Sped. abb. postale art. 1legge 46/04 del 27/02/2004 — Roma
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Eating meat is, perhaps, in our bones. Scientists recently discoveredthat as early as 3.4 million years ago, human ancestors may have used heavy stones to butcher animals, con-suming meat at least 800,000 years
earlier than pre-viously thought,according to the journal Nature.
And the crav-ings continue.
Despite leantimes, a gluttonyfor sustainable beef abounds. Per-haps it’s because
of an obsession with control in an in-creasingly globalized world, or an ide-alization of a primal past (add some E.coli scares and mad-cow disease). But suddenly, meat is following the pathof the vegetable: local, and obsessedover. Boutique meats — quality meat from small producers and regionalfields — are entering the mainstream.
As the public has grown more awareof how industrial meat is produced,there’s a demand for meat from farm-
ers who do not send their animals tolarge processors. And never beforehas so much specialized meat been aswidely available in stores and farmer’smarkets, wrote The Times.
“Obviously everyone is in the middle of a total meat obsession,” Tia Keenan, a fromager in New York, toldThe Times. With the demand for local meat and more restaurants specializ-ing in offal, butchering is back, and ina glamorous way. Japanese Premium Beef, which opened last year in New York, sells wagyu beef for $110 a kilo-gram in a storefront that looks like a Prada store.
Boutique butchers like Tom Mylan,formerly of Marlow & Daughters inBrooklyn, are gaining cult status and devoted followings. They are opening stores in New York, London and San Francisco and offering classes: from $75 to learn to break down a 40-kilo-gram pig, to $10,000 for six to eight weeks of instruction.
“It’s the whole D.I.Y. thing” that has trickled down and out, David Kamp, the author of “The United States ofArugula,” told The Times. The resultis “a newfound celebration of carnivo-rousness.”
For some, this means having a
meat locker in the living room. That’swhere John Durant, 26, keeps his organ meat and deer ribs in his New York apartment. He is part of a sub-culture whose members in the UnitedStates and Europe seek good healththrough a return to the diet and ex-ercise of their Paleolithic ancestors,wrote The Times.
The caveman lifestyle involveseating large quantities of meat, andfasting between meals to simulate leantimes. Mr. Durant told The Times hewants to wean himself off millenniumsof bad habits.
In a meat-obsessed world, some habits can be easy to break, or bend.At her wedding in July, Chelsea Clinton, a vegetarian, served meat, sparking debate. “The idea that any-one would expect someone who was vegan to serve meat at their wedding seems absolutely crazy to me,” wrote a commenter on the Serious Eats blog.
Fernanda Capobianco, a vegan pastry chef from Rio de Janeiro, willmarry fellow pastry chef FrançoisPayard in October. She told The Times that meat will be served at their wed-ding, despite her ethical qualms. “We are inviting chefs like Eric Ripert andDaniel Boulud,” she said. “How can weinvite chefs and then have no meat?They’ll think we’re crazy.”
When nations rely on exporting raw materials, investments in the future can suffer. An abandoned nitrate mine in Chile’s Atacama desert.
Con tin ued on Page IV
The Resource Trap
Con tin ued on Page IV
By RACHEL DONADIO
PRATO, Italy — Over the years, Italylearned the difficult lesson that it could no longer compete with China on price. And so, its business class dreamed, Italy wouldsell quality, not quantity. For centuries,this walled medieval city just outside ofFlorence has produced some of the world’sfinest fabrics, becoming a powerhouse for“Made in Italy” chic.
And then, China came here.Chinese laborers, first a few immi-
grants, then tens of thousands, began set-tling in Prato in the late 1980’s. They trans-formed the textile hub into a low-end gar-ment manufacturing capital —enriching many, stoking resentment and prompting crackdowns that have brought cries of big-otry and hypocrisy.
The city is home to the largest concen-tration of Chinese in Europe — some legal,many more not. Here in the heart of Tusca-ny, Chinese laborers work round the clock in some 3,200 businesses making low-end clothes, shoes and accessories, often withmaterials imported from China, for saleat midprice and low-end retailers world-wide.
Enabled by Italy’s weak institutions andhigh tolerance for rule-bending, the Chi-nese have blurred the line between “Made in China” and “Made in Italy,” undermin-ing Italy’s cachet and ability to marketgoods exclusively as high end.
Part of the resentment is cultural: The city’s classic Italian feel is giving way to that of a Chinatown. But what seems togall some Italians most is that the Chineseare beating them at their own game — tax evasion and brilliant ways of navigatingItaly’s notoriously complex bureaucracy— and have created a thriving, if largely underground, new sector while many Pra-to businesses have gone under. The result is a toxic combination of residual fears
NewcomersRedefineA Label
South America is limited
by the boom-and-bust
cycles of its natural riches.
VIMONEY & BUSINESS
New life forms created for fuel.
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Supplemento a cura di: Alix Van Buren,Francesco Malgaroli
LONDON
I returned last month to live inEngland after a 30-year break. Itwas raining. The weatherman onTV, standing before a map withdark clouds gusting across it, pre-dicted “sunny spells” over the next24 hours. That took me back.
Sunny spells! I had not heard thephrase in a long time but it inhab-ited some place deep in my bones.Yes, those illuminated momentsbetween clouds, so typical of Brit-ain, where the wind seldom diesand everything drips. A “spell,” inthis usage, has a rough durationof four minutes, somewhat shorterthan its variant, a “sunny interval,”which has been known to last half-an-hour.
The phlegmatic outlook of theBritish is well known and prob-
ably has much to do with its mil-lennial monarchy and unstableskies. I asked a friend about climatechange. Hard to know, he said, theclimate here changes every 10 min-utes.
But surely there’s been globalwarming? “Well, certainly since wegot central heating in the 1970s!”
This is a nation that has seen a lot.To the British, wit is the best riposte to life’s vagaries. Empire has come and gone, as has Tony Blair’s “Cool Britannia.” What’s left right now isan indebted nation fed up with theCity’s fat-cat bankers and anxiousabout budget cuts.
Before I get to politics, a word isneeded on the English language. Its London usage differs from that of its fellow metropolis across the pond,New York. I asked for the mailboxthe other day and got a stare. Yes, I insisted, brandishing a letter, a mail-box. “Oh, you mean the letter box.”
I suppose that is what I meant.Yeah, no worries, I might have saidin good Anglo mode, got that “sort-ed.” But things soon got unsorted. I
drove past a garage offering “tyrechanges.” This prompted an explo-sion from my teenage son. “Theydon’t actually spell tires with a ‘y,’do they?” Yes, I confessed, theydo. They also ask for their coffee“white” when they mean with milk.
A thousand little differences canmake for misunderstanding, soperhaps it’s not surprising that re-lations between the United Statesand Britain are cool, despite thefact that both have fresh-faced40-something leaders, both are fac-ing a hangover from the securitized-mortgage boom, both face runawaydeficits, and each needs the other to confront a world of changing power patterns.
If nothing else, Britain, whichonce aspired to be Greece to Amer-ica’s Rome (a sort of civilizing in-fluence on the new great power),might offer counsel to the UnitedStates on how to transition fromdominance to the cooperationamong equals embodied in the Brit-ish Commonwealth.
But Barack Obama is not Bill Clin-ton, who was schooled at Oxford.He’s not even George W. Bush, whoinhaled Atlanticism through hiscold-war-warrior father. Nor is heRonald Reagan, whose ideologicalmarriage with Margaret Thatcherwas of a heady intensity. No, Obama is of Asian bent and his economicadvisers are telling him fast-growth Asia is what matters. America’s“special relationship” with Britainhas turned rather ordinary.
That’s a pity. The Western alli-ance is important. If London andWashington can’t find a shared lexi-con, the world will be less stable. Da-vid Cameron, the new prime minis-ter, is a pragmatist. He’s drawn to a moderate foreign policy in the styleof a Tory leader of another age, Har-old Macmillan. He sees Britain as a bridge between the United Statesand the European Union, but needs a new level of engagement fromObama.
Britain’s “sunny interval” on theworld stage ended decades ago.America’s will pass, too. For all Ci-cero’s advice — “Do not hesitate for a moment in prosecuting with allyour energies a war to preserve the glory of the Roman name, the safetyof our allies, our rich revenue, andthe fortunes of innumerable private citizens” — Rome fell. Washington, at war as China rises, needs all itsfriends right now, even old ones onthe slow-growth, gusty westernedge of Eurasia.
Read the ReportIran has spent the last four years
ignoring the United Nations’ order to stop enriching uranium. And far toomany of the world’s major playershave spent the last four years ignoring Iran’s defiance.
The good news is that many coun-tries are finally waking up to the dan-ger. In the three months since the Unit-ed Nations Security Council adoptedits latest round of sanctions, a growing number is turning up the heat on Teh-ran, implementing the United Nationspenalties and, in some cases, goingbeyond them.
The United States, the EuropeanUnion, Canada and Australia have ap-proved national sanctions that aim tochoke off Iran’s access to foreign capi-tal, halt investment in its energy sec-tor and impede its shipping industry.
More recently, Japan barred alltransactions with 15 Iranian banks,the United Arab Emirates froze fourIranian bank accounts and SouthKorea announced plans to restrictforeign exchange transactions for126 Iranian companies and individu-als — including the only Asian branch of Bank Mellat, one of Iran’s largestbanks. The sanctioned accounts, in-stitutions and individuals are all as-
sociated with Iran’s nuclear or missileprograms.
The Obama administration, whichhas pressed allies and others to take a much tougher line, went even further on September 7, sanctioning an Irani-an-owned bank in Germany, the Eu-ropean-Iranian Trade Bank, or E.I.H.Bank, which is accused of facilitating billions of dollars of transactions forblacklisted Iranian companies. Themove effectively shuts E.I.H. out of the American financial system.
Iran’s government — so far at least — remains defiant. According to thelatest report by the InternationalAtomic Energy Agency, Iranian sci-entists are continuing their slow butsteady production of low-enricheduranium and now have 6,108 pounds, up 15 percent from June. With further enrichment, that would be enough fuel for about two nuclear weapons.
Tehran has a long and cynical his-tory of hiding nuclear facilities — in-cluding its main enrichment site atNatanz and more recently discoveredenrichment facility at Qum. If that isn’tenough, an Iranian dissident group on Thursday said it has found evidenceof yet another secret nuclear site. And Iran is still refusing to fully cooperate
with inspections by the atomic energyagency. For the past two years, Iranhas barred two of the agency’s mostexperienced monitors. The reportalso says Iran is continuing to refuse to answer questions about whether itis hiding other facilities and whether its program has military uses, includ-ing a suspected project to fit a nuclear warhead on a missile.
American officials say said the new sanctions are beginning to bite —choking Iran’s access to foreign capi-tal, trade and investments. If there isany chance of changing Tehran’s be-havior, it is clearly going to take more pressure and more time.
Countries that have adopted sanc-tions already need to implement them robustly. We are sure that the UnitedArab Emirates, a major hub for Ira-nian business activity, can find more than four accounts to freeze. Countriesthat for political or economic reasons are still enabling Iran — China comes immediately to mind — need to readthat I.A.E.A. report again.
Tehran, predictably, insists it is not building a weapon. Its refusal to haltenrichment and cooperate with theI.A.E.A. makes that ever more impos-sible to believe.
E D I T O R I A L S O F T H E T I M E S
Earlier this month Japan’s minis-ter of finance declared that he and his colleagues wanted a discussion withChina about the latter’s purchases of Japanese bonds, to “examine its in-tention” — diplomat-speak for “Stop itright now.” The news made me wantto bang my head against the wall infrustration.
You see, senior American policyfigures have repeatedly balked at do-ing anything about Chinese currencymanipulation, at least in part out offear that the Chinese would stop buy-ing our bonds. Yet in the current en-vironment, Chinese purchases of ourbonds don’t help us — they hurt us.The Japanese understand that. Why don’t we?
Some background: If discussion ofChinese currency policy seems con-fusing, it’s only because many peopledon’t want to face up to the stark,simple reality — namely, that China isdeliberately keeping its currency arti-ficially weak.
The consequences of this policy arealso stark and simple: in effect, China
is taxing imports while subsidizingexports, feeding a huge trade surplus.You may see claims that China’s trade surplus has nothing to do with its cur-rency policy; if so, that would be a first in world economic history. An under-valued currency always promotestrade surpluses, and China is no dif-ferent.
And in a depressed world economy,any country running an artificialtrade surplus is depriving other na-tions of much-needed sales and jobs.Again, anyone who asserts otherwise is claiming that China is somehow ex-empt from the economic logic that has always applied to everyone else.
So what should we be doing? U.S. of-ficials have tried to reason with their Chinese counterparts, arguing that a stronger currency would be in China’s own interest. They’re right about that:an undervalued currency promotesinflation, erodes the real wages of Chi-nese workers and squanders Chinese resources. But while currency manip-ulation is bad for China as a whole, it’sgood for politically influential Chinese companies — many of them state-owned. And so the currency manipu-lation goes on.
Time and again, U.S. officials haveannounced progress on the currencyissue; each time, it turns out thatthey’ve been had. Back in June, Timo-thy Geithner, the Treasury secretary,praised China’s announcement thatit would move to a more flexible ex-change rate. Since then, the renminbi has risen a grand total of 1, that’s right,1 percent against the dollar — withmuch of the rise taking place in justthe past few days, ahead of plannedCongressional hearings on the cur-rency issue. And since the dollar has fallen against other major currencies, China’s artificial cost advantage hasactually increased.
Clearly, nothing will happen until orunless the United States shows thatit’s willing to do what it normally doeswhen another country subsidizes itsexports: impose a temporary tariffthat offsets the subsidy. So why has
such action never been on the table?One answer, as I’ve already sug-
gested, is fear of what would happen ifthe Chinese stopped buying Americanbonds. But this fear is completely mis-placed: in a world awash with excess savings, we don’t need China’s mon-ey — especially because the FederalReserve could and should buy up any bonds the Chinese sell.
It’s true that the dollar would fall ifChina decided to dump some Ameri-can holdings. But this would actually help the U.S. economy, making our ex-ports more competitive. Ask the Japa-nese, who want China to stop buying their bonds because those purchases are driving up the yen.
Aside from unjustified financialfears, there’s a more sinister cause of U.S. passivity: business fear of Chi-nese retaliation.
Consider a related issue: the clearly illegal subsidies China provides to itsclean-energy industry. These subsi-dies should have led to a formal com-plaint from American businesses; infact, the only organization willing tofile a complaint was the steelworkers union. Why? As The Times reported, “multinational companies and tradeassociations in the clean energy busi-ness, as in many other industries, havebeen wary of filing trade cases, fear-ing Chinese officials’ reputation forretaliating against joint ventures intheir country and potentially denying market access to any company thattakes sides against China.”
Similar intimidation has surelyhelped discourage action on the cur-rency front. So this is a good time toremember that what’s good for mul-tinational companies is often bad forAmerica, especially its workers.
So here’s the question: Will U.S. pol-icy makers let themselves be spooked by financial phantoms and bullied bybusiness intimidation? Will they con-tinue to do nothing in the face of poli-cies that benefit Chinese special in-terests at the expense of both Chinese and American workers? Or will theyfinally, finally act? Stay tuned.
Britain and America:a special bond may be turning ordinary.
ANDY RAIN/EUROPEAN PRESSPHOTO AGENCY
In London, a sunny interval over Westminster, seen through the
clock tower of the houses of Parliament.
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W O R L D T R E N D S
IV MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2010
By CLIFFORD J. LEVY
IRKUTSK, Russia — One Januaryafternoon, a squad of plainclothespolice officers arrived at the head-quarters of an environmental groupthat was organizing protests against Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin’sdecision to reopen a paper factory atnearby Lake Baikal.
The factory had polluted the lake, a natural wonder that may hold 20 per-cent of the world’s fresh water.
The group, Baikal EnvironmentalWave, fell victim that day to one of the authorities’ newest tactics for quell-ing dissent: confiscating computersunder the pretext of searching for pi-rated Microsoft software.
Across Russia in recent years, thesecurity services have carried out doz-ens of similar raids against outspokenadvocacy groups or opposition news-papers.
Security officials say the inquiriesreflect their concern about softwarepiracy, which is rampant in Russia.Yet they rarely if ever carry out raids against advocacy groups or newsorganizations that back the govern-ment.
And as the ploy grew common, theauthorities received key assistancefrom an unexpected partner: Micro-soft itself.
In politically tinged inquiries acrossRussia, lawyers retained by Microsoft staunchly backed the police.
But on September 13, after after a
report in The New York Times, Micro-soft announced sweeping changes to ensure that the authorities do not use crackdowns on software piracy as anexcuse to suppress advocacy or oppo-sition groups.
The company effectively prohibitedits lawyers from taking part in suchcases.
The new Microsoft policy was an-nounced in an apologetic statementby the company’s senior vice presi-dent and general counsel, Brad Smith.He said that Microsoft would makesure that it was no longer offering le-gal support to politically motivated pi-racy inquiries by providing a blanket software license to advocacy groupsand media outlets. They would be au-tomatically covered by it, without hav-ing to apply.
Advocates and journalists who havebeen targets of such raids said theywere pleased that Microsoft was an-nouncing reforms, though some addedthat they remained suspicious of its in-tentions.
In the past, lawyers retained by Mi-crosoft in Russia had rebuffed pleasby accused journalists and advocacygroups to refrain from working withthe authorities.
Baikal Wave, in fact, asked Micro-soft for help in fending off the police.“Microsoft did not want to help us,”said Marina Rikhvanova, a BaikalEnvironmental Wave chairwomanand one of Russia’s best-known en-
vironmentalists. “They said these is-sues had to be handled by the securityservices.”
A review of cases indicates that the security services often seize comput-ers whether or not they contain illegalsoftware. The police immediately filereports saying they have discoveredsuch programs, before even examin-ing the computers in detail.
In numerous instances, when thecases went before judges, the policeclaims were successfully discredited.
Given the suspicions that these in-vestigations were politically motivat-ed, the police and prosecutors turnedto Microsoft to lend weight to theircases. In southwestern Russia, theInterior Ministry declared in an offi-cial document that its investigation of a human rights advocate for software piracy was begun “based on an appli-cation” from a lawyer for Microsoft.
In another city, Samara, the policeseized computers from two opposition newspapers, with the support of a dif-ferent Microsoft lawyer.
“Without the participation of Mi-crosoft, these criminal cases against human rights defenders and journal-ists would simply not be able to occur,”said the editor of the newspapers,Sergey Kurt-Adzhiyev.
Baikal Wave’s leaders said they hadknown that the authorities used such raids to pressure advocacy groups, sothey had made certain that all theirsoftware was legal.
But they quickly realized how diffi-cult it would be to defend themselves.A supervising officer issued a reporton the spot saying that illegal softwarehad been uncovered.
Before the raid, the environmen-talists said their computers were af-fixed with Microsoft’s “Certificate ofAuthenticity” stickers that attested tothe software’s legality. But as the com-puters were being hauled away, theynoticed something odd: the stickerswere gone.
The group’s Web site was disabled, its finances left in disarray, its plansdisclosed to the authorities.
The police also obtained personnel information from the computers.
In the following weeks, officerstracked down some of the group’s sup-porters and interrogated them.
“The police had one goal, whichwas to prevent us from working,” saidGalina Kulebyakina, a chairwomanof Baikal Wave. “They removed ourcomputers because we actively took aposition against the paper factory andforcefully voiced it.”
Baikal Wave sent copies of its soft-ware receipts and other documenta-tion to Microsoft’s Moscow office toshow that it had purchased its soft-ware legally.
The group said it believed that theauthorities would be under pressureto drop the case if Microsoft wouldconfirm the documents’ authenticity.Microsoft declined to do so.
tiable appetite for the kinds of raw goods that South America produces — soybeans from Braziland Argentina; iron ore from Bra-zil; copper from Chile; oil fromBrazil, Venezuela and others.
Those purchases held the re-gion’s economies in a tight gripas they swung widely in the pasttwo years because of the globaleconomic crisis. Latin Americanexports to China fell in the first half of 2009, then shot up by 45percent the first six months of thisyear, according to the EconomicCommission for Latin America and the Caribbean.
And, more ominously, meetingthese demands is causing the region to retrench in its efforts to diversify.
In the 1980s, raw materials made up half the value of goods exported from Latin America and the Caribbean, before dipping to under 27 percent in 1999. But that number has been climbing back up over the last decade, and last year reached nearly 39 percent,the economic commission said.
The exports that increased most were natural resources from South America, and their production came at the expense of manufactured products andservices with varying degrees of technology, the commission found in a study released earlier thismonth.
The report showed that SouthAmerica’s exports looked much like they had 20 years ago, in their balance between raw materials and manufactured goods. AliciaBárcena, executive secretary of the regional economic commis-sion, called the trend “a re-prima-rization of the economy,” and the commission said it was especiallystrong in Chile, where exportsales (much of them of copper) are expected to grow 33 percentthis year.
“Of course this is a concern,” Sebastián Piñera, Chile’s presi-dent, said.
He noted that in the past two de-cades, Chile had made some prog-ress in diversifying its economy by building up wine, salmon and fruit industries for export. But a recent tripling of the price of cop-per obscured that progress.
Mr. Piñera set a goal of doubling Chile’s public investment in thearea from 0.5 percent of gross domestic product to 1 percent by2014, when his four-year term isup.
More developed Western coun-tries already spend 2.5 percent of their gross domestic product on science and technology, and some Asian countries, including Japan and South Korea, spend more than 4 percent, Ms. Bárcena said.
But Latin America faces trade barriers for value-added productslike ethanol and chocolate, and the pull of the market for the raw materials from which they come — sugar and cacao — has been strong.
“As long as commodity prices remain reasonably high — and they should, unless there is a hard landing in Asia — reliance on ex-ports of primary goods appears to be the region’s future, for better or worse,” said Riordan Roett, the head of the Latin American stud-ies program at Johns Hopkins University.
The key, Mr. Roett said, will beto use export earnings to “movein the direction of a knowledge-based society.”
about immigration and the economy.“This could be the future of Italy,” saidEdoardo Nesi, the culture commis-sioner of Prato Province. “Italy shouldpay attention to the risks.”
The situation has steadily grown be-yond the control of state tax and immi-gration authorities. According to theBank of Italy, Chinese individuals inPrato channel an estimated $1.5 mil-lion a day to China, mainly earningsfrom the garment and textile trade.Profits of that magnitude are notshowing up in tax records, and somelocal officials say the Chinese preferto repatriate their profits rather thaninvest locally.
Tensions have been running highsince the Italian authorities steppedup raids this spring on workshops thatuse illegal labor, and grew even morewhen Italian prosecutors arrested 24people and investigated 100 business-es in the Prato area in late June.
The charges included money laun-dering, prostitution, counterfeitingand classifying foreign-made prod-ucts as “Made in Italy.”
Many Chinese are offended at theidea that they have ruined the city,
saying they have helped rescue Pratofrom economic irrelevance. “If theChinese hadn’t gone to Prato, would there be pronto moda?” asked MatteoWong, 30, who was born in China and raised in Prato and runs a consulting office for Chinese immigrants. (Pron-to moda means fast fashion.) “Did the Chinese take jobs away from Italians?If anything, they brought lots of jobsto Italians.”
In recent months, Prato has become a diplomatic point of contention. Ital-ian officials say the Chinese govern-ment has not done enough so far to ad-dress the issue of illegal immigrants, and they are seeking an accord withChina to identify and deport them.Italian officials say Prato is expectedto be on the agenda when Prime Min-ister Wen Jiabao of China visits Rome in October.
Many illegal Chinese immigrantsarrive by bus from Russia or the Bal-kans, and either destroy their pass-ports or give them away to the orga-nized crime groups that help bringthem. Many others overstay theirtourist visas.
According to the Prato chamberof commerce, the number of Italian-owned textile businesses registered in
Prato has dropped in half since 2001 to just below 3,000, 200 fewer than those now owned by Chinese, almost all inthe garment sector. Once a major fab-ric producer and exporter, Prato now accounts for 27 percent of Italy’s fabricimports from China.
Resentment runs high. “You takesomeone from Prato with two unem-ployed kids and when a Chinese per-son drives by in a Porsche Cayenne or a Mercedes bought with money earnedfrom illegally exploiting immigrantworkers, and this climate is risky,”said Domenico Savi, Prato’s chief ofpolice before leaving the job in June.
According to the Prato mayor’s of-fice, there are 11,500 legal Chinese im-migrants, out of a population of 187,000.But the office estimates the city has anadditional 25,000 illegal immigrants, amajority of them Chinese.
A common technique the Chineseuse to open a business, often withthe aid of knowledgeable Italian taxconsultants and lawyers, is to close itbefore the tax police catch up, then re-open the same workspace with a new tax number.
Li Zhang, a clothing store ownerwho immigrated to Italy in 1991, andhundreds of other Chinese are at
the center of Prato’s so-called grayeconomy. Their businesses are part-ly above board in that they pay taxes,and partly underground, in that theyrely on subcontractors who often useillegal labor. Since founding his storein 1998, Mr. Zhang said, he has ex-ported clothes to 30 countries, includ-ing China, Mexico, Venezuela, Jordanand Lebanon.
The raids, he said, are hinderingbusiness, unsettling the Chinese com-munity to the point that many work-ers had gone into hiding. “People are afraid,” Mr. Zhang said.
Much of the tightening comes from Prato’s new mayor. In 2009, the tradi-tionally left-wing city elected its first right-wing mayor in the postwar era,whose campaign tapped into powerfullocal fears of a “Chinese invasion,” andwho seeks a broader European Union response to Chinese immigration.
“How can China leave a mark likethis in the E.U.?” the mayor, Roberto Cenni, asked. “Noise, bad habits, pros-titution. People can’t live anymore.They’re sick of it.’ ”
The problems in Prato will not be re-solved easily, said Xu Qiu Lin, the only Chinese member of Confindustria inPrato. “There’s no plan,” he said.
MISHA JAPARIDZE/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Baikal Wave protested against
a paper factory it said killed fish
in Lake Baikal. Months earlier it
was raided for software piracy.
Wealthy
In Resources,
But Trapped
Stitched in Italy, by Chinese: Newcomers Redefine a Label
Con tin ued from Page I
How Russia Used Microsoft to Curb Dissent
Con tin ued from Page I
VALERI NISTRATOV FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Pascale Bonnefoy contributedreporting from Santiago, Chile.
Repubblica NewYork
W O R L D T R E N D S
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2010 V
By THANASSIS CAMBANIS
CAIRO — When a boiler at MilitaryFactory 99 exploded in early August, killing one civilian worker and injur-ing six, a group of employees calleda strike to demand safer workingconditions, as they are entitled to do under Egyptian law.
Yet, before the month was out,eight of them were on trial — in amilitary court — for “disclosing mili-tary secrets” and “illegally stopping production.”
The message was unmistakable:the rules that apply to the rest ofEgypt do not apply to the military,still the single most powerful institu-tion in an autocratic state facing itstoughest test in decades, an immi-nent presidential succession.
President Hosni Mubarak hasruled Egypt with dictatorial powers for 29 years but is ill and not expectedto continue in office after his current term expires in 2011. Retired officersand analysts here say that the mili-tary’s show of force with the striking civilian workers was part of an effortto put the military’s stamp on thechoice of the next president.
Technically, Egyptian voters willdetermine their next leader in the2011 elections, but in practice thegoverning party’s candidate is al-most certain to win. The real succes-sion struggle will take place behind closed doors, and that is where themilitary would try to assure its con-tinued status or even try to block Mr. Mubarak’s son Gamal.
Retired officers and other analystssaid the military would not support
his candidacy without ironclad guar-antees that it would retain its pre-eminent position.
Over the years, one-man rule evis-cerated Egypt’s civilian institutions, creating a vacuum at the highestlevels of government that the mili-tary filled. “There aren’t any civilianinstitutions to fall back on,’’ said Mi-chael Hanna, a fellow at the Century Foundation who has written aboutthe Egyptian military.
The beneficiary of nearly $40 bil-lion in American aid over the last30 years, the Egyptian military has
turned into a behemoth that not only controls security and a burgeon-ing defense industry, but has alsobranched into civilian businesses.
The military has built a highwayfrom Cairo to the Red Sea; manu-factures stoves and refrigeratorsfor export; it even produces olive oil and bottled water. When riots broke out during bread shortages in March 2008, the army distributed bread.
“In times of crisis, they are there,” Salah Eissa, editor of a government-run weekly, Al Qahira, said. “That’s why you see some people today go asfar as to call for military rule.”
While the military is not expectedto dictate the governing party’s can-didate, Egyptian political observers
said it held an informal veto powerover who rose to the top of the coun-try’s power pyramid. “The militaryis seen as the only institution that isable to block succession in Egypt,”said Issandr el-Amrani, a close ob-server of Egyptian affairs who writesthe Arabist blog.
Much of the military’s distrust ofGamal Mubarak stems from his ties to a younger generation of ruling par-ty cadres who have made fortunesin the business world. The militaryis tied to the National DemocraticParty’s “old guard,” a substantially less wealthy elite. Military officerssaid they feared that Gamal Muba-rak might erode the military’s insti-tutional powers.
“Of course the military has becomejealous they are not the only big boss-es now,” said Mohamed Kadry Said, a retired general. “They feel threat-ened by the business community.”
General Said says that he believesPresident Mubarak’s successor,whether Gamal Mubarak or some-one else, will have to convince themilitary that its position in the Egyp-tian power structure will remain se-cure.
Military Factory 99 produces a va-riety of consumer goods in addition to its primary function of forging metal components for heavy ammunition.
In the end, the military court dealt leniently with the strikers. Threewere acquitted and the five othersreceived suspended sentences. Butthe military had made its point.
“There are no labor strikes inmilitary society,” Hosam Sowilam,a retired general, said. “If they don’t want to obey our rules, let them trytheir luck in the civilian world.”
MAX BECHERER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Cairo’s generalsfear a pro-business candidate.
Egypt’s Military Is Wary of Elections
Mona El-Naggar contributed reporting.
By MATT BAI
American Presidencies historicallytend to be viewed as belonging to pe-riods rather than individuals. Therehave been Industrial-era presiden-cies, Depression-era presidencies, Cold War presidencies.
When historians look back 50 yearsfrom now, in what era will they placePresident Obama’s time in office, and what does it say about the challenges he faces?
In interviews, several historians hit on the same basic theme. Until the end of the Soviet Union, America’s economic and national security werelargely self-determined, thanks to its manufacturing might and its abil-ity to negotiate treaties with otherstates. But the advent of truly globalmarkets, along with threats from non-state forces like Al Qaeda, changedall that. Now Americans live in an in-tegrated world where American jobs rely on the economic policies of gov-ernments in Asia or Latin America,while our security is subject to the whims of a cleric living in a cave.
John Lewis Gaddis, the pre-emi-nent scholar of the cold war period, calls the last decade or so an “age ofregression,” meaning that the popu-lar notion of a “unipolar” world — one in which the United States was sup-posed to have no serious economic or military competitors — gave way to the realization that the best America could aspire to was a stable balance of power.
David M. Kennedy, an historian at Stanford University in California,said he suspected that his future fellow historians would classify our most recent presidencies as encap-sulating an “era of globalization” inwhich “the whole concept of sover-eignty is less meaningful than it oncewas.”
All of this has significant ramifica-tions for Mr. Obama. The presidentswhose statues ring the National Mallin Washington are those who were deemed not just wise and just, but also masters of the national destiny.They are celebrated as decisive menwho seemed to define and control the events of their times.
What historians are suggesting isthat the modern president may sim-ply not be able to exercise that samefirm grasp .
Powerlessness in the face of eco-nomic free fall has emerged as a hallmark of the modern presidency. While Mr. Obama is facing a more acute economic crisis moment thanhis predecessors, characterized bya near depression, the truth is that every president going back to Jimmy Carter, at one point or another, has had to campaign or govern in an envi-ronment dominated by the same cy-clical and stubborn factors — reces-
sion, unemployment, rising energycosts. And so perhaps Mr. Obama’s presidency, as it reaches its midwaypoint, is best understood not in isola-tion, but rather as part of a longer and still undefined political moment.
It is a moment in which, with globalinterdependence, has come a certain lack of control, a vulnerability to disparate influences beyond our ter-ritorial borders that are less obvious than the launch of a Soviet satellite.And those influences may directly undermine Americans’ ideal of what a president should be.
Americans are disappointed when these presidents inevitably turn out to be less than omnipotent or, likeGeorge W. Bush, fall victim to theirown romantic notions of Americanpower.
“This is what will end up defin-ing this era of the presidency — the diminished power, the diminishedauthority, the diminished capacity toshape events,” says Robert Dallek,the presidential biographer.
Of course, pessimism is often over-stated in difficult times. For a period
in the 1980s, it was fashionable to say that New York City, too, had become “ungovernable”; no one says that anymore. It would be unfair to sug-gest that Mr. Obama or any other president is simply awash in histori-cal currents, unable to navigate him-self or the country through challeng-ing times.
What probably is true is that evena president’s successes, in an age where a debt crisis in Greece can lead to a panic on Wall Street, are likely to seem more uneven and less resound-ing to voters than, say, the completion of the Continental Railroad or the sur-render of Japan.
MATT DORFMAN
NEWS ANALYSIS
The American Presidency,
Chained to the World
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN
BERLIN — As this country con-tinues its uneasy dialogue about integration, spurred on by an anti-im-migrant book written by an executive of the central bank, the restaurantowner Jianhua Wu is busy selling and promoting German wine.
Mr. Wu, who came to Germany from China 25 years ago to study en-gineering, represents the other side of the immigration debate, not the hostile, fearful, anti-immigrant senti-ments stirred up by the shock-book of Thilo Sarrazin, the banker.
Mr. Wu and his family instead rep-resent the emerging Germany that is slowly, painfully becoming a multi-cultural society, where the spicy snap
of Szechuan dishes and the subtle, flowery sweetness of a riesling can complement each other.
“Riesling and Chinese food, itworks,” said Mr. Wu, who has become something of a sensation for his res-taurant, Hot Spot, which offers an ex-tensive collection of German wines.
After working in one fast-food Chi-nese restaurant after another, Mr. Wusaid he discovered that his route to financial success in his adopted home was ultimately wine — or really how his own love of German wine made Germans feel about him.
Mr. Sarrazin’s book, “GermanyDoes Away With Itself,” releasedin early September, attacked Ger-many’s Muslim immigrants for refus-
ing to integrate. It vilifies Islam andblames Germany’s welfare state forbeing too generous. In response, theleadership of the opposition Social Democrats agreed on September 13to begin proceedings to expel himfrom the party. Mr. Sarrazin hadalready agreed to step down from hispost at the Bundesbank.
The book is selling briskly, how-ever, with many Germans sayingthat Mr. Sarrazin has a valid pointand that people like Mr. Wu — whoare willing to make some of the sac-rifices that other immigrants refuse,or fail, to make — are the proof.
Many Germans want to preservethe nation’s cultural identity byhaving immigrants leave their tra-
ditions. Many immigrants refuse,wishing to hold on to their culturalidentities.
In reality, the two are alreadyblending, especially in places likeBerlin, and the Hot Spot. Mr. Wu kepthis Chinese passport, while his wifeand son have become naturalizedcitizens.
“My cultural background is Chi-nese, that is where I feel at home,’’he said in German. “In the back ofmy head, Germany is still a foreigncountry for me.”
Three years ago, Mr. Wu and hiswife rented a failed steakhouse,hoping to sell Chinese food and fineGerman wines. For a year, businesswas dead. “We were not accepted,”
he said.Then, two years ago, one of Ger-
many’s most celebrated chefs, Chris-tian Lohse, visited Mr. Wu’s restau-rant with a television crew. The dayafter the program was broadcastthe place was filled, and it has beenever since often with officials andcelebrities. In fact, Mr. Wu said, Mr. Sarrazin had lunch at Hot Spot theday his book came out.
Mr. Wu said his son has embracedGerman culture and expresses him-self better in German than Chinese.
“I am trying to give the basics ofChinese culture and philosophy tomy son so he can be Chinese,’’ Mr.Wu said. “But he lives here, he has tospeak perfect German.”
BERLIN JOURNAL
A Harmony of Chinese Food and German Wines
Repubblica NewYork
M O N E Y & B U S I N E S S
VI MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2010
By ANDREW POLLACK
SAN DIEGO, California — The scientific rebel J. Craig Venter made his name as agene hunter. He co-foundedCelera Genomics, whichmapped the human genome. He garnered admiration forsome path-breaking ideasbut also the enmity of some rivals who viewed him as a publicity seeker.
Now Dr. Venter, 63, wants to create living creatures— bacteria, algae or evenplants — that are designedfrom the DNA up.
“Designing and buildingsynthetic cells will be the ba-sis of a new industrial revo-lution,” he says. “The goal isto replace the entire petro-chemical industry.”
His star power has at-tracted millions of dollars ininvestment and research fi-nancing, making his compa-ny here, Synthetic Genom-ics, among the wealthiestin the new field of syntheticbiology.
But there is no guarantee of success. And as with DNAsequencing, Dr. Venter isstirring some unease in thefield. Some competitors saydesigning entire cells is toounrealistic.
Moreover, while Celeradid sequence the humangenome, it failed to make abusiness of selling the ge-nomic data, and Dr. Venterwas fired by the president of Celera’s parent company.
What really drives him,Dr. Venter and others say, isthe desire for scientific ac-complishments, and for the Nobel Prize that still eludes him. “Craig is just a hopelessbusinessman,” says Alan G.Walton, a venture capitalist and a friend.
Exxon Mobil is giving Syn-
thetic Genomics $300 millionto design algae that could beused to produce gasoline anddiesel fuel. BP has investedin the company to study mi-crobes that might help turncoal into cleaner-burningnatural gas. Another inves-tor, the Malaysian conglom-erate Genting, wants to im-prove oil output from its palmtree plantations, working to-ward what its chief executivecalls a “gasoline tree.”
And Novartis is hoping tosynthesize influenza virusstrains to make flu vaccines.
Synthetic Genomics is also exploring the use of algae to produce food oils and, possi-bly, other edible products.
Dr. Venter muses, “What ifwe can make algae taste likebeef?”
Scientists have long beenable to insert foreign genesinto organisms. For in-stance, bacterial genes areput into corn plants to resist
herbicides and insects.But until now, only one or
a few genes are spliced into a cell, and much trial and erroris required.
Synthetic biology aimsto make engineering a cellmore like designing a bridgeor a computer chip, usingprefabricated componentsin different combinations.
In Dr. Venter’s approach,engineers would specify the entire genetic code of a cellon computers, making de-sign changes as if on a word processor. They would thenpress the “print” button, soto speak, and the DNA wouldbe manufactured from itschemical components. Thesynthetic DNA would thenbe transplanted into an ex-isting cell, where it wouldtake control of the cell’s op-erations.
This is essentially what Dr. Venter’s team announced inMay.Reaction was swift.TheVatican praised the work as apotential way to treat diseas-es, saying it did not regard itas the creation of life.
And President Obama im-mediately asked his bioeth-ics commission to examinethe potential for bio-terrorand bio-error — the creation toxic or ecologically harm-
ful organisms.The president’s action
seemed to confirm concernsthat Dr. Venter’s bold claimswould stir fear and lead toburdensome regulation. “Theonly regulation we need is ofmy colleague’s mouth,” saysJay Keasling, a co-founder ofAmyris Inc., a competitor.
Some experts say the workwill have limited industrialuse. It took 15 years to cre-ate and cost $40 million. And the synthetic genome wasnearly a replica of the ge-nome from an existing bac-terium; scientists do not yet know enough to design a newgenome .
Even if they could, it wouldbe overkill, says GeorgeChurch, a Harvard Univer-sity researcher. He says thatonly a few genetic changesare needed. “One of thethings that is missing,” hesays of Dr. Venter’s work, “is a clear articulation of whyyou would want to changethe whole genome.”
Dr. Venter says his com-pany will use more limited genetic engineering for itsfirst algae-based biofuels.And while the first syntheticgenome had “plagiarizednature,” he says scientistswill eventually learn how to design genomes.
Dr. Venter, who becamewealthy from his work withCelera, says his harrowingexperiences as a medic in theVietnam War instilled in hima sense of purpose. “It’s comi-cal that I keep being referredto as a businessman,” he said.“What I’ve been successfulin is finding alternate ways tofund research.
“Science is the businessright now,” he said. “If thescience works, the business works, and vice versa.”
By GEAROID REIDY
OSAKA, Japan — From 9 to 5, Hi-roko Yokogawa toils at a small ar-chitectural design firm, doing cleri-cal work and managing accounts. But even when her shift is over, herday’s work is nowhere near done.
She might go home and promoteproducts and stores on her blog. Orin another role, as a work-life coach,she might meet a client for a consul-tation.
“It’s not that I hate my main job,but I want to have a stable incomewithout being completely depen-dent on the company,” Ms. Yokoga-wa, 32, said.
For decades, the standard careerpath in Japan was to graduate fromcollege, join a company and to staythere until retirement — one job forlife. But with salaries down more than 12 percent over the last decadeamid an uncertain labor market,young, mostly single Japanese areincreasingly making ends meet byworking second or even third jobs.
Despite long working hours — theeighth-longest in the world, accord-ing to one recent measure, thoughwith overtime often going unre-ported and unpaid — almost half ofthe workers questioned last year ina survey by the government-affili-ated Japan Institute for Labor Poli-cy and Training expressed interestin side jobs. Nearly 90 percent saidthe main reason was a desire tohave extra spending money.
“The biggest cause of the in-crease is youngpeople trying toincrease theirshort-term earn-ings in the face ofsevere economicand income condi-tions,” said Toshi-hiro Nagahama,chief economist atDai-Ichi Life Re-search Institutein Tokyo. “But it’salso a form of risk management forworkers fearful of losing their mainjobs.”
The unemploy-ment rate in Japanwas 5.2 percent inJuly. While thatis low by interna-tional standards, itis close to a recordhigh for Japan. Theeconomy remains stagnant, weighed down by an aging and shrinkingpopulation, deflation and a strong yen, which crimps exports.
According to figures from theNational Tax Agency, average an-nual salaries for Japanese workersin their early 20s fell to 2.48 millionyen in 2008, the latest year for which figures are available, from 2.83 mil-lion yen in 1997. At the current ex-change rate, that is a decrease to $29,470, from $33,635.
Data released recently by theJapanese Ministry of Health, La-
bor and Welfare found that almost56 percent of workers 15 to 34 yearsold needed another form of incometo help pay living expenses. Dispos-able incomes have taken a furtherhit since the global downturn, withmany companies banning paidovertime to save money.
“Without all that overtime, moreand more people just want to havesomething to do,” said Kirito Na-kano, who formerly worked a side job and parlayed his experienceinto a career as an entrepreneurand author.
Mr. Nakano, 28, initially followedthe standard career path, joining alarge company as a Web engineerafter graduating from college in2004. Finding that his salary wouldnot cover luxuries like trips abroad,he began experimenting on his owntime with affiliate marketing pro-grams, in which he earned fees forsending customers to other busi-nesses.
Three years later, he was makingmore money from his side job thanfrom his ostensible main one. Heeventually quit his original job toset up an affiliate marketing com-pany, where he now works full time.In August, he published a second book, which explains how to make100,000 yen a month outside the of-fice.
“The Japanese economy is not just stagnant, it’s in retreat,” hesaid. “When people believe the fu-ture is going to be better than the
present, they are happy.
But if they thinkthat the futureholds no hope,then they becomeunhappy. It’s thatunhappiness thatpeople are tryingto negate with sidejobs.”
The Japanesesystem of lifetimeemployment be-gan to break downwith the burstingof an economicbubble in 1991.
Yoshihiko Noda,the finance minis-ter, said last monththat the time hadcome for Japanto take actionthat would allow“young people tohave dreams andget jobs.”
For that to happen, the country may have to help foster entrepre-neurship, which has often seemedlacking in Japan.
But those with side jobs may offera glimmer of hope.
“The business start-up rate inJapan is weak, but if you include people doing work on the side, thenumbers start to look a little bet-ter,” said Shinsuke Ogino, a busi-ness writer and analyst who has published books on side jobs and dual careers.
The first time I unboxed mygleaming Roomba, I beamed like aproud new parent as I placed it gen-tly on my hardwood floor.
That evening, Iwatched the roboticvacuum cleaner put-ter autonomouslyaround my apart-ment, sweeping andinhaling dust. Thenext morning, I re-
turned it to its rightful owner.The Roomba was mine for only 24
hours. I had rented it through a servicecalled SnapGoods, which allows peo-ple to lend out their surplus gadgetryand various gear for a daily fee.
SnapGoods is one of the latest start-ups that bases its business modelaround allowing people to share,exchange and rent goods in a localsetting. Among others are Neighbor-Goods and ShareSomeSugar. Group-buying sites like Groupon and thepeer-to-peer travel site Airbnb havealso sprung up.
With these sites, access trumpsownership; consumers are offeredways to share goods instead of hav-ing to buy them. Ron J. Williams, co-founder of SnapGoods, describes it asthe “access economy.”
“The notion of ownership as the bar-rier between you and what you need isoutdated,” says Mr. Williams.
Recession-battered shoppers cantest pricey new devices before decid-ing whether to take the plunge or waituntil the next upgrade.
For people who lend stuff, it’s a wayto make extra money on possessionsthat are gathering dust.
But some experts think that theremay be something bigger than thrifti-ness at play. These services may begaining popularity because they rein-force a sense of community.
Paul J. Zak, director of the Cen-ter for Neuroeconomics Studies atClaremont Graduate University inCalifornia, says that participating in acommunity like SnapGoods, Groupon or Airbnb can ease social isolation andextend our network of friends.
“It turns out to actually be a good way to meet my neighbors,” says LukeTucker, 31, who rented me his roboticvacuum cleaner through SnapGoods.
Charlis Floyd, a 22-year-old student,and Nema Williams, a 30-year-old co-median, who rent out their spare bed-room in Brooklyn on Airbnb, say that
while the extra income helps, they’remore interested in the characters theymeet.
“We had a couple from Englandteach us how to make red curry,” saysMs. Floyd.
Trust is a big factor in all of this, builtthrough social networks like Face-book and Twitter.
Rachel Botsman, co-author of theforthcoming “What’s Mine Is Yours:The Rise of Collaborative Consump-tion,” says: “This new economy is go-ing to be driven entirely by reputation,which is part of a new cultural shift— seeing how our behavior in one com-munity affects what we can access inanother.”
For Young Japanese, One Job Isn’t Enough
Neighborly Sharing, Over the Online Fence
Biotech with thepotential to makecoal burn cleaner.
HIRO KOMAE FOR THE INTERNATIONAL
HERALD TRIBUNE
“The Japanese economyis not just stagnant,
it’s in retreat.”
Kirito Nakano
Web engineer with a secondcareer as entrepreneur-author.
Managing the Business of Creating LifePHOTOGRAPHS BY SANDY HUFFAKER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Craig
Venter,
below,
dreams of
creating life
forms, such
as algae,
left, that
can be used
to produce
fuel or even
food.
JENNA
WORTHAM
ESSAY
Repubblica NewYork
FA S H I O N
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2010 VII
By ERIC WILSON
NEW YORK — A new generation of Internet-savvy young designers inNew York has the potential to trans-form American fashion, in a city thathas not always been so hospitable totalented designers.
An impressive cohort, they present-ed their spring collections during NewYork Fashion Week from September9-16; The New York Times invited six with the greatest promise to a round-table discussion.
Joseph Altuzarra started his sharpwomen’s collection after working atGivenchy in Paris. Sophie Theallet,who also worked in Paris, is the latestwinner of a grant from the Council ofFashion Designers of America andVogue magazine.
Alexa Adams and Flora Gill, ofOhne Titel, worked for Karl Lagerfeld.(Ms. Gill was traveling and unableto attend.) Wayne Lee, whose labelis Wayne, got her start as a buyer atBarneys.
Max Osterweis, of Suno, built a col-lection that celebrated the textiles ofKenya and helped revive its garmentindustry.
Patrik Ervell began making men’swear after working at magazines likeV.
A conversation follows, edited forspace and clarity.
QUESTION.Do you sense a shift tak-ing place in fashion?MS. ADAMS: The only thing I can say is the globalization of fashion, which I think is really amazing. There used to be an idea of an American fashion,French fashion or European fashion,and maybe an Asian fashion or a Japanese fashion. It’s not that wayanymore.MR. ALTUZARRA: There is a definite sense of community here, which isvery different from somewhere likeParis or Milan. I think it exists more in London, but the idea that you can succeed as a young designer is some-thing very important in the industryin New York. I also think, when you look at Paris or you look at Milan,there are just so many really big, hugehouses. It’s just a lot more difficult to break into those markets.MS. THEALLET: It’s possible for you tomake something in New York becausethe people are willing to know about you and they give you that chance, and I think it’s fantastic. You don’t find that in Paris for sure, because it’s more closed. Here it’s more open.All the designers know each other, wehang out together.
Q.What do you think defines Ameri-can fashion today?MS. LEE: You have to be a designer who is receptive to what your custom-ers want, but at the same time you have to have your vision. For me, in-spiration comes from when I am awayfrom fashion. I really enjoy going to museums, to new places. That is re-ally when I pick up inspiration.
Q.How do you all cope with the speed
of exposure that is a result of the mediafrenzy?MR. OSTERWEIS: We got a lot of at-tention, even before we had a singlepiece in a store. We had Time maga-zine come to Kenya to spend a week with us two or three months before wehad anything in the stores.MR. ALTUZARRA: I think you cancontrol the limelight. I mean, you don’thave to say yes to everything. You canpick and choose and decide how youwant to grow. Of course the Internetpart is a little harder to control.MS. ADAMS: I would definitely agree with that. For all of us who are new,it’s actually a huge opportunity. It’salmost like, not a democratization of fashion, but something where there isthis limelight that is looking for new things. You get the choice of what ex-posure you want, instead of begging to be part of a story of older brands and bigger companies. I especiallylike all the blog and Internet press, be-cause I think it’s really interesting tosee all different people’s viewpoints. Fashion doesn’t have to be so mono-lithic or just one voice.
Q.Who inspires you as designers?Who are your role models?MR. ALTUZARRA: I think, not neces-sarily aesthetically, but as a business,Dries Van Noten, because it’s based on clothes, which seems pretty much near impossible.MR. OSTERWEIS: I like Dries as well, and I think Junya Watanabe and Rei [Kawakubo] I like quite a lot.MS. ADAMS: I have always been inspired by the way Raf Simons has grown his business.MR. ERVELL: When I was a teen-ager in the ’90s, I was looking a lot at Helmut Lang.MS. THEALLET: Of course, AzzedineAlaïa, because he is doing collectionsexactly as he wants. Dries, as yousay, for the way that he makes a busi-ness, and Prada also. And Yves Saint Laurent.MS. LEE: I really admire MartinMargiela. He is very visionary, but hehas always paced his exposure, and his line always stays true to what hebelieves.
Q.So not one American designer?MR. ALTUZARRA: I was thinking about this before. A business likeRalph Lauren I admire. I just don’t know if that is something that can re-ally be achieved anymore. That leveland that size, that all-encompassingproduct range, that lifestyle. On thatscale, something like Prada is a littlemore attainable. What I think is inter-esting about Prada is that there is alsothis idea of a created heritage. Prada is not that old of a brand, but it feels re-ally old, which I think is really smart,which is what Ralph Lauren did. Es-sentially he appropriated America ashis legacy and his heritage.
Q.What did you mean when you saidit would be impossible just to sell anddesign clothes today?MR. ALTUZARRA: That’s exactly
what I meant. There is a very interest-ing disconnect, sometimes, between what clients are looking for and what buyers are looking for and what de-signers are making. You can do some-thing really well in Italy with beauti-ful fabric, and it’s going to cost $2,000at retail, but Zara is going to make the same thing in Portugal, one month lat-er, for $250. The people who are really discerning will buy your product, butmost of them will just want the look ofwhat you made and buy it at Zara. MR. OSTERWEIS: Do you sell inter-nationally online?MR. ERVELL: We do, but mostly the orders come from North America.MS. ADAMS: We’ve had a hugeamount of growth in China. What youare seeing there is more money inChina, and people are interested inbuying clothing from new designers.Age really isn’t an issue for us in Asia, especially in China.MR. ERVELL: For me also, Asia —
non-Japan Asia — has been really big for me, Hong Kong, South Korea, Tai-wan and also now starting mainland China. It’s been a really big part of ourgrowth.MR. ALTUZARRA: Do you make a dif-ferent product line for them?MR. ERVELL: No. Same wholesaleprices.MS. ADAMS: We don’t do differentsizing. We do the same thing as we do for everyone else.
Q.We’ve heard from a lot of storesthat young women in their 20s are justnot as brand loyal as their predeces-sors might have been. How do you asdesigners deal with this generationthat is shifting away from brands?MS. ADAMS: I actually think it’sfantastic because it’s not so much about people obsessing over a brand,or over perceived luxury. I don’t know about everyone here, but that’sthe way I dress. If I see something I
love, whether it’s vintage or our own clothes or some shoe I find really beautiful that I see, that’s how I dress rather than feeling like I’m only going to buy one look. Someone’s going to tell me how I should dress? Or whatmy look for the season should be, and I’ll buy a designer head to toe? I just don’t think that’s realistic to how people want to dress. And to me, I think it’s freeing for how we designour clothes.
Q.What was the single best decision that you have made?MR. ERVELL: I think just startingsmall and slow, and that’s not every-one’s approach.
Q.One last question: How do you know that you’ve made it?MS. LEE: I think we’ve all made it. We’re all actualizing our dreams. We’re all doing what we want to do, soin a sense, we’ve made it.
By RUTH LA FERLA
LONDON — Victoria Beckhamguides a visitor through her fall 2010collection, spread on a rack in her stu-dio here. She draws out a dress recent-ly worn by Cameron Diaz, identifying its fabric authoritatively as a metallicjacquard. Another, crisp as corn flakes, was made of gazar. “Gazar, I love it,”Ms. Beckham murmurs, savoring the term like a vintage Bordeaux.
She has mastered fashion with thesame passion that has marked herother pursuits — the voice and music lessons that laid the foundations forher career as the pop idol known asPosh Spice; her marriage to the Brit-
ish soccer star David Beckham; herwardrobe, engineered to show off her whippet frame and improbably lustychest.
“I don’t do anything by halves,” shesays. “If you’re going to do something, do it properly, I think.”
In recent months Ms. Beckham has emerged as an industry force. Shehas been a fixture in the front row atpresentations like those of Chanel and Marc Jacobs. Her sinuous cocktaildresses have been worn by JenniferLopez, Drew Barrymore and Ms. Diazand are showcased in stores alongside luxury labels like Narciso Rodriguez and Vera Wang. “Don’t underestimate
her,” said Anna Wintour of Vogue,among the many editors and retailers who have embraced her.
“She’s growing up,” said Ken Down-ing, the fashion director of NeimanMarcus. “Her knowledge of dress-making is impressive. She under-stands how to bring out the best inthe female form.” As important, hesaid, “She knows how good clothesfeel when they’re on. Because she has worn them.”
Good clothes are a necessary ad-junct to a life spent basking in the pub-lic eye. Ms. Beckham has sashayedalong fashion runways, modeled inhigh-profile advertising campaigns
and appeared as a guest on television shows like “Ugly Betty” “Project Run-way” and “American Idol.”
Her dresses, once so corseted thatthey gave off a whiff of kitsch, are loos-ening up. “My style has relaxed a bit,” she said. “I think you will see that inthis next collection.”
As a designer, Ms. Beckham, by her own account, is a wobbly work in prog-ress. “I’m very aware that I’m workingmy way up the ladder,” she said.
With her business partner, SimonFuller, the creator of “American Idol,”she presides over a luxury brandencompassing dresses, denim, sun-glasses and a line of handbags. Her
dresses attract clients ready to pay fora Grecian-draped tunic or urn-shapedcocktail dress. Their growing alle-giance contributed to sales in excess of$7 million last year, said Zach Duane,the company’s senior vice president forbusiness development.
Ms. Beckham, he indicated, cantake much of the credit for the label’s success. “She is incredibly involved inpricing, wanting to know where we’re at in terms of turnover,” he said.
She is certainly integral to the de-sign process, draping her dresses onherself. “ I’m not claiming to be a mas-ter draper,” she said. “The bottom line is: Would I wear this?”
“I want to build something that’svery respected,” Ms. Beckham saidwith a pleading urgency.
Young Stars Live Locally,But They Design Globally
Victoria Beckham, From Spice Girl to a Fashion Industry Force
PHOTOGRAPHS OF DESIGNERS BY RUTH FREMSON/THE NEW YORK TIMES
LEFT, YANA PASKOVA
FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Wayne Lee finds
inspiration away
from fashion.
RIGHT, ERIN BAIANO
FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Sophie Theallet
loves New York’s
open atmosphere.
LEFT, LARS KLOVE
FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Alexa Adams has
seen huge growth
in China.
RIGHT, HIROKO MASUIKE
FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Patrik Ervell
believes in
starting small and
growing slowly.
LEFT, JENNIFER ALTMAN
FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Joseph Altuzarra
subscribes to a
global vision.
RIGHT, SUNO
Max Osterweis
has rejuvenated
Kenya’s garment
industry.
Repubblica NewYork
A R T S & S T Y L E S
VIII MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2010
By SIMON ROMERO
EL RETORNO, Colombia — He ar-rived at this town on the edge of guer-rilla territory with his entourage.They included a producer, a soundman, two scantily clad dancers anda harried servant, who carried hiscowboy hat, his snakeskin boots, his tequila and, of course, his bulky goldnecklace emblazoned with the nameof Uriel Henao.
“Uriel Henao needs to travel withcertain standards,” said the 41-year-old balladeer, referring to himselfin the third person, as is his custom. “The people in these parts expect it,”he explained after a convoy of honk-ing pickup trucks and motorcycles ledby the town’s fire truck marked hisarrival for a concert here in August.
The big welcome for Mr. Henao wascommon enough. Colombians callhim the king of the corridos prohibi-dos, or prohibited ballads, a musical genre that describes the exploits ofguerrilla commanders, paramilitarywarlords, lowly coca growers and co-caine kingpins.
Given the graphic depiction of the drug trade, some established radiostations in Colombia keep the songs off their playlists, sometimes fearful of violent reprisals that might resultfrom glorifying one side or another inthe country’s four-decade war.
Scholars say Colombia’s prohibitedballads descend from Mexico’s narco-corridos, the accordion-driven songs
that mythologize Mexican drug traf-fickers. While Mexico’s drug balladshave existed at least since the 1930s,the genre seems to have taken root in Colombia about three decadesago when Mexican groups like LosTigres del Norte became popular inthis country.
About 600 bands in Colombia playcorridos. Their songs boast titles like“Secret Airstrip,” “Coca Growers of Putumayo” and “The Snitch,” reflect-ing aspects of Colombia’s resilientdrug trade.
The genre has developed into aform of oral history of Colombia’slong internal war involving guerrillagroups, paramilitary factions andgovernment forces.
“Ballad of the Castaños” describes brothers who led exceptionally brutalparamilitary death squads. “Betray-al in the Jungle” recounts how a guer-rilla defector killed his commander,before bringing the dead man’s sev-ered hand to the authorities.
Supporters of the ballads say theyprovide an outlet in Colombia’s folkculture for subjects that some would rather shun.
The songs also serve as an uncom-fortable reminder that Colombia stillvies with Peru as the world’s largest
producer of coca, the plant used tomake cocaine.
“The corridos are most popular inhot zones because the songs tell sto-ries of what happens,” said Alirio Cas-tillo, a leading producer of the balladswho accompanied Mr. Henao here.
Performers enjoy a broad followingin the backlands where the cocaine trade and the private armies thatdraw strength from it persist.
Mr. Henao’s “Ballad of the CocaGrower” describes how the ruralpoor earn more money cultivatingcoca than they do working as day la-borers.
“The problem is not ours, the prob-lem comes from over there,” Mr.Henao sang at a concert here, refer-ring to demand for Colombian co-caine in the United States. “We har-vest it, and the gringos put it in their brains.”
Live performances are the stapleof Colombia’s ballad singers, since pi-rated CDs of their songs have erodedtheir income. In Mr. Henao’s case, ElRetorno’s municipal government paidfor his concert here, plus expenses forhim and his crew.
During the concert, even someof the soldiers keeping the peacemouthed the words to Mr. Henao’sscathing antiestablishment song,“They’re Rats,” in which he lam-bastes Colombia’s politicians as “aplague” for a history of corruptionthat keeps millions in the countrymired in poverty.
Afterward, Mr. Henao said, “Thetruth sells.”
By MELENA RYZIK
VANCOUVER, British Columbia — The actor James Franco is on a quest to be an artist, not merely a celebrity.His paintings and video installationshave been exhibited at galleries. He isstudying for advanced degrees at vari-ous colleges, writing short stories and composing poetry, and appearing onthe ABC network’s “General Hospital”while still flirting in big-budget movieslike “Eat Pray Love.” His cross-cultur-al meandering has sparked chatter on blogs and in print, sometimes with thehelp of Mr. Franco himself.
In “Howl,” Mr. Franco, 32, plays the poet Allen Ginsberg as a young man;for most of his screen time he is giving an interview to an unseen interlocutor.The film opened this year’s SundanceFilm Festival and will begin a widerrelease on September 24.
Mr. Franco met its filmmakers, Jef-frey Friedman and Rob Epstein, onthe set of “Milk” — its director, GusVan Sant, is an executive producer of “Howl” — and signed up even before itwas financed. “It was a huge boost andgave us a lot of credibility,” Mr. Fried-man said of enlisting Mr. Franco, who may be best known for appearing inthree “Spider-Man” films.
Mr. Franco prepared by watchinginterviews, reading biographies, talk-ing to experts, wearing the Ginsberg glasses. His belief that the young poet was an eager communicator even ashe was just discovering what he want-ed to say applies to his own path.
“I have joked that he’s a 21st-centu-ry beatnik,” Mr. Epstein said of Mr.Franco, “but he really does have that sensibility. He’s really interested and excited about experimentation andexploring the possibilities of how one can be an artist.”
While preparing for “Howl,” Mr.Franco was enrolled in master’s de-gree programs at New York Universi-ty (for film) and Columbia Universityand Brooklyn College (for writing).For months he would walk to classin New York listening to Ginsbergread “Howl” on his iPod. “I’d have thelittle book with me, and I’d listen tohim, and I’d just read along with himto just ingrain that voice in my head,”he said.
Mr. Franco has made three shortfilms about poems for school and is at work on a feature about the poet HartCrane that he will adapt (from PaulL. Mariani’s biography), direct andstar in. And he is in his fifth semester in yet another graduate program, for
poetry, at Warren Wilson College nearAsheville, North Carolina.
Academic overload is not what ac-tors are known for, but Mr. Franco has gone beyond that. His New York artdebut is on view at the Clocktower Gal-lery. His first book, “Palo Alto,” a storycollection set in his California home-town, will be published in October.After that comes “127 Hours,” Danny Boyle’s dramatization of the true sto-ry of Aron Ralston, the hiker forcedto amputate his own arm after beingtrapped in a Utah canyon; Mr. Francoagain spends much of his screen time alone. This autumn he begins a Ph.D.program at Yale University, in Con-necticut, for English.
“I shouldn’t say I’m doing so manythings, because it starts to sound ri-diculous after a while,” Mr. Francosaid, rightly.
The poetry projects and his book arethe least influenced by his celebrity, hesaid, though he knows people will viewthem through that prism. “As hard asI work in film, it’s my day job,” he said. “Those are, I don’t know, pure expres-sion.”
Some of his hyperproductivity is theresult of his upbringing. His parents’interests included painting, softwaredevelopment, educational reform and children’s books.
Mr. Franco is happier as an artistnow, even if his efforts beyond film sofar have not been critically successful. A short story published in Esquire re-ceived withering responses.
“All I can do,” he said, “is put thework in.” He’s an ambitious student,not a superhuman.
Some odd instruments and strange adaptations of standard ones havebeen sprouting amid the familiarstrings and brass of classical music concerts.
To create the requiredresonance for a Boulez sonata, for example, the pianist Marc Ponthusconnected two grand pianos with a piece ofwood, allowing him to work the sustain pedal
of the second from his seat at the first.And the flutist and composer Rob-
ert Dick played works he wrote for a flute outfitted with what he calls a glissando headjoint, an extension ofthe mouthpiece that lets him shapehis instrument’s lines by sliding from note to note.
The Partch Ensemble, named for the quirky composer and instrumentinventor Harry Partch, performed “There Isn’t Time,” a new work byVictoria Bond for instruments that are outlandish blends of Asian andWestern materials and designs.Partch’s instruments use their own tuning systems, with as many as 43notes (rather than the standard 12) inan octave.
People who worry that classical music is a museum culture normally focus on the repertory, or, more spe-cifically, on players and listenerswho prefer the 19th-century canon inclassical music. But the same pres-ervationist impulse that keeps the standard repertory in the spotlight controls instrumentation too.
Minor technical improvementsmay be tolerable here and there, but anything that changes the essentialnature, sound or look of an instrumentwill seem to them an assault on tradi-tion.
This kind of arrested developmentis historically peculiar. After all, most of Western musical history, from medieval times until the mid-19thcentury, was also a period of virtually nonstop instrument evolution. Com-posers responded to the latest devel-opments by writing works that took advantage of the new instruments’abilities.
With the introduction of the forte-piano, for example, Haydn was able to write smooth, singing lines that could have been barely hinted at on theharpsichord. And Beethoven’s latesonatas require a heftier instrumentthan the kind Haydn first encoun-tered.
Today’s composers have a difficult choice. If they want to be heard by thetraditional classical music audience— that is, if they want their works to be regarded as part of the historicmainstream — they have to write forthe 19th-century instruments thatmost ensembles play.
But some composers have rebelledagainst the tyranny of standard instruments. Partch, for one, began building his own instruments in 1930, and added steadily to his collection through the late 1960s. And thoughMinimalist and post-Minimalist composers now write plentifully for mainstream orchestra and chamberensembles, several were outliers at first, starting their own bands withdistinctive aural thumbprints.
The heart of Steve Reich’s group was percussion, with voices, strings and other instruments added as re-quired. Philip Glass’s early ensemble
was built aroundwinds, voicesand keyboards.But Mr. Glass, inthose early days, did not want just any keyboards:he was fond of the reedy sound of the Farfisa organ.
These days Mr. Glass’s group plays on pricier, more high-tech instru-ments that can approximate the Farfisa, along with countless sounds the Farfisa could never produce. Ifyou’re a Glass purist — or a period-instrument fanatic, modern division— the new sound is a compromise. But Mr. Glass has never cared to be a pris-oner of historical detail.
Since then, composers have led ensembles of all kinds, and the most common — Missy Mazzoli’s Victoire, or some of the groups led by Du Yun,for example — are classical-rock or classical-jazz hybrids. And some have oddball lead instruments. The composer Ben Neill, for example,plays what he calls the mutantrumpet — a trumpet with three bells (instead of one), six valves (instead of three), a trombone slide and an electronicinterface that can turn it into a syn-
thesizer controller. Are any of these instruments likely
to become standard? It hardly mat-ters, really. They are here now, being played by, and composed for, musi-cians who are fascinated with them, and that is enough. But if I were to haz-ard a guess which of them might havea future, it would have to be Mr. Dick’sflute with a glissando headjoint. It is, after all, not a complete reworking of the flute — simply an addition that allows Mr. Dick, a virtuoso even on a standard instrument, to create effectsotherwise unavailable to him.
Now all Mr. Dick has to do is write enough music that demands the he-adjoint, and that flutists will want toplay .
MERIDITH KOHUT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Corridos have evolved into an oral history of Colombia’s drug wars. Uriel Henao sings the ballads.
NITIN VADUKUL
MARTIN TESSLER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
James Franco will next appear as
Allen Ginsberg in ‘‘Howl.’’
ALLAN
KOZINN
ESSAY
ONLINE: OUTLAW SONGS
Photographs and video from theunderground culture surroundingColombia’s corridos:nytimes.com/world
ONLINE: AUDIO
Excerpts from music playedon unusual instruments:nytimes.com/music
A Hollywood Star by Day,A Poet and Artist by Night
In the Forest of Instruments, Signs of Evolution
Ballads Born of Conflict Thrive in Colombia
Jenny Carolina González contrib-uted reporting from Bogotá.
