Economist.com Cities Guide: Berlin Briefing - July 2006

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Everyone's a winner

After a nail-biting final in Berlin, Italy claimed its fourth World Cup on July 9th by beating France 5-3 on penalties. Germany, the host country, came third after beating Portugal on July 8th, but emerged as a definite winner off the pitch. It is too early to predict the economic effects, but analysts hope the month-long euphoria that reigned in Germany will boost consumer confidence. Some industries have already seen benefits: Deutsche Telekom, a telecommunications giant, announced an additional turnover of €350m ($447m) during the tournament; German Rail carried 5m extra passengers; and some sponsors, such as Continental, a tyre-manufacturer, have said the games nearly doubled their name-recognition abroad.

The tournament itself was a definite success. All 64 games were sold out, with an average of 51,000 fans attending each one. And the largest public-viewing area, the so-called "Fan Mile" in Berlin, which stretched two kilometres from the Brandenburg Gate to the Siegessäule monument and broadcast the live games on giant screens, was an enormous hit-police estimate that around 1m came to watch the Germany-Sweden match. One of many free official public-viewing areas in Germany, it was extended in time for the final. These zones, not to mention the fine weather, helped Germany to be a warm host.

Crashing the party

The festive mood on the Fan Mile was dampened on July 2nd when a car drove through barriers near the Brandenburg Gate at about 50km per hour, injuring over 20 people. The driver and his passenger were taken in for questioning by the police. Witnesses say the crash did not appear to be accidental, but no explosives were found in the vehicle. Thankfully no games were being staged at the time, so the area was relatively empty.

Despite worries of terrorist attacks or right-wing extremist violence, the incident was the only big breach in security during the entire World Cup. A record 6,000 police officers were deployed throughout Berlin during the more popular games, with many posted along the Fan Mile. They have been widely praised for being efficient, unobtrusive and-surprisingly for Berlin's usually brusque police force-even friendly.

Looking on the bright side

Germany's business community is more optimistic about the country's economic future than it has been in years, according to a survey published on July 1st. The study by Ernst & Young, a management consultancy, reviewed 3,000 medium-sized German firms. Almost half the respondents expect the economy to improve over the next year, with only 9% believing the situation will decline (last year 55% were naysayers). Over 80% of companies described the present state of their business as positive.

But despite the survey's overall optimism, Germany's mood varies by region. Berlin is one of the most pessimistic areas in the country-only a quarter of the companies in the city-state expect the economic situation to improve, and only 2% described the current situation as good, compared with 56% in Hamburg and a national average of 32%.

Up in the air

Berlin's proposed new international airport, scheduled to open by 2011, is once again the centre of controversy. According to Der Spiegel, a weekly political magazine, Peer Steinbrück, Germany's finance minister, wants to shrink plans for the new Berlin-Brandenburg International airport (BBI) to lower the project's cost from €3.5 billion to €2 billion. BBI is due to be built at Schönefeld, former East Germany's main airport, to replace the city's three existing airports. But Mr Steinbrück believes the project is too ambitious. Plans date back to the 1990s, when Berlin's population was predicted to grow to 5m by 2010. Since then, the city-state's population has actually decreased, to just under 3.4m, and other German airports, such as those in Frankfurt and Munich, have taken on more traffic.

However Wolfgang Tiefensee, the federal minister of transport, has rejected Mr Steinbrück's scheme. He says that making new plans would further delay BBI's construction, which has been stalled for more than a decade. The airport's backers saw a glimmer of progress in March, when they won a lengthy legal fight against the airport's future neighbours by agreeing to restrict night flights. Now the airport's supporters are waiting to see whether Mr Steinbrück's proposal gains traction.

What's in a name?

The proposed renaming of a street has sparked fierce debate in Kreuzberg, a western Berlin borough. In August 2005 the local council agreed to change the name of Kochstrasse, one of Kreuzberg's main thoroughfares, to Rudi-Dutschke-Strasse, in memory of Rudi Dutschke, a student activist in the 1960s. The move has the support of left-wing and Green politicians, but the local branch of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party has balked at the decision and gathered 5,000 signatures to petition against it. Dutschke, members of the CDU say, fought against democracy and tried to incite young people to violence.

Rudi Dutschke was a prominent and controversial leader of the German student movement of the late 1960s, and died in 1979 from injuries suffered when he was shot by a right-wing activist in 1968. He has a special legacy in Kreuzberg, where he enjoyed a large following at a time when the borough, surrounded on three sides by the Berlin Wall, was a centre of West Berlin's counter-culture. The push to name a street after Dutschke was launched by Die Tageszeitung, a left-leaning daily newspaper, which has its editorial office (already named after Dutschke) on the street in question. Whether the street becomes Rudi-Dutschke-Strasse now depends on whether the paper and left-leaning politicians are as avid in their campaigning as the CDU. Ironically, if the name is changed, Rudi-Dutschke-Strasse would lead onto Axel-Springer-Strasse-named after the late right-wing publisher of Bild, a popular tabloid newspaper and a bitter enemy of Dutschke's.

Catch if you can

July 2006

Afrika! Afrika!

Until September 2nd 2006

Africa comes to Berlin with this magical circus, presented by André Heller, an Austrian multimedia artist. Mr Heller and his team travelled for almost two years on the African continent in search of the most talented and fascinating artists. Often they found them in remote villages, in countries ranging from Mali to Morocco, Egypt to South Africa. The result is a joyous spectacle-110 dancers, singers, jugglers and acrobats exude vitality and charisma. The fairyland of fantasy and imagination begins as soon as you enter the main 26-metre-high circus tent, set up near Berlin's shiny new main railway station, where eight smaller Bedouin-like tents house an African café, restaurant, art exhibition and bazaar.

Zeltpaläste, next to the new Hauptbahnhof. Tel: +49 (0)1805 725 299. Performances: Tues-Sun. See website. Tickets are €25-69 (€1 from each ticket goes to UNESCO for art schools in Africa).

More from the Berlin cultural calendar

Economist.com Cities Guide: Dubai Briefing - July 2006

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Unequal opportunities

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) government has given all companies operating in the country—excluding small businesses and those in the “free zones” such as Dubai International Finance Centre and Dubai Media City—18 months to remove expatriates employed as secretaries or human-resource managers. This is the government’s boldest move yet in its policy of “Emiratisation”, the process of replacing expatriates with native workers. Until now such rules applied only to the banking sector, in which UAE nationals must make up around 40% of the workforce—the quota varies from bank to bank. (This sector was chosen once government research had found that Emiratis saw jobs in banking as the most prestigious, after those in government.) Now the government is shifting its efforts from sectors to particular jobs. By targeting human-resource managers, the government clearly hopes that Emiratis in these roles will hire more Emiratis. But many companies are furious with the policy, and some may move to the expensive “free zones” to evade it.

In theory, Emiratis should have not problem finding work. They make up under one-fifth of the UAE’s estimated 3.2m population, and the country's economy is predicted to grow by 10.5% in 2006, so there are plenty of new jobs—particularly in Dubai, a regional hub for service industries such as banking, tourism and media. In practice, though, it is a challenge: even Emirati firms prefer hiring expatriates from Asia and Europe, who are seen as cheaper, better qualified and harder working. Emiratis themselves often prefer to work in the public sector, where hours are shorter, salaries higher and conditions less stressful.

Cracking down

As part of the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) effort to polish its human-rights record, a bill to fight human trafficking moved forward in July. A panel of ministers, led by Mohammad bin Nakhira al-Dhaheri, the justice minister, approved a bill laying out harsh punishment for human trafficking. The draft law is broad in scope, criminalising organisers, accomplices and anyone who conceals an offender or victim in matters such as forced labour and sexual exploitation. The most serious perpetrators could be sentenced to life in prison. The bill, which must still be approved by the cabinet, also calls for a new committee dedicated to fighting human trafficking.

The crackdown comes just one month after America’s State Department released its annual “Trafficking in Persons” report, which found that while the UAE has made “significant efforts” to fight the problem, the area remains a hub for exploitation. The bill is only the most recent sign of the UAE’s zeal to improve its image abroad as it cultivates its role as a regional business hub. Last summer the UAE banned the use of children in camel racing—previously children as young as five had been shipped from Asia and Africa to be jockeys—and established a compulsory mid-day break for workers in the hot summer months.

Price sensitive

Dubai has shot up a cost-of-living ranking of the world’s leading cities. The recent survey of 144 cities by Mercer Human Resources Consulting ranked Dubai as the 25th-most-expensive city, a big leap upwards from 73rd place in 2005. Rising rents are the main culprit: the cost of leasing a flat has roughly doubled in the past two years, with thousands of expatriate workers and their families arriving to fuel Dubai's booming economy.

The rent increases have sparked concern that Dubai could lose its competitive edge to local rivals such as Bahrain, or to Indian cities such as Bangalore, a mere two hours' flight away. Developers say the construction of hundreds of thousands of new flats by 2008 should ease inflation, but for Dubai that may come too late. The 2006 “Cost of Living Dubai” survey, published by Kershaw Leonard, a local recruitment firm, found that 48% of Dubai-based firms have considered relocating some or all of their business overseas in response to rising prices.

Publish and be damned

Andrew Neil, a former editor of Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper, has announced plans to launch a daily business newspaper in Dubai. It will be edited by Frank Kane, a former business editor of the Observer, and published by ITP, a Dubai-based firm run mainly by British expatriates. Mr Kane has pledged to raise journalistic standards in the region——business journalism currently involves little more than publishing press releases and cushy profiles of company executives.

Changing this culture will be hard. First, the government is the region's biggest business and has a history of censorship (the UAE ranks 100th in the annual index of press freedom published by Reporters Without Borders). Second, the press in the Gulf is shackled by its reliance on advertising revenue. This is true of media business elsewhere, but Gulf companies tend to be particularly ruthless in pulling campaigns from titles that are even vaguely critical of them. ITP sparked controversy in 2001 when it launched Time Out Dubai, the first magazine to publish genuinely critical restaurant reviews. Criticising important state-backed companies could create an even greater fuss.

Drugs rap

Dallas Austin, an American rap-music producer, had a lucky escape on July 4th when Dubai's ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, pardoned him hours after he received a four-year prison sentence. Mr Austin had pleaded guilty in a Dubai court to bringing cocaine into the emirate. Four years is the standard term for anyone caught with illegal drugs in the UAE, but Mr Austin's lawyer argued that his client was carrying them by mistake, and never intended to consume them in the emirate. Mr Austin was arrested at Dubai International Airport on May 19th, on his way to a birthday party for Naomi Campbell, a model, at the luxury Burj Al Arab hotel.

Trump card

Not to be outdone by her ex-husband Donald, Ivana Trump has teamed up with a Dubai-based property developer to design and promote luxury flats in the region. Ivana has signed a deal with privately owned Damac Properties to promote a $150m tower block in Beirut, the booming Lebanese capital. She will help design the interiors and lend her name to the development. Last year, Mr Trump signed a similar deal with Nakheel, a rival developer, also based in Dubai.

Catch if you can

July 2006

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)

August 29th-September 1st 2006

One of London's longest-running shows enjoys a short stint in Dubai this summer. This acclaimed comedy covers each of Shakespeare's 37 plays in just 97 minutes. If you fancy seeing “Othello” presented as a rap song and “Titus Andronicus” as a cooking show, plus “Hamlet” performed forwards and backwards, head to the Madinat Jumeirah resort.

Madinat Theatre, Jumeirah. Tel: +971 4 3666-550. Tickets: 135 dirhams ($37). See the hotel's website or the production's website.

More from the Dubai cultural calendar

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

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A close call

Felipe Calderón of the conservative National Action Party (PAN) seems to have won Mexico's closely fought presidential race. On July 6th election officials declared that Mr Calderón had defeated Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the centre-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) by the slender margin of 243,000 votes. The announcement followed days of uncertainty during which both candidates claimed victory.

But Mr López Obrador is refusing to throw in the towel. In what promised to be the first of a series of rallies, he addressed an estimated 300,000 supporters in Mexico City’s central square, the Zocalo, on July 8th, to allege vote-rigging. He has appealed to a special electoral court, which has until the end of August to decide whether to recount the votes or even annul the election.
Mexico City's new mayor will be Marcelo Ebrard of the PRD, who won just under half the votes cast in an election on July 2nd. The remainder was split between Demetrio Sodi, a former PRD senator who left the party to stand for the PAN, and Beatriz Paredes, the candidate of the Party of the Institutional Revolution, who came third. The result was no surprise: PRD candidates have won all mayoral contests since the office became an elected post in 1997.

Genocide redux

Luis Echeverría, Mexico's president from 1970 to 1976, was placed under house arrest on June 30th. The move came after a court issued a warrant for Mr Echeverría, who has been accused of genocide in connection with the deaths of some 300 student protestors in Mexico City in 1968. Many think Mr Echeverría, who was interior minister at the time, ordered government troops to open fire on the protestors, though he denies this.

Whatever the truth, a judge dismissed the charge eight days later, citing Mexico’s statute of limitations. Somewhat suspiciously, Mr Echeverría's arrest came two days before the country's presidential elections. A member of the PRI, he is a politically charged figure; some opponents of Mr López Obrador labelled him a populist modelled on Mr Echeverría, whose presidency is regarded by most Mexicans as disastrous.

The deluge

Flooding brought misery to some of Mexico City's poorest residents in early July. Heavy rain caused the water level in Iztapalapa and Chalco, both districts in the south-east of the city, to rise by over 1.5 metres. The army implemented an emergency rescue plan in Chalco, while fire-fighters rescued families in Iztapalapa.

As the flooding grew worse, residents of Iztapalapa blockaded Zaragoza, a main artery, calling for the area's drainage system to be improved. Germán Martínez Santoyo, the director general of Mexico City’s water system, had previously announced that work on new drainage infrastructure would begin in September, as the region’s rainy season draws to a close. It remains unclear whether the city will pay for damage caused by the flooding. Few if any residents have insurance.

Oral proceedings

A drive to hold court trials in Mexico City is gathering speed. This would be an improvement on current legal proceedings, which are paper-based, inefficient and opaque. Marcelo Ebrard, the city’s mayor-elect, has promised to create 40 new courtrooms to allow for oral arguments. Enrique Peña Nieto, the governor of the state of Mexico, which surrounds the city proper and accounts for much of the metropolitan area’s population, announced in mid-June that 18 state courtrooms would be ready by October, thanks to a 70m peso ($6.3m) budget allocation.

Several local law schools have announced plans to begin teaching oral arguments. Parallel programmes are already underway in the northern state of Nuevo Leon and in Oaxaca in the south. A reform of the federal justice system is a distant prospect, but observers hope that state-level reforms such as those launched by Messrs Ebrard and Peña Nieto will slowly improve Mexico’s judicial system.

Mind the mine

The director general of public works for Álvaro Obregón, a district just south of Mexico City's centre, has announced that three of the 21 abandoned mines in the area could collapse. Between 500 and 800 people living above them are at risk. Fortunately, the three mines are relatively small—their combined volume is only 1,500 cubic metres—so filling them should cause only minor disruption. The authorities only became aware of some of the mines recently, which has led locals to worry that more unstable mines may lie undiscovered. Thirty mines were filled as part of a project that lasted from 2002 until 2005, but more work clearly needs to be done.

Catch if you can

July 2006

Arnulf Rainer Presents the Wrong Image

Until October 31st 2006

It is difficult to take this exhibit seriously, but that’s the point. Even the exhibit’s title shows that Arnulf Rainer, a 76-year-old Austrian surrealist, is ready to jest. The works, which date from 1975 to the present, include playfully chaotic finger-paintings and inventively colourful photographs. “Faces and Farces” features photographs of a man making silly faces, with cartoonish drawings on top.

Manipulated photographs from Tenerife, one of the Canary Islands, amplify the landscape’s vitality; the best have streaks of colour cutting across the bow of a ship. Four Übermalung paintings are the most serious of the bunch, and make for a poignant counterpoint to the rest of the exhibit.

Muca Roma, Tonala 51, corner of Colima, Colonia Roma. Tel: +52 (0) 55 5511 0925. Open: Mon-Tues 10am-7pm; Sat-Sun 10am-6pm. Free admission. See the museum's website for more information.

More from the Mexico City cultural calendar

Economist.com Cities Guide: Atlanta Briefing - July 2006

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Convict Campbell

On June 13th a federal judge sentenced Bill Campbell, Atlanta's mayor from 1994 to 2002, to 2½ years in prison. He was also fined $6,300 and ordered to repay more than $62,000 in back taxes. Mr Campbell was convicted in March of tax evasion during his tenure as mayor. But he was acquitted of corruption, having been charged with taking cash bribes for city contracts and spending the money on gambling and trips to Paris with his mistress. A seven-year federal investigation of Mr Campbell’s administration has helped convict ten of the former mayor’s subordinates. Mr Campbell, who is appealing against the sentence, has yet to turn himself in. But it seems likely that he will serve the time in jail, albeit in a facility close to the home he shares with his wife in Florida.

Atlantans are divided over the former mayor's legacy. Some politicians, including Bob Holmes, a Democratic state representative, have praised Mr Campbell for presiding over a period of strong economic growth and hosting the Olympic Games in 1996. But Shirley Franklin, who succeeded Mr Campbell as mayor in 2002, said she was surprised her predecessor did not express any remorse over his apparent mishandling of the city's finances.

A Reed in the wind

With the primaries for Georgia’s governorship looming on July 18th, Ralph Reed, a Republican candidate for lieutenant-governor, is floundering. In Georgia, the offices of governor and lieutenant-governor are elected separately. Sonny Perdue, the current governor, is expected to win the Republican nomination with ease; the lieutenant-governor’s race is a much closer call. On June 23rd the Senate Indian Affairs Committee revealed that in the late 1990s Mr Reed received $5.3m from an organisation run by Jack Abramoff, a disgraced lobbyist at the centre of a federal investigation. Mr Reed, a former head of the Christian Coalition, a conservative lobbying group, has not been charged with a crime, but is alleged to have taken the money to lobby against casinos that would have competed with Mr Abramoff’s clients.

This was good news for Casey Cagle, who is vying with Mr Reed for the Republican nomination. The contest between the two has turned nasty, with each candidate attacking the other in television advertisements. Mr Reed has accused Mr Cagle of supporting eminent domain, while Mr Cagle has highlighted Mr Reed's connections with Enron. In Georgia, a conservative state, the stakes in the Republican primary are high because whoever triumphs is expected to beat the Democratic candidate for the job.

Fit for a king

The city of Atlanta has agreed to pay $32m for the papers of Martin Luther King. The collection, comprising over 10,000 notes, letters and drafts of speeches (including an early version of his famous “I have a dream” speech), will be housed at Morehouse College, King’s alma mater, and eventually become the centrepiece of a planned civil-rights museum. King grew up in Atlanta and was, like his father, a preacher at Ebenezer Baptist Church on Auburn Avenue.

King’s four children—Martin Luther III, Dexter, Yolanda and Bernice—had planned to auction the papers on June 30th. But the collection was saved for the city after Shirley Franklin, Atlanta’s mayor, scraped together enough short-term financing to secure the papers. Several Atlanta-based companies, including Delta Airlines and Coca-Cola, have promised to help pay the bill.

Some observers have criticised the King children for trying to profit from their father’s work—two of them once drew six-figure salaries from the King Centre, a museum founded by King’s late wife, Coretta Scott King. But Ms Franklin rose to their defence: “Dr King copyrighted his own work,” she told reporters, “so he expected that it would have value and expected it would be part of the legacy.”

The shock of the newer

Atlanta’s modernist buildings are facing the wrecking ball as a wave of development transforms the city. Modernist architecture, known for its emphasis on clean lines, industrial materials and form-follows-function aesthetic, grew popular in Atlanta in the 1950s, when the city was becoming the region’s business hub. The Equitable Building, completed in 1968, is probably Atlanta's best-known modernist structure and is in no danger of destruction. But lesser-known buildings are not expected to survive growing demand for new condominiums and office space. The former First National Bank of Atlanta at 615 Peachtree, the city’s largest example of modernism, is scheduled for demolition this summer. It will be replaced by a 30-storey mixed-use tower, to be named Fox Plaza.

Many are now looking to protect Atlanta’s modernist buildings. The Georgia chapter of DOCOMOMO, an international architecture advocacy group, has been working to deflect threats to local modernist structures, even unloved ones such as the Atlanta Constitution building, which no longer houses the newspaper it was named after and has been slated for demolition since 1995. There have been encouraging signs of progress: a bank building on Monroe Drive, built in 1965, is enjoying new life as PieBar, a chic pizzeria, and a campaign is underway to save Paschal’s Restaurant, once a meeting place for civil-rights leaders.

Harry Potter and the Unhappy Mum

It is said that children suffer from the corrupting influences of television, video games and the internet. But Harry Potter? Laura Mallory, a mother from Loganville, a town east of Atlanta, has demanded the removal of the popular “Harry Potter” books from her children’s elementary school, on the grounds that the bespectacled young hero promotes witchcraft. The Gwinnett school board and a panel comprising teachers and parents voted to keep the books, but Ms Mallory is appealing against the decision to the state board of education, which will debate the issue publicly in October. She may be appeased when the seventh and last Harry Potter book is published: J.K. Rowling, their author, has hinted that Harry might die in the series' final volume.

Catch if you can

July 2006

National Black Arts Festival

July 14th-23rd 2006

Now in its 19th year, the National Black Arts Festival (NBAF) has become one of the country’s biggest celebrations of African-American art and culture. The festival’s clout ensures that its events, which include dance, music, literature, art and film, are peppered with big names. This year Maya Angelou, a writer, performs a one-woman show based on W.E.B. DuBois’s “The Souls of Black Folk”; Charlayne Hunter-Gault, a journalist (and the first black woman admitted to the University of Georgia), and Pearl Cleage, a poet and playwright, discuss Africa and creativity; and Phylicia Rashad and T.C. Carson, both actors, lead a series of readings to honour August Wilson, a Pulitzer-prize winning playwright who chronicled the African-American experience.

This year’s festival also includes a series of African films, exhibits at the High Museum of Art and the Carter Centre, a “Gospel and Soul Fest”, and two art markets, at Greenbriar Mall in DeKalb County and at Atlantic Station.

Various venues. For more information and a schedule of events, see the festival’s website.

More from the Atlanta cultural calendar

Economist.com Cities Guide: Tokyo Briefing - July 2006

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Age concerns

Japan's ageing, shrinking population—the result of a falling birth rate and high life expectancy—has long been a worry. Preliminary figures from a 2005 census, released at the end of June, confirmed the worst: with 21% of its population aged 65 or over, Japan has shuffled past Italy to become the world's oldest country. The swelling ranks of the silver-haired present Japan with a range of problems, such as a dwindling workforce and a rising demand for pensions. Many are also wondering just how these ageing people will spend their time. There is rising concern, for example, that the record number of domestic mountaineering accidents logged last year is a taster of the carnage to come, as the elderly take to ever more exotic post-retirement activities.

But a survey by Tokyu Land, a real-estate company, has alerted Tokyoites to a previously unforeseen clash: elderly couples are bitterly divided over where to spend their twilight years. A majority of men favour retiring to the countryside, while women prefer to stay in Tokyo near a railway station and, especially, the shops. As the so-called “2007 crisis” approaches—when Japan's biggest-ever generation hits retirement age—such arguments are expected to grow ever fiercer.

Going Dutch

Nobody much likes Tokyo in the August humidity. But Crown Prince Naruhito's decision to take his ailing wife, Crown Princess Masako, and their four-year-old daughter, Princess Aiko, to the Netherlands for a “recuperative” holiday has been seen by some as a snub to Tokyo and its environs. Not only is it the first time the heir to the Chrysanthemum Throne has taken his brood abroad, but also it will be the first time that an imperial family member has felt the need to leave Japan in order to recover from illness.

Since late 2003, Princess Masako has been suffering from a stress-related disorder and has performed almost no public duties. Palace-watchers have long believed that her unhappiness stems from the tight restraints of palace life and her disappointment at not performing a more international role. The Harvard-educated ex-diplomat has not left Japan since attending a wedding in Belgium in 1999. The family is going to the Netherlands because Princess Masako's father, Hisashi Owada, is a judge at The Hague's International Court of Justice.

Crow-barred

The capital's increasingly aggressive jungle crows have become inadvertent cyber-criminals, denying thousands of Tokyoites broadband access. It turns out that fibre-optic broadband wires are perfect material for their nests, and can be dislodged from junction boxes with a well-judged peck. NTT and Tepco, the principal providers of fibre-optic cable in Tokyo, have reported sharp surges in vandalism committed by crows, who have no such success with the copper telephone and electricity cables that criss-cross the skyline.

The crows' rising boldness must be a disappointment to Shintaro Ishihara, Tokyo's governor, who declared war on the birds some five years ago, but has watched their numbers more than quadruple since. Even if the crows are somehow dissuaded from their destruction, the attacks on broadband access are expected to continue. Cicadas have discovered that fibre-optic cable is the ideal place to lay eggs, and have been staking out breeding grounds on the telegraph poles.

The write approach

The workers of Tokyo continue to find innovative ways to relax. But the desire to unwind has taken an unexpected voyage back 300 years to the poetry of the Edo period, and prompted a pencil-buying boom. A new book, “Tracing the Narrow Road to the Deep North with a Pencil”, which offers to help readers simultaneously to meditate and learn the lyrics of Basho, Japan's most famous haiku poet, has sold nearly 700,000 copies in a few months. More spectacular, though, is its impact on the market for traditional wooden HB pencils, whose sales have risen 30% since the book's publication. The reason is that the volume is interleaved with pages that encourage the reader to trace the words of Basho's most famous verses in elegant calligraphic style. The idea, says the publisher, Poplar, is to bring people back to a more analogue way of life.

Neo-Beatle mania

With all those baby-boomers retiring and seeking ways to recapture their youth, it is little wonder that Tokyo is in the grip of a 1960s boom. The race to recreate the decade's highlights is proving lucrative. Electric guitar sales to the over-60 set, for example, have risen sharply. To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Beatles’ lone visit to Japan, the hotel in which they stayed in 1966, the Capitol Tokyu, has restored the presidential suite to its former glory and opened it to guests one last time. The hotel, which will be knocked down later this year, is offering the “Beatles Room” at ¥110,000 ($960) per night during the month of August. The phone lines opened at 10am on June 29th and all bookings were filled within nine minutes.

Catch if you can

July 2006

Tokyo Summer Festival: Songs of the Earth/Music in the Streets

Until August 6th 2006

This festival of music and dance, now in its 22nd year, was started by Kyoko Edo, a renowned classical pianist. She remains the guiding force and personally approves all the acts. This year's festival includes free performances in Yoyogi Park on July 8th and 9th, featuring Black Blanc Beur, a 22-person French break-dance company; Stax Groove, a group of Japanese jazz dancers (pictured); Norie Anzai, an accordionist; and Funny Bones, a Japanese-English comic duo.

Highlights of the rest of the festival are a July 22nd performance by Gilles Apap of Vivaldi's “Four Seasons”, as reinterpreted by the violinist and fellow musicians; two evenings of classical Persian songs by Shahram Nazeri on July 26th and 27th; and two evenings of “Afro-Pop” on August 5th and 6th, headed by Senegal’s Youssou N'Dour.

Tokyo Summer Festival/Arion-Edo Foundation, OT Building 2F, Tomigaya 1-46-9, Shibuya-Ku. Tel: +81 (0)3 5465-0755. Concert locations all over Tokyo. See the foundation's website for festival details.

More from the Tokyo cultural calendar

Economist.com Cities Guide: Hong Kong Briefing - July 2006

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Pro-democracy stumbles

Over 30,000 people took to Hong Kong's streets on July 1st to demand speedier democratic reforms and to mark the ninth anniversary of the city's handover from Britain to China. Although attendance was well below the 500,000 who took part in similar marches in 2003 and 2004, organisers were pleased. That so many people demonstrated during an economic boom and in the scorching heat, they said, showed a genuine desire for universal suffrage.

Donald Tsang, Hong Kong’s chief executive, refused to comment on the march. Having celebrated his first year in office on June 24th, his approval ratings have taken a beating recently, dropping nine percentage points to around 60%. Mr Tsang was installed by Beijing to replace the unpopular Tung Chee-hwa, and his emergency term lasts for only another year. His critics complain of the slow pace of reform and his aversion to controversy. Anson Chan Fang On-sang, a former chief secretary of Hong Kong (the second-highest position in the administration), has re-emerged to possibly challenge Mr Tsang for his job next year. Unlike her potential rival, she staged a rally before the march and urged mass participation. Mrs Chan will hold talks this month with pro-democracy parties about what further role she can play in their campaigns.

Hacks and suits

A journalist who broke the news about the start of the second world war is engaged in a battle of her own. Clare Hollingworth, who was first to report the German invasion of Poland in 1939, is suing another journalist over his management of her affairs. The nonagenarian is asking the Court of First Instance, one of two courts that make up Hong Kong’s High Court, to force Ted Thomas to reveal the whereabouts of HK$2m ($257,000) he withdrew from her bank account. Mr Thomas, who had control of Ms Hollingworth’s accounts from 2003 until May 2005, claims he acted in her best interest and that much of the money was invested on her behalf.

He has already returned a significant portion of the claimed money, but Ms Hollingworth's representatives say some HK$1.18m remains outstanding. A judge will rule on July 12th on whether Mr Thomas will have to present a full account of what happened to the money.

Spreading its tentacles

Hong Kong’s Octopus card, an advanced version of London's Oyster card, will be accepted in the neighbouring enclaves of Shenzhen and Macau by the end of 2006. Brought in as a way to improve ticketing across Hong Kong’s transport network, the electronic stored-value card can now be used in convenience stores, supermarkets, fast food restaurants and some government departments. The cards have proved so popular that 13m are in circulation among Hong Kong’s 6.9m residents. Plans are afoot to extend the service to bars and cafés in Hong Kong by using portable card-readers, and a trial has begun in taxis in the New Territories. For the moment, the rechargeable cards will be sold only in Hong Kong.

Dancing all the way to the bank

Hong Kong’s elite are not averse to conspicuous consumption. But in this city of big spenders, news that a top banker agreed to pay HK$120m for eight years of dancing lessons still came as a shock. Details of this transaction came to light when Mimi Wong, the chief executive of private banking at HSBC, sued her former dance teachers—Mirko Saccani and Gaynor Fairweather, a 15-time world champion Latin dancer—for the return of HK$62m she had paid them up front. Ms Wong claimed in the Court of First Instance that Mr Saccani had abused and threatened her before a group of 50 other dancers in August 2004.

The case has cast a spotlight on the world of competitive ballroom dancing, a popular sport among Hong Kong’s elite. It was claimed that Mr Saccani’s outburst, during which he allegedly threatened to throw Ms Wong out of a window, came after he was shown up by a former student during a practice session. A judgment is due in late July.

End of the Dragon?

Hong Kong’s rapacious developers have one of the city's most magnificent gardens in their sights. The private, eight-hectare Dragon Garden in Sham Tseng was designed in the 1940s by Chu Pin, the architect responsible for restoring Beijing’s Forbidden City. Once a retreat of the late Lee Iu-cheung, a tycoon who made his fortune selling building materials, the garden is now to be sold to a developer for HK$130m.

Cynthia Lee Hong-yee, one of Mr Lee’s grandchildren, led a campaign to stop her family from selling the plot. She highlighted the garden’s unique heritage (it has served as a location for numerous films, including the James Bond thriller “The Man With The Golden Gun”) and its place as one of the city's few remaining private gardens of significance. But on July 6th, Lee Him, the tycoon's fourth son, cast his deciding vote in favour of the sale.

Catch if you can

July 2006

Ancient Chinese Weapons

Until September 20th 2006

This exhibition concentrates on bronze weaponry from the pre-Han period, between 4,000 and 2,000 years ago. The Chinese were big fans of bronze, not just for agricultural and military tools, but also for ceremonial purposes. The craftwork of the carvings on display here is often remarkable. Visitors can witness the evolution of Chinese weapon design, according to the ethnic group that created them and the circumstances of their use.

Hong Kong Museum of Coastal Defence. 175 Tung Hei Rd, Shau Kei Wan. Tel: +852 2569 1500. Admission: HK$10. Open: daily, except Thurs, 10am-5pm. See the website.

More from the Hong Kong cultural calendar

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

News this month

Out on a wing

A controversial deal to sell the cargo business of Varig, Brazil’s flagship airline, may help save the troubled carrier. The $20m injection should keep Varig flying while buyers are found for the rest of the airline, which has debts of over $3.4 billion. Reportedly under government pressure, the civil aviation authority approved the sale of VarigLog to Volo, a consortium linked to Matlin Patterson, an American fund manager. Under Brazilian law foreign investors cannot own more than 20% of an airline, and doubt has been cast on the origin of Volo’s money. The civil aviation authority said 80% of the financing had Brazilian guarantees, though few details of the deal have been made public. On June 23rd, a $449m bid for the whole airline by a consortium that included Varig employees was annulled when the group failed to make a $75m down-payment.

Widespread flight cancellations and the threat of aircraft being repossessed and fuel supplies cut off still make bankruptcy a probable outcome. That would put 10,000 people out of work, and leave 26,000 Brazilians stranded overseas, many of them in Germany for the World Cup.

Organised crime

Violence erupted in the São Paulo State prison system again, only one month after the state’s largest criminal gang, the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC), had co-ordinated widespread and deadly attacks against the government using mobile phones. On June 16th riots in eight prisons, organised by the PCC, left one inmate dead and others—plus some guards—wounded. Prisoners were protesting against shortened break periods and overcrowding.

Figures released in June showed how the May riots sparked a statewide killing spree. On June 13th the Conselho Regional de Medicina do Estado, which regulates medical practice in the state and reviewed the autopsy reports, said that 492 people in São Paulo State died from gunshot wounds between May 12th and 20th—a number three times higher than average, while fewer than 150 deaths were linked directly to the PCC incidents. Reports from 23 autopsy laboratories also showed that of the 126 people allegedly killed by police, one in five had been shot in the head, indicating execution-style killings. This news prompted demands for the resignation of Saulo de Castro Abreu Filho, the state security secretary.

Shutting up shop?

Daslu, one of São Paulo’s fanciest department stores, hit the news again in June when Carlos Piva de Albuquerque, the owner's brother, was arrested for the second time in 12 months on charges of tax fraud. Mr Albuquerque, the store’s finance director, spent ten days in prison before his lawyers secured his release.

Back in July 2005 Mr Albuquerque and his sister, Eliana Tranchesi (who owns Daslu), were briefly detained after a police raid on Daslu's new premises. They were accused of under-reporting revenues and the value of imported goods in order to avoid taxes—charges, denied by Ms Tranchesi, that carry sentences of up to 21 years. The public prosecutor, Matheus Baraldi Magnani, is still building a case and no date has been set for a trial.

After the rearrest of Mr Albuquerque, Ms Tranchesi claimed that Mr Magnani was persecuting her store. He said the company was continuing to import luxury goods illegally.

Healing eyesores

São Paulo is not pretty, but Mayor Gilberto Kassab has a plan to improve things. On June 8th he proposed ambitious laws under the banner “Cidade Limpa” (Clean City) to rid the streets of advertising posters. “It’s zero tolerance for visual pollution,” he explained. Laws to regulate outdoor advertising already exist but, according to Fenapex, the National Federation of Outdoor Advertisers, the city has only 700 inspectors to regulate 1.4m displays. Of the estimated 15,000 huge posters in São Paulo, Fenaplex reckons that just one-third are legal.

To make policing easier, Mr Kassab wants to ban all posters larger than four metres squared and license one company to install advertising in approved areas, such as bus stops. Yet Fenapex believes the law, if passed, will jeopardise 15,000 jobs. For those stuck in traffic, the huge advertisements, many of which feature attractive models, are more interesting than the buildings they cover.

Yellow (and green) fever

On June 13th Brazil paused. The day the country had been anticipating for four years finally dawned as the national football team played its opening game in the “rumo ao hexa” (“the road to the sixth”), as the five-time champions’ World Cup campaign is known. Shops, offices, banks and schools closed early and 174km of traffic jams paralysed São Paulo before the 4pm kick-off, as Paulistanos rushed to watch a lacklustre 1-0 win over Croatia. The police, however, will have to stay focused on their work: in the run-up to the World Cup 18 large-screen TVs were stolen from bars and restaurants across the city.

Catch if you can

July 2006

Degas – The Artist’s Universe

Until August 20th 2006

With 196 works on display, this exhibit provides a comprehensive look at the art of Edgar Degas, a French Impressionist. The show’s scope is a rarity in Latin America. There are 110 works from the Museu de Arte de São Paulo; the rest hail from museums such as New York’s Museum of Modern Art, London’s National Gallery and the Musée Picasso in Paris.

The exhibition is divided into three sections: the first explores the artist’s more classical work, portraits and the so-called “Grammar of Movement”, which includes Degas’s famous paintings of horses, dancers, laundresses and prostitutes. The exhibit also features work by artists who influenced Degas or were influenced by him, such as Titian, Velásquez, Ingres, Picasso and Toulouse-Lautrec.

Museu de Arte de São Paulo, Avenida Paulista 1578, Jardim Paulista. Tel: +55 0(11) 3251-5644. Open: Tues-Sun 11am-6pm. Entrance 15 reais; free on Tues. See the museum’s website.

More from the Sao Paulo cultural calendar

Economist.com Cities Guide: Milan Briefing - July 2006

News this month

Hot town, summer in the city

For the third year running, Milan held a notte bianca, or white night, to welcome the summer. An estimated 600,000 people turned out on June 24th for night-long celebrations that included concerts, museum openings, tours of local monuments and shopping. The event was not quite as successful as predicted, however, with attendance well below the 1.2m the organisers were expecting and a rainstorm forcing the cancellation of several events. The celebration followed March’s Festa di Primavera (spring party) and there is talk of staging a similar initiative in September to mark the summer's end.

Like other European cities, Milan imported the idea of the all-night celebration from Paris. But another initiative borrowed from the French capital—an inner-city beach—seems to have less of a future. This year the office that oversees the protection of public monuments withheld permission to re-open the beach, which has occupied a site near the Arco Della Pace (Peace Arch) for the last two years. It seems that in 2004 and 2005 local residents did not object to the beach because there was so much construction work happening in the area anyway; once the building projects were finished, though, the objections became that much stronger.

Football trial

Four Italian football clubs—AC Milan, Lazio, Fiorentina and Juventus—as well as 26 officials and referees are to stand trial on match-fixing charges. The trial, which is being run by the Italian Football Federation at Rome’s Olympic Stadium, started briefly on June 29th, before defence arguments ensured an adjournment until July 3rd. Verdicts are expected on July 10th, the day after the World Cup final. This is not a criminal proceeding as such, although separate criminal probes are now underway in four cities. However, the teams could face relegation from Serie A, the top division in the domestic league, lose points in next season’s championship or forfeit their places in the European Champions League.

So the timing is rather tricky for Silvio Berlusconi as he resumes his position as president of AC Milan. (He stepped down from the post in December 2004 because, as prime minister, he wanted to avoid a conflict of interest.) Since Mr Berlusconi bought the team in 1986, Milan has won seven Serie A championship titles and four European championship titles.

Olympics on hold

Letizia Moratti, Milan's new mayor, has withdrawn the city’s bid to host the 2016 summer Olympic Games, clearing the way for Rome to be Italy’s nominee. The move came after the Italian Olympic Committee rejected a request by Ms Moratti, who was elected in May, for extra time to review and possibly change the bid submitted by the former mayor, Gabriele Albertini.
Ms Moratti says that she will support Rome’s candidacy, but has not ruled out a Milanese bid for 2020. The International Olympic Committee will select the host for the 2016 Olympics in 2009. An Italian city, Turin, hosted this year’s Winter Olympics.

One for the road?

Milan is well known for its aperitivi, where generous buffets and snacks are often served with drinks during after-work happy hours. But while they may be easy on the wallet, a local journalist discovered first-hand that it’s best not to over-indulge. Following the example set in the award-winning documentary “Super Size Me”—in which Morgan Spurlock, a filmmaker, ate all his meals at McDonald’s for a month—Carlotta Magnanini, a journalist with La Repubblica, set out to see what effects a steady stream of aperitivi could have on her health. The result was not encouraging: aside from weight gain and spots, after two weeks of happy hours, Ms Magnanini experienced a 25% increase in her “bad” cholesterol, and a 40% decrease in her “good” cholesterol.

Gr8 news 4 drivers

In June a local transport company, Azienda Municipale dei Trasporti (ATM), began experimenting with a system that allows drivers to pay for public parking using their mobile phones. Once users have exhausted the credit that comes in the starter kit they buy from ATM, they can buy pre-paid cards. This new service follows the unveiling of a phone initiative to help Italian drivers find the best fuel deals: a driver sends a text message indicating the type of fuel needed and his location, and the service responds with a list of the four local garages with the best prices.

Catch if you can

July 2006

Festival LatinoAmericando

Until August 15th 2006

The nightly concerts are the highlight of the Festival LatinoAmericando, held at the Assago Datch Forum on the outskirts of the city. Here, legends such as Gilberto Gil, a Brazilian bossa nova singer (and culture minister), and Chucho Valdés, a Cuban jazzman, perform alongside up-and-coming names of the Latin music scene. Salsa, meringue and cha-cha lovers can dance at the festival’s disco while World Cup fans watch football on big screens. Come with an empty stomach as there is food and drink from Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela, as well as a vast array of artisan products.

Assago Datch Forum. Tel: +39 (0)3 22 47679. Open: daily, 6pm-2am. Tickets: €5-20, depending on evening and concert. For a full list of concerts, see the festival’s website.

More from the Milan cultural calendar

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

News this month

To catch a thief

Violent crime in Washington, DC, rose by 5% last year, according to preliminary statistics published in June by the FBI. The rise was driven by a surge in robberies, especially among juveniles. While the number of robberies in the city rose by almost 14.6% to more than 3,500 in 2005, violent crime fell in most other categories: the number of rapes fell by 24%, car thefts by 8% and arson by 24%. In all 7,716 violent crimes were committed in the District last year.

The dramatic increase in the number of robberies has been cause for concern for Charles Ramsey, the District’s police chief. Mr Ramsey said on June 21st that more juveniles were committing robberies, a trend that seems to be continuing this year: about 42% of those arrested for robbery in 2006 have been under 18, compared with 33% in 2005 and 25% in 2004. Mr Ramsey has fought to overturn privacy laws that bar police from accessing the criminal records of repeat juvenile offenders, but thus far has had no success.

Not so special

City officials squirmed in June, when the Washington Post reported that spending on the District’s special-education students had grown dramatically, putting a greater strain on a schools budget already stretched thin. Students with physical or emotional handicaps or learning disabilities are eligible for special education. Under federal law, they are guaranteed a free education, and if public schools cannot provide it, the city must pay for their tuition in private schools. In 2005 the city spent $118m on tuition for special-education students, according to the Post, a figure that has shot up by 65% since 2000. Special-education students at private schools comprise 4% of the student population, but account for 15% of school spending.

The extent of special-education spending has been clouded for some time, as the budgeted allocation for the programme is much smaller than the funds it sucks up. The tuition programme has run $173m over budget over the last five fiscal years. As a result, when the budgeted money runs out, officials divert money from the general school operating budget, at the expense of the District’s other students. District officials cannot explain the growth in spending, reported the Post, because of poor record-keeping.

Testing one, two, three

Washington, DC, suffers from the worst rate of new AIDS cases in the country, with about 180 of every 100,000 people infected. To address this, on June 27th District officials launched a programme to test residents for HIV, the 12th annual National HIV Testing day. The government has distributed oral HIV-test kits to medical clinics and offices to test locals between the ages of 14 and 84, roughly 400,000 people. The hope is that the tests will become a standard part of any doctor's visit, as commonplace as checking blood pressure. Results are available within 20 minutes, a big improvement on the weeks required for earlier versions of the test.

About one-quarter of Americans infected with HIV are unaware of their condition, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, a federal agency. City officials hope that by informing residents of their status, they will influence their behaviour and slow the spread of HIV/AIDS.

Slow ride

An effort to ease the District’s crowded, testy subway system is not going as planned. In recent weeks the strain on the Metro has become more acute as maintenance problems force older trains out of service and design flaws delay the introduction of new carriages. While the city had hoped to introduce 100 new carriages by the year’s end, officials now expect to reach only half that number. The District recently won $1.8m in state and local funding to help maintain the system; now it is vying for another $1.5m in federal money as well.

The pressure to improve the Metro is real: Washington’s subway system is America’s second-busiest (after New York), and is getting busier. While the Metro continues to struggle with bigger problems of carriage maintenance and design, it is considering other, more subtle changes to improve riders’ experience. In May the system’s board approved a pilot programme to allow kiosks in Metro stations, and it is now considering letting musicians and other artists perform there as well. Metro officials announced a plan to brighten stations by, among other things, replacing burnt-out light bulbs more quickly. This may make the time a rider spends waiting for a train more pleasant, but it certainly won't get him to work any faster.

In the zone

Another fight is building over Washington’s venerable—and idiosyncratic—system for tallying up cab fares. The District’s cabs shun metres in favour of a convoluted system that divides the city into different zones, charging a passenger for the number of zones he crosses in a given trip. Anthony Williams, the District’s mayor, wants the city to abandon the old system, and in June the government completed an eight-month study comparing the cost of a ride in a metered cab with that of a ride with the zone system. Some two-dozen cabs had metres installed for the study, and an analysis of the data is expected later this summer.

The unique zone system has its defenders, who say that the zones provide predictability: people know how much their trip will cost, regardless of traffic. Still, even the system’s proponents concede that it allows a short trip that crosses zone lines to cost more than a long trip that stays within one zone. Critics go further, arguing that the zones are confusing at best, and at worst allow drivers to jack up fares by claiming to have crossed several zones. One thing is certain: with $6.50 as a base fare, the present system is not cheap. One compromise may be Global Positioning Systems (GPS). Yellow Cab, the District’s largest cab company, has started to use GPS to track journeys so that passengers can see how many zone lines they have crossed.

Catch if you can

July 2006

Rarity Revealed: the Benjamin K. Miller Collection

Until October 1st 2007

Any stamp connoisseur will pronounce this vast collection, donated to the New York Public Library by Benjamin Miller in 1925, the greatest in America. It is in fact so large that the National Postal Museum has chosen to divide it into two exhibitions: the first, which runs until October 2007, will display stamps issued prior to 1894, when private companies printed them; the second, beginning in November 2007, will feature stamps issued by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing from 1894 to the 1920s.

The exhibit—a philatelist’s Eden—marks the collection’s first public appearance since 1977. Much of the show is given over to a set of uniquely printed ten-cent George Washington stamps. Most of the other stamps are in sliding displays that can be pulled out of the walls for examination, though unfortunately there is no commentary to explain what it is you are looking at. The casual visitor will find the exhibit an interesting, if not comprehensive, introduction to stamp collecting.

National Postal Museum, 2 Massachusetts Ave, NE. Open: daily, 10am-5.30pm. Free admission. See the museum’s website.

More from the Washington, DC cultural calendar

Economist.com Cities Guide: Chicago Briefing - July 2006

News this month

To market, to market

The Chicago Stock Exchange’s effort to revive sagging sales got a boost in June when four leading Wall Street firms bought minority stakes in the exchange’s parent company, CHX. On June 21st CHX announced that Bank of America, Bear Stearns, E*Trade Financial Corporation and Goldman Sachs would invest $20m in the company in return for full voting rights and seats on the governing board (full details of the agreement have yet to be released). The deal is an important vote of confidence in the exchange's long transformation: last year it abandoned its member-owned structure to become a for-profit enterprise, and now it is loosening rules to allow brokers to trade a wide array of equities, and plans to introduce a new electronic trading system this autumn.

The Chicago Stock Exchange had floundered for years in the shadow of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and NASDAQ, but recently things have been looking up. As the larger exchanges become even larger—the NYSE is making a bid for Euronext and NASDAQ has built a 25% stake in the London Stock Exchange—investors are looking to smaller regional exchanges for more flexibility and lower trading costs. Chicago’s exchange also stands to benefit from new federal regulation that will create a national investment market by October 2007. Then investors will not automatically head for the exchange with the most liquidity (usually the NYSE); instead orders will be routed to a national pool and go to the market with the best price. Analysts are betting that the increased competition will boost regional exchanges like Chicago’s.

The case rests

A corruption trial that has tainted the mayoralty of Richard Daley is drawing to a close. Four former high-ranking officials in Mr Daley’s administration have been in court since May 10th: two are charged with favouring Mr Daley's supporters in the city’s hiring and promotion process, the third with helping to arrange the scheme, and the fourth with lying about it all to federal agents. Chicago operates under a federal court order that means officials cannot hire someone based on his politics.

The prosecution presented its case over six weeks and questioned a bevy of witnesses; the defence rested its case on June 21st after just two days, calling only two witnesses and none of the four defendants to the stand. Defence lawyers, insisting that their clients were innocent middlemen who never knowingly broke the law, said that prosecutors had failed to make a compelling case. The defence received a boost on June 20th, when a judge dismissed one count of fraud against all four men. Closing arguments began on June 26th, and are expected to last two days.

Nabbed

A federal sting led to the arrest of 47 alleged gang members in Chicago in late June, proving that the city of Al Capone still has some gangland cachet, even as its crime rate has fallen. The so-called Operation Snakebite—which also saw arrests in Detroit, Philadelphia, and Camden, New Jersey—centred on the Mickey Cobras gang, based out of the Dearborn Homes, a public-housing project on Chicago’s South Side. Investigators believe the Cobras are responsible for some 70 drug-related deaths in recent months, attributable to taking heroin mixed with fentanyl, an exceptionally potent painkiller. The sting yielded a variety of drugs, including fentanyl and 200 pounds of heroin. Among those arrested was a Chicago police officer charged with helping a Cobra leader hide his drug paraphernalia and giving him access to a police database.

In the future, such arrests within city limits may become rare: a recent study shows that gentrification and the demolition of massive housing projects such as the Dearborn Homes have forced gangs to set up shop in the suburbs. It also found gangs pooling resources rather than fighting each other and, like good suburbanites, moving from the dope trade into white-collar crime.

Put a sock in it

Ozzie Guillen, manager of the White Sox, Chicago’s South Side baseball team, has earned a reputation for being “a colourful interview”, meaning he lacks a censor between brain and mouth. But he may have gone too far in a recent tirade. A continuing feud with Jay Mariotti, a flame-throwing columnist for Chicago’s Sun-Times newspaper, turned ugly on June 20th when Mr Guillen cursed at him and called him a “fag” in front of a coterie of reporters. Mr Guillen’s attempts to clarify his remarks took a turn for the ridiculous when he said that in his native Venezuela, the word “fag” is “not a reference to a person’s sexuality, but to his courage”, and insisted that he has gay friends, watches women’s basketball and has even attended a Madonna concert.

Mr Guillen has since given a tepid, non-apologetic apology, saying he’s sorry to anyone whose feelings may have been hurt. Major League Baseball, the group that operates America’s two leagues, has no set policy for punishing players or managers for making offensive remarks, but in 2000 a pitcher for the Atlanta Braves was suspended for 14 games for racist slurs, and the former owner of the Cincinnati Reds was suspended for an entire season in 1993 due to a history of praising Hitler and insulting racial minorities on her team. Mr Guillen, who last year brought the White Sox their first World Series title since 1918, may be suspended or fined.

Last bow

Daniel Barenboim ended his tumultuous 15-year tenure as music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) on June 17th. After leading the orchestra in a rousing performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and Choral Fantasy, he returned twice to the podium, visibly moved and embracing musicians along the way. He made his debut with the CSO at the tender age of 15 as a promising pianist.

Mr Barenboim had a rocky relationship with the orchestra’s governing board—the CSO’s shrinking revenues were blamed in part on his penchant for performing difficult contemporary music rather than traditional crowd-pleasers. But despite his disagreements with management, Mr Barenboim enjoyed tremendous popularity with the orchestra’s musicians, who voted to name him “honorary conductor for life”. He remains conductor-for-life at the Deutsche Staatsoper in Berlin, and works with the East-West Divan Orchestra, comprised of Israeli and Palestinian youths, which he co-founded with Edward Said, a late Palestinian-American scholar and music critic. Next year he will travel to Milan to become the principal guest conductor for the famous La Scala opera house. The CSO has not yet named Mr Barenboim’s successor. In the meantime the orchestra will be led by Bernard Haitink, a Dutch conductor, and Pierre Boulez, a French composer and conductor.

Catch if you can

July 2006

Ravinia holiday weekend

June 30th-July 4th

What better way to celebrate Independence Day than by enjoying music and a beautiful summer night under the stars? Ravinia, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's summer home, offers a range of performances on the holiday weekend to suit all tastes. The main event is on Saturday night, when James Conlon, the orchestra’s musical director, presents an evening of festive fare, from Verdi and Shostakovich to Leonard Bernstein and George Gershwin. The following night sees Los Lonely Boys play their blend of Latin-influenced country blues. On July 3rd and 4th Ravinia revives the 70s with an Abba tribute band.

200 Ravinia Park Rd, Highland Park. Tel: +1 (847) 266-5100. Ticket prices: Lawn $10, pavilion $20-$45. For concert times and a full schedule, visit Ravinia’s website.

More from the Chicago cultural calendar

Economist.com Cities Guide: Moscow Briefing - July 2006

News this month

The usual suspects

Spend a few days in Moscow and you may be stopped by police asking to inspect your documents—in theory because they suspect that you've committed a crime, in practice because they are trying to solicit a bribe. If you are a westerner with the right papers, you will almost certainly escape unharmed; if you are a dark-skinned migrant from the Caucasus or Central Asia, you will probably be taken to the nearest doorway and relieved of your savings. Indeed, people who look non-Slavic are more likely to be stopped in the first place, according to a new report from the Open Society Justice Initiative and JURIX, two legal-affairs groups based in New York and Moscow respectively.

Tales of racial profiling in Moscow are nothing new. But the report, published in June, has hard statistics proving the practice to be rampant. The study found that those who do not look ethnically Russian (but who may be citizens) are almost 22 times more likely to be stopped in Metro stations by policemen than those who are, or look like, ethnic Russians. The report’s authors recommended that the police adopt new guidelines for stopping suspects, based on behavioural rather than ethnic prompts, and be barred from collecting fines for document violations. The findings have been shared with the United Nations special rapporteur on racism, who visited Russia in June in the wake of several racist killings and assaults.

Rosnyet

The initial public offering (IPO) by Rosneft, a state-owned oil company, was first billed as the biggest in history, with talk of the listing rising to $20 billion. This figure has since been scaled down, but the company hopes to raise around $10 billion, making it one of the largest IPOs to date. The offering will probably take place in Moscow and London some time in July, when George Bush and other world leaders will be in St Petersburg for the G8 summit.

In many ways, Rosneft seems a juicy investment: its oil reserves are larger than those of Exxon Mobil, the world's top traded oil company, and last year its net profits were almost five times higher than they were in 2004. But Moscow’s rumour-mill had it that the size of the offering was reduced because investors were squeamish about the legal costs of buying in. Rosneft is tainted by a dodgy manoeuvre: the company acquired its main production asset, Yuganskneftegaz, only after the state seized Yugansk from Yukos, once Russia’s biggest oil company, and sold it in a rigged auction in December 2004. Rosneft now faces several pending lawsuits, including a threat by Yukos shareholders to sue investors who buy into the IPO. Rosneft, however, says the resizing of its offering is the result of improved finances and the rising price of oil. Either way, the level of interest in the IPO will be a good test of how western investors feel towards Russia.

Shortchanged

The dollar's spectacular decline against the Russian rouble has made visits to Moscow’s currency exchanges a depressing experience for many western visitors. But as a recent investigation by the Moscow Times (MT) revealed, such trips carry perils beyond than the dismal exchange rate. In June the MT chronicled some scams at the more than 2,500 exchange points across the city.

Many exchanges trade under the names of banks—an operator can pay a bank to use its name—but are insalubrious outfits, nestled in gambling halls, pedestrian underpasses or, in the case of one used by your correspondent recently, an old circus building. Along with the more obvious dodges, such as advertising fake exchange rates, the MT noted two risks in particular: the “businessman” in a hurry who offers his victims attractive rates as they wait in the queue for service, only to leave them with counterfeit money; and the “sticky tray”, whereby the money-changer puts adhesive on the bottom of the tray used to pass money back and forth, so that a note or two get left behind when a customer leaves. The Federal Anti-Monopoly Service, the agency that monitors the exchanges, has called on the Central Bank to introduce penalties for shady outfits.

City of God

Moscow can sometimes seem a brutal, godless place, emptied of belief by communism and its collapse. A very different face of the city, and of Russia, was displayed for ten days in June at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, near the Kremlin. Tens of thousands of people queued in stifling heat for a glimpse of a relic, said to be the right hand of St John the Baptist, on view in the cathedral. Many were out-of-towners; old women in headscarves stood in the long queues, gently wailing liturgical songs.

This was the first time that the relic had been displayed in Russia since it was smuggled out of the country during the revolution. The cathedral remained open all day and night to accommodate the crowds, and the hand has been credited with working miracles among the Moscow faithful. After its stint in Moscow ended on June 16th, the supposedly holy hand began travelling through assorted Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian cities before returning to its adopted home in Montenegro.

I'm dreaming of a white July

For about three weeks each year, usually in June and July, Moscow is cloaked in what seems to be snow. Mystifying to first-time visitors, entertaining to adolescents (who set fire to clumps of it in gutters), the white substance is in fact a mass of seeds, known as pukh, from the city’s female poplar trees.

Other Russian cities also experience this strange early summer phenomenon, one of the more eccentric results of dubious Soviet urban planning. Some Muscovites blame the annual plague of fuzz on a drive to green the city in the Stalin era, while others blame planting under Nikita Kruschev. Regardless, pukh is a general nuisance: not only does the occasional pukh fire get out of hand, but also the white fluff is a bane to hay-fever sufferers. It is said to have once driven an American ambassador out of the country after he accidentally ingested some.

Catch if you can

July 2006

Cult of the Family

Until July 9th 2006

Be sure to catch this photography exhibition at the Manezh. Vladimir Mishukov, a prominent Russian photographer, has taken portraits of Russian families from different professions and social strata, lending fascinating insight to the lives of 78 families in Moscow and its suburbs. The series of carefully posed images includes a rigid policeman and his children, a financial manager and his kin looking resolutely formal in black-tie, and a peasant’s family sitting before a house in sore need of a paint job. Mr Mishukov has crafted an enduring piece of social history.

Manezh Exhibition Hall, 1 Manezh Square. Metro Alexandrovsky Sad or Biblioteka Imena Lenina. Tel: +7 495 298 1660. Open: Tues-Sun noon-9pm. See the exhibition's website.

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Economist.com Cities Guide: Paris Briefing - July 2006

News this month

Dreaming the Radiant City

On June 12th city councillors approved a new master plan to shape growth and development in Paris for the next two decades. The Plan Local d’Urbanisme, or PLU, aims to stem the exodus of businesses to cheaper suburban outposts and to provide affordable lodging to keep the middle classes intra muros. Rapidly rising prices and general penury have driven more than 100,000 families onto the waiting list for subsidised housing. Paris has lost an estimated 130,000 jobs since the 1980s.

After three years of fierce debate, the PLU’s final version calls for construction of 4,000-4,500 subsidised flats per year, and encourages the relocation of businesses from the affluent west and centre of the city to the poorer eastern side. The most controversial proposition—to do away with a ban on buildings higher than 37 metres (120 feet)—failed to gain enough support. Though generally detested by Parisians, tall buildings were promoted as a means to increase office and housing space on the outskirts of the capital. Bertrand Delanoë, the mayor, complained that a “coalition of conservatives from both right and left” had attacked the skyscraper plan. The Greens, his partners in city governance, argued that Paris was already overcrowded with businesses, which bring traffic and pollution. They abstained from voting.

Thinking big

Paris and its suburbs have begun working together to plan improvements, after years of often testy relations and direct competition. With 2m inhabitants stuffed into 105 sq km, Paris is one of Europe’s smallest capitals, surrounded by 11m people in adjoining areas. After 18 months of preliminary footwork, the regional council for Ile-de France met on June 23rd to reveal a draft for the “SDRIF”. Like the PLU, the SDRIF is a grand scheme for new motorways and public transport, public housing and open spaces. Jean-Paul Huchon, the council president, pledged to fight urban sprawl, saying that each year 60,000 homes or flats should be built in areas that are already developed—up from 40,000 now. Cities will be encouraged to build townhouses and apartment blocks near train stations, and to incorporate more public housing, which is currently concentrated in just a few eastern suburbs. The SDRIF also calls for building business hubs, like a “kind of Silicon Valley” on the suburban Saclay Heights and a “science valley” on the Left Bank.

Authorities have also mapped out the first city-suburb rehaul, in the gritty Porte de la Chappelle in northern Paris. It will get a family-friendly makeover in the next six years, with more gardens and shopping centres serving the capital, Saint Denis and Aubervilliers beyond. It will also play host to a waste-treatment centre and a giant heating utility, a sign that the city can no longer dump its unattractive industries in the suburbs.

Black, white and in the red all over

Serge July, the founder and chairman of France’s most important left-wing newspaper, Libération, is being forced out by the dominant new shareholder over the paper’s flagging fortunes. Edouard de Rothschild took a 39% interest in “Libé” last year—making his the largest block of shares—and has called for Mr July to quit. Mr July agreed to leave if Mr de Rothschild would reinvest in the paper, but his departure will deprive Libération of its figurehead. Mr July set up the Paris-based daily with Jean-Paul Sartre in 1973 to provide a media outlet for France's burgeoning generation of leftists. But despite the paper's place as a mainstay of intellectual and cultural life, its circulation is slipping. It sold fewer than 137,000 copies per day in 2005, compared with 163,000 in 2001 and 182,000 in 1990.

Several national dailies are in crisis. The only remaining evening paper, France-Soir, was nearly bankrupt and off newsstands for two months until it was recently sold to Jean-Pierre Brunois, a property investor, and Olivier Rey, a sports writer; Le Figaro, the right-leaning national best-seller, was taken over in 2004 by a military manufacturer Dassault. In June the Le Monde publication group, which also includes some regional dailies and weekly magazines, announced losses in 2005 of €28m ($35m).

Fashion victims

In June police dismantled a ring responsible for trafficking handbags, jewellery and other high-end French merchandise to Japan. Seventeen Asians—Japanese, Malaysian and Chinese—were arrested and €122,000 (about $153,000) in cash was seized along with some 500 items of leather goods and jewellery from iconic French brands such as Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior and Chanel.

During the sting, traffickers passed cash to covert police officers loitering outside the Vuitton flagship store on the Champs-Elysées, to go inside and buy goods on their behalf. Police say the traffickers were planning to sell the luxury goods at a discount rate in Japan, where they are subject to a high sales tax. French companies, wary of Asian counterfeiting and illegal resale schemes, often limit the number of items nationals of those countries can take back with them. Vuitton, for example, records the passport information of bag buyers. It is not uncommon for the brand’s Japanese and Chinese fans to hand a wad of cash to startled Parisians outside the Champs-Elysées store and ask them to shop on their behalf.

Diet for a new planet

The World Food Market, a trade fair showing off ethnic foods ranging from sushi to shwarma, opened on June 14th in Paris with the aim of catering to France’s 5m-plus Muslims. The market for halal foods has grown by 15% annually since 1998 and is now estimated at €3 billion. At the Paris fair, attended by some 5,000 food professionals, merchants hawked halal chicken-nuggets, burgers, lasagne and even baby foods. The fair also had new non-food items, such as cosmetics made without mistreating animals (under halal standards), and philanthropic sodas, such as the France-based Mecca Cola, which gives 10% of profits to Palestinian charities and 10% to local ones under the slogan, “No more drinking stupid—Drink committed.”

Some big supermarkets, especially in Paris suburbs with large Muslim communities, have dedicated halal aisles. Auchan, a supermarket company, reports that Muslims provide 12% of its business, a number expected to rise to 20% within two years. But most halal sales—usually beef, sheep and chicken—are at small specialised butcher shops. A looming problem for the industry is that there is not a strict definition of halal, beyond some basic rules: a ban on alcohol and pork, the avoidance of bloody meats, and the need for a religious authority to oversee the slaughter. France is home to more than 50 groups who certify halal, drumming up animated debate among Islamic scholars about the finer points of the practice.

Catch if you can

July 2006

Musée du Quai Branly

President Jacques Chirac's inauguration of the Quai Branly on June 20th was arguably the most important cultural event of 2006. Eleven years in the making, the €232.5m ($293m), state-financed project began as Mr Chirac's bid to counter “the arrogance and ethnocentrism” of Europe's museums and to create a prestigious home for the world's “forgotten civilisations”. The new building on the Seine’s Left Bank houses a stunning collection of nearly 270,000 items—3,500 of which are on display—from Africa, the Pacific, the Americas and Asia, including masks, statues, headdresses, jewellery and paintings. It marks a departure from the city’s main museums, which concentrate on Western art, and will encourage serious academic research in the field through a scholarly institute and sponsored fieldwork.

The building is an artwork in itself. Jean Nouvel, the architect who also designed the Institut du Monde Arabe, succeeded in a bold gamble to impose modernity on a conservative, chic neighbourhood near the Eiffel Tower. The Quai Branly should serve as a “lung” of green space to Parisians, with its large gardens and a huge rooftop terrace overlooking the river, as well as a wall of verdure: plants of 150 different species that cover one facade entirely. French presidents have long commissioned monuments forever associated with them—Franςois Mitterrand’s Grand Arch and Opéra Bastille, for example, or Georges Pompidou's Centre Pompidou. The Quai Branly will be Mr Chirac's legacy.

Musée du Quai Branly, 55 quai Branly, 7th arrondissement. Tel: +33 (0)1 56 61 70 00. Open: Tues-Sun 10am-6.30pm (Thurs until 10pm). Métro: Alma-Marceau. For more information see the museum's website.

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

News this month

The contender

After Néstor Kirchner, Argentina’s president, brought hundreds of thousands of supporters to Buenos Aires’s historic Plaza de Mayo for a rally on May 25th, many commentators declared that he would win a second term in office—even though Mr Kirchner has yet to announce a re-election bid. But shortly thereafter, Roberto Lavagna, the president’s former economy minister, emerged from political hibernation, making Mr Kirchner's victory in 2007 seem less certain.

Mr Lavagna took office a year before Mr Kirchner did, and oversaw four years of rapid growth before the president unceremoniously sacked him last November. Since then, Mr Kirchner’s policies have veered sharply left, and in early June Mr Lavagna began publicly assailing the president for his heavy-handed economic measures, cronyism and dalliance with Hugo Chávez, Venzuela’s populist president. The ex-minister has met several opposition politicians, many of whom now tout him as a presidential contender. Mr Lavagna says he will not decide whether to run until next year. But the two men who together stared down the IMF and angry foreign bondholders may wind up fighting over who deserves the credit for their successes.

The heat is on

Mr Kirchner is not the only politician who faces obstacles to re-election. With polls scheduled for 2007, the battle to become the next mayor of Buenos Aires is already underway. Three months ago, the city council fired Aníbal Ibarra from the mayoralty for poor job performance, promoting his second-in-command, Jorge Telerman, to the post. Since then, Messrs Telerman and Ibarra have stopped speaking to each other, and in early June the new mayor fired four of his predecessor’s top officials. But Mr Ibarra still commands the loyalty of many key ministers and could turn them against Mr Telerman, sabotaging his administration. Mr Ibarra may well rouse his allies if the courts rule that he can run for the mayoralty again. Buenos Aires mayors are barred from serving more than two consecutive terms, but since Mr Ibarra was impeached, he may be exempt from the limitation.

Mr Telerman may be unable to keep his job even if his predecessor lays low. He is vying to win Mr Kirchner’s invaluable support for his campaign, where he faces plenty of competition. The vice president, Daniel Scioli, has expressed interest in the mayoralty, and Rafael Bielsa, a congressman and former foreign minister, has suggested he may run even if Mr Kirchner supports someone else.

Moving in

Mr Kirchner, apparently unfazed by Mr Lavagna’s censure of his economic meddling, has increased the government’s role in the capital’s airports. On June 16th he signed a deal for the government to acquire at least 35% of Aeropuertos Argentina 2000, the private, Argentine-held company which has run the city’s two main airports for the last eight years. In exchange for shares in the company, the state will forgive the $275m Aeropuertos owes in back concession payments and reduce future charges by about 30%.

Mr Kirchner is also seeking to increase the government’s stake in Aerolíneas Argentinas, the country’s leading airline, from 1.4% to as high as 20%. Marsans, a Spanish firm that has controlled Aerolíneas since 2001, announced on June 21st that it would give the government 5-20% of the airline. Details of the agreement have not been disclosed, but there is talk that the government, in exchange for winning a larger stake in Aerolíneas, will forgive some debts or authorise the company to raise fares and float shares on the local stock exchange.

Their cup runneth over

The president’s airports deal might have raised hackles in Buenos Aires under normal circumstances, but in a city gripped by the World Cup, no one paid much attention. On the day Mr Kirchner made his announcement, Argentina’s football team demolished Serbia and Montenegro 6-0. To ignore the game was not an option: the city’s businesses lured fans to work by installing giant TV sets on factory assembly lines and in conference rooms. Even though the game was broadcast in most classrooms, throngs of state school students still took the day off. The streets were eerily empty during the match as porteños were glued to their screens, with the quiet punctuated only by the six unanimous roars heard across the city as each goal found the net.

After the match ended, Argentines poured into the streets to celebrate, with some 3,000 fans gathering by the city’s central obelisk. “Whoever doesn’t jump is a Briton!”, local reporters heard the jubilant fans shout, taunting their long-time football adversaries. “No, a Brazilian!”, screamed others, referring to Argentina’s arch-rival. The Brazilians themselves did not miss the opportunity to play down the team’s achievement. At a meeting with the first lady, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, a Brazilian diplomat remarked, “Really, it’s no big deal. You scored three goals on Serbia and three more on Montenegro.”

Thinking big

Buenos Aires has historically sought to emulate European architecture, but the present wave of high-rise construction in the city’s wealthier neighbourhoods seems more inspired by Shanghai than by Paris. Although the bevy of new skyscrapers top out at about 170 metres, the city has hopes of building a tower, the Buenos Aires Forum, stretching 1,000 metres high, though the timeframe for the project remains unclear.

The residential market is the main force behind the construction boom, as foreigners and well-heeled locals eager for panoramic views push prices for penthouses as high as $4,000 per square metre. A few hapless community groups have sought to slow the tide and preserve their neighbourhoods’ intimacy, but the city’s zoning laws are rather liberal for buildings with less than 35 storeys. Even if prices do not climb much further, the developers will probably continue building until they have eased the city’s perpetual shortage of quality housing.

Catch if you can

July 2006

Roy Lichtenstein: Animated Life

Until August 7th 2006

In the five short years since its founding, Buenos Aires’ Latin American art museum (MALBA) has already become a heavyweight in the city’s crowded cultural scene. By snagging this travelling show en route from Brazil, MALBA takes another bold step forward, venturing outside its core competency of Latin American art to host a serious exhibit of work by Roy Lichtenstein, a pioneer of American Pop Art who died in 1997. The exhibit eschews Lichtenstein’s finished paintings and sculptures in favour of some 80 drawings and collages spanning five decades.

The exhibit offers a glimpse of the painstaking thought that went into each iconic, cartoonish image. Viewers can revel in this uniquely intimate look at Lichtenstein’s artistic process and in the subtlety, ingenuity and irony of the works themselves. Many sketches include dozens of notations indicating a work’s final proportions, while the more polished, brilliantly coloured collages feature a dazzling array of media, from magic marker to aluminium foil. Of particular interest are Lichtenstein’s lesser-known works from the 1990s, when he made interiors his subjects and further explored the conceptual side of his unmistakable style.

Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, Avenida Figueroa Alcorta 3415, Palermo. Tel: +54 (0) 11 4808-6500. Open: Wed noon-9pm; Thu-Mon noon-8pm. See the museum’s website.

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

News this month

Could do better

Los Angeles prides itself on being one of the most diverse cities in the world. So it is surprising that of the 4,852 new students due to start at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in the autumn, a mere 96—fewer than 2%—are African-Americans. That figure, 20 fewer than last year’s intake, is the lowest since 1973, at a university that counts such luminaries as Ralph Bunche and Jackie Robinson among its black alumni. No wonder Albert Carnesale, the outgoing chancellor, describes the news as “a great disappointment”. Both Berkeley and the University of Southern California have proportionately more black students.

What is true for black students applies to all minority groups: blacks, Latinos and American Indians will make up just 15.9% of new students in 2006, compared with 18.1% in 2005. One explanation is California’s Proposition 209, which was passed in 1996 and forbids affirmative action on the basis of race or sex. Another explanation is that because diversity is the goal of most universities, talented black Angelenos find themselves being wooed—not least with generous scholarships—by elite establishments such as Harvard and Princeton.

Flying squad

Los Angeles International Airport is big enough to have its own 400-strong police force, which co-operates not just with immigration agents and Transportation Security Agency officers but also with 59 officers assigned by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). Whether it makes sense to have two different police forces working the same vulnerable patch is a moot point. (LA’s voters last year voted down a measure to combine the two.) A more pressing issue, as outlined by a bill now passing through the state legislature in Sacramento, is whether airport police should have LAPD-like powers.

At the moment, for instance, they are not authorised to seize explosives or use them to train bomb-sniffing dogs. Despite political pressure, William Bratton, chief of the LAPD, champions the status quo, claiming the airport police are simply not qualified to have such powers. Mr Bratton is LA’s most effective police chief in decades, but he may lose this particular battle: immediately after he stated his position, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa publicly praised the competence of the airport police.

Trouble in the schools

Bad news and the Los Angeles Unified School District—the second biggest in the country, with some 727,000 students—go together all too often. On June 5th a fight between black and Latino pupils at Venice High School resulted in the fatal shooting of a 17-year-old Latino student. Racial violence in LA’s public schools, where Latinos now vastly outnumber blacks, is nothing new: indeed, shortly after his election last year Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s visit to Jefferson High School was marred in front of the cameras by a continuing fight between blacks and Latinos. How to stop the violence is a vexed question. One proposal favoured by the mayor (who hopes to take control of the school system from the elected school board) is to reduce the size of schools to around 500-600 students each. Venice High School, for example, has over 3,000 students—and more students means more neighbourhood gangs, whether Latino, black or inter-racial.

City farm

Hollywood stars don't always have it their way. Daryl Hannah, Danny Glover and Martin Sheen were among those unable to save a rural oasis in the middle of South Central LA, one of the poorest parts of the city. Campaigners demonstrated for weeks to save a 14-acre farm at 41st and Alameda Street, which provides food and fresh flowers for some 360 families. The City of LA compulsorily acquired the land in the late 1980s for a waste incinerator that was never built, then set it aside as a community garden after the riots of 1992, which devastated much of South Central.

Unhappily for the self-styled “South Central Farmers”, in late 2003 the city sold the land back to the previous owner, Ralph Horowitz—who decided to evict the farmers and erect a warehouse, which many argue would provide jobs for the poor locals. This led to a two-year legal wrangle, with the farmers disputing the city’s right to transfer the land, and then a dawn raid by the police on June 13th to evict them. The farmers had hoped that the blitz of publicity (Joan Baez had sung in their favour and Ms Hannah had perched for weeks in a walnut tree) would either raise enough money to buy out the developers or would embarrass the mayor’s office into finding a solution. But despite an offer from the Trust for Public Land and the Annenberg Foundation to meet Mr Horowitz’s asking price of $16.3m, he now refuses to sell, complaining of anti-Semitic insults from the protesters. Meanwhile, Mayor Villaraigosa says farmers will be relocated to a 7.8-acre site in another deprived location at 111th Street and Avalon, and the city has identified another 100 plots that could be used as community gardens.

No apology

The LAPD brags that with 17 helicopters and one aeroplane it has “the largest municipal airborne law enforcement operation in the world”. In traffic-clogged LA, this is proving a boon to William Bratton, the police chief. In the past 18 months he has used the police air force 29 times to get him to places as far away as Sacramento and Las Vegas, but also to events within the LA region. All this, says the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, a tax-fighting organisation, is a misuse of public money (the LAPD does not keep track of the total cost, but does say that the cost of operating a helicopter is around $400 an hour).

Mr Bratton, who notes that he is usually accompanied by fellow officers, is absolutely unapologetic. He told the Los Angeles Times: “The size of the city, the amount of traffic and the demand on my schedule make the aircraft a cost-effective, practical solution to staying in touch and making myself more accessible.” A Hollywood studio boss could hardly have put it better.

Catch if you can

July 2006

David Hockney Portraits

Until September 4th 2006

Los Angeles can feel like a city of transplants, so it is fitting that its most famous artist is David Hockney, a Brit who has made LA his sometime home for the past 40 years. The city has seen plenty of exhibitions of Mr Hockney’s work, notably at the LA Louver gallery, but a show at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) offers a new look at the artist. Rather than present Mr Hockney’s well known landscapes, this exhibit is devoted to his portraits. The paintings of his family, friends and lovers give fascinating insight into the artist’s life. One bonus of the LACMA exhibition, organised with London’s National Portrait Gallery and Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, is its use of Mr Hockney’s photographic albums, which he used to jog his memory while working on his portraits.

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 5905 Wilshire Boulevard. Tel: +1 (323) 857-6000. Open Mon, Tues, Thurs noon-8pm; Fri noon-9pm; Sat-Sun 11am-8pm. Entry: $15 for exhibition, $9 for museum. For more information, visit the museum’s website.

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