Unions take on French president - · PDF filerequired by Rory Mullarkey s libretto ... Many...
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.. INTERNATIONAL EDITION | WEDNESDAY, MARCH 28, 2018 TRADE CONFLICT STANDOFF OVER CHINA’S TECH PAGE 7 | BUSINESS DUTCH PARADOX BLACK MARKET FOR CANNABIS PAGE 4 | WORLD CARIBBEAN RECOVERY STORM DEBRIS LINGERS, BUT BEAUTY ENDURES BACK PAGE | TRAVEL For eight years in a row, an international survey of nearly 300 cities has named Hong Kong the world’s least affordable housing market. It is not hard to see why. Located on a group of hilly islands and a corner of the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong has al- ways been short of places to build. The government’s reliance on land sales for revenue creates an incentive to keep prices high. Money pouring in from mainland Chinese investors pushes them even higher. The extremes can be staggering. A single parking spot sold for $664,000 last year. Apartments only slightly big- ger, and in much less desirable parts of town, go for more than $380,000. Living spaces have shrunk so much that a new term has emerged, “nano flat,” for an apartment measuring around 200 square feet or less. Many Hong Kongers have been priced out of the housing market, includ- ing young people forced to live with their parents. Their discontent is said to have contributed to recent street pro- tests like the 2014 Umbrella Movement. A government task force is consider- ing a wide range of options for making better use of available land. Architects and developers have also put forward some novel proposals, ranging from the quirky to the audacious. While some of the ideas may be repackaged versions of the cramped spaces the city has long known, others could reshape the future of housing in Hong Kong. Here are some of the ideas: STACKING TINY SPACES The architect James Law was at a con- struction site in town when he noticed some concrete pipes left over from an in- frastructure project. They were large enough to walk in, cool in the summer and surprisingly nicely finished. “I had a eureka moment,” he said. So he spent about a month designing and building the OPod, two sections of concrete drainpipe joined to create a liv- ing space of about 100 square feet. It in- cludes a couch and foldout bed, a desk, shelving, a tiny kitchenette, a hanging closet and a shower. The pods can be stacked up to five high, or placed in small, unused spaces between buildings and under bridges. A prototype is on display in a waterfront park, but there are no plans yet for com- mercial production. “It is not a complete solution to what is a very complex problem,” Mr. Law said. “But it is a fun, design-oriented way to stimulate debate and even, on a small scale, create model projects.” RETURN OF THE TENEMENTS One idea is already a reality in a pair of 50-year-old buildings with distinctive HONG KONG, PAGE 4 At home in a drainpipe A prototype of the OPod in Hong Kong. Designed by the architect James Law, the OPod would create a living space of about 100 square feet out of concrete drainpipe. PHOTOGRAPHS BY LAM YIK FEI FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES HONG KONG Quirky ideas for solving Hong Kong’s housing crisis and space squeeze BY AUSTIN RAMZY Preparing a party at Bibliotheque, a half-century-old Hong Kong building turned into slickly designed dormitory-like living spaces with shared kitchens and bathrooms. There’s a touch of silver now in K. D. Lang’s punk pompadour, which she still clips herself with whatever is at hand: grape shears, cuticle scissors, a paring knife. And she still performs barefoot, a habit acquired because she was tired of the plastic Payless boots she used to fa- vor in deference to her vegan beliefs. But Ms. Lang, 56, has put aside the stir- ring androgyne character she inhabited 25 years ago, when she transformed herself from the curiously campy Cana- dian cowgirl with the languid vibrato into the torch singer behind the post- apocalyptic cabaret album, as she once described it, called “Ingénue.” The record, which went platinum, made Ms. Lang a superstar, and its clos- ing song, the erotic pop lamentation “Constant Craving,” earned her a third Grammy. (She won a fourth in 2004 for “What a Wonderful World,” recorded with Tony Bennett for an album of American standards). It would also become Ms. Lang’s “Free Bird”: the song she would seem- ingly have to play at the close of every show for the rest of her life, extending her microphone toward her audience, as that ritual dictates, so they could render its refrain back to her, ecstatically off key. Not that she wasn’t happy to do so. “That’s what people want,” she said, though when she wrote the song, she was annoyed by it. “I knew it was a hit, and I was mad at it for that. I felt that it was a sellout at the time.” Now, she’s reveling in it. Ms. Lang’s label, Nonesuch Records, has issued a remastered version of “Ingénue” with bonus tracks taken from her 1993 “MTV Unplugged” appearance. She has been playing all its songs straight through during concerts in 19 cities in the United K. D. LANG, PAGE 2 Reveling in her ‘Constant Craving’ K. D. Lang, who is on a concert tour of the United States, said: “I’m really giving in to the fact that I am who I am. I’m too young to be a legend and too old to be pertinent.” RYAN PFLUGER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES PORTLAND, ORE. K. D. Lang is long past her annoyance with the song that made her a star BY PENELOPE GREEN The New York Times publishes opinion from a wide range of perspectives in hopes of promoting constructive debate about consequential questions. History was not supposed to turn out this way. In the aftermath of World War II, the victorious Western countries forged in- stitutions — NATO, the European Un- ion, and the World Trade Organization — that aimed to keep the peace through collective military might and shared prosperity. They promoted democratic ideals and international trade while in- vesting in the notion that coalitions were the antidote to destructive nationalism. But now the model that has domi- nated geopolitical affairs for more than 70 years appears increasingly fragile. Its tenets are being challenged by a surge of nationalism and its institutions are under assault from some of the very powers that constructed them — not least, the United States under President Trump. In place of shared approaches to soci- etal problems — whether trade dis- putes, security or climate change — na- tional interests have become primary. The language of multilateral coopera- tion has been drowned out by angry ap- peals to tribal solidarity, tendencies that are heightened by economic anxieties. “What we’ve seen is a kind of back- lash to liberal democracy,” said Aman- dine Crespy, a political scientist at Free University Brussels (ULB) in Belgium. “Masses of people feel they have not been properly represented in liberal de- mocracy.” Even as nationalists take aim at glob- alists, the eventual shape of interna- tional relations remains an open ques- tion. In a sign that investors are opti- mistic that talks can yet avert a trade war between the United States and China, financial markets soared on Monday and rose on Tuesday in Asia and in the early going in Europe. And the United States, Canada and other Eu- ropean nations expelled Russian diplo- mats in solidarity with Britain over the poisoning of a Russian defector in Lon- don, enhancing hopes that old alliances will endure. Still, public anger at traditional cen- ters of power remains fierce in many lands, with Mr. Trump’s election the most potent manifestation. He has NATIONALISM, PAGE 8 Global order is assailed by powers that built it NEWS ANALYSIS LONDON BY PETER S. GOODMAN National interests capture primacy after decades of promoting cooperation The presidential election in Russia a week ago resulted in an impressive, if unsurprising, victory for Vladimir Putin. He was elected to a fourth term with a wide margin and high turnout in a vote that appeared to be the cleanest in Russia’s recent history (at least when it comes to what happened on Election Day itself ). But this election was about more than just reinstalling Mr. Putin in the Kremlin. It signaled the beginning of post-Putin Russia. Because while the president has gained popular support for policies like annexing Crimea and confronting the West, the legitimacy of his next term will be determined by his success in reassuring ordinary Rus- sians that his regime will endure even when he is no longer in the Kremlin. Mr. Putin’s role in the Russian public imagination today is similar to that of post-colonial na- tional liberation leaders of the 1960s and ’70s. He is viewed as the founder of a new Russian state, the savior of Russia’s dignity and the restorer of its status as a great power. And contrary to West- ern fantasies, Russians under the age of 25 are among his strongest support- ers. They not only vote for him, many of them want to be like him. Seventy-six percent of people between 18 and 30 perceive working in the security serv- ices as “very prestigious,” compared to 59 percent of those older than 60. As the analysts Andrei Kolesnikov and Denis Volkov observed, within the Russian public, “there is no debate about Putin.” “Almost no one questions his legiti- macy as president,” they wrote in a recent report for the Carnegie Moscow Center. “He is a constant, the portrait on the wall that can no longer be taken down.” The question is what will happen to those whose portraits are not on the wall. In late 2011, the magazine Rus- sian Reporter published a study of Russia’s elite that revealed that the most important predictor of member- ship in the elite circle (the top 300 government positions) was to have known Mr. Putin before he became president. In short, a circle of friends has gov- Russia bows to the Putin generation Ivan Krastev Contributing Writer OPINION The president is installing a cohort of young technocrats to assure that his regime will endure without him. KRASTEV, PAGE 11 A NEW COLD WAR WITH RUSSIA? Moscow may not be spreading revolu- tion, but it is interested in disrupting the American-dominated order. PAGE 6 HOW THE E.U. AGREED TO PUNISH PUTIN European leaders agreed with Britain that Russia had gone too far when it poisoned a former spy. PAGE 6 www.jaeger-lecoultre.com THE REBIRTH OF AN ICON JAEGER-LECOULTRE POLARIS MEMOVOX Issue Number No. 42,001 Andorra € 3.70 Antilles € 4.00 Austria € 3.50 Bahrain BD 1.40 Belgium € 3.50 Bos. & Herz. KM 5.50 Cameroon CFA 2700 Canada CAN$ 5.50 Croatia KN 22.00 Cyprus € 3.20 Czech Rep CZK 110 Denmark Dkr 30 Egypt EGP 28.00 Estonia € 3.50 Finland € 3.50 France € 3.50 Gabon CFA 2700 Germany € 3.50 Great Britain £ 2.20 Greece € 2.80 Hungary HUF 950 Israel NIS 13.50 Israel / Eilat NIS 11.50 Italy € 3.40 Ivory Coast CFA 2700 Jordan JD 2.00 Serbia Din 280 Slovakia € 3.50 Slovenia € 3.40 Spain € 3.50 Sweden Skr 35 Switzerland CHF 4.80 Syria US$ 3.00 The Netherlands € 3.50 Oman OMR 1.40 Poland Zl 15 Portugal € 3.50 Qatar QR 12.00 Republic of Ireland ¤ 3.40 Reunion € 3.50 Saudi Arabia SR 15.00 Senegal CFA 2700 Kazakhstan US$ 3.50 Latvia € 3.90 Lebanon LBP 5,000 Luxembourg € 3.50 Malta € 3.40 Montenegro € 3.40 Morocco MAD 30 Norway Nkr 33 NEWSSTAND PRICES Tunisia Din 5.200 Turkey TL 11 U.A.E. AED 14.00 United States $ 4.00 United States Military (Europe) $ 2.00 Y(1J85IC*KKNPKP( +@!"!$!#!@
Transcript of Unions take on French president - · PDF filerequired by Rory Mullarkey s libretto ... Many...
..
INTERNATIONAL EDITION | WEDNESDAY, MARCH 28, 2018
TRADE CONFLICTSTANDOFF OVERCHINA’S TECHPAGE 7 | BUSINESS
DUTCH PARADOXBLACK MARKETFOR CANNABISPAGE 4 | WORLD
CARIBBEAN RECOVERYSTORM DEBRIS LINGERS,BUT BEAUTY ENDURESBACK PAGE | TRAVEL
For eight years in a row, an internationalsurvey of nearly 300 cities has namedHong Kong the world’s least affordablehousing market.
It is not hard to see why. Located on agroup of hilly islands and a corner of theChinese mainland, Hong Kong has al-ways been short of places to build. Thegovernment’s reliance on land sales forrevenue creates an incentive to keepprices high. Money pouring in frommainland Chinese investors pushesthem even higher.
The extremes can be staggering. Asingle parking spot sold for $664,000last year. Apartments only slightly big-ger, and in much less desirable parts oftown, go for more than $380,000. Livingspaces have shrunk so much that a newterm has emerged, “nano flat,” for anapartment measuring around 200square feet or less.
Many Hong Kongers have been
priced out of the housing market, includ-ing young people forced to live withtheir parents. Their discontent is said tohave contributed to recent street pro-tests like the 2014 Umbrella Movement.
A government task force is consider-ing a wide range of options for making
better use of available land. Architectsand developers have also put forwardsome novel proposals, ranging from thequirky to the audacious. While some ofthe ideas may be repackaged versions ofthe cramped spaces the city has longknown, others could reshape the future
of housing in Hong Kong. Here are someof the ideas:
STACKING TINY SPACESThe architect James Law was at a con-struction site in town when he noticedsome concrete pipes left over from an in-frastructure project. They were largeenough to walk in, cool in the summerand surprisingly nicely finished.
“I had a eureka moment,” he said.So he spent about a month designing
and building the OPod, two sections ofconcrete drainpipe joined to create a liv-ing space of about 100 square feet. It in-cludes a couch and foldout bed, a desk,shelving, a tiny kitchenette, a hangingcloset and a shower.
The pods can be stacked up to fivehigh, or placed in small, unused spacesbetween buildings and under bridges. Aprototype is on display in a waterfrontpark, but there are no plans yet for com-mercial production.
“It is not a complete solution to whatis a very complex problem,” Mr. Lawsaid. “But it is a fun, design-orientedway to stimulate debate and even, on asmall scale, create model projects.”
RETURN OF THE TENEMENTSOne idea is already a reality in a pair of50-year-old buildings with distinctive HONG KONG, PAGE 4
At home in a drainpipeA prototype of the OPod in Hong Kong. Designed by the architect James Law, the OPod would create a living space of about 100 square feet out of concrete drainpipe.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY LAM YIK FEI FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
HONG KONG
Quirky ideas for solvingHong Kong’s housing crisis and space squeeze
BY AUSTIN RAMZY
Preparing a party at Bibliotheque, a half-century-old Hong Kong building turned intoslickly designed dormitory-like living spaces with shared kitchens and bathrooms.
There’s a touch of silver now in K. D.Lang’s punk pompadour, which she stillclips herself with whatever is at hand:grape shears, cuticle scissors, a paringknife. And she still performs barefoot, ahabit acquired because she was tired ofthe plastic Payless boots she used to fa-vor in deference to her vegan beliefs.But Ms. Lang, 56, has put aside the stir-ring androgyne character she inhabited25 years ago, when she transformedherself from the curiously campy Cana-dian cowgirl with the languid vibratointo the torch singer behind the post-apocalyptic cabaret album, as she oncedescribed it, called “Ingénue.”
The record, which went platinum,
made Ms. Lang a superstar, and its clos-ing song, the erotic pop lamentation“Constant Craving,” earned her a thirdGrammy. (She won a fourth in 2004 for“What a Wonderful World,” recordedwith Tony Bennett for an album ofAmerican standards).
It would also become Ms. Lang’s“Free Bird”: the song she would seem-ingly have to play at the close of everyshow for the rest of her life, extendingher microphone toward her audience, asthat ritual dictates, so they could renderits refrain back to her, ecstatically offkey. Not that she wasn’t happy to do so.“That’s what people want,” she said,though when she wrote the song, shewas annoyed by it. “I knew it was a hit,and I was mad at it for that. I felt that itwas a sellout at the time.”
Now, she’s reveling in it. Ms. Lang’slabel, Nonesuch Records, has issued aremastered version of “Ingénue” withbonus tracks taken from her 1993 “MTVUnplugged” appearance. She has beenplaying all its songs straight throughduring concerts in 19 cities in the United K. D. LANG, PAGE 2
Reveling in her ‘Constant Craving’
K. D. Lang, who is on a concert tour of the United States, said: “I’m really giving in tothe fact that I am who I am. I’m too young to be a legend and too old to be pertinent.”
RYAN PFLUGER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
PORTLAND, ORE.
K. D. Lang is long pasther annoyance with thesong that made her a star
BY PENELOPE GREEN
The New York Times publishes opinionfrom a wide range of perspectives inhopes of promoting constructive debateabout consequential questions.
History was not supposed to turn outthis way.
In the aftermath of World War II, thevictorious Western countries forged in-stitutions — NATO, the European Un-ion, and the World Trade Organization— that aimed to keep the peace throughcollective military might and sharedprosperity. They promoted democraticideals and international trade while in-vesting in the notion that coalitions werethe antidote to destructive nationalism.
But now the model that has domi-nated geopolitical affairs for more than70 years appears increasingly fragile.Its tenets are being challenged by asurge of nationalism and its institutionsare under assault from some of the verypowers that constructed them — notleast, the United States under PresidentTrump.
In place of shared approaches to soci-etal problems — whether trade dis-putes, security or climate change — na-tional interests have become primary.The language of multilateral coopera-tion has been drowned out by angry ap-peals to tribal solidarity, tendencies thatare heightened by economic anxieties.
“What we’ve seen is a kind of back-lash to liberal democracy,” said Aman-dine Crespy, a political scientist at FreeUniversity Brussels (ULB) in Belgium.“Masses of people feel they have notbeen properly represented in liberal de-mocracy.”
Even as nationalists take aim at glob-alists, the eventual shape of interna-tional relations remains an open ques-tion. In a sign that investors are opti-mistic that talks can yet avert a tradewar between the United States andChina, financial markets soared onMonday and rose on Tuesday in Asiaand in the early going in Europe. Andthe United States, Canada and other Eu-ropean nations expelled Russian diplo-mats in solidarity with Britain over thepoisoning of a Russian defector in Lon-don, enhancing hopes that old allianceswill endure.
Still, public anger at traditional cen-ters of power remains fierce in manylands, with Mr. Trump’s election themost potent manifestation. He has NATIONALISM, PAGE 8
Global orderis assailedby powersthat built itNEWS ANALYSISLONDON
BY PETER S. GOODMAN
National interests captureprimacy after decades of promoting cooperation
The presidential election in Russia aweek ago resulted in an impressive, ifunsurprising, victory for VladimirPutin. He was elected to a fourth termwith a wide margin and high turnout ina vote that appeared to be the cleanestin Russia’s recent history (at leastwhen it comes to what happened onElection Day itself).
But this election was about morethan just reinstalling Mr. Putin in theKremlin. It signaled the beginning ofpost-Putin Russia. Because while thepresident has gained popular supportfor policies like annexing Crimea andconfronting the West, the legitimacy ofhis next term will be determined by hissuccess in reassuring ordinary Rus-sians that his regime will endure even
when he is no longerin the Kremlin.
Mr. Putin’s role inthe Russian publicimagination today issimilar to that ofpost-colonial na-tional liberationleaders of the 1960sand ’70s. He isviewed as thefounder of a newRussian state, thesavior of Russia’s
dignity and the restorer of its status asa great power. And contrary to West-ern fantasies, Russians under the ageof 25 are among his strongest support-ers.
They not only vote for him, many ofthem want to be like him. Seventy-sixpercent of people between 18 and 30perceive working in the security serv-ices as “very prestigious,” compared to59 percent of those older than 60. Asthe analysts Andrei Kolesnikov andDenis Volkov observed, within theRussian public, “there is no debateabout Putin.”
“Almost no one questions his legiti-macy as president,” they wrote in arecent report for the Carnegie MoscowCenter. “He is a constant, the portraiton the wall that can no longer be takendown.”
The question is what will happen tothose whose portraits are not on thewall. In late 2011, the magazine Rus-sian Reporter published a study ofRussia’s elite that revealed that themost important predictor of member-ship in the elite circle (the top 300government positions) was to haveknown Mr. Putin before he becamepresident.
In short, a circle of friends has gov-
Russia bowsto the PutingenerationIvan KrastevContributing Writer
OPINION
The presidentis installinga cohort of youngtechnocratsto assure thathis regimewill endurewithout him.
KRASTEV, PAGE 11
A NEW COLD WAR WITH RUSSIA?Moscow may not be spreading revolu-tion, but it is interested in disruptingthe American-dominated order. PAGE 6
HOW THE E.U. AGREED TO PUNISH PUTINEuropean leaders agreed with Britainthat Russia had gone too far when itpoisoned a former spy. PAGE 6
www.jaeger-lecoultre.com
THE REBIRTH OF AN ICON
JAEGER-LECOULTRE POLARIS
MEMOVOXIssue NumberNo. 42,001
Andorra € 3.70Antilles € 4.00Austria € 3.50Bahrain BD 1.40Belgium € 3.50Bos. & Herz. KM 5.50
Cameroon CFA 2700Canada CAN$ 5.50Croatia KN 22.00Cyprus € 3.20Czech Rep CZK 110Denmark Dkr 30
Egypt EGP 28.00Estonia € 3.50Finland € 3.50France € 3.50Gabon CFA 2700Germany € 3.50
Great Britain £ 2.20Greece € 2.80Hungary HUF 950Israel NIS 13.50Israel / Eilat NIS 11.50Italy € 3.40Ivory Coast CFA 2700Jordan JD 2.00
Serbia Din 280Slovakia € 3.50Slovenia € 3.40Spain € 3.50Sweden Skr 35Switzerland CHF 4.80Syria US$ 3.00The Netherlands € 3.50
Oman OMR 1.40Poland Zl 15Portugal € 3.50Qatar QR 12.00Republic of Ireland ¤ 3.40Reunion € 3.50Saudi Arabia SR 15.00Senegal CFA 2700
Kazakhstan US$ 3.50Latvia € 3.90Lebanon LBP 5,000Luxembourg € 3.50Malta € 3.40Montenegro € 3.40Morocco MAD 30Norway Nkr 33
NEWSSTAND PRICESTunisia Din 5.200Turkey TL 11U.A.E. AED 14.00United States $ 4.00United States Military
(Europe) $ 2.00
Y(1J85IC*KKNPKP( +@!"!$!#!@
