Economist.com Cities Guide: Tokyo Briefing - April 2006

News this month

Tall tales

Not to be outdone by the mighty towers in Taipei, Shanghai and Kuala Lumpur, Japan's capital has unveiled plans for the New Tokyo Tower. The 610-metre structure will include at least two viewing platforms and carry the television broadcasting equipment of six companies. By the time it is completed in 2011, it will be 57 metres taller than the CN Tower in Toronto, but shorter than the proposed Burj Dubai tower in the United Arab Emirates, the exact height of which remains a secret and which is due for completion in 2008.

The spot chosen for the tower is an old Tobu Railway shunting yard in Sumida ward. This is close to the Asakusa district, whose serene temples and rowdy beer halls already make it a prime tourist spot. The competition for the tower was fierce among local governments, and a bidding war between Sumida and Saitama wards grew ugly. These rival bidders worked to persuade the tower's adjudicatory panel that the other location was more earthquake-prone.

Cry me a river

Tokyo households have become so skilled at conserving water that municipal authorities are preparing to “punish” them by raising rates. The trend towards careful water husbandry is enabled by appliance manufacturers, such as Toto, Matsushita and Sharp, which produce washing machines, toilets and dishwashers that use a fraction of the water of their forebears five years ago. As a result, over those five years average water consumption in Japanese homes has fallen 10%, and water bills have tumbled, since most water use is metered. Consequently, Tokyo and Yokohama residents now face possible water-price hikes of 20%.

For the past two decades, the local water boards have been engaged in an expensive frenzy of dam-building and other engineering projects, to ensure a healthy water supply. The local governments never reckoned that people would use less water, and they still have to pay for these projects. Even after a recent government crackdown on unnecessary dam construction, there are 200 live projects at any given time nationwide.

Pollen plea

Those who are bemused by financial penalties for water conservation may also be surprised by Tokyo's decision that it has too many trees. From early February to late spring, the capital’s growing number of hay-fever sufferers endure an annual onslaught of cedar pollen. The pollen is coming earlier, which meteorologists blame on climate change and a spate of warmer summers. And there is more of it too, because Japan’s forests are slowly expanding. These forests are the legacy of a reforestation drive following the second world war, which did not take account of the allergenic properties of the fast-growing cedar tree.

So, on the insistence of its hay-fever-struck governor, Shintaro Ishihara, the metropolitan government is hitting back. It has begun asking the nose-running, eye-watering masses to donate ¥1,500 ($13) each to a project that would see 1.8m cedar trees felled in a forest west of Tokyo. These trees would then be replaced with a species that produces less pollen.

Mickey mocked

The annual Tokyo Anime Fair hosted an unexpected clash of cartoon cultures in late March. Mr Ishihara opened the event, which is the largest international convention of its kind and the site of hundreds of commercial deals. The outspoken governor, who once argued that the French could not count properly, stunned his audience with the declaration that he hated Mickey Mouse for the way the Disney rodent lacks the unique sensibility of Japanese cartoons. This is not the first time Japanese animations have been used to pique foreign pride. The country has come under fire in recent months for some far-right manga comic books that purport to chronicle Chinese and Korean history, but paint a deliberately nasty picture.

Nevertheless, Chinese visitors to the fair, preparing for their own cartoon convention in Shanghai this summer, said that they hoped such fairs could be used to promote cultural exchange between China and Japan.

Of the shoppers, by the shoppers, for the shoppers

Toshiba, an industrial conglomerate, is preparing to unleash a piece of software that will “democratise” shopping in Tokyo by linking mobile phones to internet weblogs. The software, which will work in any handset equipped with a digital camera, will let users scan the barcodes of an item in a shop, then call up assessments of the product on the internet. The phone connects to a central Toshiba server that can both identify the barcode from a database of 1.5m products and then sift through all 6m Japanese weblogs for any references to it. A more complex algorithm then decides whether the reference is broadly positive, broadly negative or neutral, and within about ten seconds the product's reputation gets a numerical value on the handset.

Tokyoites have already shown an appetite for insight into what other shoppers are thinking. The Toshiba invention goes one step further than RanKing RanQueen, a chain of highly popular shops in the capital where everyday items are ranked in order of their national sales.

Catch if you can

April 2006

From Sesshu to Pollock

Until June 4th 2006

Almost all of Tokyo’s art museums are one-track affairs, specialising in classical, modern or contemporary shows. The most notable exception is the Bridgestone, near Tokyo's main railway station, where exhibitions run the gamut from ancient Chinese ceramics and Japanese national treasures to the likes of Jackson Pollock.

The museum has perked up recently, with an excellent bilingual redevelopment of its website and some new acquisitions. It is now celebrating the 50-year anniversary of the Ishibashi Foundation, which funds the museum and is endowed by the Bridgestone Tire Company. To this end, 170 highlights from the foundation’s 2,433-piece collection are now on view. Keep an eye out for “The Four Seasons”, a splendid four-piece work by Sesshu, a 15th-century artist, which is the museum’s pride and joy.

Bridgestone Museum of Art, Kyobashi 1-10-1, Chuo-Ku. Tel: +81 (0)3 3563-0241. A ten-minute walk from the Yaesu exit of Tokyo station. Nearest subway station: Kyobashi on the Ginza line. Open: Tue-Fri 10am-8pm, Sat-Sun 10am-6pm. Closed April 16th. See the museum's website.

More from the Tokyo cultural calendar

Economist.com Cities Guide: Dubai Briefing - April 2006

News this month

Riotous behaviour

Low-paid construction workers staged a riot at one of Dubai’s flagship developments, the Burj Dubai site, on March 22nd. The workers, mainly expatriates from Asia, were protesting against poor pay and working conditions. They smashed cars, wrecked offices and refused to work for a day. Reports vary about the number of workers involved, from a few hundred to several thousand. Similarly, some media reports put the damage at $1m, although sources close to the companies involved claim that figure is exaggerated.

Yet the problem was less in the physical destruction than in the damage done to Dubai's reputation. The story had plenty of international attention, with many organisations pointing out that Asian labourers in Dubai earn as little as $4 a day. The Burj Dubai, slated to be the world’s tallest tower, is under construction in the city’s new business district. Workers building a new terminal at Dubai International Airport also went on strike in sympathy.

Ports and storms

Sheikha Lubna al Qassimi, the economy minister of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), flew to Washington in late March to resurrect the Free Trade Agreement between America and the UAE. The trip was intended to help mend the relationship between the countries following the cancellation of trade talks, originally planned for mid-March, after a damaging spat over a ports operation deal. State-owned Dubai Ports World (DPW) was due to take control of six American ports as part of a $6.8 billion deal to buy P&O, a British company. The deal turned sour after some American congressmen protested against the supposed security risk posed by an Arab firm running American ports. DPW eventually backed down and agreed to sell the ports to an American operator.

Diplomats in the Emirates said Sheikha Lubna's visit was a success. The DPW deal always had the backing of George Bush, America’s president, who regards the UAE as a key ally in the war on terror. The trade talks were rescheduled for the end of April.

Cruise controls

A tragic boat trip in nearby Bahrain killed 58 passengers on March 30th, pushing Dubai to place a temporary ban on leisure cruises. The ban was lifted on April 3rd after just one day—but only after Dubai Ports Authority had conducted a safety inspection of cruise boats and imposed tougher rules. These included a ban on passengers standing on upper decks, and a promise to enforce safety with regular spot checks.

Pleasure cruising on Dubai's Creek waterway is a small but growing part of the emirate’s tourism industry, particularly on traditional wooden boats known as dhows. Holidaymakers and corporate hospitality trips are the mainstays of the business, but the incident in Bahrain raised fears about the regulation of the industry. Most tour operators welcomed the tougher standards, however, and said they had not seen a significant fall in business since the tragedy.

This land is your land

In light of the property boom that has gripped the city, Dubai has passed a new real-estate law to clarify ownership rights for foreigners. Hundreds of thousands of villas and apartments are under construction, with many being snapped up by investors from Europe and Asia. But before March buyers simply placed their faith in statements made in 2002 by Dubai’s ruler (then Crown Prince) Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, that foreigners would be given freehold rights. The new law, which spells out these rights, allows foreigners to buy property in designated parts of town and register ownership with the government Land Department. This is significant for banks, which can finally secure home loans for foreigners against a legally binding document—and evict homeowners if they default.

Going a bit du-lally

The initial public offering for du, the UAE’s second telecoms operator, was oversubscribed 167 times to the tune of $109 billion—a new world record, according to figures published by Bloomberg News. The firm wanted to raise $650m by selling 20% of its shares to the public, but the appetite for new shares is ravenous in the Gulf, and massive bank lending increased the level of subscriptions. The frenzied rush to buy shares came despite a stockmarket crash that has seen the main Dubai Financial Market index fall by more than half between November and March. Indeed, some analysts blamed the du IPO for the fall, claiming that investors sold big chunks of their existing portfolios to raise cash for du stock.

Catch if you can

April 2006

“Chicago”

May 4th-12th 2006

As part of an effort to mend its reputation as a cultural vacuum, Dubai is to stage “Chicago”, a hugely popular musical about adultery, murder and brassy female entertainers in the 1920s. (It was adapted into a hit film starring Renée Zellweger and Catherine Zeta-Jones in 2002.)

The show does not come cheap: Done Events, a state-owned production company, is allegedly investing several million dollars. While the government expects to earn this money back selling tickets, it hopes, more importantly, to position the emirate as a regional entertainment hub. But there may still be some way to go. As one insider said: “If you go to Las Vegas, you walk down from your five-star hotel room and watch Celine Dion or Barry Manilow. In Dubai, you pay more for your room, but you go downstairs and get some dreadful couple with an organ playing cover versions of Celine Dion and Barry Manilow. We had to do something.”

Madinat Arena, Madinat Jumeirah, Dubai. Tel: +971 (0)4 366 8888. Tickets: from Dh200. See the production's website. For tickets, see the box office website.

More from the Dubai cultural calendar

Economist.com Cities Guide: Atlanta Briefing - April 2006

News this month

Campbell in the soup

On March 10th, after two days of deliberation, the jury returned verdicts in the trial of Bill Campbell, Atlanta’s mayor from 1994 to 2002. The charges involved Mr Campbell’s handling of city contracts while he was mayor. He was found guilty on three counts of tax evasion, but not guilty on charges of racketeering and bribery. The verdicts were the culmination of a lurid six-week trial that included testimony from several of Mr Campbell's former underlings, a former golfing partner (who admitted to delivering payments from a contractor in the mayor’s golf bag), and a former local television presenter, who said her affair with Mr Campbell included trips to Paris, paid for in cash.

The verdicts disappointed prosecutors, who had spent six years investigating Mr Campbell before bringing him to trial. The ex-mayor is not due to be sentenced until June 13th. But as a convicted felon, he may lose his licence to practise law in Georgia and Florida, where he has lived since leaving office. It is up to the local bar association to decide.

Capitol offence

Police in Washington, DC, have requested a warrant for the arrest of Cynthia McKinney, a Democratic congresswoman who represents Georgia’s fourth district. Ms McKinney, who lost her seat in 2002 and regained it in 2004, reportedly slapped a police officer after he tried to keep her from entering the Capitol building on March 29th. Ms McKinney, who was not wearing her congressional lapel pin at the time, had tried to evade the metal detectors, which members of congress are allowed to do. In her defence, she claimed that the officer had “inappropriately touched” her and that she was a victim of racial profiling (she is black). Ms McKinney's lawyer said she had been “assaulted” by the officer, was “in fear for her safety” and would seek a criminal investigation against him.

Ms McKinney has made headlines before. In 2001 she was widely derided for suggesting that George Bush might have known in advance about the September 11th attacks. More recently she apologised for using federal money to fly Isaac Hayes, a singer and prominent Scientologist, to a ribbon-cutting ceremony in Atlanta.

Korean careers

State officials celebrated the announcement on March 13th that Kia, a South Korean carmaker, had signed a deal to build a new plant in West Point, a town in north-west Georgia. The $1.2 billion factory, which should be running by 2009, is the first to relocate to Georgia in a wave of carmakers heading south. Toyota has a plant in Kentucky; Honda and Hyundai both have one in Alabama; and Nissan has one in Mississippi (which reportedly offered $1 billion in incentives for the Kia plant). In 2003 DaimlerChrysler halted a deal to build a plant near Savannah, Georgia.
With the factory expected to create more than 2,000 jobs, and five suppliers expected to create another 2,000, Sonny Perdue, the state governor, has reason to believe that securing the plant will help his re-election campaign this year. But the jobs did not come cheap: Georgia reportedly offered Kia some $400m in incentives—about $160,000 per job—mainly in tax breaks and land.

County towns

The Georgia state legislature has approved bills to allow two communities in north Fulton County and two in south Fulton County to vote on potential incorporation. Once incorporated, they would be able to collect their own tax revenues and provide their own municipal services, such as law enforcement and water/sewerage. If they remain unincorporated, the county will continue to provide such services. Milton and Johns Creek, the two northern communities, will vote in July; Chattahoochee Hill Country and South Fulton must wait until the summer of 2007.

Fulton County already contains nine incorporated cities, including most of the city of Atlanta and the newest city, Sandy Springs, which voted to incorporate in 2005. The people in relatively wealthy Sandy Springs complained that the taxes they paid to Fulton County were delivering poor municipal services, and so they voted to take control of such services themselves. But the trouble for the rest of the county is that as more and more incorporated communities keep their tax dollars for themselves, service levels elsewhere in the county worsen. Moreover, one state lawmaker, representing the northern Fulton city of Alpharetta, plans to introduce a bill next year splitting the county into two, with the Chattahoochee River as the border. If that happens, the new northern county will be considerably wealthier than its southern neighbour, which could exacerbate the inequality in tax-funded services.

From the ashes

April 21st will see the start of a $23m renovation of downtown’s Winecoff Hotel, which was Atlanta’s tallest when it opened in 1913. The Winecoff is best known as the site of the deadliest hotel fire in American history: 119 people died in a blaze that broke out on December 7th 1946, as the “absolutely fireproof” hotel lacked fire escapes, fire doors or sprinklers. The disaster led to revisions in many state fire codes, including Georgia’s. The building became a retirement home in the 1960s, but by the mid-1980s most of it was vacant. It is scheduled to reopen as a 127-room boutique hotel in spring 2007.

Catch if you can

April 2006

Bear on the Square Festival

April 21st-23rd 2006

Once a gold-rush town, Dahlonega, north of Atlanta, now boasts a large tourist economy and puts on festivals such as “Bear on the Square”. This annual three-day event began in 1996, named after a baby bear that had to be rescued from a tree in the town square. Meant as a celebration of north Georgian culture—North Georgia State University’s Appalachian Studies programme is a sponsor—the festival features plenty of family-friendly activities, including bluegrass music, a crafts auction, a “musical instrument petting zoo”, picnics, a pie-baking contest and an old-time medicine show. This weekend Dahlonega will also host a stage of the Tour de Georgia, an annual cycling race, and a gold-panning championship.

Events are mostly in Dahlonega’s town square and in Boisson Hall. Some are free; evening concerts are $15. For more information, see the Dahlonega Chamber of Commerce or the festival’s website.

More from the Atlanta cultural calendar

Economist.com Cities Guide: Sao Paulo Briefing - April 2006

News this month

Joining the race

On March 14th the Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira (PSDB), the main opposition party, chose São Paulo’s outgoing governor, Geraldo Alckmin, over the city’s mayor, José Serra, to contest October’s presidential elections. The big decision took over two months and risked splitting the PSDB, a spectacle that delighted the ruling Workers' Party (PT). Mr Serra gave up only when it became clear that Mr Alckmin would not step aside; a primary race would certainly damage the party. “My sense of political responsibility won out over personal aspirations,” said Mr Serra, who also lost the 2002 presidential elections.

Despite a reputation for blandness—his nickname is “Chuchu”, a tasteless vegetable—Mr Alckmin resolutely refused to back down. Since his nomination, he has jumped six points in the opinion polls, but still trails the incumbent, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, by 43% to 23%. Lula will announce by June whether he intends to stand for re-election. For Mr Serra, his consolation prize may be Mr Alckmin’s old job. If he agrees to be the PSDB candidate for governor, as seems likely, he could face a rematch against the PT’s Marta Suplicy, whom he ousted to become mayor in 2002. Polls suggest he would beat Mrs Suplicy or any other potential PT candidate.

A minister resigns

Antonio Palocci, the Brazilian finance minister, resigned on March 27th over corruption allegations. He supposedly lied to a congressional committee and was then linked to violations of Brazilian banking law. Mr Palocci denied to the committee that he had visited a mansion on the outskirts of Brasilia used by the “Republic of Ribeirão”, a group of influential Paulistas, to distribute cash and enjoy the services of female “receptionists”. But two credible witnesses, the property's driver and caretaker, claimed that he was a frequent visitor. This denouncement raised suspicion, though, so the caretaker’s bank account, held by a bank controlled by the finance ministry, was examined for evidence of bribery. News of a 25,000-reais ($11,635) deposit was leaked to the press, though it turned out to be unconnected.

Publicising the caretaker's personal funds ended up further soiling Mr Palocci's hands, as it is illegal to scrutinise the bank account of a private citizen. The head of the bank (a political appointee) admitted to taking the bank statement to Mr Palocci's office, and so precipitated his resignation. Without political immunity, Mr Palocci now faces police investigations for this and other corruption allegations stemming from his stint as mayor in Ribeirão Preto. His replacement as finance minister will be Guido Mantega, the president of the government development bank.

Smoking kills

Overcrowding and poor resources have provoked a series of prison riots in the region. In one outbreak, nine inmates of Jundiaí prison, 60km from São Paulo, died after inhaling smoke from burning mattresses. They had been complaining about overfilled rooms—the jail has 484 prisoners but was built for just 120. A week before, military police shock troops were deployed inside another overcrowded jail, 120km from the capital, in an operation that left 15 prisoners injured.

Together with the most recent riot on March 28th, this makes for 32 riots in the prison system this year, five more than in all of 2005. The Secretaria da Administração Penitenciária claims the rebellions were co-ordinated by the Primeiro Comando da Capital, a drug ring that organised a similar statewide protest against inhumane prison conditions in 2001. Governor Alckmin has taken a hard line, promising to isolate the riot leaders in maximum-security facilities.

Varsity blues

One of São Paulo’s most prestigious private universities, Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo (PUC-SP), fired 30% of its staff in March after an early-retirement programme failed to wipe out a 4m reais ($1.9m) monthly deficit. The move, pushed by the university's bankers—Banco Bradesco SA and ABN-AMRO Brazil, which are owed 82m reais—provoked a strike by both students and staff that ended on March 24th. PUC-SP has about 21,200 students, and about 5% of courses are now without teachers.

The university is seeking help from the Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social, the government development bank, but school officials said no one will be rehired until a financial package is finalised. Departments left untouched by the restructuring, such as the celebrated law school, kept their heads down, with students and professors turning up for class as usual.

Still waters run deeper

The Rio Tietê is no Thames or Seine. São Paulo’s sluggish, smelly waterway circumnavigates the city, rather than crosses it, and is prone to breaching its banks—the last major flood took place in 2005. Four years ago Governor Alckmin promised to do something about the problem. On March 19th, six months behind schedule but just before he leaves office to run for president, he made good on his word and inaugurated the river’s 1.1-billion-reais ($506m) face-lift. It is now 2.5 metres deeper, 26 metres wider with 9m cubic-metres less rubbish and sediment. Experts say the Tietê now has a 1% chance of flooding during heavy downpours, compared with a 50% chance before the work. Phase two of the plan includes securing financing for maintenance, continuing a $1.1-billion clean-up of the polluted water, and developing a park and floating cultural centre along the banks. Funds will probably come from public-private partnerships.

Catch if you can

April 2006

Estação da Luz da Nossa Lingua

From March 20th 2006

When the Estacão da Luz was completed in 1901, the train station's European design, ironwork and sheer size made it an instant landmark. These days the station serves a handful of suburban rail lines, but beginning in March it will also be home to a $36m exhibition celebrating Brazil’s national language, Portuguese. Multimedia presentations will help transform the building into the so-called Estação da Luz da Nossa Lingua, or Station of Light of Our Language. A 120-metre screen, stretched across the length of the station, will show 12 short documentaries depicting various aspects of Brazilian culture. The station will also house a series of temporary exhibitions, the first of which honours the 50th anniversary of a classic novel, “Grande Sertão: Veredas”, by João Guimarães Rosa, a writer from Minas Gerais, north of São Paulo.

Estacão da Luz, Praça da Luz, 1, Centro. Visit the exhibit's website for further information.

More from the Sao Paulo cultural calendar

Economist.com Cities Guide: Washington, DC Briefing - April 2006

News this month

Finally

Major League Baseball (MLB) has finally agreed to a 30-year lease for a new stadium for the Washington Nationals baseball team. Signed in early March, the lease is the product of months of debate between MLB, which owns the team, the city’s mayor, Anthony Williams, and the city council. The agreement, which caps city costs for the stadium at almost $611m, will allow construction to begin on a site near the Anacostia river, about a mile from Capitol Hill. Both the city and the team stand to make money from the stadium once it opens in 2008. According to a new study by the city, the District could pull in more than $23m each year in the stadium’s first 22 years of operation. This estimate reflects expected tax revenues from what the study projects to be roughly $200m in annual gross revenues for the team—not including television rights—making the Nationals one of the richest franchises in the game.

But such rosy projections for the stadium have been met with some scepticism. Last year only two teams, the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox, earned more than $200m. Meanwhile, the mayor hopes the stadium will bring business to its blighted neighbourhood, but this may not happen for some time. The Washington Post reported that new retailers are unlikely to open there until at least a year after the new park opens.

Majority minority

Members of racial minorities will soon comprise the majority of residents in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area, according to a report from the Washington Post. The change, expected to come in the next four to eight years, will be the product of long-term demographic trends: minorities already comprise the majority of residents under 40 years old, and in the District itself African-Americans account for 70% of the population. Racial minorities are estimated to make up 47% of the residents in the metropolitan area.

This demographic shift can already be seen in some other big urban areas, including Miami, Houston, Los Angeles and San Francisco. While growth in minority populations can feed racial tension, the Post noted, experts believe this has been minimised in the area because many of the region’s minorities are financially secure. One research group estimated, for example, that 45% of minority households in the Washington metropolitan area earn at least $75,000 each year, more than in any other metropolitan area.

Money train

Prospects for a 23.5-mile metro-rail extension to Dulles Airport grew brighter in March. Local officials announced on March 27th that this would be financed in part by revenues from the Dulles Toll Road. The extension had been waylaid as District officials struggled to find a way to pay for their share of construction (the federal government is also chipping in). The project’s hefty price tag—$4 billion—had prompted planners to reduce the number of rail cars and pedestrian bridges for passengers. Already a plan to put the rail line underground through Tyson’s Corner, in Virginia, has been rejected because of its prohibitive cost.

Under the new agreement, the regional airport authority, which runs the free Dulles Airport access road, will assume control of the Toll Road and probably raise fees to help pay for construction. The project should be finished by 2015.

Say cheese

Drivers who suffer the daily commute from Maryland to Washington, DC, have new reason to be ill-tempered. According to the Washington Times, Maryland drivers received an overwhelming majority of fines from the District’s traffic camera programme. The newspaper reported that more than 64% of drivers cited by the programme in February were from Maryland, compared with 20% from Washington and 9% from Virginia. The District’s police chief, Charles Ramsey, denied that the programme unfairly targets Maryland drivers. But the Times noted that almost one-third of traffic cameras are in areas used by commuters, many of them on routes from Maryland.

The cameras have generated $135m since they were introduced in 1999, from fees for red-light violations at $75 each, and speeding tickets of up to $200. Having already collected $5m in fines from speed cameras this year, the programme is expected to bring in more than $30m by the end of 2006. Unfortunately for the programme’s book-keepers, this may be a slightly smaller figure than in the past: in February only 2% of the 2.7m drivers monitored in the city were caught for speeding, the lowest since the programme began.

Last call

Washington, DC—a city of transients, transplants and immigrants—lost a home-grown institution in March, when the Olde Heurich Brewing Company shipped its last case of beer. The company was launched in 1986 as a successor to the original Heurich Brewing Company, which brewed beer from 1873-1956 on the site of what is now the John F. Kennedy Center for the Arts.

Gary Heurich, grandson of the original brew-master, Christian Heurich, used his family’s original recipes for his new Olde company, but had the beer brewed in upstate New York. Mr Heurich had hoped one day to open a brewery in Washington itself, but while the beer achieved some local fame, the company never made a profit. Mr Heurich finally decided to heed all the red ink. He will now direct his energy towards saving his grandfather's house, the “Brewmaster's Castle”, in the District's Dupont Circle.

Catch if you can

April 2006

Dada

Until May 14th 2006

Dada was born amid the fury and confusion of the first world war. In response to a world gone mad, artists began shattering rules and conventions in art. This exhibition, which claims to be the most comprehensive Dada show ever, divides the works geographically, from Dada’s origins in Zurich and then Berlin, Hanover, Cologne, New York and Paris.

To underscore the context of this avant-garde movement, the exhibit opens with a room of photographs from the first world war, and a looping reel of silent, black-and-white documentary footage. The Dada work itself is dazzling in its variety and complexity, with paintings, sculptures, collages, photographs, films, prints and needlepoints. This splendid show is worth a long visit.

The National Gallery of Art, located on the National Mall between Third and Ninth Sts at Constitution Ave, NW, East Building. Open: Mon-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun 11am-6pm. Admission is free. See the museum's website.

More from the Washington, DC cultural calendar

Economist.com Cities Guide: Milan Briefing - April 2006

News this month

Hot spot

Political tensions spilled out onto the streets of Milan ahead of April's national election. On March 11th the Corso Buenos Aires, a shopping boulevard, became a battleground of burnt cars and broken shop windows when an authorised rally went amok. Tricolour Flame, a neo-fascist group running with Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia coalition, clashed with around 200 left-wing anti-globalisation protesters intent on thwarting their march. Fifteen police officers were injured—nine from the blast of a nail bomb—and up to 45 people were arrested.

Romano Prodi, the centre-left candidate for prime minister, condemned the violence. Three peaceful marches later followed the skirmish—one by shop owners protesting against the violence and two by leftist groups commemorating the death in 2003 of a protester at the hands of neo-fascists. However, the US State Department cautioned Americans travelling to Italy to take care as “even peaceful demonstrations have the potential to escalate into violence”.

A reliquary up your jumper

Since 1970 some 51,260 religious artefacts, including crib figurines, religious paintings, crucifixes and reliquaries, have walked out of Italian churches. In Milan, church officials are taking the matter very seriously, and the military police have issued a new self-help manual to priests. Written by Vito Cicale of the national police unit for protecting cultural heritage, the manual's main advice for Milan's 10,000 churches is simple: take an inventory of what is there, because catalogued items are more difficult to sell on the black market.

The long list of missing religious art in Italy is headed by Caravaggio's “Nativity with SS. Francis and Lawrence”, which was stolen from the Oratorio di San Lorenzo in Palermo, Sicily, in October 1969 and now carries an estimated price tag of $20m. The prize for most imaginative thievery goes to those who removed an entire chapel from a Naples church—complete with altar, marble decorations and statues. It was later found and restored to the church by the military police.

The long vacation

In something of a nightmare for working mothers, most schools in Lombardy will be open for no more than ten days during the whole of April. Schools used as polling places for national elections will be closed on the 8th, 10th and 11th, followed by the Easter holiday from the 12th to 19th. Schoolchildren are back at their books for two days, then off again for a long weekend for the April 25th Liberation Day celebrations.

A group of mothers in Milan, whose children attend Luigi Cadorna comprehensive school in Via Dolci, protested against the schedule and suggested shortening the Easter break. Romano Mercuri, the school's head, explained that the calendar was decided by the regional government.
Primary colours

There is no quick fix for grey Milanese fog, but city officials are hoping to brighten up the city by introducing a range of official municipal colours. Their “colour plan for urban decor”, the result of collaboration with architecture professors from the Politecnico university, includes cheery wild reds and yellows for lamp-posts, clocks, rubbish bins and benches which have otherwise been coated in dreary grey, black and green. This subtle improvement is a last gasp from the mayoral authorities before municipal elections in May. The main target for the paint job is the historic centre of Milan, including Corso Vittorio Emanuele, Piazza Scala and the pedestrian zone that runs from Piazza Duomo to the Castello Sforzesco. The case of the two memorials
Giuseppe Pinelli, an anarchist, is most famous for his death in 1969, when he fell from the fourth-storey window of Milan's police headquarters during an interrogation. He was under questioning for his alleged involvement in the Piazza Fontana bombings, which killed 16 people three days earlier. The left had always blamed the police commander at the time, Luigi Calabresi, for Pinelli's death; Calabresi was murdered by leftist anarchists in 1972 in retribution, but he has long been cleared of guilt. Pinelli sympathisers erected a plaque at Piazza Fontana in his memory, describing him as an innocent man who was murdered.

But on March 3rd, city authorities controversially removed this plaque and replaced it with one of their own that said Pinelli “died tragically”. This switch brought a thousand left-wing supporters and friends of Pinelli onto the streets, including Dario Fo, a Nobel-prize-winning Italian playwright whose play “Accidental Death of an Anarchist” was inspired by the Pinelli case. They complained that the new plaque misrepresented Pinelli's death. There are now two plaques at the Piazza Fontana—one official and one unofficial—and each tells a different story.

Catch if you can

April 2006

Ecce Uomo

Until May 21st 2006

Milan's contemporary art comes out of storage and into view in this exhibition of 60 works from artists including Damien Hirst, Chen Zhen, Maurizio Cattelan, Vanessa Beecroft and Marina Abramovic. This show's theme—pain—is not very cheery, but you can't beat it for interest.

Works include an installation by Mona Hatoum, a British artist, where kitchen utensils turn into threatening, razor-sharp torture instruments; an untitled work by Mr Cattelan, an Italian multi-media artist, of a latex mould of a child's hand pierced by a pencil; a photograph from the show “Thomas Lips” by Ms Abramovic, a performance artist from Yugoslavia, of a sleek female belly with a five-pointed star traced in blood; and Mark Wallinger's life-sized “Ecce Homo” statue, first seen at the Venice Biennale in 2001.

Spazio Oberdan, Viale Vittorio Veneto 2. Tel: +39 (0)2 7740-6300. Open: Tues-Sun, 10am-7.30pm, Thursdays until 10pm. Visit the website.

More from the Milan cultural calendar

Economist.com Cities Guide: Paris Briefing - April 2006

News this month

Aux barricades

A wave of student-led protests against labour reform for young people continues to rock France. At issue is a contrat première embauche (CPE), or first job contract for those aged under 26, proposed by Dominique de Villepin, the French prime minister. The contract is intended to boost employment by encouraging employers to create new jobs for young people. In return they can shed these workers without justification, though with notice and some compensation, during their first two years. Critics complain that this will hurt job security for a workforce that is already battling unemployment, and hundreds of thousands of young people across France have taken to the streets in protest.

After four major demonstrations in late February and March, one of which drew up to 1.5m demonstrators nationwide, unions joined with students on March 28th in a general strike. Traffic in Paris slowed to a crawl, and tens of thousands of people again marched against the CPE. Students have been reprising roles from “les évènements” of 1968 by occupying the Sorbonne and other universities. Several stand-offs and marches have turned violent as some youths skirmished with police, burnt cars and vandalised shops, harking back to the riots in the Paris suburbs last autumn. Hundreds have been arrested, and several dozen students and police officers injured. In the midst of this chaos is Mr de Villepin, who, having promised not to budge, is hinting that he may compromise. A poll taken on March 27th showed that 63% were opposed to the CPE.

School's out

Among the many disruptions caused by recent student protests has been the forced closure of university buildings and the interruption of classes. By late March, weeks after the first protests, the education ministry announced that students had blockaded 14 of 84 universities and disturbed operations at 42 others. Leaders of the National Student Union (UNEF), which has organised the protests, say that 69 universities are “on strike”. Nearly 1,000 high schools—nearly a quarter nationwide—are also affected.

Earlier in the month in Paris, the prestigious Sorbonne University, Collège de France and Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales were temporarily occupied by protesters before riot police dislodged them. The elite Ecole Normale Supérieure has been forced to shut its doors to all but card-carrying students, and some classes have been moved to buildings in the suburbs. Gilles de Robien, the education minister, has denounced the blockades as “unacceptable”—censure that has done little to dissuade students. But some now worry that the campus shutdowns could force end-of-year exams to be held later than usual.

Egg toss

Françoise de Panafieu is the centre-right UMP party’s candidate for Paris’s 2008 mayoral election. Her campaign began inauspiciously on March 16th when she made the rounds of a block of council flats in the poor 19th arrondissement. Jacques Deroo, a 50-year-old anti-poverty activist and local resident, threw an egg at her head, hitting her in the left eye.
Mr Deroo, who has planned public stunts in the past to spread his anti-poverty message, had tried unsuccessfully to arrange a meeting with Ms Panafieu on March 2nd at UMP headquarters. Failing that, he chose a more direct mode of confrontation. He explained that he targeted Ms Panafieu—who represents the smart 17th arrondissement—to protest against her “provocative” decision to venture into the public housing complex. “She gave the impression of going to visit destitution like one would visit the zoo”, he carped. Mr Deroo will appear in court on May 17th to face charges of having exerted “violence with a weapon—more specifically, an egg”.

Grand plans

The Grand Palais, the steel-and-glass exhibition hall built for the 1900 Universal Exhibition, reopened in September 2005 after a 12-year renovation. Now that the spectacular hall is finally ready, its use has become the subject of debate. According to an inscription chiselled into the hall’s pediment, the Grand Palais should be “dedicated to the glory of French art”. It was the site of Karl Lagerfeld's Chanel haute couture show in January and the annual Art Paris modern-art fair in March, but it has also played host recently to a fun fair and a television show—eliciting snorts of horror from art-snobs. Patrick Bouchain, an architect, has proposed using the space for everything from sports events to concerts, fashion shows and temporary exhibits. His is the 18th proposal in two decades for the Grand Palais.

While various parties bicker over what should take place inside the hall, officials insist that there is still more work to be done on the building itself. The recent €101m ($122m) renovation helped restore the soaring dome—parts of which occasionally used to come crashing down—and strengthen its foundations. But according to the culture ministry, it would take €120m more to fix other major problems. The building continues to suffer from terrible acoustics and a lack of access from the nave to the building’s museum wings, and the huge glass ceiling creates suffocating heat in summer and a deep freeze in winter.

Street-walkers take to the street

The first-ever Prostitute Pride March brought some 100 sex workers into the streets on March 18th to call for formal recognition of their métier. Transvestites, dominatrices and other members of the world’s oldest profession cut a line through the heart of the city's sex trade zones, from the racy Place de Pigalle near Montmartre down rue St-Denis to the Pompidou Centre.

The march was staged largely to object to recent measures introduced by Nicolas Sarkozy, France’s interior minister, to criminalise prostitution further. In 2003 Mr Sarkozy made soliciting sex punishable by a two-month prison sentence and a €3,750 fine. Demonstrators criticised this move, which keeps their work illicit, even as they pay taxes like other hard-working citizens. Some argued that selling sex had become more dangerous, as fewer prostitutes contact the police to report abuse. The marchers chanted, “We’re hookers and we’re proud, Sarkozy—it’s war.” ACT-UP, an AIDS activist group, joined in with an even more jarring (and probably less productive) slogan: “Prostitutes, Sarkozy wants you dead”.

Catch if you can

April 2006

Pierre Bonnard

February 2nd-May 7th 2006

The Musée d'art moderne de la Ville de Paris reopens this month after a two-year renovation, with its first major exhibition dedicated to Pierre Bonnard. A master of radiant and expressive colour, Bonnard was long dismissed by critics as too pretty a painter. But his retrospective at the Pompidou in 1984, and now this show of 90 oil paintings, have worked to resurrect his role as a pivotal modernist influence, an important bridge between post-Impressionism and abstractionism.

The exhibition’s thematic layout, with female nudes, landscapes and still-lives grouped together, seems heavy-handed, but it does give a chance to compare works from different decades. Much remains constant over some 40-odd years, such as Bonnard's reliance on colour, not line, to define objects and moods, and his use of light and reflection. He also painted the same model in nearly 400 works, his wife and muse Marthe.

Musée d'art moderne de la Ville de Paris, 11 avenue du Président-Wilson, 16th arrondissement. Tel: +33 (0)1 53 67 40 00. Open: Tues-Sun 10am-6pm (Weds till 10pm). Métro: Iéna. For more information visit the museum's website (in French).

More from the Paris cultural calendar

Economist.com Cities Guide: Moscow Briefing - April 2006

News this month

And the walls came tumbling down

Moscow's crumbling infrastructure is in dire need of repair, according to local building experts. This announcement came in the wake of the Basmanny market collapse on February 23rd, which killed 66 people and was only the most dramatic in a string of accidents. From December to March, five Moscow buildings either partly or completely collapsed. On March 13th alone, three roofs in the Moscow area caved in.

According to an independent building-inspection bureau, these disasters cannot be attributed solely to design flaws—though most of the blame for Basmanny was placed on the architect, Nodar Kancheli, who also designed a Moscow water park that collapsed in 2004, killing 28. Poor maintenance and neglect, dating from the fall of the Soviet Union, are said to be the real culprits. The city's chronic underfunding of repairs will be partly addressed by increases in the capital's building budgets, but according to Tatyana Fillipova, a spokesperson for the city’s inspection agency, “It is hard to make up for all the lost time at once”.

Mourning Milosevic

The death on March 11th of Slobodan Milosevic, a former Serbian dictator, provoked a variety of responses around the world, not least in Russia’s capital. Relations between the Milosevic regime and Russia were warm, and the ex-dictator’s family now lives in Moscow in self-imposed exile. Though Mr Milosevic was on trial for 66 counts of war crimes, many in Russia sympathised with him; on March 13th protestors outside the American embassy held banners declaring, “Milosevic is a hero! Bush is a Fascist!”

Moscow’s politicians also expressed scepticism about the circumstances surrounding Mr Milosevic’s death. In the preceding months Mr Milosevic had asked to visit Moscow to treat his heart condition, but the UN tribunal rejected his request, despite assurances from Russian officials that he would be returned to the Hague. Shortly before he died from a heart attack, Mr Milosevic sent a letter to the Russian embassy in the Netherlands alleging that he was being poisoned. This prompted Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, to dispute the official autopsy results, and a team of Russian doctors went to the Hague to verify the work of the Dutch autopsy team. But they did not find evidence of foul play: although the Russian doctors expressed concern that Mr Milosevic had not had access to specialist help, they confirmed a heart attack as the cause of death.

A flower for the lady?

One of the most popular of Russia's many prazdniks, or holidays, is International Women's Day, celebrated on March 8th. Far bigger than the western-imported Valentine's Day, this festival traditionally sees men buying presents, particularly flowers, for their lovers, mothers and female colleagues. Canny retailers hike up prices for the occasion: roses were being sold for up to $7 each at a stall in central Moscow.

This year street vendors were not the only ones to profit from the holiday. Moscow customs officers, in a scheme code-named “Operation Hyacinth”, cracked down on undeclared flower imports from February 13th to March 11th, and claimed to have boosted customs duties by $600,000. Dutch imports were especially suspect, with several importers accused of trying to evade duty by declaring cheaper flower types or lower weights for their cargo. The vast majority of Russia's imported flowers come from or through the Netherlands, which exported €101m ($121m) worth of plants and flowers to the country in 2005.

The insider

Irina Khakamada’s racy new memoir, “Sex in Big Politics”, exposes the seamy underside of Moscow political life, as its title might suggest. In a supposedly egalitarian country where male MPs vastly outnumber their female counterparts and there are no senior female ministers, Ms Khakamada has written an informal guide to help women navigate Russia’s political arena. She writes from experience, as a respected liberal politician who ran for president in 2004.

Appropriately the book was released just before International Women's Day, on March 6th.
Ms Khakamada's tips include clothing advice, how to rank groups of officials at a glance and how to politely ward off unwelcome advances from lascivious colleagues. But risqué title aside, she has a serious point to make: Moscow's political culture is not only male-dominated but truly rotten. Its politicians are frequently in hock to big industry and many are interested only in serving themselves. Through plenty of personal anecdotes, she relays how promotion is always linked to personal connections and how, at the end of the day, the corridors of the parliament building reek of vodka.

Whoops

The efficiency and grandeur of the Moscow metro may be unparalleled, but its safety procedures apparently need some work. On March 19th workers assembling an advertising billboard drove a concrete post through the street surface and into the path of an oncoming train. The driver saw the large pillar coming through the tunnel roof and quickly engaged the emergency breaks, but it was too late to prevent a collision. The pillar hit the right side of the first carriage, then became lodged in the roof of the third. Six teams of emergency workers helped evacuate the train's 500 passengers, and remarkably nobody was hurt. A section of the affected metro line was disabled for the rest of the day and buses helped ferry stranded commuters.

Police caught the five guilty workers, who tried to flee the scene in a passing mashrutka (public transport minibus). The Moscow metro prosecutor’s office has launched an investigation of the violation of safety rules during billboard erection.

Catch if you can

April 2006

Photobienniale—2006

March-June 2006

This photography festival is one of the crowning jewels of Moscow’s cultural calendar. With over 100 exhibitions in nearly as many venues, this year's Photobienniale will feature home-grown talent as well as international names. One of the festival’s most popular spots is sure to be the Zurab Tsereteli Gallery, which has Simon Norfolk’s powerful photos of Afghanistan, James Hill’s images of the Beslan tragedy in Chechnya and Sebastião Salgado’s series “The hand of man”, in which the Brazilian photographer documents men toiling around the world. Other promising venues include the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, which will display Nan Goldin’s counter-cultural work and the intriguingly titled “Photography in Document 1880-1950”.

Zurab Tsereteli Gallery, Prechistenka ul., 21. Metro: Kropotkinskaya, Oktyabrskaya, Park Kultury. Tel: +9 (095) 201-5840. Open: Wed-Fri noon-10pm; Sat-Sun 10am-5pm.
Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Ulitsa Petrovka 25. Metro: Pushkinskaya. Tel: + 9 (095) 200 6695. Open: Mon, Wed, Fri noon-7pm; Sat-Sun 11am-6pm.

The festival is also at other venues throughout the city. For exact listings, check www.afisha.ru (in Russian) or the culture page of the Moscow Times.

More from the Moscow cultural calendar

Economist.com Cities Guide: Chicago Briefing - April 2006

News this month

Primary colours

Chicagoans went to the polls for this year’s primary elections on March 21st. The winner of the Democratic gubernatorial primary came as no surprise: Rob Blagojevich, the Democratic governor of Illinois, held a commanding lead over Edwin Eisendrath, despite widespread dissatisfaction with his first-term performance. The Republican primary was more contentious, with five challengers vying to outdo each other. Judy Baar Topinka, Illinois’s state treasurer, won the primary with just 38% of the vote. She can now direct her attention to unseating Mr Blagojevich in a race that promises to be brutal.

Meanwhile in the suburbs of Chicago, a race for a traditionally Republican seat in the US House of Representatives drew national attention. Democrats warred over the right to run for a seat held by Henry Hyde, a jowly Republican stalwart who will retire after 30 years in Congress. In the end, Tammy Duckworth, a Democratic war veteran who lost both her legs in the Iraq war, won the primary. Ms Duckworth managed to raise far more money than her fellow Democratic challengers, with many contributions coming from out of state. She will face the Republican candidate, Peter Roskam, in November’s election.

The deliberations begin

After more than five months of testimony, hundreds of documents and 117 witnesses, the jury finally began its deliberations in the trial of George Ryan on March 13th. Mr Ryan, Illinois’s former Republican governor, is charged with 22 counts of fraud and racketeering. Mr Ryan and Larry Warner, a close friend, allegedly accepted holidays and other gifts in exchange for steering lucrative state contracts to favoured companies.

The charges follow an eight-year federal investigation, stretching back to Mr Ryan’s tenure as secretary of state for Illinois from 1991-99, when he was accused of taking bribes in exchange for supplying trucking licences. So far 79 former state officials, lobbyists and truck drivers have been also been charged.

Tritium troubles

The state of Illinois has sued Exelon, a nuclear power company that owns the Braidwood nuclear station near Chicago, for leaking radioactive tritium into groundwater and keeping quiet about it. Tritium is a by-product of reactors in the production of electricity. Not only were there four separate tritium leaks between 1996 and 2003, but Exelon tried to stifle environmental reviews and public discussion of the effects of tritium, which can increase the risk of cancer and cause birth defects.

After repeated urging from Braidwood's neighbours, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency finally tested local groundwater and found traces of tritium. Exelon officials say that tritium levels are so low that they are not cause for concern. Local residents aren’t quite so sanguine.

His kinda town

Ray Meyer, the former coach of the men’s basketball team at Chicago’s DePaul University, died on March 17th at the age of 92. Mr Meyer was one of the sport’s most beloved figures. Between 1942 and 1984 he turned DePaul from an obscure Catholic university, whose basketball team played in a dusty gym beneath the El tracks, into a renowned basketball powerhouse. Although his teams won a national tournament only once (in 1945), they reached the post-season 20 times. Over the course of Mr Meyer's career, his teams won more games than those of all but four coaches in the history of college basketball.

Mr Meyer relied mostly on local ballers. Legions of coaches and scouts fanned out across the country competing to sign the best high-school players; Mr Meyer didn’t make his first out-of-state recruiting trip until he was 69. A native Chicagoan, he exemplified the city’s masculine ideal: tough, hot-tempered, big-hearted, old-fashioned and with plenty of local pride. Digger Phelps, one of his coaching contemporaries, said, “Nobody had more love for Chicago than Ray”.

The return of “King Coal”

More coal can be found beneath the state of Illinois than in any other state but Wyoming and Montana. Until recently, this was little cause for celebration: many mines in Illinois—and across America—became defunct over the past 50 years as cheap oil supplanted coal as a preferred energy source and the government clamped down on coal emissions. But with oil prices soaring and power plants using chemical treatments to produce cleaner-burning coal, this trend seems to be reversing. Three new mines capable of producing 9m tonnes of coal per year will open in Illinois in 2006, bringing the total of working mines in the state to 12. With mining jobs paying between $50,000 and $70,000, the new mines are more than welcome.

“King Coal” once ruled central and southern Illinois—in 1918 the state produced 89m tonnes. It is unlikely that Illinois's coal production will reach this level again in the near future, but the industry’s resurgence is real. The national Energy Information Administration predicts that American demand for coal will rise by about 2% each year for the next 20 years.

Catch if you can

April 2006

Girodet: Romantic Rebel

Until April 30th 2006

This is the first American retrospective devoted to the paintings and drawings of Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson, a French artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Girodet, who trained under Jacques-Louis David, rejected the neoclassical style then prevalent in France. Instead he favoured treating his subjects in a dark, dreamlike manner. His often violent paintings pushed the boundaries of what was considered acceptable. In this way and others, he prefigured what would be known as Romanticism.

The Art Institute of Chicago, 111 South Michigan Ave. Tel: +1 (312) 443-3600. Open: Mon-Fri, 10.30am-4.30pm (Thursdays until 8.30pm); Weekends, 10am-5pm. Entry: $12. For more information, visit the institute’s website.

More from the Chicago cultural calendar

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

News this month

Given the sack

In an unprecedented move, Buenos Aires officials have sacked the city's mayor. On March 7th a jury of city councillors ruled that Aníbal Ibarra had failed to uphold safety standards, making him partly responsible for the tragic fire at the República Cromañón nightclub in December 2004, which killed 194 people. The verdict was a surprise: Mr Ibarra's opponents needed ten of the jury's 15 votes and seemed likely to fall short. But a councillor who had previously stormed out of the proceedings returned to vote against the mayor, and he was unexpectedly joined by a councillor loyal to Néstor Kirchner, the Argentine president who had tacitly backed Mr Ibarra. These two men tipped the balance.

The families of the fire's victims are now calling for Mr Ibarra to be grilled by the judge investigating the disaster, with a view to criminal charges. But the former mayor refuses to be cowed. Citing poll results showing that a majority of the city's residents opposed his impeachment, Mr Ibarra has promised to run for public office again in 2007. He is unlikely to stand for mayor, however. Jorge Telerman, his deputy, will hold the post until elections in 2007.

Food for thought

One of the leaders of Buenos Aires's piqueteros—unemployed street protestors—has decided to open a free restaurant for the poor in the capital's most exclusive district, Puerto Madero. Raúl Castells, whose media stunts have long ensured him constant press attention, outraged owners of the area's businesses. Many argued that the service was unnecessary in an area associated with ostentatious wealth, while others took umbrage with the political slogans covering the premises. One was even translated for the benefit of English-speaking tourists: “We are fighting for an Argentina in which the dogs of the rich don't eat better than the children of the poor.”

The property belongs to Miguel Doñate, a businessman, who ceded its use to Mr Castells, perhaps because of a dispute with the commission that administers the district. The restaurant will serve tea, soup, stew and bread. For wealthier visitors, there is a souvenir shop that works on an exchange system: two litres of cooking oil for a key ring or two kilos of meat for a T-shirt.

Tax drive

The Buenos Aires provincial government has run into legal problems with a controversial bid to increase tax revenues. Motorists have fought back against a ruling in December that gave tax authorities the right to seize vehicles worth upwards of $10,000 with unpaid licence fees at over 10% of their value. This law generated several high-profile cases, including one of a motorist in March who locked himself and his wife in his BMW for several hours to avoid having it impounded by tax inspectors. The man retained his car only after pledging to start paying off the arrears a few days later. The stand-off, which was shown live on national television, generated a flood of payments from car-owners.

Several motorists have filed lawsuits arguing that the confiscations infringe on property rights. Enrique Arbizu, a judge from the city of Mar del Plata, ruled twice in favour of protesting motorists in March. But the tax authorities show no signs of backing down. Santiago Montoya, the provincial tax chief, will appeal Mr Arbizu's rulings, and has publicly slammed judges “who issue restraining orders in 48 hours, while taking an average of 101 days to approve a measure designed to collect taxes.”

Gently does it

In an about-face, the Buenos Aires provincial legislature will give judges more discretion when deciding whether to let prisoners out on bail. The decision on March 8th reverses the policy of the former provincial governor, Carlos Ruckauf, who increased mandatory sentences and reduced the possibility of bail six years ago. But these so-called “firm hand” measures did little to reduce crime, though they nearly doubled the number of prisoners in the province's jails to around 25,000. Around 80% of these inmates still await sentencing, and only 5% have been convicted. Meanwhile, another 3,000 unconvicted prisoners are held in the province's police stations, which are not equipped for long-term stays.

These unfortunate numbers, together with the inhumane conditions of the province's jails, did much to force the hand of the legislature. Eduardo Di Rocco, the provincial justice minister, defended the reform from accusations that the authorities were going soft on crime. “It is clear that the ‘firm hand’ policy was an absolute failure”, he lamented.

No laughing matter

The provincial emergency phone service, introduced to considerable fanfare in early 2005, is not being taken seriously by most callers. The 911 service, which connects users directly to the police, is available to around 10m residents in Buenos Aires province. But in the first 13 months of operations, a colossal 85% of the 10.2m calls received by the service were false alerts or pranks. The authorities reckon the majority of such calls are jokes, but fear that criminals may be making them to distract police attention. In response, the emergency authorities have introduced draconian punishments for pranksters, including fines of over $10,000 and up to 60 days in prison.

Catch if you can

April 2006

Buenos Aires International Independent Cinema Festival

April 11th-23rd 2006

Although local officials have tried to keep the details of the event under wraps, the city’s eighth annual film festival promises to be even more extensive than last year's, which featured over 400 films by established and emerging film-makers from around the world. The centre of the festival will be the competition for Best Film, with around a dozen films judged by an international panel. A range of other prizes will be handed out as well, with Argentina’s promising crop of young film-makers competing for the Argentine Best Film award. Don’t miss the festival’s series of retrospectives and other related events, from conferences and book presentations to a presentation of video clips.

Various times and venues. See the website for details.

More from the Buenos Aires cultural calendar

Economist.com Cities Guide: Johannesburg Briefing - April 2006

News this month

Think locally

South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) passed a test of confidence in the local elections on March 1st. Despite mounting criticism for failing to improve the basic quality of life, the ANC was easily re-elected with 66% of the vote, an only slightly smaller victory than the last poll, when the party won 70%. Still, some areas boycotted the election, and national participation was under 50%. The ANC also suffered a severe setback in Cape Town, where the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA), together with a coalition of smaller parties, snagged the majority of council seats, as well as the mayoralty.

The election follows a year of protests against the ANC from people who are still living without proper housing, running water, sanitation or electricity—services they say should have been delivered after apartheid. In Johannesburg, the ANC scored 62% of the vote, winning 136 of the 217 council seats; the DA only took 59 seats, with 27% of the votes. The ANC's Amos Masondo was re-elected as Johannesburg's executive mayor. But after five years as city manager, Pascal Moloi is moving to the private sector. The city will reportedly appoint his replacement by early April.

Disorder in the court

After a false start in February, the Johannesburg trial of Jacob Zuma, South Africa’s disgraced former Deputy President, began in earnest in March. Mr Zuma is defending himself against charges of rape. He does not deny having unprotected sex with his accuser—an HIV-positive family friend who regarded him as a father-figure—in his Johannesburg home in November. But he maintains that the sex was consensual. In February his lawyers pressured the presiding judge to step down, and now they are calling the police investigation into question. They are also raising doubts about the alleged victim's credibility by claiming she is mentally unstable, probing her sexual history and suggesting she made false charges of rape in the past.

These tactics, together with anonymous death threats towards the defendant, have prompted demonstrators to gather near the courthouse in her support, alongside Mr Zuma's own backers. The trial has ignited debate over women’s rights in South Africa, which has one of the highest incidences of rape in the world.

Grudge on the tracks

A controversial scheme to restructure Transnet, a state-owned transport company, sparked a national strike of thousands of workers on March 13th. Plans to restructure Transnet have been in the works for years, as the government tries to improve service from some state-owned companies while increasing infrastructure investment. Transnet officials want to sell non-core assets, worth about 7.7 billion rand (about $1.1 billion), to narrow its operations to freight transport. But trade unions fear that this move will cost up to 30,000 jobs and undermine pensions and working conditions. They also demand further talks with Transnet management. Company officials claim that fears of job-loss are overblown and that they have consulted organised labour plenty.

The dispute triggered a series of local strikes by Transnet workers in January and February, culminating in a national strike in March. Leaving train commuters to fend for themselves, strikers marched through downtown Johannesburg to Transnet’s headquarters to deliver their list of demands. The dispute remains unresolved, though the government has decided to delay the transfer of Metrorail, Transnet’s commuter-train service, to the department of transport from April 1st to early May, to avert another strike.

And the Oscar goes to...

South Africans were elated when a local production won the Academy Award for best foreign language film on March 5th. “Tsotsi”, based on a novel by Athol Fugard, follows the tribulations of a Johannesburg gangster after he steals a car, unaware that a baby is in the back seat. This was the second South African film nominated in two years: “Yesterday”, a story of a rural woman infected with HIV/AIDS, failed to win the prize last year.

Gavin Hood, the director, and the main actors of “Tsotsi” got a hero's welcome when they flew back to Johannesburg on March 12th. They have since been touring townships and attending swank events to celebrate their success. The prize is expected to be a boon for the film industry in South Africa, already a popular destination for the shooting of foreign commercials. Meanwhile, pirated DVDs of the film are circulating in Johannesburg, much to the displeasure of Mr Hood. “When you buy a DVD you are giving your money to criminals who are in the business of investing in nothing but their greedy souls,” he told the Sunday Times newspaper.

Finding your roots

Johannesburg may soon be a hotspot for lovers of hominid fossils. In December the Maropeng visitor centre opened at the Cradle of Humankind, the world’s richest hominid fossil site, and on March 8th Thabo Mbeki, South Africa’s president, helped launch the Origins Centre at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. The centre traces the history of humankind through multimedia displays and an impressive collection of rock art from the San hunter-gatherers, the oldest surviving inhabitants of the region. The centre includes a DNA-testing facility for visitors to explore their genetic ancestry.

Catch if you can

April 2006

Soweto Gospel Choir

April 15th-22nd 2006

The Soweto Gospel Choir was created in 2002, with 26 singers plucked from churches in Soweto. The choir, which performs in six of South Africa’s 11 official languages, has ascended quickly: it has already earned several awards, including Australia’s Performing Arts Award and the American Gospel Music Award. In 2003 the choir even created its own foundation for AIDS orphans, financed from concert proceeds.

Following a successful international tour, this young and dynamic choir celebrates its homecoming at the Civic Theatre. The programme will feature a wide range of styles, from traditional African gospel to contemporary standards, and the choir will perform both a capella and with a four-piece band. Foot-tapping rhythms and contagious dancing are guaranteed.
Johannesburg Civic Theatre, Loveday St, Braamfontein, Johannesburg. Tel: +27 (0) 11 877-6800. For tickets, visit Computicket's website.

More from the Johannesburg cultural calendar

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

News this month

Baseball blues

Revelations about Barry Bonds, a top slugger for the San Francisco Giants, have undermined his reputation as a sports hero. With 708 career home runs, he is just shy of Babe Ruth’s second-place record of 714, but a new book called “Game of Shadows”, written by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, both reporters at the San Francisco Chronicle, attributes his performance to steroids. In an excerpt published in early March in Sports Illustrated, a national magazine, they argue that Mr Bonds has used a wide array of performance-enhancing drugs since 1998.

Three years ago Messrs Fainaru-Wada and Williams broke the story about Mr Bonds’s ties to BALCO, a Bay Area sports-nutrition firm that was distributing drugs to top international athletes. The book is a product of countless interviews and sources, including previously confidential documents from the BALCO court case. According to the baseball-player's former mistress, Mr Bonds started using drugs because he did not like being overshadowed by Mark McGwire, a St Louis Cardinals player who broke the record for most home runs in a season in 1998. Besides possibly keeping Mr Bonds out of baseball's Hall of Fame, these allegations could lead to his prosecution for lying to a grand jury in 2003 when he denied using steroids.

Cell out

The future of stem-cell research in California is now up to the courts. State voters approved Proposition 71—the California Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative—in 2004, to create a research institute from the sale of $3 billion in state bonds over ten years. But anti-abortion groups and taxpayer organisations swiftly filed two lawsuits to block the initiative on procedural grounds. In a cunning move, these groups have tossed aside moral objections to ask instead who will oversee the distribution of taxpayer-funded research grants.

Plaintiffs in a trial that ended recently in Alameda County argued that the committee charged with distributing research grants—valued in billions of dollars—represents the interests of universities and private organisations, not those of the state. A state attorney argued, however, that California's treasurer and legislature have ultimate authority over the institute’s funding and operations. A judge is expected to rule before the end of March, but both sides have said they will appeal to the state Supreme Court if the verdict goes against them.

Ferrymen in short supply

A legal row about lethal injection halted the execution of a 46-year-old inmate at San Quentin jail and has raised questions about the role of doctors in carrying out death sentences. Michael Morales was scheduled to receive the death penalty on February 21st for the rape and murder in 1981 of a 17-year-old girl. He had requested a stay of execution, arguing that California’s methods for administering the lethal mix of drugs carried a risk of error. A federal judge ordered the execution to proceed, on the condition that two anaesthesiologists were present to ensure Mr Morales did not regain consciousness. But the doctors backed out at the last minute on ethical grounds, forcing the judge to halt the execution.

A hearing has been scheduled in May to consider whether lethal injection violates constitutional rights. In April, the US Supreme Court will hear arguments on the matter when it considers the case of a Florida man scheduled to die by lethal injection. Meanwhile the California Medical Association, the state’s largest professional body of doctors, is sponsoring legislation to make it illegal for state doctors to play any role in executions, even to pronounce a prisoner dead.

Disarm and be damned

A San Francisco politician proclaimed on national television that America would be better without military forces, thereby confirming a Republican maxim that San Francisco is a leftist outpost, out of touch with reality. Gerardo Sandoval made his remark in an interview on a Fox News show called “Hannity and Colmes”. Sean Hannity, the show's conservative host, had invited Mr Sandoval to discuss where a retired battleship might best be docked. After explaining that a warship was not a suitable tourist attraction for San Francisco, Mr Sandoval continued to say “America should unilaterally disarm”.

Brushing aside consternation from Mr Hannity's leftist co-host, Alan Colmes, Mr Sandoval said that the money saved on a standing army could then be diverted into children’s education, explaining that the military had done America little good in the last five years. Though Mr Sandoval’s comments were not so out of touch with local sensibilities—some in the city want to impeach President Bush—they did not sit well with all San Franciscans. “The best that could be said for San Francisco Supervisor Gerardo Sandoval was that he was caught off guard,” lamented a San Francisco Chronicle editorial on February 20th. “He not only lunged into the trap, he bungled every conceivable opportunity to escape.”

Mayhem in Oakland

Oakland, ten miles east of San Francisco, does not have enough police officers to deal with a surge in violent crime, according to the town's city council. This year 27 people have been killed in homicides, nearly double the number murdered by this time last year. The council had considered calling a state of emergency to redeploy officers, in response to complaints from residents who say they have been accosted by robbers, gunmen and drug dealers, often outside their homes. Locals report that violent crime is no longer confined to Oakland’s traditionally tough neighbourhoods, but is spilling into more affluent areas.

This is not good news for Jerry Brown, the outgoing mayor. Now running for state attorney general, he spent the past eight years working in Oakland to attract business development and reduce crime. While overall violent crime has dropped on his watch, the homicide rate has been inching up, from 60 deaths in 1999 to 88 in 2005. Meanwhile, Wayne Tucker, the police chief, plans to put more officers on the street by shuffling schedules and reassigning desk officers to patrol. A state of emergency—which would have let Mr Tucker enact this plan without seeking police-union approval—was averted when the union reluctantly agreed to put more officers on the streets.

Catch if you can

March 2006

Napa Valley Mustard Festival

Until April 1st 2006

Most tourists flock to Napa Valley during summer holidays or the autumn harvest. But it is in the late winter and early spring, when wild mustard cloaks the vineyards with brilliant hues of gold and green, that the area becomes surprisingly magical. California’s best-known wine country hosts a three-month Mustard Festival from late January to April, with weekend activities celebrating the region’s food, art, culture and—of course—wine. Events this year include: a visual arts competition at St Supery Vineyards; a jazz festival on March 11th in Calistoga; and the Taste of Yountville on March 25th, a fair replete with gourmet food, olive oils and fine wines produced in the town that hosts the famous French Laundry restaurant.

The Mustard Festival’s “signature” event is the Marketplace, on the weekend of March 18th. This takes place at COPIA (the American Centre for Wine, Food and the Arts in Napa) and features cooking demonstrations by celebrity chefs, as well as live performances by jazz, world and classical musicians.

Napa Valley Mustard Festival. Tel: + 1 (707) 938-1133. For more information, visit the festival’s website.

More from the San Francisco cultural calendar

Economist.com Cities Guide: Zurich Briefing - March 2006

News this month

Fowl play

Zurich picked up its first case of bird flu in early March when a sick coot removed from the Rhine near the village of Feuerthalen tested positive for the virus. Subsequent tests conducted in England confirmed that the bird had been carrying the highly infectious H5N1 strain of the virus. Feuerthalen and ten other Zurich communities had already been put on alert following a case of bird flu in the neighbouring canton of Schaffhausen. Owners of domestic fowl in the area have been ordered to keep their birds under quarantine and are being prevented from exporting poultry products—with the exception of eggs, which are not thought capable of carrying the virus.

Days after the Feuerthalen find, Zurich’s cantonal government took part in a special meeting of the International Lake Constance Conference—an organisation representing lakeside local authorities from Switzerland, Germany, Austria and Liechtenstein. The meeting highlighted differences in the nations’ response to bird flu, but ended with a promise to quickly pool all information relating to further outbreaks. By March 10th there were nine confirmed cases of bird flu in Switzerland. The Swiss public has been told to inform authorities if they see any wild birds, particularly swans, showing signs of illness or lethargy.

For richer, for poorer

Zurich’s cantonal parliament has decided to enter the long-running national debate over “tax discrimination” against married couples. On March 7th the body voted 91 to 72 in favour of a Green Party motion calling on the canton to put the subject before Switzerland’s national parliament. Under current national regulations, married working couples are forced to submit a joint tax form; the resulting combined income lifts them into higher tax bands than unmarried working couples, who file their tax returns separately.

Supported by the left-of-centre Social Democrats and centrist Radical Party, the Greens argued that a reform of the tax law would both end discrimination and bring more women into the Swiss labour market, stimulating economic growth. Opponents, including the Swiss People’s Party and the Christian Democrats, claimed that separate tax forms for married couples would increase tax office expenditure by up to 50%, with around 300,000 additional forms to be processed. The measure’s opponents will probably win in the end, as such cantonal initiatives rarely meet with success.

A resurrection

Zurich’s cantonal education department has agreed to reintroduce religious education into primary schools, less than two years after scrapping Bible classes from the curriculum. The department axed the classes in August 2004 in a bid to cut around SFr3m ($2.3m) from its annual budget, but soon found itself facing hefty opposition. Two-thirds of Zurich’s districts continued with the classes at their own expense, while Christian and parental groups succeeded in raising the 50,000 signatures necessary to call a popular vote on the issue.

Forced into a U-turn, the education department now plans to introduce a course that includes instruction on the five main world religions, with an emphasis on Christianity. The new classes, which still require approval from the cantonal parliament, would be compulsory. Parents were previously able to withdraw their children from the Bible-only classes if they felt the subject clashed with their own religious or spiritual beliefs.

Hooli-gone?

With just over two years to go until Switzerland co-hosts the 2008 European football championship, the country’s national parliament has approved a raft of controversial measures to help crack down on hooliganism. On March 7th Switzerland’s upper house of parliament followed the lower house in approving the new laws, which will enable police forces from separate Swiss regions to share information on known or suspected hooligans and set up a database aimed at preventing sports-related violence. The police will also be able to issue travel bans, stadium bans and, in extreme cases, take suspects into 24-hour preventative custody.

But the new laws will only stay on the books until 2009, due to fears that they might be challenged on constitutional grounds. Critics have argued that the measures could flout the autonomous rights of Switzerland’s cantons and possibly even fall foul of the country’s strict data privacy rules.

Let there be light

Zurich’s nights won’t be quite so dark, thanks to a SFr8m project aimed at illuminating several main bridges, squares and pedestrian areas at night. The city’s parliament met in March to approve “Plan Lumière”, which follows on from a SFr1.75m pilot project launched in 2004 that lit up the central Rudolf Brun and Münster bridges, the Affoltern train station and the Hardturm viaduct. Following the decision to expand the scheme, six more bridges will be illuminated along with nine other streets, squares, platforms and parking areas.

Catch if you can

March 2006

Sechseläuten

April 23rd & 24th 2006

Zurich’s annual springtime festival offers a unique way to usher in warmer weather. Beginning with a children’s parade on Sunday, the Sechseläuten builds to a climax on Monday with a procession of the city’s once-powerful guilds. This culminates with an explosive finale in front of the opera house: a large bonfire is lit, with a three-metre tall effigy of a snowman, known as the “Böögg”, perched on top. According to local tradition, the quicker the Böögg’s firework-filled head explodes, the better the summer will be. This madness begins at six o’clock sharp—Sechseläuten derives its name from the six o’clock bells that were traditionally rung to tell workers in springtime when to down their tools.

The main Monday procession begins on Untere Bahnhofstrasse (near Zurich's main train station) at 3pm, moving towards Sechseläutenplatz (opposite the opera house) in time for the 6pm burning of the Böögg. Tickets for seated places: SFr10-20 (standing places free). For further details see this website.

More from the Zurich cultural calendar

A new fuel fix: boon or bane?

from the June 23, 2005 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0623/p13s01-sten.html

The US increases natural-gas imports to meet energy demands. Will it create a new dependency?

By Mark Clayton Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

FALL RIVER, MASS. - Climbing to the top of a dizzyingly curved stairway welded to the side of a huge cylindrical tank, Tom Gehrig thinks he can see America's energy future.

It's a gargantuan tank - dwarfing the one he's standing on - which he would build here in Fall River, Mass., to hold 200,000 cubic meters of imported liquefied natural gas. LNG would help meet the United States' growing energy needs, but this project has sparked protests by residents of this working-class city, worried about terrorist attacks. "I'm a believer in free markets," says Mr. Gehrig, president of Weaver's Cove Energy, gazing across the site. "If people don't want LNG, the question I would ask them back is: 'What are you going to do?' "

What indeed?

For three decades, the US has coped - sometimes uncomfortably - with its growing reliance on foreign oil. But at least that dependence was limited to transportation, while domestic coal and gas continued to power the nation's factories and heat its homes. Now, the rising price of domestic natural gas has triggered a plan to dampen those price hikes by bringing in foreign LNG.

That may be smart economics, at least in the short term. But some analysts worry that in the long run, the US may be setting itself up to become dependent on a second foreign fuel, just as it has become increasingly dependent on foreign oil since the 1970s.

"All we're talking about doing is replacing one dependency with another," says Gal Luft, executive director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security in Washington, D.C., a think tank focused on energy security issues. "The main sources of natural gas are located in the Middle East and Russia. So we're talking about the same sort of problem."

Some of the parallels are uncanny. The US is largely self-sufficient in generating electricity. Nearly half comes from coal, 20 percent is nuclear, about 18 percent is powered by natural gas, and the rest comes from hydropower and other renewable sources. Excluding gas piped in from Canada and Mexico, natural-gas imports (in the form of LNG) made up about 3 percent of US demand last year.

That will almost certainly change. Imports of LNG - the liquid form of natural gas, supercooled to 260 degrees below zero so it can be transported by tankers - could rise to 21 percent of total US gas consumption by 2025, according to the Department of Energy. Some economists who have looked at the issue say it could easily rise to 25 to 30 percent by then. That's roughly the share of oil imported to the US when the first energy crisis hit in the 1970s.

"There are certainly people who are worried about the US trading one form of energy dependence for another," says Reid Detchon, executive director of the Energy Future Coalition. His group recently proposed a plan for added US energy security that includes LNG imports - but only warily. "If LNG became a principal source of energy for the US and demand rises around the world, we're going to have problems in the future similar to those that we have with oil today," he notes

There are some mitigating factors, however. For one, nations with the potential to export LNG may be more numerous and far more geographically diverse than the current oil-producing nations, some experts note.

Known global reserves are estimated at 5,500 trillion cubic feet. To tap that, more than 60 new LNG liquefaction facilities that can chill the gas to a liquid for transport are in planning or construction phases, according to Henry Lee, director of the Environmental and Natural Resources Program at Harvard University. Norway, Russia, Egypt, Iran, Venezuela, and Peru, among many others, hope to join Indonesia, Oman, Algeria, Nigeria, Libya, Australia, and the United Arab Emirates as exporters.

But building a liquefaction facility would require an upfront investment of $1 billion or more. Once they invested that amount, few nations would be likely to reduce production or cut off supplies, Dr. Lee concludes.

"Factors that contribute to vulnerabilities that industrialized nations have with oil are simply not present with LNG and natural gas," Lee says in an interview. His recent study of LNG markets notes security concerns, but concludes that fears of a future LNG cartel cutting off supplies "are overstated." Instead, there are "significant benefits, in terms of supply, by bringing in more LNG," he says.

Others think so, too. New supplies of LNG are "an economic imperative," declared a report last month by the New England Council, an alliance of business and government leaders. It calls for construction of new LNG import facilities "somewhere in New England within the next several years."

Natural-gas supplies are indeed tight nationwide. Spot prices have more than tripled since 2000. The roots of the current challenge, however, lie in federal policy. During the energy crisis years, President Carter signed the National Energy Act of 1978, which deregulated natural gas, but also prohibited electric utilities from burning natural gas. That move was intended to save the fuel for heating homes.

But after fuel prices fell, the Reagan administration dropped that policy. Gas-fired power plants became popular, not only because their fuel was cheap, but because they had far cleaner exhaust, cost far less to build, and were easier to site than their coal-fired counterparts.

The industry went on a construction spree, adding 128,000 megawatts of new gas-fired electric generators since 1990. In New England alone, more than 20 gas-fired power plants have been built since 1998. Today the power sector consumes about a quarter of the nation's natural gas. That's expected to grow as electricity generation from natural gas rises from 18 percent today to 24 percent by 2025, according to the Department of Energy. The need for natural gas to run those plants and others in planning stages is driving the US abroad for LNG.

The nation already has five LNG-importing facilities. Energy men like Gehrig say the nation's future depends on building more of them. At least 40 such facilities are planned or are already under construction in the US, Lee reports. The Weaver's Cove facility - a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amerada Hess Corp. and Poten & Partners - could supply up to 10 percent of New England's natural-gas needs by itself, Gehrig says.

Of course, at 185 feet high and nearly a football field wide, the LNG tank would also contain the energy equivalent of a sizable nuclear bomb. That's why many Fall River residents, the city's mayor, and other politicians oppose the Weaver's Cove facility on grounds it would be an ideal terrorist target.

In the nearly 80 years that Lillian Correia has lived in the little blue two-story home across from a defunct textile mill in Fall River, this daughter of an Azorean immigrant mother never lived in fear for her life. Now she's not so sure. In front of her home, in the middle of her flower garden, stands a bright red and white "No LNG" sign - one of a sprinkling of such signs up and down North Main Street. It's why her dining room table is spilling over with fliers she is mailing to neighbors informing them of an LNG protest rally and picnic. "We realize the area needs more energy," she says. "But we're against putting this LNG facility in the middle of this heavily populated city.... To be honest, I'm really not so sure our country needs this thing as bad as they say we do."

One of the hottest battles in Congress is over a provision of the new energy bill that would grant most authority for siting LNG facilities to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and others are fighting to have state and local authorities retain a substantial share of control. By the end of the month, FERC is expected to vote up or down on the new LNG facility in Fall River.

Caught between high gas prices and concerns about terrorism, the US has energy alternatives - albeit controversial ones. Renewable energy and energy efficiency could cut natural-gas prices by 20 percent and save the nation $100 billion within five years, says the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, a think tank. "The US won't be able to avoid at least some use of LNG," says Steven Nadel, executive director of ACEEE. "But we have to ask ourselves how dependent do we want to become on foreign energy?"

In December, the National Commission on Energy Policy released a report calling for more imported LNG to meet rising natural-gas demand as well as a host of energy-saving measures. But there are few signs the energy-saving proposals are being picked up, says Susan Tierney, an NCEP board member.

Scenarios involving energy efficiency often have been met with skepticism. The nation's energy architect, Vice President Dick Cheney, called energy efficiency "a sign of personal virtue" in 2001, but otherwise dismissed the idea that it was a true alternative to energy development. In an April speech, President Bush declared that "our dependence on foreign energy is like a foreign tax on the American people." But moments later he was pushing to "expand our use of liquefied natural gas" by building more coastal LNG terminals.

Meanwhile, Royal Dutch/Shell is reportedly looking at scenarios two decades from now, when natural gas may dethrone oil as the world's most important energy source.

• Last article in an occasional series. Parts 1 and 2 appeared May 5 and 19.

Full HTML version of this story which may include photos, graphics, and related links

www.csmonitor.com Copyright © 2005 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights reserved.