An Insatiable Demand

SATURDAY, JANUARY 26, 2008
Copyright © 2008 The New York Times
Une sélection hebdomadaire offerte par
An Insatiable Demand
Rising Oil Prices
Make Mealtime
More Expensive
By KEITH BRADSHER
KUANTAN, Malaysia — Rising prices for cooking oil are forcing residents of Asia’s largest slum,
in Mumbai, India, to ration every drop. Bakeries in
the United States are fretting over higher shortening costs. And here in Malaysia, brand-new factories built to convert vegetable oil into diesel sit idle,
their owners unable to afford the raw material.
This is the other oil shock. From India to Indiana,
shortages and soaring prices for palm oil, soybean
oil and many other types of vegetable oils are the
latest, most striking example of a developing global problem: costly food.
The food price index of the Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations, based on export prices for 60 internationally traded foodstuffs,
climbed 37 percent last year. That was on top of a 14
percent increase in 2006, and the trend has accelerated this winter.
According to the organization, food riots have
erupted in recent months in Guinea, Mauritania,
Mexico, Morocco, Senegal, Uzbekistan and Yemen.
No category of food prices has risen as quickly
this winter as so-called edible oils.
Cooking oil may seem a trifling expense in the
West. But in the developing world, cooking oil is an
important source of calories and represents one
of the biggest cash outlays for poor families, who
grow much of their own food but have to buy oil in
which to cook it.
Few crops illustrate the emerging problems in
the global food chain as well as palm oil, the price of
which has jumped nearly 70 percent in the last year
JUSTIN MOTT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
The price of palm oil is up nearly 70 percent in a year, part of a global boom in commodity prices. A worker in Malaysia collects palm oil fruit.
Continued on Page 4
Saudi Arabia Eyes an Industrial Future
By JAD MOUAWAD
RABIGH, Saudi Arabia — The
alarm bell sounded the end of the
lunch break here one November afternoon, and suddenly thousands of
workers — on foot, on bicycles and
in buses — streamed in, seemingly
from out of nowhere, and jolted this
huge construction site to life.
Amid the cranes, towers and
beams rising from the desert, more
than 38,000 workers from China, India, Turkey and beyond have been
toiling for two years in unforgiving
conditions — often in temperatures
exceeding 37 degrees Celsius — to
complete one of the world’s largest
petrochemical plants in record time.
By the end of the year, this massive city of steel at the edge of the
Red Sea will take its place as a cog
of globalization: plastics produced
here will be used to make televisions in Japan, cellphones in China
and thousands of other products
to be sold in the United States and
Europe. Construction costs at the
plant, which spreads over 20 square
kilometers, have doubled to $10 billion because of shortages in materials and labor. The amount of steel
being used is 10 times the weight of
the Eiffel Tower.
“I’ve worked on many big things
in my life, but I’ve never worked on
anything this big,” an American
project manager mused during a
bus tour of the project, called Petro
Rabigh, a joint venture of the staterun oil company Saudi Aramco and
Sumitomo Chemical of Japan.
Size isn’t the only consideration.
The project is Saudi Arabia’s bold-
est bet yet that this oil-rich kingdom
can transform itself into an industrial powerhouse. The plant is part
of a $500 billion investment program
to build new cities, create millions
of jobs and diversify the economy
away from petroleum exports over
the next two decades.
“The Saudi economy was in idle
mode for 20 years,” said John Sfakianakis, the chief economist at SABB,
formerly known as the Saudi British
Bank, who is based in Riyadh, the
Saudi capital. “Today, the feeling
here is, ‘We’ve won the lottery; let’s
not waste it.’ ”
The kingdom’s big economic goals
would have been unthinkable without the surge in energy prices that
Continued on Page 4
EMAAR DEVELOPMENT, VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS
A detail from a rendering of the King Abdullah Economic City, on the Red Sea. It is
one of six new cities planned by Saudi Arabia as it works to diversify its economy.
In Japan, Purists Fret at Rise of the Cellphone Novel
By NORIMITSU ONISHI
TOKYO — Until recently, cellphone
novels — composed on phone keypads
by young women wielding dexterous
thumbs and read by fans on their
tiny screens — had been dismissed
in Japan as a subgenre unworthy
of the country that gave the world its
first novel, “The Tale of Genji,’’ a millennium ago.
Then in December, the year-end bestseller tally showed that cellphone novels,
republished in book form, have not only
infiltrated the mainstream but have come
to dominate it.
Of last year’s 10 best-selling novels, five
were originally cellphone novels, mostly
love stories written in the short sentences characteristic of text messaging but
containing little of the plotting or character development found
in traditional novels.
What is more, the top
three spots were occupied by first-time
cellphone novelists,
PHOTOGRAPHS BY KO SASAKI FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
touching off a debate.
turned into a 142-page hard“Will cellphone novels kill
cover book last year. It sold
‘the author’?’’ a famous lit400,000 copies and became
erary journal, Bungaku-kai,
the No. 5 best-selling novel
asked on the cover of its Januof 2007, according to a closely
ary issue. Fans praised the novwatched list by Tohan, a major
els as a new literary genre crebook distributor.
ated and consumed by a gener“My mother didn’t even
ation whose reading habits had
know that I was writing a novconsisted mostly of manga, or
el,’’ said Rin, who, like many
comic books. Critics said the
cellphone novelists, goes by
dominance of cellphone novels,
with their poor literary qual- Rin is a successful only one name.
“So at first when I told her,
ity, would hasten the decline of cellphone novelist.
well, I’m coming out with a
Japanese literature.
novel, she was like, what? She
Cellphone novelists are making the kind of sales that most traditional didn’t believe it until it came out and appeared in bookstores,’’ she added.
novelists can only dream of.
A year ago, one of Starts Publishing’s
One star, a 21-year-old woman named
Rin, wrote “If You’’ over a six-month stretch young cellphone stars, Chaco, gave up her
phoneeventhoughshecouldcomposemuch
during her senior year in high school.
While commuting to her part-time job or faster with it by tapping with her thumb.
“Because of writing on the cellphone,
in free moments, she tapped out passages
on her cellphone and uploaded them on a her nail had cut into the flesh and became
bloodied,’’ said Shigeru Matsushima, an
Web site for would-be authors.
After cellphone readers voted her novel editor. “Since she’s switched to a computNo. 1 in one ranking, her story of the tragic er, her vocabulary’s gotten richer and her
love between two childhood friends was sentences have also grown longer.’’
CAHIER DU « MONDE » DATÉ SAMEDI 26 JANVIER 2008, NO 19598. NE PEUT ÊTRE VENDU SÉPARÉMENT
The Traffic Is Very Heavy
Elephants and their handlers
illegally ply the streets of Bangkok in
search of gullible tourists.
WORLD TRENDS
3
Thinking Is Doing
Using only her brain activity, a
monkey makes a robot halfway
across the world move its legs.
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
6
2
LE MONDE
SATURDAY, JANUARY 26, 2008
O P I N I O N & C O M M E N TA RY
EDITORIALS OF THE TIMES
Don’t Tie the Hands
Of the Next President
President Bush is discussing a new
agreement with Baghdad that would
govern the deployment of American
troops in Iraq. With so many Americans adamant about bringing our forces
home as soon as possible, a sentiment
we strongly share, Mr. Bush must not be
allowed to tie the hands of his successor
and ensure the country’s continued involvement in an open-ended war.
Given what’s at stake in Iraq in terms
of American and Iraqi lives lost, national treasure and broad national security
interests, the negotiations on any new
agreement must be fully transparent —
which they are not. The national debate
must be vigorous and thoughtful, and
then Congress must vote on whatever
deal results.
The White House and the Iraqi government decided in December to pursue the
pact as a way to define long-term relations between the two countries, including the legal status of American military
forces in Iraq. The ostensible goal is a
more durable political, economic and
security relationship than is possible
under a United Nations resolution, the
current international legal basis for the
American military presence in Iraq.
Iraqi officials, increasingly unhappy
with restrictions on sovereignty because
of the presence of 160,000 foreign troops,
have said that they won’t extend the United Nations mandate beyond this year. A
Washington-Baghdad deal would have to
take its place for the troops to stay.
Formal negotiations won’t start until
February and few details are known, but
already the two sides are laying down
markers.
The Iraqi defense minister, Abdul Qadir — apparently tone-deaf to the Ameri-
can political debate — told The Times’s
Thom Shanker that his nation would not
be able to take full responsibility for its
internal security until 2012 or be able to
defend its own borders from external
threat at least until 2018. That is far too
long for most Americans, but not for Mr.
Bush, who is quite comfortable leaving
American troops fighting in Iraq for another decade.
A related issue concerns whether the
agreement would grant assurances that
America would help Iraq defend against
foreign aggression — something a senior
White House official says has not been
ruled out. That’s a worrying prospect.
Such guarantees could further encourage Iraqi dependence on the American
military and might draw the United
States into a regional conflict.
Among other questions still to be answered are how long the United States
wants basing rights in Iraq and how it
might assuage Iraqis demanding the
right to try American troops and contractors accused of killing civilians and
other misdeeds. (The United States
almost always brings troops home for
trial.)
Mr. Bush is rushing to complete a deal
before he leaves office in January 2009.
That is just as reckless and irresponsible
as most of his decisions regarding Iraq.
America’s interests demand that his successor has maximum flexibility to plot a
course, which we hope includes a quick
and orderly withdrawal of troops.
One way to ensure that flexibility is to
make sure that Congress approves any
deal with Iraq, as leading Democrats,
including Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, are insisting. The time for Congressional intervention is now.
Climate Data Is Hard to Ignore
Skeptics about global warming often
point to Antarctica to show that Al Gore
and others who worry about climate
change have exaggerated the dangers
greatly. They may concede that the Arctic is melting and even that Greenland is
beginning to appear a bit shaky. But look
at Antarctica, they will say. It’s actually
growing colder, and the ice sheet is thickening.
That argument is becoming harder to
sustain. According to a study published
recently in the journal Nature Geoscience, changes in water temperature
and wind patterns related to global
warming have begun to erode vast ice
sheets in western Antarctica at a much
faster rate than anyone had previously
detected.
The study pointed out that the ice loss
is very small compared with the continent’s kilometers-deep ice sheets. Even
so, the study suggests that if the trend
continues, global sea levels could rise
higher and more swiftly than previously
supposed. The findings give more urgency to the search for a new global agreement to limit emissions of carbon dioxide
and other greenhouse gases.
There has always been uncertainty
over Antarctica’s weather, partly because it is so hard to find what is hap-
pening in large parts of the continent.
And there are, in effect, two Antarcticas. East Antarctica, which makes up
about 90 percent of the total, sits above
sea level and is relatively stable, with increased snowfall compensating for any
loss of ice. A study in 2002 concluded that
the interior had actually cooled over the
previous decade.
Then there is the western shelf, an
expanse of ice and snow slightly bigger
than Afghanistan and largely below sea
level. Using measurements from satellites that scanned about 85 percent of
Antarctica’s coasts from 1996 to 2006,
the study’s authors found that West Antarctica has been losing ice at a rate that
is 60 percent faster than 10 years ago.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted that if nothing is
done to slow the increase in global warming gases, the world’s oceans could rise
as much as 60 centimeters in this century. Many scientists add another 30 centimeters because they think the panel
underestimated glacial flows.
It is too early to predict how much the
melting from Antarctica will add. Still,
the new findings are unsettling and yet
another warning that there is no way to
deny and nowhere to hide from global
warming.
NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Experience Is Not the Only Priority
With all the criticism from the Clinton camp about whether Barack Obama
has enough experience to make a strong
president, consider another presidential candidate who was far more of a
novice. He had the gall to run for president even though he had served a single
undistinguished term in the House of
Representatives, before being hounded
back to his district.
That was Abraham Lincoln.
Another successful president scorned
any need for years of apprenticeship in
Washington, declaring, “The same old
experience is not relevant.” He suggested that the most useful training comes
not from hanging around the White
House and Congress but rather from experience “rooted in the real lives of real
people” so that “it will bring real results
if we have the courage to change.”
That was Bill Clinton running in 1992
against George H. W. Bush, who was
then trumpeting his own experience
over the callow youth of Mr. Clinton.
It might seem obvious that long service in Washington is the best preparation for the White House, but on the contrary, one lesson of American history
is that length of experience in national
politics is an extremely poor predictor
of presidential success.
Looking at the 19 presidents since
1900, three of the greatest were among
those with the fewest years in electoral
politics. Teddy Roosevelt had been a
governor for two years and vice president for six months; Woodrow Wilson, a
governor for just two years; and Franklin Roosevelt, a governor for four years.
None ever served in Congress.
Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and George
H. W. Bush. They had great technical
skills — but not one was among our very
greatest presidents.
The point is not that experience is
pointless but that it needn’t be in politics to be useful. John McCain’s years
as a prisoner of war gave him an understanding of torture and a moral authority to discuss it that no amount of Senate
hearings ever could have conferred.
In the same way, Mr. Obama’s years
as an antipoverty organizer give him
insights into one of our greatest challenges: how to end cycles of poverty.
Little Clout at Home, or Overseas
WASHINGTON
When President Bush finished doing
his sword dances and Arabian stallion
inspections, when he finished making a
speech in Abu Dhabi on the importance
of freedom that fell flat, when he finished lounging in his fur-lined George
of Arabia robe in the Saudi king’s tent,
he came home.
Or he came to what was left of home.
A Washington Post cartoon by Tom
Toles summed it up best: “Great to be
home,” W. enthuses on Air Force One,
heading toward the East Coast. “Anything interesting happen while I was
gone?” Hanging on the skyline of New
York is a sign reading: “U.S.A. Now a
Wholly Owned Subsidiary of Foreign
Investors.”
W. seemed dazzled by the can-do
spirit of the entrepreneurs of the new
Middle East. “It’s important for the
president to hear thoughts, hopes,
dreams, aspirations, concerns from
folks that are out making a living,” he
told Saudi businessmen.
In Dubai, he commended young Arab
leaders, saying, “The entrepreneurial
spirit is strong.” In Abu Dhabi, he marveled at the royal family’s plans to build
a city based entirely upon renewable
energy. “Amazing, isn’t it?” W. said.
You know you’re in trouble when your
Middle East oil pump is greener than
you are.
Our addiction to oil has allowed our
LEXIQUE
Dans l’article “Efforts to Harvest the Ocean’s
Energy Hold New Promise,” page 5:
BUOY: bouée, balise
TO STRAIN: ici passer, filtrer
TO POUND: pilonner
FORBIDDING: rébarbatif
MOMENTUM: élan
Years in politics may
not be the best way to
train a president.
That front-line experience is one reason Mr. Obama not only favors government spending programs, like earlychildhood education, but also cultural
initiatives like promoting responsible
fatherhood.
Then there’s Mr. Obama’s gradeschool years in Indonesia. Our most
serious mistakes in foreign policy, from
Vietnam to Iraq, have been a blindness
to other people’s nationalism and an inability to see ourselves as others see us.
Mr. Obama seems to have absorbed an
intuitive sensitivity to that problem.
In politics, Mr. Obama’s preparation
is not extensive, though it’s more than
Hillary Rodham Clinton acknowledges.
His seven years in the Illinois State Senate aren’t heavily scrutinized, but he
scored significant achievements there:
a law to videotape police interrogations
in capital cases; an earned income tax
credit to fight poverty; an expansion of
early-childhood education.
The Democrats with the greatest
Washington expertise — Joe Biden,
Chris Dodd and Bill Richardson — have
already been driven from the race. And
the presidential candidate left standing with the greatest experience by
far is Mr. McCain; if Mrs. Clinton believes that’s the criterion for selecting
the next president, she might consider
backing him.
To put it another way, think which
politician is most experienced today in
the classic sense, and thus — according
to the “experience” camp — best qualified to become the next president.
That’s Dick Cheney. And I rest my
case.
MAUREEN DOWD
: AIDE A LA LECTURE
Pour aider à la lecture de l’anglais et familiariser nos lecteurs avec certaines expressions
américaines, Le Monde publie ci-dessous la traduction de quelques mots et idiomes contenus
dans les articles de ce supplément. Par Dominique Chevallier, agrégée d’anglais.
Dans l’article “Extremists Lay Siege to a Pakistani
Frontier City Gripped by Fear,” page 3:
TO GRIP: saisir fermement
ALLEY: ruelle
TALLY: décompte
STRIFE: conflit
TO PIT AGAINST: opposer
TO SOW (I SOWED, SOWN): semer
TO SCOFF: se moquer
BACKLASH: contre-coup
TO COZY UP TO: essayer de devenir ami avec
They all did have executive experience (as did Mr. Clinton), actually running something larger than a Senate
office. Maybe that’s something voters
should think about more: governors
have often made better presidents than
senators. But that’s not a good Democratic talking point, because the candidates with the greatest administrative
experience by far are Mitt Romney,
Rudy Giuliani and Mike Huckabee.
Alternatively, look at the five presidents since 1900 with perhaps the most
political experience when taking office:
William McKinley, Lyndon Johnson,
Dans l’article “Climate Challenge Drives
Academics to Join Forces,” page 5:
TENET: principe, doctrine
GRANT: subvention
TO FOSTER: encourager, promouvoir
ACADEMIA: le monde universitaire
SUSTAINABILITY: développement durable
PALATABLE: satisfaisant
TO ALLEVIATE: atténuer
Dans l’article “Preserving the Sense and Skill of
Balance,” page 7:
TO TUMBLE OFF: dégringoler
BOULDER: rocher
HEEL: talon
TOE: orteil
TO ENHANCE: améliorer
ANKLE: cheville
pushers in the Persian Gulf to go on a
shopping spree to buy us up.
Hillary Clinton was right when she
said that it was “pathetic” that President Bush had to beg the Saudis to drop
the price of oil.
One of the many rationales he offered
for invading Iraq was the benign domino theory, that bringing democracy to
Iraq would sway the autocrats in the
region to be less repressive.
But when W. visited Saudi Arabia and
Egypt recently, he did not raise the issue. He could not demand anything of
the autocrats in the way of more rights
for women and dissidents, much less
get the Saudis to help on oil production.
He needs their help in corralling Iran,
which has been strengthened by the occupation of Iraq.
So he was a supplicant in Saudi Arabia. The American economy is a supplicant, too.
Two decades ago, we fretted that Japan was taking over America when Sony
bought Columbia Pictures and Mitsubishi bought a chunk of Rockefeller Center.
But they overpaid for everything.
Now, because of Wall Street’s overreaching, our economy depends on foreign oil and foreign loans to stay afloat.
China and Arab countries have a staggering amount of treasury securities.
And the oil-rich countries are sitting on
so many petrodollars that they are looking beyond prestige hotels and fashion
EXPRESSIONS
Dans l’article “Efforts to Harvest the Ocean’s
Energy Hold New Promise,” page 5:
DOWNSIDE: On dit “the upside” pour parler des
avantages, du côté positif, et de “the downside”
pour parler des désavantages, des défauts, des
côtés négatifs.
Dans l’article “Expansion of Green Programs
Raises Potential for Cheating,” page 5:
GREENWASHING: invention fabriquée à partir du
mot whitewashing, qui signifie blanchir à la whaux,
au sens propre, mais aussi blanchir (par exemple
de l’argent sale). Ainsi greenwash signifie non
plus “blanchir mais verdir,” c’est-à-dire passer
à la sauce environnementale pour justifier des
arguments, qui bien sur sont discutables ...
RÉFÉRENCES
Dans l’article “Efforts to Harvest the Ocean’s
Energy Hold New Promise,” page 5:
OREGON: Rattaché à l’union en 1859, cet Etat
du Nord Ouest pacifique faisait, auparavant
partie du Oregon Territory. Traversé en 1804 par
labels and taking advantage of the bargains available to buy huge stakes in our
major financial institutions.
Like the president, Citigroup and
Merrill Lynch solicited help from Middle Eastern, Asian and American investors, for a combined total of nearly $19.1
billion, after the subprime mortgage
debacle blew up their books.
Citigroup, which raised $7.5 billion
from Abu Dhabi in November, raised
another $12.5 billion, including from
Singapore, Kuwait and Saudi Prince
Walid bin Talal. Merrill Lynch gave $6.6
billion in stock to Kuwait, South Korea,
a Japanese bank and others.
As Warren Buffett has said, we are
giving ourselves a party to feed our appetite for oil and imported goods and
paying for it by selling off the furniture,
our most precious assets.
Next to the cool, strong euro, the dollar
is a comparative runt in the world’s currencies. The weak dollar lets foreigners
buy up real estate in Manhattan.
It is striking that the Bush scion, who
has tried so hard to do the opposite of
his father, also ends up facing the prospect of a recession in his final year in
office. Maybe if the president had spent
the trillion he squandered on his Iraq
odyssey on energy research, we might
have broken the oil addiction.
Now it’s a race between the war in
Iraq or the worsening economy to see
which one will usher W out of office.
l’expédition Lewis et Clarke – la première fois qu’ils
entendirent l’océan Pacifique (avant de le voir)
ce fut en Oregon – ce territoire était tombé sous
influence britannique: la Hudson’s Bay Company
y trouvait les fourrures (en particulier de castor)
dont elle avait besoin pour fabriquer les hauts
de forme. Lors de la fixation de la frontière au
49ème parallèle, le territoire devint américain.
A partir de 1842, avec l’ouverture de la piste de
l’Oregon, les habitants arrivèrent par milliers pour
s’installer dans la vallée de la Willamette, migration
encouragée par l’Etat Fédéral qui offrait des
terrains pour une somme très modique. La forêt,
couvre un tiers de la surface de l’Etat et représente
une de ses grandes richesses économiques.
Curieux Etat, fait de contrastes entre des lois
considérées comme particulièrement à l’avantgarde (par exemple il a été le premier état à
autoriser par la loi le suicide assisté) et des groupes
racistes de “white supremacists,” entre des villes
riches (Portland) et des villages ruraux pauvres,
entre les exploitants des forêts et les écologistes ...
Il a beaucoup attiré de nouveaux habitants ces dix
dernières années (population prequ’entièrement
blanche: il y a plus d’Indiens que de Noirs, et le
taux d’Hispaniques tourne autour de 10%.
SATURDAY, JANUARY 26, 2008
LE MONDE
3
WORLD TRENDS
Extremists Lay Siege to a Pakistani Frontier City Gripped by Fear
By JANE PERLEZ
PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE NEW YORK TIMES
TURKMEN.
AFGHANISTAN
TAJIK.
MOHMAND
Kabul
re
Area of
detail
as
Pakistan’s battle
with militants has
moved to Peshawar,
a city bordering the
tribal region. A gun
merchant, left, in the
tribal area prepares to
test a weapon.
CHINA
JAMMU
AND
KASHMIR
AFGHANISTAN
Peshawar
Trib
al
a
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — For centuries, fighting and lawlessness have been
part of the fabric of this frontier city. But
in the past year, Pakistan’s war with Islamic militants has spilled right into its
alleys and bazaars, its forts and armories, killing policemen and soldiers and
scaring its famously tough citizens.
There is a sense of siege here, as the
Islamic insurgency pours out of the adjacent tribal region into this city, one of
Pakistan’s largest, and its surrounding
districts.
The Taliban and their militant sympathizers now hold strategic pockets on
the city’s outskirts, the police say, from
where they strike at the military and
the police, order schoolgirls to wear the
burqa and blow up stores selling DVDs,
among other acts of violence.
Suicide bombings, bomb explosions
and missile attacks occurred an average
of once a week here in 2007, according to
a tally by the city’s police department.
In 2006, while there were occasional
grenade attacks and explosions, the authorities did not record a single suicide
bombing or rocket attack inside the city.
The proximity of Peshawar to the tribal areas where the Taliban and Al Qaeda
have regrouped in the past two years
makes the city a feasible prize for the
militants in Pakistan’s escalating internal strife that pits the Islamic extremists
against the American-backed government of President Pervez Musharraf.
Though few here believe that the
Taliban will rule anytime soon, the police and residents say that by the standards of counterinsurgency warfare the
extremists are doing well. They have
undermined public faith in the government, sown distrust and made the police
fearful for their lives. “People feel the
insecurity is so high, no one can fix it,”
said Humair Bilour, the sister-in-law of
Malik Saad, a popular Peshawar police
chief who was killed in a suicide bomb attack last year. “How can the government
do anything when the government itself
is involved in it?”
She said she and her friends were now
afraid to go out. “People go to the bazaar
and make jokes: ‘Is this going to be my
last trip?’ ” she said.
The extremists have selected the police and the army, two important pillars
of the Pakistani state, as particular targets. Rockets were fired recently at an
army barracks in Warsak on the city’s
perimeter, a warning of the power of
the militants to strike from Mohmand,
a district in the tribal areas adjacent to
Peshawar, an area that a few months ago
was considered free of the Taliban.
The army headquarters in the center
of the city were struck last month by a
bomber who was hiding explosives under her burqa that were set off by remote
control. The assassination a year ago of
the police chief, Mr. Saad, who was killed
while on duty trying to control a religious
procession, shook the city.
“It’s asymmetrical warfare against
an established state,” said Muhammad
Sulaman Khan, chief of operations for
the Peshawar police and a close friend of
Mr. Saad. “The terrorists only don’t have
Islamabad
Zhob
Quetta
NORTH-WEST
FRONTIER
SOUTH PROVINCE
WAZIRISTAN
IRAN
BALUCHISTAN
SINDH
PAKISTAN
Kms.
New Delhi
PAKISTAN
INDIA
Karachi
80
Arabian Sea
Kms. 320
THE NEW YORK TIMES
to lose it, we need to win it.”
At the core of the troubles here, many
say, lie demands by the United States
that the Pakistani military, generously
financed by Washington, join in its campaign against terrorism, which means
killing fellow Pakistanis in the tribal
areas. Even if those Pakistanis are extremists, the people here say, they do not
like a policy of killing fellow tribesmen,
and fellow countrymen, particularly on
behalf of the United States.
The Bush administration is convinced
that Al Qaeda and the Taliban have
gained new strength in the past two
years, particularly in the tribal regions
of North and South Waziristan and Bajaur. It has said it is considering sending
American forces to help the Pakistani
soldiers in those areas. Mr. Musharraf
has scoffed at the idea.
Any direct intervention by American
forces would only strengthen the backlash now under way against soldiers and
the police in Peshawar, said Farook Adam Khan, a lawyer here. That reaction
spread recently to Lahore, the capital of
Punjab Province, where a suicide bomber killed almost two dozen policemen at
a lawyers’ rally, he said.
“Pakistani soldiers never used to be
targets,” Mr. Khan said. “Now we have
the radicals antagonized by Musharraf
and his politics of cozying up to the United States. The actions taken by the army
in Waziristan and Bajaur and Swat are
causing the problems here.” Swat is an
area 160 kilometers north of Peshawar,
where the Pakistani Army is currently
battling a Pakistani Taliban insurgent
group with mixed results.
Peshawar’s booming business in illicit
Western and Indian DVDs has been another target of the militants. Many of the
city’s myriad retail outlets have closed
after being bombed, or threatened with
violence. At the Bilal DVD Parlor, the
owners, Bilal Javed and Akhtar Ali, said
their sales — ranging from “Pride and
Prejudice” to “Die Hard 4.0” to the latest
Bollywood films and old Bruce Lee movies — had fallen by 90 percent.
On a recent day, their modern retail
store, fitted with polished chrome, was
packed floor to ceiling with DVDs. There
were no customers. They said people had
been afraid to shop there since a bomb
hidden in a water cooler exploded at a
DVD store across the street last year, killing five people, including a 7-year-old boy
who wanted to buy a computer mouse.
“The police chief said, ‘We can’t secure
ourselves, how can we secure you?’ ” Mr.
Javed said.
Welcome to Bangkok. Please Feed the Elephants.
By THOMAS FULLER
BANGKOK — Of all the illegal activities that animate the streets of Bangkok
— the vendors who hawk pirated DVDs
and fake watches, the brothels that call
themselves saunas — one stands out.
Elephants are not supposed to saunter
down the city’s streets as they do almost
every night. For at least two decades the
giant gray beasts have plodded through
this giant gray city, stopping off at redlight districts where prostitutes ply their
trade and tourist areas where their handlers peddle elephant snacks of sugar
cane and bananas to passers-by.
Occasionally the elephants knock
off the side-view mirrors from cars or
stumble into gutters and cut themselves
on sharp objects.
The police shrug, politicians periodically order crackdowns and animal lovers despair.
The creation of a Stray Elephant Task
Force in 2006 did not keep the elephants
off city streets. Nor did the team of undercover elephant enforcers who periodically cruise through Bangkok on motorcycles scouting for the beasts.
“To be honest, nobody wants to do this
job,” said Prayote Promsuwon, who is in
charge of the Stray Elephant Task Force,
which was formed after an elephant
handler, fleeing the police, raced his el-
ephant the wrong way down a Bangkok
boulevard, causing traffic chaos.
The police shy away from detaining
the elephants’ handlers, also known as
mahouts, because the officers fear they
will not be able to control the animals on
their own.
“This is a dangerous job,” Mr. Prayote
said. “An angry elephant can destroy
cars and make trouble — and then we
Elephants roaming the
streets remind Thais of
their society’s inequities.
have responsibility for the damage.”
The government says there are 3,837
domesticated elephants in Thailand
today. Only a tiny fraction come into
Bangkok — usually no more than half a
dozen each evening — but they are hard
to miss. Many Thais say they serve as
a daily reminder of the inequalities in
Thailand, the gap between provincial
poverty and urban wealth.
Mahouts bring their elephants into the
city for the same reasons that the sons
and daughters of rice farmers try their
luck as waiters, golf caddies and massage therapists in Bangkok: they need
the money.
“We’ve been fined many times,” said
Nattawut Inthong, a 24-year-old mahout
who travels around Bangkok with his 2year-old elephant, Gra-po.
Mr. Nattawut treats the fine of 300
baht, about $10, like a business expense.
Most evenings he parades Gra-po
through the Nana red-light district. The
elephant adds to the carnival-like atmosphere.
Mr. Nattawut makes about 2,000 baht
a day, or about $67, selling sugar cane
to passers-by, good money in a country
where a typical factory wage is 8,000
baht (about $269) a month.
For centuries, elephants have been
considered noble here, collected by kings
and used in ancient times as tanks on the
battlefield.
Weerasak Pintawong, the chief veterinarian at the National Institute of Elephant Research and Health Services in
Surin, said it was common for elephants
to be injured by cars.
“Sometimes they fall into a hole,” Mr.
Weerasak said. “Sometimes the elephant is frustrated at being commanded
too much, and it runs away.”
Elephants, Mr. Weerasak said, are
PATRICK BROWN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE
A young male elephant and his handler (not pictured) roam the tourist
areas of Bangkok at night. They will both be working until the bars close.
powerful, restless creatures prone to
rebellion.The single most appropriate
word for them, he said, is “fierce.”
Eight years ago, former Prime Minister Anand Panyarachun lamented
that when Thais saw elephants walking
down the streets in Bangkok, “we are not
only sorry for the elephant but we’re also
ashamed of ourselves.”
“The elephant was a symbol of honor,
of dignity and leadership,” he said, “but
today it has become the symbol of the
failures and injustices of Thailand’s development.”
4
LE MONDE
SATURDAY, JANUARY 26, 2008
WORLD TRENDS
Higher palm oil
prices are felt at a
factory in Mumbai
that uses it to fry
lentils for a snack.
Rising Oil Prices Make
Mealtime More Expensive
From Page 1
because supply has grown slowly while
demand has soared.
Farmers and plantation companies
are responding to the higher prices, seizing land in places like Borneo from indigenous people and clearing tropical forest
to replant with rows of oil palms. But an
oil palm takes eight years to reach full
production. A drought last year in Indonesia and flooding in Peninsular Malaysia helped constrain supply. At the same
time, palm oil demand is growing steeply
for a variety of reasons around the globe.
They include shifting decisions among
farmers about what to plant, rising consumer demand in China and India for
edible oils, and Western subsidies for
biofuel production.
American farmers have been planting
more corn and less soy because demand
for corn-based ethanol has raised corn
prices. American soybean acreage fell
19 percent last year, producing a drop in
soybean oil output and inventories.
Chinese farmers also cut back soybean
acreage last year, as urban sprawl covContributing reporting were Andrew
Martin in New York, Anand Giridharadas in Kale, India, and Michael Rubenstein in Mumbai.
ered prime farmland and the Chinese
government provided more incentives
for grain. Yet people in China are also consuming more oils. China was the world’s
biggest palm oil importer last year and it
also doubled its soybean oil imports.
Concerns about nutrition used to hurt
palm oil sales, but they are now starting
to help. The oil was long regarded in the
West as unhealthy, but it has become an
attractive option to replace the chemically altered fats known as trans fats,
which have lately come to be seen as the
least healthy of all fats.
Across the United States, manufacturers are trying to replace trans fats, and
American palm oil imports nearly doubled in the first 11 months of last year.
“Four years ago, when this whole
no-trans issue started, we processed
no palm here,’’ said Mark Weyland,
a United States product manager for
Loders Croklaan, a Dutch company that
supplies palm oil. “Now it’s our biggest
seller.’’
Last year, conversion of palm oil into
fuel was a fast-growing source of demand, but in recent weeks, rising prices
have thrown that business into turmoil.
Here on Malaysia’s eastern shore, a
new refinery has the capacity to turn
105,000 metric tons a year of palm oil
into 100,000 metric tons of a fuel called
biodiesel, as well as valuable byproducts
like glycerin. Mission Biofuels, an Australian company, finished the refinery in
December..
But prices have spiked so much that the
company cannot cover all its costs and
has idled the refinery while looking for a
new strategy.
“We took a view that palm oil prices
were already high; we didn’t think they
could go even higher, and then they did,’’
said Nathan Mahalingam, the company’s managing director.
Cities of the Future
Prince Abdulaziz bin Mousaed
Economic City
Investment size
Jobs created
Population
Saudi Arabia’s rapid population growth
and high oil prices have spurred the
country to invest in new industrial
centers that will provide jobs for
millions of young Saudis.
$8 billion
55,000
300,000
Knowledge Economic City
Investment size
Jobs created
Population
Hail
$7 billion
20,000
50,000
Medina
King Abdullah Economic City
Investment size
Jobs created
Population
Rabigh
Riyadh
SAUDI ARABIA
$27 billion
1 million
2 million
Jazan
Jazan Economic City
Investment size
Jobs created
Population
$27 billion
500,000
250,000
Kms.
400
Two other economic cities are planned but
sites have not yet been determined.
Source: Saudi Arabia General Investment Authority
THE NEW YORK TIMES
Saudi Arabia Eyes an Industrial Future
From Page 1
has filled the coffers of oil producers. Oil
prices have quadrupled since 2002 and
reached $100 a barrel in New York this
month.
Persian Gulf countries earned $1.5
trillion in oil revenue from 2002 to 2006,
twice as much as in the previous fiveyear period, according to the Institute
of International Finance, a global association of banks that is based in Washington. As the top exporter, Saudi Arabia has been the main beneficiary.
Despite all the recent headlines about
Middle East investors bailing out troubled American banks like Citigroup, a
growing share of today’s petrodollars
are staying at home to finance megaprojects like Petro Rabigh, analysts
say. That money is financing the biggest
economic boom in a generation, helping
to build not only the high-rises of Dubai,
where the world’s tallest tower is going
up, but also telecommunications networks, roads and universities throughout the Middle East.
Abu Dhabi is planning to spend close
to $1 billion for a new museum with the
help of the Louvre, in Paris. Dubai’s
latest grandiose idea is to build a smallscale replica of the French city of Lyon,
complete with residential housing, a
museum, a culinary school and a soccer club.
In Saudi Arabia, Riyadh looks like a
boom town: sprawling over 100 square
kilometers, it is teeming with shopping
malls, electronics stores and luxury
boutiques. But while times are good
today, many Saudis realize that their
country is locked in a race against time
to create industries that produce more
than just oil in order to keep a young
and growing population employed. The
kingdom, which has a population of 24.5
million, including nearly 7 million foreigners, has what one analyst called a
“human time bomb.” About 40 percent
of Saudis are under 15, and because the
country has one of the world’s highest
birth rates, the population is expected
to reach nearly 40 million by 2025.
The region’s economies are too small
to absorb all the oil riches on their own.
Too much money is chasing too few assets, analysts say, forcing oil producers
to invest some of their revenue abroad
and diversify their holdings, either
A kingdom’s petrodollars
fund its effort to become
an economic superpower.
through state-owned investment funds
or through direct private investments.
But while oil-rich states are buying
American Treasury bonds or military
hardware from the West, analysts say
the more significant trend is for a growing share of their investments to be
pumped into local projects.
“The vision is to turn the kingdom
into a major industrial power by 2020,’’
said Jean-François Seznec, a professor
at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., who is a specialist in industrial policies in the Persian Gulf. “A billion dollars here and a billion there, and
soon you’re talking about real money.”
One of the most noticeable illustra-
tions of the industrialization push is a
plan championed by King Abdullah, the
83-year-old Saudi monarch, to build six
new cities throughout the country — including the King Abdullah Economic
City on the western coast, near the city
of Rabigh; the Knowledge Economic
City, near Medina; and the Prince Abdulaziz bin Mousaed Economic City, in
the north.
The intent is to create industrial centers that double as housing and commercial hubs for the country’s young and
growing population. The Saudi Arabian
General Investment Authority, a government agency, expects these cities to
add $150 billion to the country’s G.D.P. by
2020, create one million new jobs and be
home to as many as five million people.
The frenzied growth of the economy
has had some serious downsides. Inflation has been rampant in the last year;
food prices and rents have risen sharply. Traffic jams in Riyadh and other
Saudi cities have become a constant
affliction, while real estate values have
soared and the construction sector is
strained by a lack of workers.
The initial public offering, for 25 percent of Petro Rabigh, raised $1.23 billion
and was the largest stock sale in Saudi
history. The stock is expected to begin
trading at the end of the month.
The project itself is still about a year
away from completion. Once in operation, it will produce millions of tons of
plastics a year. This venture, along
with dozens of other megaprojects, will
firmly anchor Saudi Arabia as one of
the world’s top suppliers of chemical
products as well as oil.
“Saudi Aramco has a vision of itself
as Exxon Mobil,” Mr. Seznec said, “except much bigger.”
stroying habitat for
orangutans and Sumatran rhinoceroses
while also releasing
greenhouse gases.
The European Union
has moved to restrict
imports of palm oil
grown in unsustainable
ways. The measure has
incensed the Malaysian palm oil industry,
which had plunged into
biofuel production in
part to satisfy European demand.
Many of the hardest-hit victims of rising
food prices are in the
MICHAEL RUBENSTEIN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
vast slums that surBiofuels accounted for almost half the round cities in poorer Asian nations. The
increase in worldwide demand for veg- Kawle family in Mumbai’s sprawling
etable oils last year, and represented 7 Dharavi slum, a household of nine with
percent of total consumption of the oils, just one member working as a laborer for
according to Oil World, a forecasting ser- $60 a month, is coping with recent price
vice in Hamburg, Germany.
increases for palm oil.
The growth of biodiesel has been conThe family has responded by eating
troversial, not only because it competes fish once a week instead of twice, selwith food uses of oil but also because dom cooking vegetables and cutting its
of environmental concerns. European monthly rice consumption. “If the prices
conservation groups have been warning go up again,’’ said Janaron Kawle, the
that tropical forests are being leveled to family patriarch, “we’ll cut the mutton
make way for oil palm plantations, de- to twice a month and use less oil.’’
Discovery May Help Brazil
Become Big Energy Exporter
By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO
its partners — including BG of Britain
RIO DE JANEIRO — While some of — have discovered in the Santos Basin
the world’s largest oil producers, includ- where Tupi lies may lead the company to
ing Mexico and Iran, are struggling to scale back its spending in Africa and the
remain exporters, Brazil is moving in Gulf of Mexico in favor of pouring money
the opposite direction. A huge under- into developing Brazil’s reserves.
water oil field discovered late last year
Petrobras’s success was hardly an achas the potential to transform South cident. In 1997 the Brazilian government
America’s largest country into a sizable opened up Petrobras’s exploration and
exporter and win it a seat at the table of production division to outside companies
the world’s oil cartel.
and invited in private investors. More
The new oil, along with refining proj- important, the company developed exects under way by Petrobras, the national pertise in deepwater drilling that has put
oil company, could eventually make Bra- it on par with Shell and Exxon Mobil.
zil a larger exporter of gasoline as well.
The rise of Petrobras contrasts starkThe subsalt basin that contains Tupi, ly with the decline of the other large oil
the new deepwater field estimated to company in South America, Petróleos
hold the equivalent of five billion to de Venezuela, the national oil company
eight billion barrels of light crude oil, is of Venezuela known as Pdvsa. While
creating strong interest among the
world’s largest oil companies. They
ESPÍRITO
250
Kms.
SANTO
have struggled lately to find globalBRAZIL
scale projects worth investing in,
MINAS
even with oil touching $100 a barrel.
GERAIS
Tupi is the world’s biggest oil find
Rio de Janeiro
since a 12-billion-barrel field discovered in 2000 in Kazakhstan.
São Paulo
José Sergio Gabrielli, the chief exCAMPOS
BASIN
ecutive of Petrobras, said he was optimistic that the company could develop the oil with little outside help.
Tupi area
SANTOS
“We think we can develop the oil
BASIN
faster than we thought at the begin00
0
ning,’’ Mr. Gabrielli said. “We don’t
20 600 2,0
Atlantic
think we have any insurmountable
0
Ocean
0
,0
1
challenge on the technology side.’’
BRAZIL
Two years ago, even without Tupi,
Atlantic Ocean
Area of
Brazil reached its goal of energy
detail
Ocean
depth
expressed
in
meters
self-sufficiency, in part by expanding its domestic fossil fuel resources
Gas and oil fields
but also by developing an extensive
Source:
Petrobras
ethanol industry using sugar cane.
THE NEW YORK TIMES
With Tupi, Brazil’s 12.2 billion
barrels of proven reserves would Tupi, an underwater oil field, is the
increase to some 17.2 billion, putting world’s biggest oil discovery since 2000.
Brazil ahead of Canada’s 17.1 billion
and Mexico’s 12.9 billion. It would
fall between China and Nigeria on a Petrobras has achieved record producworld scale, according to the BP Statisti- tion, Pdvsa’s output has fallen since Hucal Review of World Energy. Venezuela, go Chávez was elected president in 1998.
Mr. Chávez has all but re-nationalized
by contrast, has some 80 billion barrels
parts of the Venezuelan industry by imof proven reserves.
Rapid economic growth and declining posing much-stricter terms on foreign
oil production in oil-rich nations like In- oil companies.
donesia, Mexico and Iran are hampering
Mr. Gabrielli says that Petrobras will
how much they can sell abroad, strain- avoid following the path blazed by Vening the global oil market. In some cases, ezuela and Bolivia. He said that he was
the governments of these countries sub- in favor of imposing tougher terms for
sidize gasoline heavily at home, which the subsalt basin where Tupi is located,
encourages consumption.
which the Brazilian Congress is now conBut Brazil sells fuels to its citizens es- sidering. But he says that Petrobras has
sentially at market rates. And the huge already borne considerable exploration
three-decade-old effort to turn sugar risk, making it a far smaller gamble for
cane into ethanol has made Brazil the outside companies to explore further in
largest consumer of plant-based biofuels the offshore area. And he adds that most
major oil producing countries impose
in the world.
Petrobras’ biggest challenge will be stiff terms on foreign oil companies, esdeveloping Tupi into a major produc- pecially in times of high oil prices.
“After the discovery we had,’’ he said
tion field. Some analysts forecast that
Tupi could cost more than $20 billion to of the potential profits to be earned by
the oil majors, “this is like buying a windevelop.
The oil frontier that Petrobras and ning lottery ticket.’’
SATURDAY, JANUARY 26, 2008
LE MONDE
5
BUSINESS OF GREEN
Climate Challenge Drives
Academics to Join Forces
Efforts to Harvest
The Ocean’s Energy
Hold New Promise
By CLAUDIA H. DEUTSCH
OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
Researchers off Oregon tested a buoy capturing wave energy, a process that fishermen say could harm their catch.
By WILLIAM YARDLEY
thousands of kilometers
NEW PORT, Oregon
beneath westerly winds,
Power
From
the
Sea
— Chris Martinson and his
have the potential to genThis fall, Oregon State University tested a prototype wave energy
fellow fishermen catch crab
erate four times as much
buoy. Designed to be anchored 4 kilometers off the Oregon coast
and shrimp in the same big
energy from waves as
in 40 meters of water, it uses the rise and fall of ocean waves to
wave that one day could
states on the East Coast,
generate electricity.
generate an important
according to studies by
part of the Northwest’s enthe Electric Power ReELECTRIC COIL
MAGNETS
ergy supply. Wave farms,
search Institute.
Located in a spar tethered
Inside a float, they move
harvested with high-tech
All of the permits apto the ocean floor, it remains
freely up and down
buoys that are being tested
proved have been in Orrelatively motionless.
around the coil.
here on the Oregon coast,
egon, where transmiswould strain clean, renewsion lines run close to
able power from the surg- ANTENNA
the coast, making them
ing sea.
easier to tap into, and
They might make a mess
where state government
of navigational charts, too.
encourages businesses
FLOAT
SPAR
“I don’t want it in my
to explore new forms of
fishing grounds,’’ said Mr.
energy.
Martinson, 40, who docks
But some environmenhis boat, Libra, here at Yatalists and fishermen
quina Bay. “I don’t want to
worry that the recent
be worried about driving
rush for renewable enerWhen the coil
around someone else’s milgy is more about politics,
experiences a
lion-dollar buoy.’’
big business and the next
changing
In the United States, the
big thing than it is about
magnetic field
coastal Northwest is one
clean energy. They warn
created by the
of the few parts of the West
that too little is known
heaving magwhere water is abundant,
about what effect wave
nets, voltage is
but people are still fightfarms might have on migenerated.
ing over it. Amid concerns
grating fish and whales.
about climate change and
“The tendency with new
TETHER
the pollution caused by gentechnology is always to
POWER LINE
erating electricity with coal Source: Oregon State University
minimize the downside,’’
FRANK O’CONNELL/THE NEW YORK TIMES
and natural gas, Oregon is
said Ms. Recht, of the fishlooking to draw power from
eries commission, which
the waves that pound its coast with for- in February to a company that wants to works with conservation agencies and
bidding efficiency.
study the ocean area near Reedsport, the fishing industry to protect fish populaIt might seem a perfect solution in a Oregon, about 90 kilometers south of tions. “I’m not prepared to take new risks
region that has long been ahead of the here. Three more permits have since unless we’re conserving and respecting
rest of the United States on alternative been approved by the Federal Energy the energy we already have.’’
energy. Yet the debate over the potential Regulatory Commission.
For now, wave parks are expected to
damage — whether to the environment,
Major technical and financial obsta- be built several kilometers offshore.
the fishing industry or the stunning cles remain, and energy generated from Supporters say they will barely be visviews of the Pacific — has become in- waves is not expected to start contribut- ible, it at all.
tense before the first megawatt has been ing to the electrical grid in the United
Philip D. Moeller, a member of the FedStates for several years. Yet like wind eral Energy Regulatory Commission
transmitted to shore.
“Everyone wants that silver bullet,’’ energy in its early stages in the 1980s, and a supporter of wave and tidal ensaid Fran Recht of the Pacific States wave energy is considered promising, ergy projects, said the commission was
Marine Fisheries Commission. “The perhaps inevitable, with the potential to encouraging wave energy companies to
question is, Is this as benign as everyone one day provide 5 percent to 10 percent of seek a new five-year “pilot license” the
the nation’s energy supply, according to commission has created specifically for
wants to say it is?’’
The first federal permit to conduct some projections.
wave and tidal energy projects.
Oregon, Washington and Northern
testing for a wave energy farm off the
“Let’s get this stuff in the water and
coast of the United States was awarded California, where the Pacific Ocean first find out what it has to offer,’’ Mr. Moeller
meets land in the contiguous United said. “Consumers want green power,
Erik Olsen contributed reporting.
States after gathering momentum for and this is an option.’’
Corporations and shoppers in the
United States spent more than $54 million last year on carbon offset credits
toward tree planting, wind farms, solar
plants and other projects to balance the
emissions created by, say, using a laptop
computer or flying on a jet. But where exactly is that money going?
The Federal Trade Commission, which
regulates advertising claims, raised the
question recently in its first hearing in a
series on green marketing, this one focusing on carbon offsets.
As more companies use offset programs to market their products as environmentally conscious, the commission
said it was growing increasingly concerned that some assertions were not
substantiated. Environmentalists have
a word for such misleading advertising:
“greenwashing.’’
With the rapid growth of green programs like carbon offsets, “there’s a
heightened potential for deception,’’ said
Deborah Platt Majoras, chairwoman of
the commission.
The F.T.C. has not updated its environmental advertising guidelines, known as
the Green Guides, since 1998. Back then,
the agency did not create definitions for
phrases that are common now — like
renewable energy, carbon offsets and
sustainability.
Consumers seem to be confronted with
green-sounding offers at every turn.
Volkswagen told buyers last year that it
would offset their first year of driving by
planting in what it called the VW Forest
in the lower Mississippi alluvial valley
(the price starts at $18).
Dell lets visitors to its site fill their
various environmental issues.
Duke’s Corporate Sustainability
Initiative, which is a joint venture of its
earth sciences, business and environmental policy schools, is also a founding member of the Chicago Sustainable
Business Alliance.
Its faculty and students have already
developed a wind turbine for private
use, and have helped local businesses
reduce their carbon footprints.
Sometimes, government provides
money. Mr. Fink notes that Phoenix
is an example of the so-called urban
heat island effect — the phenomenon
in which big cities absorb heat during
the day and release it at night, causing
temperatures to rise. So his institute
has received funds from the Environmental Protection Agency, the State of
Arizona and local businesses for a project to see if certain construction materials can alleviate the problem.
Companies are helping to finance
the centers. Unlike traditional partnerships between business and academia,
in which companies that provide funds
have the right to commercialize any
breakthroughs, most of these funds
come with no conditions attached.
Several years ago Enterprise Renta-Car donated $10 million to the Donald
Danforth Plant Science Center in St.
Louis for research on growing crops
for food. This year it gave $25 million to
create the Enterprise Institute in con-
Business majors can
advise engineers about
commercial potential.
junction with Danforth, to do research
into biobased fuels.
“Danforth understands cellulosic
research, so they are best positioned
to figure out how to make fuel from soy
and corn,” said Patrick T. Farrell, vice
president for corporate responsibility
at Enterprise.
Four companies — ExxonMobil, General Electric, Schlumberger and Toyota — have contributed to the Stanford
University Global Climate and Energy
Project, which explores new energy
technologies. The Shell Oil Foundation
has been financing Rice University’s
Shell Center for Sustainability since
2002. Wal-Mart has promised money
for an Applied Sustainability Center at
the University of Arkansas.
Berkeley, meanwhile, is using Dow’s
gift to set up a Sustainable Products
and Solutions Program within its existing Center for Responsible Business.
The program is now taking applications for grants from Berkeley students
and professors who want to conduct
collaborative research into topics like
providing clean drinking water or more
efficient fuels.
“Commercialization takes forever if
the chemical engineers and the business types do not coordinate,” said Kellie A. McElhaney, the center’s director.
“So think how much easier it will be for
chemistry graduates to work inside a
company if they already know how to
interact with the business side.”
Dell Computer lets visitors to its site balance purchases with
carbon offsets. But environmental marketing faces new scrutiny.
Expansion of Green Programs
Raises Potential for Cheating
By LOUISE STORY
It is a basic tenet of university research: Economists conduct joint studies, chemists join forces in the laboratory, political scientists share ideas about
other cultures — but rarely do the researchers cross disciplinary lines.
The political landscape of academia,
combined with the fight for grant money, has always fostered competition far
more than collaboration.
But the threat of global warming may
just change all that.
Look at what’s happening at the
Rochester Institute of Technology in
New York. In September the school
established the Golisano Institute for
Sustainability, aimed at getting students and professors from different
disciplines to collaborate in studying
the environmental ramifications of
production and consumption.
“The academic tradition is to let one
discipline dominate new programs,”
said Nabil Nasr, the institute’s director.
“But the problem of sustainability cuts
across economics, social elements, engineering, everything. It simply cannot
be solved by one discipline, or even by
coupling two disciplines.”
Neil Hawkins, Dow Chemical’s vice
president for sustainability, sees it that
way, too. Thus, Dow is giving $10 million, spread over five years, to the University of California, Berkeley, to set up
a sustainability center.
“Berkeley has one of the strongest
chemical engineering schools in the
world, but it will be the M.B.A.’s who
understand areas like microfinance
solutions to drinking water problems,”
Mr. Hawkins said.
More universities are setting up
stand-alone centers that offer neutral
ground on which engineering students can work on alternative fuels
while business students calculate the
economics of those fuels and political
science majors figure how to make the
fuels palatable to governments.
“We give professors a chance to step
beyond their usual areas of expertise,
and we give students exposure to the
worlds of science and business,” said
Daniel C. Esty, director of the Yale
Center for Business and the Environment, a joint effort between the School
of Management and the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.
In 2006, the University of Tennessee
consolidated all of its environmental
research programs under a new Institute for a Secure and Sustainable
Environment. In 2004, Arizona State
University inaugurated its Global Institute of Sustainability. The institute is
run by Jonathan Fink, the university’s
sustainability officer.
It is impossible to quantify the
growth of stand-alone centers. There is
no naming convention — some are sustainability centers, some are environmental institutes and some are global
warming initiatives. And many do not
stand alone at all, but are neatly tucked
inside an existing school.
Many sustainability centers address
global cultures, business ethics and
corporate social responsibility along
with environmental issues.
Many of the centers have links to the
business world. Mr. Esty said Yale was
developing an “eco-services clinic”
that would help companies address
shopping carts with carbon offsets for
their printers, computer monitors and
even for themselves (the last at a cost
of $99 a year). Continental Airlines lets
travelers track the carbon impact of
their itineraries.
To manage the carbon offsets, big consumer brands are turning to a growing
number of small companies, like TerraPass, and nonprofits, like Carbonfund
.org. These intermediaries also cater to
corporations that want to become “carbon-neutral’’ by purchasing offsets for
the carbon dioxide they release.
Ms. Majoras of the F.T.C. pointed out
that spokesmen for events like the Super
Bowl and the Academy Awards have recently started saying that their events
are carbon-neutral (though the Academy Awards drew criticism for the way
its offsets were handled).
The F.T.C. has not accused anyone of
wrongdoing — neither the providers of
carbon offsets nor the consumer brands
that sell them. But environmentalists
say — and the F.T.C.’s hearings suggest
— that it is only a matter of time until the
market faces greater scrutiny from the
government or environmental organizations.
“Is there green substance behind the
green sparkle?’’ said Daniel C. Esty, di-
rector of the Center for Business and the
Environment at Yale University. “The
carbon market is a leading example of
the challenge of making sure that when
people put their money into what they
hope will improve their planet, that there
is real follow-through.’’
Even the companies that market carbon offsets say they have wondered if the
providers were living up to their promises. When Gaiam, a yoga-equipment company, began selling offsets for shipping
to consumers through the Conservation
Fund, a nonprofit organization, Chris
Fisher, the company’s general manager,
says he insisted on visiting one of the
tree sites in Louisiana.
“Not only did I want to know it existed,
I wanted to make sure it was being done
the way they said it was being done,’’ Mr.
Fischer said. “It’s not just ‘did they do
it?’ — it’s ‘did they do it right?’ ’’
6
LE MONDE
SATURDAY, JANUARY 26, 2008
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
Hope for Mankind as Monkey’s Mind Propels Robot
By SANDRA BLAKESLEE
If Idoya could talk, she would have
plenty to boast about.
On January 10, the 5-kilogram, 81-centimeter monkey made a 91-kilogram,
152-centimeter humanoid robot walk on
a treadmill using only her brain activity.
She was in North Carolina, and the robot was in Japan.
It was the first time that brain signals
had been used to make a robot walk, said
Dr. Miguel A. L. Nicolelis, a neuroscientist at Duke University whose laboratory
designed and carried out the experiment.
In 2003, Dr. Nicolelis’s team proved
that monkeys could use their thoughts
alone to control a robotic arm for reaching and grasping.
These experiments, Dr. Nicolelis said,
are the first steps toward a brain machine interface that might permit paralyzed people to walk by directing devices
with their thoughts. Electrodes in the
person’s brain would send signals to a
device worn on the hip, like a cellphone
or pager, that would relay those signals
to a pair of braces, a kind of external
skeleton, worn on the legs. “When that
person thinks about walking,” he said,
“walking happens.’’
Richard A. Andersen, an expert on
such systems at the California Institute
of Technology in Pasadena who was not
involved in the experiment, said that it
was “an important advance to achieve
locomotion with a brain machine interface.”
Another expert, Nicho Hatsopoulos,
a professor at the University of Chicago,
said that the experiment was “an exciting development. And the use of an exoskeleton could be quite fruitful.’’
In preparing for the experiment, Idoya
was trained to walk upright on a treadmill. She held onto a bar with her hands
and got treats as she walked at different speeds, forward and backward, for
15 minutes a day, 3 days a week, for 2
M����� �� T������
On January 10, scientists used a monkey in North Carolina to control a robot in Japan.
� A 5-kilogram monkey named Idoya
VIDEO SCREEN
was trained to walk upright on a treadmill.
� The monkey watched the robot
ROBOT
over a video link, and was
rewarded when she made
the robot walk. After an hour,
the monkey’s treadmill
was switched off, but her
brain continued to control
the robot, which continued walking.
MONKEY
ACTUAL MOTION
MASAFUMI YAMAMOTO FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
SENSOR READOUT
SIGNALS CONTROL ROBOT
Gordon Cheng, in Japan, with the
robot he designed. A monkey in
the United States controlled the
robot via its thoughts.
PREDICTED MOTION
� Electrodes implanted in her
� The brain signals were processed
brain monitored the activity
of 250 to 300 neurons.
� Data was transmitted over a high-speed
and used to predict the monkey’s leg
movements, with 90 percent accuracy.
Internet connection from North Carolina
to a robot in Kyoto, Japan.
Source: Miguel Nicolelis, Department of Neurobiology, Duke University
Paralyzed people may be
able to walk by directing
devices with their minds.
months.
Meanwhile, electrodes implanted in
the so-called leg area of Idoya’s brain recorded the activity of 250 to 300 neurons
that fired while she walked. A special
high-speed camera captured her movements on video.
The video and brain cell activity were
then combined and translated into a
format that a computer could read. This
format is able to predict with 90 percent
accuracy all permutations of Idoya’s leg
movements three to four seconds before
the movement takes place.
Earlier this month in North Carolina, an alert and ready-to-work Idoya
stepped onto her treadmill and began
walking at a steady pace with electrodes
implanted in her brain. Her walking pattern and brain signals were collected,
fed into the computer and transmitted
over a high-speed Internet link to a robot
in Kyoto, Japan.
The robot, called CB for Computational Brain, has the same range of motion
as a human. It can dance, squat, point
and “feel’’ the ground with sensors embedded in its feet, and it will not fall over
when shoved.
Designed by Gordon Cheng and colleagues at the ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories in Kyoto, the
robot was chosen for the experiment
because of its extraordinary ability to
THE NEW YORK TIMES
mimic human locomotion.
As Idoya’s brain signals streamed
into CB’s actuators, her job was to make
the robot walk steadily via her own
brain activity. She could see the back of
CB’s legs on an enormous movie screen
in front of her treadmill and received
treats if she could make the robot’s
joints move in tandem with her own leg
movements.
As Idoya walked, CB walked at exactly
the same pace. Recordings from Idoya’s
brain revealed that her neurons fired
each time she took a step and each time
the robot took a step.
“It’s walking!’’ Dr. Nicolelis said.
“That’s one small step for a robot and
one giant leap for a primate,’’ he added
in a twist on the first words spoken on the
moon.
The signals from Idoya’s brain sent
to the robot, and the video of the robot
sent back to Idoya, were relayed in less
than a quarter of a second, he said. That
was so fast that the robot’s movements
meshed with the monkey’s experience.
An hour into the experiment, the researchers pulled a trick on Idoya. They
stopped her treadmill. Everyone held
their breath. What would Idoya do?
“Her eyes remained focused like crazy
on CB’s legs,’’ Dr. Nicolelis said.
She got treats galore. The robot kept
walking. And the researchers were jubilant.
When Idoya’s brain signals made the
robot walk, some neurons in her brain
controlled her own legs, whereas others
controlled the robot’s legs. The latter set
of neurons had basically become attuned
to the robot’s legs after about an hour of
practice.
Idoya cannot talk but her brain signals revealed that after the treadmill
stopped, she was able to make CB walk
for three full minutes by attending to its
legs and not her own.
“This is science fiction coming to life,’’
Dr. Nicolelis said.
0
Be Calm. Terror Fears
May Raise Heart Risk.
Which is more of a threat to Americans’ health: Al Qaeda or the Department of Homeland Security?
An intriguing new study suggests
the answer is not so clear-cut. Although it’s impossible
to calculate the pain
that terrorist attacks
inflict on victims and
society, when statistiESSAY
cians look at just the
numbers, they have
variously estimated the chances of the
average person dying in America at
the hands of international terrorists
to be comparable to the risk of being
struck by an asteroid or drowning in
a toilet.
But worrying about terrorism could
be taking a toll on the hearts of millions of Americans. The evidence,
published this month in the Archives
of General Psychiatry, comes from
researchers who began tracking the
health of a representative sample of
more than 2,700 Americans before
September 2001. After the attacks of
September 11, the scientists monitored people’s fears of terrorism over
the next several years and found that
the most fearful people were three to
five times more likely than the rest to
receive diagnoses of new cardiovascular ailments.
Almost all the people in the study
lived outside New York or Washington
and didn’t know any victims of the
attacks. But more than a 10th of them
reported acute stress symptoms (like
insomnia or nightmares) right after
the attacks, and over the next three
years more than 40 percent said they
kept worrying about a terrorist attack affecting themselves or a family
member.
Their worries were understandable,
given the continual warnings from
Washington. Officials repeatedly
raised the color-coded level of the National Threat Advisory. About a third
to a half of Americans have continued
to tell pollsters that they’re personally worried about being victims of a
terrorist attack, and that an attack is
somewhat or very likely within several months.
One of the authors of the study, Roxane Cohen Silver, of the University of
California, Irvine, is a psychologist
JOHN
TIERNEY
DR. PAUL SCHOLTE /UNITED NATIONS DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM
Dracaena trees, also called Dragon’s blood trees, produce a scarlet resin that was used by ancient cultures.
Off Yemen, a Storied Tree Is Vulnerable
SOCOTRA, Yemen — “I feel as though I’m walking
through a cemetery,” said Paul Scholte, an environmental
scientist who is the chief officer for the United Nations
Development Program on this arid, windswept island, 320
kilometers off Yemen.
He was hiking over a steep mountainside through the
world’s grandest stand, and one of its last, of dragon’s
blood trees, Dracaena cinnabari.
The dracaenas were born 65 million years ago on the
supercontinent Gondwana. After Gondwana split, forming the Persian Gulf and most of the land masses in the
Southern Hemisphere, the trees thrived from the Mediterranean to the Middle East.
Now they are down to a few isolated spots in areas
like the Canary, Cape Verde and Madeira Islands. But
nowhere are they as populous, storied and majestic as
on Socotra. Cut a hole in the smooth bark, and it bleeds
red, the cinnabar resin of yore, transmuted into a deep
scarlet lacquer for Chinese emperors or fired into ver-
milion for Persian emirs. (It is not to be confused with
the other cinnabar, a heavy mineral in the mercury
family.)
Though dracaenas have survived long droughts in
Socotra because they can retain water for years, they
are vulnerable to the goats that help sustain the island’s
livestock-based economy. The population is just 40,000,
mainly fishermen and herders who speak an ancient, unwritten Semitic language. Though small in size, the goats
eat a lot — including the shoots of young trees.
Partly as a result, scientists say, the dracaena area is 20
percent smaller. A recent study projected a further loss of
45 percent in the next 80 years.
The only stable tree populations are on high mountain
peaks inaccessible to even the goats.
Meanwhile, the United Nations and the Royal Botanic
Garden of Edinburgh are helping finance a tree nursery
near the coast. No one knows whether those trees will
reach adolescence.
JEFF ROTH
who is on an advisory council to the
Homeland Security Department.
“I’ve regularly pointed out to the
department that there are psychological consequences to the raising of the
alert,” Dr. Silver said. “Now we’re
demonstrating that it may have physical consequences.”
Continual fear of terrorism is a
strain on the social fabric, too. People
become reluctant to even get together
when public spaces are turned into
fortified zones. Civil liberties erode
and mistrust increases when the
authorities keep warning of lurking
terrorists and urging people to report
“suspicious” activity.
Even before this study, some doctors were arguing that terrorism
wasn’t nearly as dangerous as the
related “epidemic of fear,” as Marc
Siegel called it in a 2005 book, “False
Alarm.” “The fear response causes
the heart to pump harder and faster,
Terrorism is unlikely to
kill you, but worrying
about it might.
the nerves to fire more quickly,” Dr.
Siegel, of the New York University
School of Medicine, said. “Excess
triggering of this system of response
causes the organs to wear down. For a
person who is always on the alert, the
result is a burned-out body.”
What if the alerts stopped? What
if the security officials looked at this
new medical evidence — or at their
own perfect record of false alarms
— and decided that the nation did not
need to be in a perpetual state of yellow alert?
I guess that’s not likely to happen.
No politician wants to be blamed for
failing to anticipate a terrorist attack.
But maybe these officials could be
induced to take one more precaution.
The next time they raise the threat
level to orange or red, they could add,
“Warning: Heeding this alert may be
hazardous to your health.”
LE MONDE
SATURDAY, JANUARY 26, 2008
7
H E A LT H & F I T N E S S
FOOTNOTES
Preserving the Sense and Skill of Balance
Treating Sinus Infections
Sinus infections are all too familiar in the
winter season. For most people, they start with
a throbbing headache, swell into a fever and
result in the inevitable arrival of thick nasal
secretions.
For years, doctors have prescribed what
seemed like simple cures: a prescription for
an antibiotic like amoxicillin or a steroid nasal
spray. They may be the standard medications,
but perhaps they are not as effective as once
thought. Several studies have examined their
effects and found that they are no better at
shortening a sinus infection than no medication
at all.
The latest study, published in December in
The Journal of the American Medical Association, looked at 240 cases. The subjects were assigned to four groups for different treatments:
a full amoxicillin course for a week along with
400 units of steroid spray for 10 days, just the
spray, just the amoxicillin or just a placebo.
The treatments were no better than a placebo,
a finding shown in studies of children. The
reason is not entirely clear, but researchers
suspect that antibiotics may not be very good
at reaching the sinuses. Experts recommend
other approaches like taking ibuprofen, inhaling steam or using salt water to flush the nasal
cavity.
ANAHAD O’CONNOR
Alcohol and Cold Weather
According to studies over the years, while
alcohol may seem like the perfect cold-weather
beverage because it creates a sensation of
warmth, it actually decreases core body temperature — regardless of the temperature outside — and increases the risk of hypothermia.
The normal process that makes us feel cold
occurs when blood flows away from the skin
and into the organs, which increases core body
temperature. Alcohol reverses this process,
increasing the flow of blood to the skin and setting off a sharp drop in body temperature.
It also reverses other reflexes that control
body temperature. A study by the Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine
found that the “primary mechanism by which
alcohol exacerbates the fall in body core temperature’’ is by reducing the ability to shiver,
the body’s way of creating warmth.
A study, published in 2005, found that after
a single drink, the body tries to counteract the
brief sensation of warmth caused by increased
blood flow to the skin by increasing its rate of
sweating, which decreases body temperature
even further.
Several studies have found that alcohol ingestion often plays a role in hypothermia-related
injuries and deaths.
ANAHAD O’CONNOR
Scott McCredie is a health and science writer
in Seattle, Washington, who says he “discovered”
what he calls “the lost sense’’ of balance after
he watched in horror as his 67-year-old father
tumbled off a boulder and disappeared from sight
during a hike in the Cascades.
Though his father was not injured,
Mr. McCredie became intrigued by
what might have caused this experienced hiker, an athletic and graceful
PERSONAL
man, to lose his balance suddenly.
HEALTH
His resulting science-and-history-based exploration led to a book, “Balance: In
Search of the Lost Sense,” published last June.
Noting that each year one in three Americans 65
and older falls and that falls and their sometimes
disastrous medical consequences are becoming
more common as the population ages, Mr. McCredie wonders why balance is not talked about in
fitness circles as often as strength training, aerobics and stretching. He learned that the sense of
balance begins to degrade in one’s 20s and that it is
downhill — literally and figuratively — from there
unless steps are taken to preserve or restore this
delicate and critically important ability to maintain equilibrium.
Vertigo, which can be caused by inner ear infections, low blood pressure, brain injuries, certain
medications and some chronic diseases, is loss
of balance in the extreme. Anyone who has experienced it — even if just from twirling in a circle
— knows how disorienting and dangerous it can
be. Without a sense of balance, just
about everything else can become
an insurmountable obstacle.
E�������� �� I������ ���� �������
One normal consequence of aging is a steady decline in the three
Move slowly.
main sensory contributors to good
Hold each position for
balance — vision, proprioceptors on
one second.
the bottoms of the feet that communicate position information to the
Repeat 8 to 15 times.
brain, and the tiny hairs in the semiHold onto a chair with
circular canals of the inner ear that
one hand for balance.
relay gravity and motion informaTry no hands if steady,
tion to the brain. Add to that the loss
then with eyes closed.
of muscle strength and flexibility
that typically accompany aging and Source: ‘‘Fitness Over Fifty’’ by the National Institute on Aging
you have a fall waiting to happen.
But while certain declines with
other daily activity” like putting on pants, walkage are unavoidable, physical therapists, physiating on uneven ground or reaching for something
rists and fitness experts have repeatedly proved
on a shelf.
that much of the sense of balance can be preserved
“Remember, balance is a motor skill,” Dr. Mofand even restored through exercises that require
fat, professor of physical therapy at New York
no special equipment or training. These exercises
University, said in an interview. “To enhance it,
are as simple as standing on one foot while brushyou have to train your balance in the same way you
ing your teeth or walking heel-to-toe with one foot
would have to train your muscles for strength and
directly in front of the other.
your heart for aerobic capacity.”
Marilyn Moffat and Carole B. Lewis, physiDr. Moffat pointed out that balance is twofold:
cal therapists in New York and Washington,
static while standing still and dynamic when movrespectively, agree with Mr. McCredie that “baling, as in walking and climbing stairs. Two main
ance is an area of physical fitness that is often
routes improve balance — exercises that increase
overlooked,” but they seek to correct that in their
the strength of the ankle, knee and hip muscles
recent book “Age-Defying Fitness.” They define
and exercises that improve the function of the senbalance as “the ability of your body to maintain
sory system that controls balance.
equilibrium when you stand, walk or perform any
JANE E.
BRODY
To Work Out Better
And Longer, Try
Abba or Green Day
By STEVEN KURUTZ
STUART GOLDENBERG
Secondhand Smoke Damage
Researchers say that for the first time, they
have been able to get an image of lungs apparently damaged by secondhand tobacco smoke.
The lungs of people exposed to a lot of smoke
are dotted with yellow set against a red background.
The problem, the researchers say, is that the
yellow indicates where there may be tiny holes
and extended spaces that should not be there.
The scientists, who presented their findings
to a recent conference of the Radiological Society of North America, do not make any broad
claims. “The effects of secondhand cigarette
smoke on respiratory health are still under debate,’’ they wrote.
But they said the images confirmed for the
first time that tobacco smoke can cause microscopic changes in the lung.
The researchers, led by Chengbo Wang of the
University of Virginia — now at the Children’s
Hospital of Philadelphia — used an M.R.I. to
examine the lungs of 60 people, 45 of whom had
never smoked.
The researchers divided that group into
those with low secondhand smoke exposure
and those with high exposure.
To allow the M.R.I. to capture the images, the
researchers asked the volunteers to inhale a helium-nitrogen mixture whose movement could
be traced by the machine as it spread through
the lungs.
ERIC NAGOURNEY
Fitness magazines and Web sites love to ask
readers about their favorite workout music while
presenting their playlists or suggestions from celebrities. Self.com features the “ ’80s cardio playlist,” which includes the video classic “Wake Me Up
Before You Go-Go” by Wham! On Fitnessmagazine
.com, the singer Rihanna reveals her favorite workout songs — immodestly recommending four of her
own for “when you have to pick up the pace on the
treadmill.”
The playlist fixation has a scientific basis: Studies
have shown that listening to music during exercise
can improve results, both in terms of being a motivator (people exercise longer and more vigorously
to music) and as a distraction from fatigue. But are
certain songs more effective than others?
Generally speaking there is a science to choosing an effective exercise soundtrack, said Dr. Costas Karageorghis, an associate professor of sport
psychology at Brunel University in England, who
has studied the effects of music on physical performance for 20 years. Dr. Karageorghis created the
Brunel Music Rating Inventory, a questionnaire
that is used to rate the motivational qualities of music in the context of sport and exercise. For nearly
a decade, he has been administering the questionnaire to panels representing different demographics, who listen to 90 seconds of a song and rate its
motivational qualities for various physical activities.
One of the most important elements, Dr. Karageorghis found, is a song’s tempo, which should be
between 120 and 140 beats-per-minute, or B.P.M.
That pace coincides with the range of most commercial dance music, and many rock songs are near
that range, which leads people to develop “an aesthetic appreciation for that tempo,” he said. It also
roughly corresponds to the average person’s heart
rate during a routine workout — say, 20 minutes on
an elliptical trainer by a person who is more casual
STUART BRADFORD
Many can be done as part of a
daily routine. Dr. Moffat recommends starting with strength exercises and, as you improve, adding
balance training by doing some of
them with closed eyes.
Sit-to-stand exercises once or
twice a day increase ankle, leg and
hip strength and help the body adjust to changes in position without
becoming dizzy after being sedentary for a long time. Sit straight
in a firm chair (do not lean against
the back) with arms crossed. Stand
THE NEW YORK TIMES
up straight and sit down again as
quickly as you can without using
your arms. Repeat the exercise three times and
build to 10 repetitions.
Heel-to-toe tandem walking is another simple
exercise, resembling plank walking popular with
young children. It is best done on a firm, uncarpeted
floor. With stomach muscles tight and chin tucked in,
place one foot in front of the other such that the heel
of the front foot nearly touches the toe of the back
foot. Walk 10 or more feet and repeat the exercise
once or twice a day. Also try walking on your toes
and then walking on your heels to strengthen your
ankles. Another helpful exercise is sidestepping.
In addition, the slow, continuous movements of
tai chi, that popular Chinese exercise, have been
shown in scientific studies to improve balance and
reduce the risk of falls.
Uptempo songs
can motivate
during exercise
and help distract
from fatigue.
has been running to the Green Day
CD “American Idiot” because, she
said, “There’s no way you can run
slow to Green Day.” Haile Gebrselassie, the Olympian from Ethiopia
who has won the gold medal at 10,000
meters, often requested that the
techno song “Scatman,” which has a
B.P.M. of around 135, be played over
the sound system during his races.
Ms. Goldberg also includes on
her playlist “Don’t Phunk With My
Heart” by the Black Eyed Peas (130
B.P.M.), “Mr. Brightside” by the
Killers (150 B.P.M.), and “Dancing
Queen” by Abba. The musical style
that seems to most reliably contain
a high B.P.M. is dance music, said
Richard Petty, the founder of Power
Music, a company that has produced
workout compilations for instructors and fitness enthusiasts for two
decades. “A rock song doesn’t have
that same consistency,” said Mr.
Petty, a former D.J.
Much of the research done on music and exercise is geared toward
aerobic workouts like jogging or
STEPHANIE KUYKENDAL FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
other vigorous exercise. But as anyexerciser than fitness fanatic.
one who has heard Metallica blasting from a weight
Dr. Karageorghis said “Push It” by Salt-N-Pe- room stereo knows, music is a motivator in strength
pa and “Drop It Like It’s Hot” by Snoop Dogg are training, too.
around that range, as is the dance remix of “Um“The vast majority of bodybuilders are fans of
brella” by Rihanna (so maybe the pop star was heavy metal, if not in their personal life at least in
onto something). For a high-intensity workout like the gym,” said Shawn Perine, a senior writer at Flex
a hard run, he suggested Glenn Frey’s “The Heat magazine. Loud, aggressive music, he said, “keeps
Is On.”
you elevated, especially in between sets.”
Music preferences are as idiosyncratic as workout
Mr. Perine prefers to work out to hip-hop. “Let’s
routines, of course. Allison Goldberg, a 39-year-old say you’ve done a grueling set of squats,” he said.
life coach and amateur runner who lives in Texas “You’re out of breath, and L. L. Cool J’s ‘Mama Said
and who trained for the recent Houston Marathon, Knock You Out’ comes on. Your energy won’t flag.”
8
LE MONDE
SATURDAY, JANUARY 26, 2008
ARTS & STYLES
An Old Dance Mentor
Teaches in a New Medium
RAHAV SEGEV FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Dengue Fever, left to right: Senon Williams, Ethan Holtzman, Chhom Nimol, Paul Smith and Zac Holtzman.
California Band Revives Cambodian Pop
By RJ SMITH
LOS ANGELES — Dengue Fever is a
Los Angeles band featuring a Cambodian-born singer and five American altrockers who regularly embarrass her
onstage. On the cover of its new album,
“Venus on Earth” (M80), the guitarist
Zac Holtzman, with a long beard and
goggles, drives a scooter with the vocalist Chhom Nimol sitting demurely
behind him sidesaddle, the way a good
Cambodian girl would ride through the
streets of Phnom Penh. Dengue Fever,
which specializes in an unlikely mix of
1960s Cambodian pop, rock and other
genres, is a lot like that image. Propriety and smart and sarcastic indie rock
race by, blurring together.
It is a band of rollicking lightness that
keeps coming up with deep themes. At
a recent show in the Echo Park neighborhood here, the male members were
downright silly, but Ms. Chhom, singing
mostly in Khmer and dressed in shimmering Cambodian silk garments she
designs herself, looked like old-school
royalty. After the set, when she lighted
a candle onstage to honor those killed
by the Khmer Rouge, her voice broke
and tears ran down her face.
“I think we balance each other out,”
Mr. Holtzman said in a recent interview. “She’ll bring the whole place to a
hush, and that would be a long night if
it was just that. And then we smash the
place up.”
Dengue Fever formed after the Farfisa organ player Ethan Holtzman, Zac’s
brother, traveled to Cambodia in 1997,
discovered ’60s Cambodian pop and
returned with a stack of cassettes. This
was not the sort of roots-driven folk
sounds ethnomusicologists crave; this
was locally produced, gleefully garish trash infused with the surf guitar
and soul arrangements that Armed
Forces Radio regularly played across
the region during the Vietnam War. It
flourished until the Khmer Rouge came
to power in the 1970s and dismantled
Cambodian culture.
Dengue Fever’s music is a tribute to
that lost pop. But the six members of
Dengue Fever form a quintessential
Los Angeles crew, with a mix of back-
The Khmer Rouge put an
end to a gleefully garish
style of guitar rock.
grounds and interests that seems fitting in a region with the largest Cambodian population in the United States
(in Long Beach, south of downtown Los
Angeles) and a flourishing indie rock
scene (in the hills east of Hollywood).
The band offers a cultural mix; beyond
the obscure Cambodian pop you can
hear psychedelia, spaghetti western
guitars, the lounge groove of Ethiopian
soul and Bollywood soundtracks.
Now Dengue Fever is starting to
make its mark far from its hometown.
The band recently returned from the
Womex world music festival in Seville,
Spain. British publications have included it in “next big thing” roundups,
and Dengue Fever’s songs have been
on television and film soundtracks, including the director Jim Jarmusch’s
“Broken Flowers.” A new documentary,
“Sleepwalking Through the Mekong,”
that follows the group on its first trip as a
band to Cambodia, seems likely to help
it gain more attention.
“The underground people are getting
hip to world music, and the world music
side is getting hip to how you don’t have
to have a dreadlock wig and Guatemalan pants to be cool,” said the bassist
Senon Williams, sitting in his backyard
with Ms. Chhom and Zac Holtzman.
“Now that Nimol is going to start
singing more in English,” he added,
“it’s making new things possible for us.
Nimol really wants to connect with the
American audience more now.”
Dmitri Vietze, a publicist and marketer for many global music acts, sees the
band as “part of a larger developmental
pattern” in world music.
“Can you stick them in the worldmusic bin at brick and mortar retail
stores?” Mr. Vietze asked. “I don’t
know. But as far as how they fit into
world music in a larger philosophical
context, they are a part of a huge and
promising future.”
He noted that the American market
had been introduced to world sounds
most often by American artists, like
Paul Simon.
Now, he said, he sees a movement
toward music made and influenced by
émigrés: “We’re seeing more and more
bands like Dengue Fever.”
The poet and dramatist Federico García Lorca
in 1932. He was shot by Fascists in 1936.
Artists Find Inspiration
In a Spanish Poet’s Refuge
By DALE FUCHS
GRANADA, Spain — Federico García
Lorca called it “el duende” — in Spanish, the elf — a dark, irrational muse that
leads artists to tragic depths.
This dangerous goblin, who delights in
the “tiny weeds of death,” as the early20th-century Spanish poet and dramatist said in a lecture in Havana, haunted
the streets of García Lorca’s “Poet in
New York’’ and the moonlit night of
“Blood Wedding.’’
It refused to take pity on the barren
wombs, the weeping guitars or the silver-eyed Gypsy women of other García
Lorca works.
And the little imp is making trouble
still. More than 70 years after García
Lorca’s death by a fascist firing squad
at the start of the Spanish Civil War, the
shadowy elf apparently inhabits García
Lorca’s country home here, La Huerta
de San Vicente, where he wrote some of
his most famous plays and sought refuge in the weeks before he was killed.
Thirty international artists have visited the estate over the last two years seeking traces of that mysterious spirit. They
stalked it in García Lorca’s bedroom,
where he wrote until dawn; beside his piano, where he played for his younger siblings; and before the cold kitchen hearth,
where, according to his niece, Laura García Lorca, president of the Federico García Lorca Foundation, he chatted with the
servants about the Andalusian folklore
that colors his verse.
The product of these artists’ visits is
an exhibition of García Lorca-inspired
installations, titled “Everstill,’’ which
opened in late November at the country
estate. The García Lorca family spent
summers at this traditional Andalusian
home, now a museum on the edge of the
city, from 1926 until the poet’s death in
1936.
“I did a meditation on his bed,” said
John Giorno, a New York poet and performance artist who was the subject of
Andy Warhol’s 1963 film “Sleep,” at the
exhibition opening. “I thought, ‘That’s
where he wrote the poems, that’s where
he felt lonely, that’s where he plotted the
escape from the family he loved because
he was a gay man like me.’ ”
Mr. Giorno’s bedside rhapsody helped
him write a poem dedicated to García
Lorca:
By JULIE BLOOM
music, without the costumes, before
NEW YORK — “O.K., position, ready it goes to the theater — so you see the
and …”
work as he envisioned it, very purely,
Merce Cunningham was beginning his and there’s something very essential
company class, as he does every Monday about that. It gives you a sense of the
morning, in an 11th-floor studio at the identity of the works, their structure,
Westbeth Building in the West Village their rhythm, and the class material is
neighborhood of Manhattan. Perched very often material that is going into a
on a stool in a corner of a studio, Mr. Cun- new dance.”
ningham led the class of 25 dancers. DeSecond, the full 90-minute weekly
spite his frailty (he turns 89 in April), he classes will be available to universities
was precise in his instructions. “Curve and colleges by subscription, allowing
and tilt, not fast,” he chided his dancers them to invite Mr. Cunningham into any
as they followed his every direction.
studio as a virtual instructor.
This almost sacred ritual of class,
The program’s third component is
previously experienced only by Cun- preservation. Working closely with
ningham dancers and selected guests, Howard Besser, director of the Moving
will soon be on view to anyone with an Image, Archiving and Preservation
Internet connection and curiosity. Be- Program in the Tisch School of the Arts
ginning next month the Merce Cun- at New York University, the company
ningham Dance Company will begin has decided to hand over all the digital
recording “Mondays With Merce,” an recordings to be archived by Bobst Lionline video program featuring weekly brary at N.Y.U.
episodes of Mr. Cunningham’s Monday
Not all the dancers were comfortable
class, on its Web site, merce.org. The with the cameras’ invasion of their class
program will provide a glimpse into Mr. space, said Andrea Weber, a company
Cunningham’s artistic process.
member. “The idea for ‘Mondays’ was
Trevor Carlson, the company’s ex- uncomfortable just because class is alecutive director, said the idea for the ways such a private affair,” she said.
program was born two years ago, when
For Mr. Cunningham — who has long
the company was offered the opportunity to license a work to a group of
students in Brazil and wanted Mr.
Cunningham to be there. “Merce
is not traveling as much with the
company,” Mr. Carlson said, “and
I thought that there might be some
way, given what we’d seen at some
of the other venues we’d performed
at, particularly Stanford University,
that there might be a way to do a live
feed.” A feed was unfeasible at the
time, but the idea led to “Mondays
With Merce.”
“The actual hope became: How
can we take Merce outside our studio
without actually having to take him
out? How can we bring what he does
ANDREA MOHIN/THE NEW YORK TIMES
here, what we do here, to the outside
community?” Mr. Carlson said.
Videos of classes taught by Merce
The program has three major
Cunningham will be available online.
components. First, there will be
26 episodes online beginning in
September. Each will include 30 to 40 used technology in innovative ways to
minutes of technique class, edited and enhance his choreography — these steps
supplemented with interviews with Mr. are just part of the natural advancement
Cunningham, collaborators like the art- of the art form.
ists Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschen“I don’t think it’s anything that you
berg and some of the original dancers control,” he said after class. “I simply
from the pieces, and archival material. think that it’s something bound to hapThe episodes will show the inspiration pen, so if one can facilitate it — do somefor dances and reveal the threads that thing that makes it clearer — that is
link one work to another.
good. I don’t think, given the way people
“If the company is performing ‘Ocean,’ see now, in this enormously expanded
which is based on the circle,” said Nancy way, you can say this shouldn’t be done
Dalva, a dance historian who will be di- or it should be done, because it’s going to
recting these edited episodes, “we can be done one way or another.”
go get archival footage of ‘Beach Birds,’
Though technology offers new opporwhich has the same circle in it, and show tunities for viewers to see his work, Mr.
the same Matisse poster, which Merce Cunningham emphasized that his dancsaw in his dentist’s office before he made ers come first. “I do what I do hoping it
the dance.”
will help the people who are participatThese episodes are “a way to bring the ing,” he said. “It’s not for onlookers. I
person at the other side of the computer don’t have a basic objection to them, but
to Westbeth,” she said. “You see dance it’s not for them. It’s for the people who
the way Merce makes it — without the are doing it.”
I want it to rain for the rest of
my life
I want it to pour until the end of
time.
He engraved it on four “Poetry Fountains” in the estate gardens.
Other artists took the inspiration of
García Lorca’s bedroom more literally.
Gilbert and George — Gilbert Prousch
and George Passmore — photographed
themselves in tweed suits on García
Lorca’s narrow wood-frame bed. The
suggestive title of the image, now hanging above the
poet’s desk, is “In Bed With
Lorca.” The two lie rigid beneath a painting of a weeping
Virgin Mary, like estranged
lovers or corpses at a wake.
“It is about oppression,
about hiding his sexuality
from his mother,” George
said.
“If you want to become
close to a subject, you have
to become close to the less
public part of his life,” Gilbert concluded.
Beneath García Lorca’s
bed, two Spanish artists, DaDALE FUCHS
vid Bestué and Marc Vives,
installed a puppet show reminiscent of
the ones García Lorca produced with the
composer Manuel de Falla for his youngest sister. These marionettes, however,
take the form of mechanized insects, and
their recorded lines are adapted from
García Lorca’s play about a family vendetta, “Blood Wedding.” “Under the bed
is where the monsters live,’’ Mr. Bestué
said. “If somebody could tell the story of
this house, it would be the little critters
that remained there.”
The American artist Sarah Morris,
known for her flashy geometric designs,
painted a canvas inspired by the colorful Moorish tiles in García Lorca’s bedroom. The Korean installation artist
Koo Jeong-a recreated an often-photographed García Lorca suit, sized to fit her
own petite frame. In the kitchen an eerie
soundtrack by the flamenco singer Enrique Morente combines the bellowing of
cante jondo, or deep song, that echoes in
García Lorca’s writings with the tolling
of bells and extended silences.
“Lorca is an artist’s poet,” said the
exhibition curator, Hans Ulbrich Obrist,
co-director of international projects
at the Serpentine Gallery in London.
“Generation after generation has been
inspired by him.”
García Lorca displayed a postmodern
distrust of the printed word, said Andrés
Soria Olmedo, a professor of literature
at the University of Granada. The poet
exalted the spontaneity of a reading or
a flamenco performance long before
words like “happening” and “poetry
slam” made it into anyone’s vocabulary.
And that spontaneity — that willingness to struggle with the dark spirit that
overcomes an artist in a moment’s burst
— is what García Lorca called “duende.”
It is what younger generations are still
seeking, Mr. Obrist said.