Unions take on French president - · PDF filerequired by Rory Mullarkey s libretto ... Many...
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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
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