of Mar del Plata, south of the capital, who said the provincial government should not allow raves on public property. Neither Mr Mate nor Ms Felices have the power to ban such events, but their denunciations may evolve into law: in January a provincial legislator presented a bill to outlaw techno parties.

The mayor of Mar del Plata, Daniel Katz, has taken a more measured line. He pointed out that previous electronic-music events had been largely problem-free. And while there were plenty of allegations of the danger of raves, “there was very little evidence.”

Catch if you can

February 2006

Marc Chagall

Until March 5th 2006

The Borges Cultural Centre in the centre of Buenos Aires is celebrating its tenth birthday with gusto, with a number of important exhibitions and film programmes. But the cherry on the cake is a show of three sets of engravings by Marc Chagall—over 200 in all—based on the Bible, the seven deadly sins and Nikolai Gogol’s novel “Dead Souls”. Chagall started producing black-and-white illustrations relatively late in his career, shortly after abandoning his native Russia at the age of 35. But he regarded the work as crucial to his artistic development. “If, as well as colour, I hadn't occupied myself with engraving and lithography,” he declared, “I think I would have been missing something.”

Centro Cultural Borges, Corner of Viamonte and San Martín, Centre. Tel: +54 (0) 11 5555-5359. Open: Mon-Sat 10am-9pm; Sun noon-9pm. See the website for details.

More from the Buenos Aires cultural calendar

Economist.com Cities Guide: Sydney Briefing - January 2006

News this month

Swimming with sharks

The first days of summer usher in all sorts of annual traditions, such as swimmers flocking to the city's beaches, and warnings of potential shark attacks. Sydneysiders, usually relaxed about the prospect of a “Jaws”-style savaging (sharks have killed only 60 people off the coast of Australia in the last 50 years), were more on edge than usual in early January after the death of a 21-year-old woman, mauled by three sharks at a beach 1,000km north of Sydney. Closer to home, lifeguards cleared swimmers from the surf at Tamarama Beach, near Bondi, after a shark was spotted on January 10th.

These incidents reignited a perennial wrangle over whether stronger measures are needed to protect Sydney’s 34 surfing beaches. The New South Wales state government is reviewing the situation, following calls to restore aerial anti-shark patrols. Since 1950, a system of underwater nets has caught almost 12,000 sharks; yet 40% of those have been snared on the inland side, meaning sharks are easily breaching the mesh. Critics complain that the nets are also killing whales, dolphins and other non-predatory creatures.

Packer's last throw

Kerry Packer, one of the most imposing business figures in a city of lively characters, died on Boxing Day, aged 68. Mr Packer controlled Publishing and Broadcasting Limited (PBL), which owns Channel Nine, Australia’s biggest and most successful commercial television network, and its largest magazine stable. With personal wealth estimated at A$7 billion ($5.25 billion), he died Australia’s richest man.

Mr Packer, a consummate high-roller, was a gambler to the end—just three days before he died, PBL bid A$780m for five-year television rights to the Australian Football League (AFL) competition, the highest-rated sport on local television. But on January 5th, the AFL awarded the rights to a rival television consortium of Channels Seven and Ten, which had matched the PBL offer, itself a record for Australian sports rights. Analysts reckon the price will limit the winners' capacity to compete with Channel Nine—precisely the outcome Mr Packer is suspected to have had in mind when he upped the bid stakes.

Fuelling the fire

As Sydneysiders braved a sweltering January, the city played host to an Asia-Pacific regional conference on climate change. The “Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate”, as the talkfest was grandly titled, comprised ministers from the United States, Australia, China, India, Japan and South Korea, six countries responsible for almost half the world’s greenhouse-gas emissions. Alas, the event ended on January 12th without a plan for addressing the problem, with participants arguing that fossil fuels “underpin our economies”, and that industry should be left to set its own emissions-reduction goals.

Regional industry leaders welcomed the outcome, but WWF Australia, an environmental group, said the conference’s approach could mean a big rise in average global temperatures. In Sydney, the heat is on already—the New South Wales (NSW) Bureau of Meteorology announced that 2005 saw Sydney’s sunniest and second-hottest December on record. As bushfires raged in parts of NSW on January 1st, the temperature soared to 44ºC in Sydney’s centre, another record.

Road of death

Every January, thousands of Sydneysiders desert the city for summer holidays in seaside resorts along the Pacific Highway, the main road from Sydney to Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, almost 1,000km north. Astonishingly, the route between two of Australia’s leading cities remains one of the country’s worst death traps, killing up to 50 motorists a year. Much of the road is a decrepit single carriageway in each direction; about 85% of fatal accidents happen on these narrow sections.

An end to the carnage may be in sight, however. In late December, the federal and NSW state governments jointly announced a task force to examine turning the highway into a privately run freeway. This is not the first time the government has planned to rebuild the Pacific Highway as a dual-carriage expressway, but never has there been co-operation between the federal officials and the state. With the speedy completion of privately funded road tunnels in Sydney as a model, the scheme would charge motorists tolls to fund the reconstruction. But the plan is controversial—motoring organisations have long argued that the Pacific Highway should be classified as a national road, which would qualify it for an upgrade using public funds.

Back on track

Clover Moore, Sydney’s Lord Mayor, is stepping up her campaign to tackle Sydney’s transport problems by reintroducing light rail to the city centre. Ms Moore has seized on a report recommending that the New South Wales state government build a loop of trams linking Central railway station and Circular Quay, two transport hubs, along either George Street or Castlereagh Street. Although the state government originally commissioned the report, it kept it secret, but the Sydney Morning Herald reported its findings on January 9th.

The report said a light-rail system could deal with central Sydney's expected growth far better than the existing system of buses and underground trains. If built, the system would recall Sydney's extensive tram network, closed down in the 1960s to make room for more cars. A tentative revival started a few years ago, with a privately run tram system linking Central with the Sydney Fish Markets and inner western suburbs, to a warm public response.

See our guide to getting around Sydney.

Catch if you can

January 2006

Sydney Festival 2006

Until February 19th 2006

After 30 years, the Sydney Festival has grown to become Australia’s largest annual celebration of music, drama, dance and visual arts, with the city's parks and gardens working as inventive venues alongside theatres and galleries. The Domain, on the edge of the city centre, offers “Gershwin’s World”, a free outdoor concert of George Gershwin’s music with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. For “Back Home”, a play about suburban men facing up to their lives, the audience must seek out the unlikely stage of a backyard in Blacktown, a western suburb.

Indoors, highlights include “About An Hour”, a series of short performances of drama, dance and music introduced by Fergus Linehan, an Irish writer who became the festival’s artistic director last year. Elvis Costello, a veteran British rocker, will perform three separate concerts: one with Steve Nieve, a long-time collaborator; another with the Brodsky Quartet, a chamber music group; and finally with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.

To book, tel: +61 (02) 9266 4890. See the festival website for bookings, full programme and venues, and to register for a daily e-mail update.

More from the Sydney cultural calendar

Economist.com Cities Guide: Singapore Briefing - January 2006

News this month

On the alert

In a well-planned terror drill on January 8th, “terrorists” exploded bombs at four underground railway stations and on a double-decker bus. Ministers said Singapore’s civil-defence teams coped well with the assault, designed to test the country’s emergency services. The drama was notable for its reach. Although the test was held early on a Sunday morning, thousands of travellers were affected as many stations on the subway network were shut down. Lee Hsien Loong, the prime minister, said more large-scale drills would be organised.

The exercise was conceived after the train bombings in Madrid in March 2003 and the attack on London’s transport system last July. Singapore’s government has often speculated that the city-state is a tempting terrorist target, in part because of its alliance with America. While local forces have in the past simulated single bomb blasts, this was the first exercise involving multiple strikes and the use of a chemical attack.

Rational exuberance

These are good times to be an investor in Singapore: the stockmarket may reach a record high in the coming months. In January, the Straits Times Index, the market’s main benchmark, was pushed to a series of six-year highs amid a surge in trading volumes.

Brokers point to several factors behind the rise. Singapore’s economic growth is buoyant, reaching 5.7% last year, and analysts expect a similar performance this year. A general election is expected soon (probably after February's budget announcement), which usually gives the market a boost. Finally, markets elsewhere in Asia, Europe and America are also doing well. On January 17th, the market peaked at 2,425.99 points, and then backtracked slightly. Citigroup, an American investment bank, has forecast that the index may soon reach 2,600 points, a record high.

Not an open society?

George Soros, a well-known financier and philanthropist, is respected in Singapore for his commercial savvy and charitable works. But the man himself does not think much of the city-state’s tightly run political system. During a visit on January 11th, he was asked whether Singapore was an “open society”, a concept emphasising democracy and transparency long-championed by the Hungarian-born billionaire. “Obviously Singapore does not qualify,” he replied. Mr Soros added that the frequent use by senior politicians of libel suits against the opposition could be “a tremendous hindrance to freedom of expression.”

The government's response was curt. “If we are not an open society, George Soros would hardly be able to make the comments at an open forum in Singapore, and be reported in the Singapore media,” a spokesman told the press.

Poll fever

Will Lee Hsien Loong, the prime minister, call an early general election? The Straits Times, the city-state’s main newspaper, speculated in January that an election could be held as early as March (the 18th is cited as a possibility). Singapore’s annual budget, an event that is often used to generate electoral energy for the long-ruling People’s Action Party (PAP), will be announced on February 17th.

It is possible that Mr Lee will choose to wait until 2007 before going to the ballot box. But with Singapore's strong economic growth and rising stockmarket, analysts predict he will move sooner. The election, whenever it comes, will be Mr Lee’s first as Singapore's leader. The result is expected to show voters’ happiness with his administration. But few expect the enfeebled opposition to make much headway. The PAP holds all but two elected seats in the city-state's parliament.

Budget terminal

Changi Airport will open a new terminal dedicated to budget airlines on March 26th. Work on the S$45m ($28m) facility began in 2004, when no-frills flying first became very popular. The city-state now boasts three home-grown discount carriers: Tiger Airways, JetStar Asia and Valuair. It also receives flights from low-cost carriers around the region. The sector accounts for one in ten passenger flights at Changi.

The new building sits alongside Changi’s Terminal 2 and will be connected to the rest of the airport by shuttle bus. It will contain shops and free internet access, but only limited seating and no carpets. There will also be no aerobridges, so passengers will have to climb steps to board aircraft. Somewhat prosaically, the latest addition will be known as “Budget Terminal”, a name chosen in a contest that attracted 12,000 entries.

Catch if you can

January 2006

The Chingay Parade

February 3rd-4th 2006

This colourful annual street procession, which marks the end of Chinese New Year, dates back more than a century. Held all over Asia, the celebration is perhaps at its most spectacular in Singapore, where huge floats, jugglers, dragon dancers and acrobats parade down Orchard Road (Singapore's shopping Mecca). A host of artists from around the world will take part: look out for Bui Bolg, an Irish theatre group, and ballet dancers from Angola. Last year the event attracted 200,000 spectators over the two days; this year should be busier still. The action starts at 7pm.

To get to Orchard Road take an MRT to Orchard Station or Somerset Station. The official website of the parade publishes full details.

More from the Singapore cultural calendar

Economist.com Cities Guide: London Briefing - January 2006

News this month

Gorgeous George

George Galloway’s fiery anti-war rhetoric swept him to victory in the general election of May 2005. But now the new MP for Bethnal Green and Bow seems bent on making a fool of himself. Since January 5th, Mr Galloway has been appearing in “Celebrity Big Brother”, a reality-TV show in which semi-famous celebrities are confined to a house for 23 days. Inside, they argue, drink and flirt with each other, and try to avoid being voted out by viewers.

Before entering the house, Mr Galloway told reporters he hoped the programme would help him reach a wider audience. But this plan has backfired. In the absence of counter-balancing views, the show’s maker, Endemol, has been obliged to censor Mr Galloway’s political pronouncements. And a bizarre impersonation of a purring cat has revealed a side of the cigar-smoking politician that most would have preferred to remain hidden. Meanwhile, angry constituents are accusing Mr Galloway of abandoning his duties as an MP. On January 12th, he missed a parliamentary debate on a controversial rail project that affects his constituency. How much more business Mr Galloway misses will be down to the voting public.

Strike two

Travellers on the London Underground (LU) are facing the prospect of yet more disruption after strikes by Tube-workers on December 31st and January 8th. The industrial action, called by the Rail, Maritime and Transport Union (RMT), was not particularly effective: only a few stations were closed, and, according to LU, many staff turned up for work. But the RMT promised to press on regardless, and more strikes are expected in late January.

Technology lies at the heart of the dispute. Many Tube passengers now use a pre-paid pass called an Oystercard, which means that fewer Tube staff are needed in the ticket offices. In 2004 the RMT struck a deal with LU that protected jobs by reassigning redundant workers to other duties. But it now accuses LU of proceeding further with the redeployment than agreed. The mayor, Ken Livingstone, appears to be siding with LU for a change. In a letter to the leader of the RMT, he derided some of the union’s claims as “factually false” and called on the union to sit down with LU and resolve the disagreement.

On life support

The future of St Bartholomew’s, Britain’s oldest hospital, is hanging in the balance after the government called for a review of its proposed refurbishment. Under a scheme agreed in 2003, Barts and the Royal London Hospital—both in east London—were to get £1.15 billion ($2.04 billion) in funding via the Private Finance Initiative. But in late December, the Department of Health said Barts’ inclusion should be reconsidered to ensure it is “affordable”. Some think that relocating Barts’ cancer and cardiac services could save money.

The announcement went down badly with doctors at the two hospitals. A thousand of them signed an open letter to the Times, published on January 16th, in which they pleaded for the modernisation programme to go ahead. They argue that the two hospitals provide “some of the most ethnically diverse and deprived (people) in the country”, and that both will play an important role in future years, catering to east London’s fast-growing population. The findings of the government review are due to be published in late January.

The promised land

A government scheme to build thousands of new homes on brownfield sites east of London is being viewed with suspicion by potential residents. The Thames Gateway project will see 120,000 new houses built in a corridor stretching eastwards from Tower Hamlets to the Isle of Sheppey by 2016. Said to be Europe’s biggest regeneration scheme, the development is designed to meet southern England’s long-term housing needs.

Yet getting people to move there could prove harder than expected, according to a survey published by the Institute for Public Policy Research on January 4th. It found that potential residents are concerned about the quality of new homes and a lack of basic services and infrastructure. The survey also found that different income groups want different things from their new homes, which will make it hard for planners to create “mixed communities”. Some opponents have dubbed the development “Prescottgrad”, in reference to John Prescott, the deputy prime minister and co-ordinator of the project.

Keeping mum

Buckingham Palace has begun soliciting designs for a memorial to the late Queen Mother, who died in March 2002, aged 101. The memorial will be on the north side of the Mall, alongside a statue of her husband, George VI, which was erected in 1955 following his death. Designers have until the end of January to submit their proposals, after which a panel including Prince Charles will select the winning entry. A kerfuffle akin to that surrounding the memorial to Princess Diana in nearby Hyde Park seems unlikely. The design brief states that “the use of water and moving parts is to be discouraged” (so no troublesome fountains), and Prince Charles is known for his traditional tastes. A special £5 coin, to be minted in commemoration of the Queen’s 80th birthday in April, will help meet the memorial’s £2m cost.

Catch if you can

January 2006

Canaletto in Venice, from the Royal Collection

Until April 23rd 2006

Giovanni Antonio Canal (1697-1768)—otherwise known as “Canaletto”—spent all but nine years of his life in Venice. His familiarity with this city is a key feature of the cityscapes in this excellent little show at the Queen's Gallery in Buckingham Palace. Expect exquisite architectural details and vibrant depictions of canal life.

Joseph Smith, the British consul in Venice in the mid-18th century, commissioned the works. When his finances foundered, he sold them to George III in 1762, and they were hung in what was then Buckingham House. Visitors can trace the development of Canaletto's style in a sequence of 14 paintings of the Grand Canal. The show also includes 70 sumptuous drawings, all finished works rather than preparatory sketches. Though Venice hardly suffers for beauty, Canaletto is known for enhancing his vignettes with a bit of poetic license. John Ruskin, a Victorian critic, accused him of “mindless imitation”, but this exhibition suggests otherwise.

While you are here, consider visiting Rolf Harris's recent portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, on display elsewhere in the gallery.

The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, Buckingham Palace Rd, SW1. Tel: +44 20 7766 7301. Open: daily, 10am-5.30pm. Tube: Victoria, Green Park or St James’s Park. Admission: £7.50. See the Royal Collection's website.

More from the London cultural calendar

Economist.com Cities Guide: San Francisco Briefing - January 2006

News this month

Stormy weather

Nearly two weeks of rain culminated in a ferocious storm on New Year’s day, ravaging northern California to such an extent that Arnold Schwarzenegger, the state governor, declared 34 counties disaster areas. In all, the rain caused the region an estimated $290m in damage.
Flooding closed the main highway through Napa Valley, famous for its vineyards, and damaged 600 homes and 150 businesses in the town of Napa alone, 50 miles north of San Francisco. A foot of water covered many vineyards, but owners said damage was minimal. Shop-owners in San Anselmo, a smart town north of San Francisco, were less lucky: a creek overflowed and submerged antique shops and other businesses with up to four feet of water.

The flooding drew attention to the region's vulnerability. The storms caused a minor breach in a levee in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and raised the spectre of a Hurricane Katrina-like catastrophe in an area where farms and new housing developments are protected by 1,100 miles of levees in varying condition. Efforts to strengthen levees and widen creeks are already underway, and Mr Schwarzenegger made repairing the levees a priority of a $222 billion public-works bond he proposed in his state-of-the-state address on January 5th.

Not welcome

Mr Schwarzenegger got a mixed reception when he visited San Francisco on January 16th. Many chafed to see the Republican governor at a breakfast honouring Martin Luther King, Jr, an annual mixer for top local Democrats and community leaders. The city’s unions were particularly huffy about it: they had bitterly opposed Mr Schwarzenegger’s ballot propositions, arguing that they would curb political spending for unions and make it harder for public-school teachers to win tenure.

But since November, when voters soundly rejected his “reform” measures, Mr Schwarzenegger has been inching back towards the political centre. His last-minute appearance at the breakfast was orchestrated by Willie Brown, a former San Francisco mayor and current lobbyist. Mr Brown said he told the governor that coming to left-leaning San Francisco would demonstrate his more moderate persona. The governor certainly did his best not to alienate anyone at the breakfast, benignly commenting on public service and the value of public education. Some attendees proposed a walk-out in protest, but most ended up being polite—at least until the event was over. Later, Tim Paulson, head of the San Francisco Labour Council, a lobbying group, fumed that Mr Schwarzenegger’s appearance was an “absolute insult”.

No parking

San Francisco International Airport (SFO) ended a tradition of old-school patronage in early January by revoking more than 100 free parking passes that had been issued to politicians, socialites and others with wealth, good connections or both. Gavin Newsom, the city’s mayor, put pressure on the airport to recall the passes after the San Francisco Chronicle printed an embarrassing list of 169 people who had received passes in 2005. The list did not just include city supervisors, airport commissioners and senators, but Mr Newsom’s wife, brother-in-law, and several aides, as well as business and labour leaders, lobbyists, and relatives and friends of one airport commissioner.

SFO is one of the few major American airports that dole out free parking to those who are ostensibly conducting public business. And while the number of people with free passes may have been offensive to some, the list was once even longer: in the early 1990s, about 5,000 members of the local elite had them. Under the city’s new policy, the airport will issue passes only to government officials who frequently travel on taxpayers’ behalf and to people who conduct business with or do charitable work at the airport.

No lab lost

On December 21st the University of California (UC) won a contract to run the Los Alamos National Laboratory for another seven years, beating out some serious competition. UC has managed Los Alamos, one of two nuclear-weapons labs in America, for more than 60 years, and is famous for developing the atomic bomb in 1945. But the university had been criticised recently for its management of the lab, and a series of security breaches and financial scandals prompted Congress to open the contract to outside bidding. Lockheed Martin, an aerospace manufacturer, made a strong bid with the University of Texas, but UC and its new partner, Bechtel National, came out on top, getting a contract worth up to $512m.

UC officials, relieved that the contract will reinforce the university’s role as a scientific leader, must now make big changes to the way they run the lab. The Department of Energy last summer criticised Los Alamos—and Livermore, America's other nuclear lab, also run by UC—as lacking direction. Energy officials urged leaders to manage the labs in a more business-like way, and to develop new kinds of warheads.

Stranger than fiction

The literary world is reeling over revelations that JT Leroy, an elusive young writer, may be the creation of a middle-aged San Francisco couple, Laura Albert and Geoffrey Knoop. Mr Leroy, or the idea of him, had been hailed by famous authors and celebrities entranced by his “raw” writing and hard-luck story. But by early January, it became increasingly clear that Mr Leroy himself was a work of fiction.

Mr Leroy, or so the story goes, is an HIV-infected former heroin abuser whose mother sold him into cross-dressing and truck-stop prostitution at the age of 12. He was rescued by a San Francisco “outreach worker” and her husband, who took him in and encouraged him to write. At 17, Mr Leroy penned “Sarah”, a “semi-fictitious” book about his mother. The book caused a sensation, and Mr Leroy—or at least a mute, androgynous version in blond wig and sunglasses—began appearing at literary events. And though he claimed that he was pathologically shy, he was in regular phone and email contact with noted authors, editors and compassionate celebrities. But investigations by New York magazine and the New York Times suggest that Mr Leroy is a hoax. The person writing under his name may be Ms Albert, the “outreach worker”, and the Mr Leroy appearing in public may be Mr Knoop’s half-sister.

Catch if you can

January 2006

The San Francisco Ballet's 78th Season

January 28th-June 6th 2006

The San Francisco Ballet, thanks to a continuing quest to expand its repertory, has crafted a season sure to enchant. The company will perform eight diverse programmes, including the beloved “Swan Lake”, choreographed by Helgi Tomasson, the company’s artistic director, and “Sylvia”, a three-act ballet by Mark Morris, an acclaimed modern choreographer.

Another highlight comes in March, when the company will perform a programme dedicated to the work of Jerome Robbins. Born in Poland, Robbins became king of both Broadway and ballet in the middle of the last century, and continued to be an innovator of American dance until his death in 1998. The San Francisco Ballet will pay homage to Robbins with a company premiere of his “Afternoon of a Faun”, an ethereal duet which debuted in 1953, as well as “Other Dances”(1976), “Glass Pieces”(1983) and “Dybbuk”(1974), based on a Yiddish play and set to music by Leonard Bernstein, Mr Robbins’s collaborator on many works, including the musical “West Side Story”.

San Francisco Ballet, War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Avenue. Tel: +1 (415) 865-2000. For more information, visit the company’s website.

More from the San Francisco cultural calendar

Economist.com Cities Guide: Brussels Briefing - January 2006

News this month

Party people

The often staid proceedings in Belgium’s parliament were enlivened by a juicy scandal in January. Rik Daems, leader of the Flemish liberals in the lower house, resigned on January 10th after news broke of an extra-marital relationship. The personal lives of Belgian politicians usually remain private, but Mr Daems’s affair is not the ordinary tryst: the object of his affection is Sophie Pécriaux, a Walloon socialist member of parliament, who is now expecting a child. Mr Daems had kept the relationship a secret from his party colleagues. The scandal will do further damage to his career, which was already on the wane. Once minister for telecoms and public utilities, Mr Daems remains an MP but will be replaced by Fons Borginon as leader of the liberal group.

Much to the delight of the Belgian media, the Daems affair was the second time in six months that the sex lives of politicians have seized the spotlight. In August, it emerged that Patrick Dewael, the interior minister, was leaving his wife for Greet Op de Beeck, a radio news journalist. She had kept the relationship secret from her employer despite occasionally being assigned to interview Mr Dewael.

Storm in a port

On January 18th the European Parliament defeated a proposed law to open cargo-handling and pilot services in European ports to competition. Members of the European Commission, who presented the law, said the move would have cut costs and encouraged investment, but workers, fearing job cuts and lower safety standards, staged protests throughout the EU in early January. In Antwerp, Belgium’s second-largest city, no cargo was loaded or unloaded at all. Two days later, the European Parliament rejected the measure by a five-to-one margin, meaning port-services reform is effectively dead for the moment. The EU's transport commissioner, Jacques Barrot, must now assess whether it is worth presenting a watered-down version later in the year.

Belgian interest in port liberalisation is significant. Antwerp is Europe’s second-biggest port after Rotterdam, and is a major contributor to the Belgian economy. Figures published in January showed that 2005 was a record year for Antwerp, with the total amount of cargo handled up by 5.1% on 2004, and the city looks set to handle even more work in the future. The Dutch and Belgian governments agreed in December to deepen the channels of the River Scheldt, which provides access to Antwerp from the North Sea. This would allow bigger ships into Antwerp at all times, regardless of tide, and work is scheduled to start in 2007.

Hot topic

Belgium’s government is in a quandary over how to pay for rising heating costs. In October the government responded to high crude-oil prices by promising to subsidise home heating by €250m ($302m). But it is unclear where this money will come from, and on January 14th Didier Reynders, Belgium’s finance minister, was forced to deny plans for a special tax on motor fuel to pay for the subsidy. The measure had been circulated, his spokesperson said, but had not been adopted. Mr Reynders also denied that oil companies would pay for the subsidy, an idea that had been proposed back in October.

If additional taxes on fuel are ruled out, Mr Reynders will have to use the general budget to absorb the cost of the subsidy. Public finances are in relatively good shape: in early January the budget minister, Freya Van den Bossche, reported a balanced budget for 2005, helped by the sale of some government buildings. But while public debt has fallen slightly, it is still high, at 94% of gross domestic product, far in excess of the limits supposedly imposed by membership of the eurozone.

A new hotel in town

Brussels’s relatively scant luxury-hotel market will get a welcome addition on January 25th when the new Radisson SAS EU hotel opens in the shadow of the European Parliament. The new Radisson looks certain to host EU-related meetings and conferences—a lucrative market now dominated by the Renaissance, the Silken Berlaymont (formerly the Dorint) and the Crowne Plaza. To lure travellers from its competitors, the Radisson can boast 149 rooms and a location closer to the Parliament—or at least some yards closer than the Renaissance.

From the outside, the new hotel will look like a smaller version of its sister in the city centre, the Radisson SAS Royal. For the hotel's interior, Matteo Thun, an Italian designer, has decorated the (rather spacious) rooms in three different styles, and each bathroom has a shower and a bathtub. Construction work is continuing at the nearby Léopold railway station and at the European Parliament, so for the moment travellers had best seek quiet on the upper floors.

Je ne comprends pas

The Brussels minister for education, Guy Vanhengel, has expressed alarm about the poor French skills of teachers in the city's Dutch-speaking schools. In theory, teachers for children aged 8 to 11 are supposed to be bilingual. Not only should they be able to teach lessons in both French and Dutch, but they earn extra pay for their language skills. However, in practice, teachers fluent in French are few and far between. In 2005, seven out of ten Dutch teachers failed a French exam imposed by the Flemish Community Commission, which is responsible for Flemish educational and cultural affairs in Brussels.

Brussels is a bilingual city. Though students attend either French-speaking or Dutch-speaking schools, they are expected to graduate speaking both languages, as this is a requirement for many jobs in city and federal administration. Mr Vanhengel warned of a more general decline in bilingual fluency, not just among teachers, but among politicians as well. In December, for example, many criticised a decision by the mayor, Freddy Thielemans, to appoint as a temporary stand-in a francophone minister who could not speak Dutch.

Catch if you can

January 2006

Carl Fabergé

Until February 5th 2006

This display of Easter eggs by one of the world’s most renowned jewellers might seem a little unseasonal at this time of year. But this show, part of a larger festival devoted to Russian culture, has proven very popular. The works of Carl Fabergé (1846-1920), a Russian, can be seen at the cultural centre of the ING bank. The exhibits, lent by collectors in Russia, America, Denmark and Britain, include intricately jewelled eggs designed for Tsar Nicholas II, which helped establish Fabergé’s reputation as a master goldsmith.

ING Cultural Centre, Mont des Arts, Place Royale 6, 1000 Brussels. Tel: +32 (02) 547-2292. Open: daily, 10am-6pm, Wed until 9pm. See also the website of the Russian exhibition in Brussels.

More from the Brussels cultural calendar

Economist.com Cities Guide: Mexico City Briefing - January 2006

News this month

At least something is making money

Despite Mexico's sluggish economic growth—the finance ministry recently estimated GDP growth in 2005 at 3%—the Bolsa, Mexico City's stock exchange, posted record gains over the year. On December 14th, it broke 18,000 points for the first time in its history. Though the Bolsa had fallen slightly by the end of the December, its year-long performance was far from shabby: the Bolsa rose 37% (in peso terms—45% in US dollars) over the course of 2005, and set new daily records 40 times in the process.

But this good news for investors does not change the country's general economic outlook, which remains grim. Mexico has a small stock exchange compared with other countries with economies of the same scale: fewer than 150 companies are traded, and volumes are small.

Cold snap

A sustained cold front—below freezing in some parts of the city—in early January has been bad news for many of Mexico City's poor. More than 1,000 people took refuge in shelters, and respiratory illnesses (mainly the flu) were up by 15-20% on the weeks before the cold spell, according to the city government. The return of Mexico City's 840,000-odd students to school in January, after a two-month holiday, exacerbated the flu's spread; it hardly takes long for an ill child to pass on a virus in a classroom. The worst-hit part of town was Cuajimalpa, which lies 3,100m above sea level. Residents there gathered around makeshift campfires as temperatures sank to 4º Celsius below zero (25º Fahrenheit).

The other campaign

Mexico’s mainstream politicos are campaigning furiously ahead of July’s presidential election, but Sub-Comandante Marcos—or “Delegate Zero”, as he now prefers to be called—is determined not to be lost in the fray. Back when he was Sub-Comandante, Mr Marcos led the Zapatistas in one of the world's shortest revolutions, which lasted less than a fortnight in 1994 before reaching an uneasy truce with Mexico's government. Now Mr Marcos and his fellow Zapatistas have launched “The Other Campaign”, a six-month tour that will run through all of Mexico’s 31 states, plus the capital. The inaugural rally on New Years Day in the southern state of Chiapas reportedly lured 15,000 people.

It is not clear what Mr Marcos hopes to accomplish, though on Christmas Day he proclaimed that his tour would “construct a national programme of anti-capitalist struggle and of the left”. Mr Marcos has faded from the spotlight in recent years, so some have quipped that the campaign’s main goal is to put him back on the national stage. Many Mexicans are content to ignore the campaign, but not Vicente Fox, Mexico's president—he launched his own one-week tour of indigenous villages in response. Meanwhile, the Zapatista's left-wing allies in Mexico City, including several small communist parties, have been busy organising for Mr Marcos's visit.

Porn to run

Federal and city police have launched a series of massive crackdowns on street vendors of pirated pornography. More than 1,000 police officers swept streets and subway stations for such contraband several times in December, and at least once so far in January. Joel Ortega, head of public security for Mexico City, announced in a December 30th press conference that authorities had identified three major rings of pornography distributors; security reasons, he said, prevented him from giving more details. Some doubt whether officials actually know more than they have disclosed: the street sweeps were haphazard and few arrests were made, as vendors threw whatever they could find at the police and ran away.

Degrees for sale

Daniel Cabeza de Vaca, Mexico's attorney general, announced that prosecutors are investigating public officials at Mexico City's National Autonomous University (UNAM), the world's largest, for selling degrees. Cronica del Hoy, a local newspaper, had reported that a degree-selling network existed on the internet as long ago as 2004, but prosecutors have yet to charge anyone. Mr Cabeza de Vaca promised that indictments would be handed down soon.

The attorney general’s remarks came just as the UNAM was complimenting itself on renewing its accreditation from the International Organisation for Standardisation, a Geneva-based body which sets international standards for everything from digital movies to freight containers.

Catch if you can

January 2006

Jesús Rafael Soto: Vision and movement

Until April 23rd 2006

Rarely does a museum exhibit ensnare you. But that is the effect of this retrospective of art by Jesús Rafael Soto, a Venezuelan artist who died in 2005. Perhaps the most powerful work is “Penetrable Blue”, an enormous lattice of blue acrylic strings (5x10 metres), which visitors are encouraged to enter. The perfect spacing of the strings makes everything seem to dissolve into shimmer, and it is nearly impossible to leave. This is modern art at its best, conveying something that has not been felt before. Less visceral but more ethereal is “Concorde Sphere”, which, like many of Soto's works, encourages you to walk quickly through the room. The work's components cause a diffraction that is enhanced by motion.

Museo Tamayo, Reforma and Gandhi, Polanco. Tel: +52 (55) 5286-6519. Open: Tue-Sun 10am-6pm. Admission: 15 pesos (free Sun). See the museum's website.

More from the Mexico City cultural calendar

Do trees share blame for global warming?

from the January 19, 2006 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0119/p13s01-sten.html

By Peter N. Spotts Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Cows burp it, pipelines and landfills leak it, and vast amounts lie frozen beneath the ocean floor.
Methane is ubiquitous - as fuel for heating and cooking and as a source of concern for atmospheric scientists. Molecule for molecule, methane packs thousands of times more punch as a "greenhouse gas" than carbon dioxide does.

Until now, scientists tracking debits and credits in the globe's methane "budget" figured they had a pretty good handle on where the gas comes from - mostly from microbes breaking down organic material in places where oxygen is relatively scarce.

Enter Frank Keppler. Working with colleagues from Northern Ireland and the Netherlands, Dr. Keppler has discovered that plants may give off significant amounts of methane just by growing. And the amount they give off appears to rise with temperature. The results have stunned many researchers because no one expected methane to form biologically out in the open air, where oxygen abounds.

It's not that there's more methane in the atmosphere, but that some of it is coming from a wholly unexpected source. The results imply that, at best, this new source of methane may need to be taken into account as nations try to curb carbon-dioxide emissions by planting trees.

Would increased methane emissions erase the gains against CO2? At worst, the results imply that thawing tundra in the Arctic is not the only worrisome source of methane in a warming world.

The experiments Keppler and his colleagues performed grew out of the team's effort to measure the gases that plants give off only in tiny amounts. When they looked at emissions from dead leaves, "we saw a pattern of methane" along with other gases, says Keppler, a scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg, Germany. Others had detected methane from rice plants, but thought the rice merely acted as a minipipeline for methane formed in the muck in which rice grows.

Keppler put fresh and dried plant materials, as well as young plants, in special chambers. He removed possible sources of contamination - including microbes - and found that from bananas and sugar cane to European ash and Spanish moss, the material yielded methane.

From individual plants, the amounts are small: from 12 to 370 billionths of a gram. (One gram is about .04 ounces - the weight of two small paper clips.) But the collective effect could be large. The team roughly calculates that, globally, living plants may contribute from 10 to 30 percent of global methane emissions.

The phenomenon appears to be connected somehow to the presence of pectin in plants. For humans, pectin is used to set jellies and jams. For plants, it serves as a kind of glue for cementing cells together.

The results, published in the Jan. 12 issue of the journal Nature, have drawn astonished reactions and skepticism from researchers, particularly regarding the extrapolations of global emissions.

"This needs to be confirmed," says Michael Keller, a scientist with the US Forest Service's International Institute of Tropical Forestry in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico, and a visiting scientist at the University of New Hampshire. "Until we have the basic mechanisms" for creating methane in plants - "or at least we understand the controls," such as nutrients, heat, or moisture - "it's hard to do reliable extrapolations."

Still, he says, the results may help explain the high methane emissions he and others have found over tropical forests using ground and satellite measurements. Other scientists recently have reported increased emissions over Arctic-river flood plains in eastern Siberia, invoking a variation of the "rice pipeline" hypothesis to explain them.

Given all the scrutiny plants have undergone, one of the open questions is how researchers could have missed these emissions. Keppler speculates that because the methane emissions are so small, they wouldn't have been detected in field studies. Any signal would have been swamped by much larger natural background levels. And microbial sources have been so well established that no one has looked for another mechanism.

For some researchers, the evidence Keppler and his team presents is sufficiently convincing to begin working them into computer models of the globe's greenhouse-gas budget - especially the potential implications for land-use changes. To do that, scientists will need to see how emissions might vary with plant species, says Alex Guenther, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.

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Destination Pluto: NASA begins a 10-year voyage

from the January 17, 2006 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0117/p01s03-stss.html

By Mark Sappenfield Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON - NASA's first mission to the solar system's last planet is now in a race against time.

Tuesday, the clock starts as the New Horizons spacecraft prepares to hurtle from its Florida launchpad on a 10-year, 3 billion-mile journey to where the roan world of Pluto tracks a frigid course through the borders of the solar system.

No one knows if the planet's tenuous but intriguing atmosphere will even be there when the spacecraft arrives: It could freeze and fall out of the sky as the planet wheels away from the warmth of the sun on its oblong orbit. No one knows if the probe will be able to see the quarter of the planet that will be consigned to permanent shadow. And no one knows if Pluto will even be considered a planet.

What is certain, however, is that Pluto will draw back the curtain on a corner of the solar system only recently discovered and still barely understood. Just as the Voyager and Pioneer probes opened the giant planets beyond Jupiter to humankind, New Horizons will strike out into a mysterious realm where Pluto is not an odd runt of a world, but the king of perhaps hundreds of similar would-be planets.

"We've learned that the view of four inner rocky planets and four outer gas giants and one misfit Pluto is wrong," says Alan Stern, lead scientist for the mission. "Now we understand Pluto's context."

It turns out that Pluto is gatekeeper to the Kuiper Belt - a 2 billion-mile wide band of cosmic rubble beyond Neptune that scientists say will be an archaeological trove for New Horizons.

Unlike most of the material in the solar system, which has been worked over by planetary formation, the odds and ends of the Kuiper Belt were too cold and distant to congeal into a large planet. As a result, Pluto and its Kuiper Belt brethren are "planetary embryos," says Dr. Stern, offering a view of planets "frozen at the mid-state of gestation."

If all goes well, scientists will get their first close-up look into this planetary kindergarten in the summer of 2015, when the golden bullet of New Horizons skips by Pluto on its way to other as-yet undetermined Kuiper Belt objects. If New Horizons fails to launch before Feb. 4, however, the probe will miss a rendezvous with Jupiter designed to give it a push, adding as many as five years to the mission.

In either case, the flyby will pass in a blink. Though scientists will observe the planet for five months, the richest data will come from the 12-hour window just before New Horizons skims the planet. At one point, just 6,800 miles above the planet, New Horizons will be close enough to see objects the size of a house.

For scientists who have pored over photos that show Pluto as only an indistinct blob, those 12 hours yield more than a lifetime of work has. Indeed, the most apt planetary symbol for Pluto could be a question mark. Some 76 years after the discovery of Pluto, what scientists know about it would fill only a few 3-by-5 notecards, Stern says.

What they do know about Pluto, though, portrays it as a curious place. The planet is tilted so that it spins on its side. When New Horizons arrives, everything below about 40 degrees south latitude will be in shadow.

Elsewhere on the surface, the sun rises in the west, casting little more than a feeble twilight over the landscape, with the moon Charon looming massive overhead. Despite being half the size of tiny Mercury, Pluto has at least three moons, and Charon is so large that it doesn't revolve around Pluto. Both actually revolve around a point in space between the two, making them a double planet.

Yet these peculiarities - and Pluto's off-kilter orbit - have long cast its planet status in doubt. When discovered in 1930, Pluto was a unique object, so it became a planet almost by default. Now, with scientists finding dozens of Pluto-like worlds in the thicket of the Kuiper Belt - including one almost certainly larger than Pluto - the very notion of what a planet is might change.

Either Pluto is not a planet, or it is an "ice dwarf" planet - dividing the solar system into the four inner rocky planets, the four middle gas giants, and perhaps hundreds of outer ice dwarfs, throwing grade-school science fairs into chaos. The International Astronomical Union is reviewing its definition to give the term some certainty.

Whatever the decision, Pluto certainly appears to be more than just an inert ball of ice. While Charon is a uniform dull gray, likely pitted by eons of meteor impacts, Pluto has wide swaths of light and dark terrain overlaid with an orange patina - most likely methane frost. Indeed, some scientists suggest that Pluto could have wind, weather, and even snow.

That Pluto has an atmosphere at all is among its greatest puzzles. Scientists know that it creates a sort of reverse greenhouse effect on Pluto, making the surface colder than it should be. Yet data suggest that it should simply disappear into space. Perhaps it is maintained by geysers spewing nitrogen, as is the case on Neptune's moon Triton. Perhaps the light areas of Pluto are evidence of volcanism that is spewing chemicals into the atmosphere, as is the case on Saturn's moon Enceladus.

"There's all this stuff going on there," says Dr. Marc Buie of Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Ariz. "It's that exploration of the unknown that is so fascinating."

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A new gust of wind projects across the US

from the January 19, 2006 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0119/p02s01-usec.html

High natural-gas prices and global-warming concerns may help wind energy gain critical mass.

By Mark Clayton Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Out in the dwindling oil fields around McCamey, Texas, where rattlesnakes outnumber people and black-gold gushers once blew their tops, a new energy geyser is blowing - wind power.

More than 860 wind turbines today pinwheel where oil derricks once bloomed, cranking out pollution-free megawatts for wind developers like FPL Energy, a Juno Beach, Fla., utility with the nation's largest wind-power portfolio. In turn, that energy is transmitted to cities like Austin.

"We call our town the wind energy capital of Texas," says Sherry Phillips, McCamey's wind-centric mayor.

With wind farms popping up from New York to Texas to California, wind power is riding high in the saddle again. Explosive growth of more than 40 percent this year - 3,400 megawatts of new generation is expected - could make the United States the world's largest wind-power market, a new report shows.

In the past, the wind industry has soared or swooped depending on whether Congress renewed the wind-energy production tax credit, as it did last fall. But amid the current boom, some say it won't be long until the industry is ready to stand on its own.

Rising natural-gas prices, new state mandates requiring clean energy, and utilities' concerns over global warming are key forces. Together, they leave the wind with enough momentum and critical mass to keep growing even if Congress does not renew the tax credits, some argue.

"The big story is that the North American wind-power market is reaching an entirely new level," says Godfrey Chua, research director at Emerging Energy Research, a research firm in Cambridge, Mass. "This year will see the beginning of the end of the boom-and-bust cycle that has plagued the US wind industry."

Among the biggest factors spurring growth are states taking the reins of leadership from the federal government on energy mandates. Eager to cut air pollution, global warming, and rising electric rates, at least 22 states have approved "renewable portfolio standards" - legislation requiring utilities to include renewable sources like wind, solar, hydro, and biomass in their energy mix.

At the rate wind power is being installed on the ridges and plains of North America - US and Canada - wind power will grow by 4,250 megawatts this year, compared with about 2,600 megawatts last year. If Congress renews the tax credit in 2007, the industry could be installing 6,000 megawatts a year by 2010, according to a new study by Mr. Chua.

Because wind provides power intermittently, there is a limit to how much of the energy mix it can provide. Still, some say 5 percent of total US generating capacity is a reasonable goal. In fact, the US wind building boom could soon bring cumulative wind power to more than 9,200 megawatts, serving the equivalent of 2.4 million households, according to the American Wind Energy Association. (Still, that's less than 1 percent of US power generation.)

Another key reason the wind industry is surging is due to "a whole new cast of players bringing much greater financial capital, corporate muscle, and political leverage," Chua says. Where "cowboy" developers abounded, Fortune 500 companies are jumping in. Goldman Sachs and global energy developer AES have plunged into wind-farm development. German giant Siemens has joined General Electric making wind turbines.

Horizon Wind Energy, a Houston-based developer owned by Goldman Sachs, is aggressively developing hundreds of megawatts of wind power across the country. One such endeavor is the Maple Ridge Wind Farm project about 75 miles northeast of Syracuse, N.Y. Set in maple-syrup country, the first turbines on the wind farm went online last month.

With three full years of growth behind it and stable growth ahead until at least 2007, when the tax credits expire again, wind developers and turbine manufacturers are "seeing a more stable environment and growing confidence," Chua says.

"There's not a utility company in the country that isn't thinking at least a little bit about wind energy and renewable power," says Michael Skelly, chief development officer of Horizon Wind Energy. A major factor, he says, is uncertainty over global warming.

"When you're an energy company deciding where to get your electricity, you're making decisions 20 years ahead," he says. "For most of these industry people, looking that far out, they see a carbon question mark."

Undergirding that shift is the fact that with natural-gas prices soaring, zero-fuel-cost wind looks cheap. Advances in wind-turbine technology cut the average cost of wind power to about 4 to 5 cents per kilowatt hour in 2004, from more than 80 cents per kilowatt hour in 1980. Add to that the tax credit, which chops the cost a further 1.9 cents per kilowatt hour, making it competitive with natural gas and even with coal.

"Word is getting around about wind," says Randall Swisher, executive director of the American Wind Energy Association in Washington. "Up and down the Great Plains are states like Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas, where there's no special incentives or mandates. But hundreds of megawatts of wind are being developed there because it pays."

That message is getting out. Whole Foods Market Inc., the grocery chain, this month announced it would buy wind power to supply all its energy needs. In Colorado, where typically a mere trickle of consumers sign up for wind power, the falling price of wind power saw Xcel Energy's Windsource program get nearly 3,000 applications in November - more than 15 times the usual volume of consumers. That created a waiting list of more than 1,100.

The gale of wind-power projects has produced a surge of orders for wind turbines that is currently the major constraint on industry development, analysts say. General Electric, the largest US producer of wind turbines with 60 percent of the market by some estimates, is producing all it can make and has an order backlog.

All that interest has new US wind- turbine companies like Gamesa, Suzion, and Clipper Wind Power coming on strong. Last year, Clipper's factory in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, produced just five turbines. This year, it plans to make 150.

"It's great to see the institutional interest among utilities and the finance community," says Jim Dehlsen, Clipper's chairman and CEO. "It's been a long time coming."

Back in Texas, King Mountain near McCamey was one of the biggest wind farms in the country with 215 turbines just completed in 2004, creating scores of new jobs and millions in tax revenue for the town. Now, hundreds of megawatts of new wind power are in development in other dry, wind-swept Texas vistas like Taylor County. A new offshore development near Galveston has also been approved.

This year, Texas could become the nation's leading wind-power state.

"We're about to pass California," says Jim Suydam, spokesman for the Texas General Land Office, which oversees state-owned lands. "We're having a little bit of a race."

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Forecast for Earth in 2050: It's not so gloomy

from the January 20, 2006 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0120/p04s01-sten.html

But people must begin to manage its ecosystems to put the planet on a sustainable path, a new report says.

By Peter N. Spotts Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

When researchers scan the global horizon, overfishing, loss of species habitat, nutrient run-off, climate change, and invasive species look to be the biggest threats to the ability of land, oceans, and water to support human well-being.

Yet "there is significant reason for hope. We have the tools we need" to chart a course that safeguards the planet's ecological foundation, says Stephen Carpenter, a zoologist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. "We don't have to accept the doom-and-gloom trends."

That's the general take-home message in an assessment of the state of the globe's ecosystems and the impact Earth's ecological condition has on humans.

Thursday, officials released a five-volume coda to the UN's Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, an ambitious four-year attempt to explore the relationship between the environment and human development. Summary reports of the findings as they affected four international environmental treaties were released last year. These new volumes represent the detailed information that underpins the earlier reports.

In the process, it outlines four plausible ways the planet could develop politically, economically, and socially by 2050, and the effect they would have on people and the environment.

The pathways for political and economic development the authors use - ranging from a relatively wide-open global system to a circle-the-wagons, fragmented world - emerged out of discussions with political and business leaders, scientists, and nongovernmental organizations worldwide. The authors then drew on the latest research to estimate the impact of these paths. The assessment was conducted by 1,360 researchers from 95 countries.

By 2050, it estimates that the highly global approach - with liberal trade policies, and concerted efforts to reduce poverty, improve education and public health, yet respond reactively to environmental issues - could yield the lowest population growth and the highest economic growth. But the environmental scorecard would be mixed.

In a fragmented world that focuses largely on security and regional markets and takes a reactive approach to ecological problems, economic growth rates are the lowest and the population is the highest of the four pathways.

Two other paths, which place a greater emphasis on technology and a proactive approach to the environment, yield population growth rates somewhere in the middle, and economic growth rates that may be slow at first, but accelerate with time.

Even under the most environmentally beneficial paths, however, ecological trouble spots are likely to remain - central Africa, the Middle East, and southern Asia.

In the end, Carpenter says, "there is no optimum approach, no one-size-fits-all. It's all about trade-offs."

To put the planet on a sustainable path, he continues, the report makes clear that people must view Earth's ecosystems as one interlinked system, rather than as fragments. People must begin to actively manage those ecosystems in ways that ensure that they will receive the benefits those ecosystems provide - from blunting the surge from ocean storms and filtering water to feeding a hungry world. Indeed, with efforts now under way to develop worldwide observing systems to monitor the oceans, atmosphere, and land use, technology is moving into place to support such broad management efforts.

Unfortunately, humans have "badly mismanaged" the ecosystems that support them," says Walter Reid, a professor with Stanford University's Institute for the Environment and director of the assessment. "We need to manage for the full range of ecosystem benefits, not just those that pass through markets."

For instance, the report holds that to safeguard the availability of fresh water and encourage its more ecologically prudent use, governments could consider replacing their subsidies with a more market-based pricing system. To ensure that the poor aren't priced out of the system, Carpenter says, one could adapt South Africa's approach. It guarantees a minimum allotment per person. Once the meter ticks beyond that amount, market prices kick in.

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