In the 15 years since Germany's reunification, the capital Berlin has been a city caught up in a hurricane of change, some of it, but certainly not all positive.
Its post-Cold War dream of developing into a thriving metro-polis in the heart of Europe has, claim experienced observers, largely failed despite all the hopes placed in it becoming a buzzing European cross-roads for trade, commerce and culture.
The disappointments have been considerable. This year Berlin is wallowing in high and long-standing unemployment, with city debts put at more than 60 billion euros (US$75 billion). Long robbed of its industrial base, Berlin is seeking new ways of resolving its problems.
Renowned as a city of culture, with its three opera houses, and countless theaters and leisure facilities, and reveling in its notoriety as a free-wheeling, fun-loving city, Berlin attracts increasing numbers of international tourists every year.
Governing mayor Klaus Wowereit exploits the city's cultural fame, also its reputation as a place of naughty, saucy, titillating goings on, by encouraging show-biz personalities and big names in Hollywood to visit Berlin and make use of its many atmospheric film locations.
With Germany's big business interests solidly centered in the west and south of the country -- in Munich, Stuttgart, Frankfurt and Dusseldorf -- Wowereit sees little or no chance of Berlin ever again winning any kind of solid industrial base.
So, the city's openly gay Social Democrat mayor champions Berlin as a media city, as a Musikstadt (Music City), and movie-making haunt. His show-biz contacts have paid off in recent years.
First, Universal Music arrived in Berlin in 2001 to convert a huge cold-storage egg-house into a glossy HQ for its expanded German and eastern activities, followed by MTV, the world's biggest music broadcaster, which transformed city warehouse facilities into a plush new seat for its "Central and Emerging European Market"
operations.
Berlin's music economy is currently booming. Hundreds of music-scene bars, discotheques, clubs and lounges can be found in Berlin -- many of them in Friedrichshain and trendy Prenzlauer Berg, both eastern city districts.
In the autumn of last year, Europe's biggest music-fair Popkomm was staged in the German capital for the first time.
With Universal Music and Sony active in Berlin, and recording giants like BMG and EMI also strongly represented in the city, it is hardly surprising that economic muscle is given to the city's show-biz scene.
Currently, Berlin's music industry employs some 5,200 workers in more than 700 outlets. Total annual turnover reached 924 million euros (US$1.1 billlion) in 2002, close on 35 per cent more than the 2001 figure.
During Berlin's post-war division little or no progress was made on finding a new role for the collection of old and decaying waterfront properties in the eastern (communist) half of the city, whereas elsewhere in Europe -- notably in London -- new business strategies for waterfront sites were under discussion as early as the 1960s and early 1970s.
By the 1980s, Fleet Street in London had lost its role as a production center for Britain's national newspapers, when new, cost-saving plants, were constructed in London's former docks area in Wapping and Canary Wharf.
Not that Germany's media industry is contemplating a similar such operation in Osthafen, although the city's popular Spree River (Radio) studios are to be found along the waterfront.
US artist Jonathon Borofski's arresting 30m-high mid- river sculpture Molecule Man also vies for tourist attention, while nearby is the "Spree River Bathing Ship."
Dozens of dance and entertainment facilities stud this side of the river -- many of them in close proximity to the riverside Arena, Berlin's biggest rock and pop concert hall with a capacity of 7,500 in south-east Treptow.
Little wonder, then, that the talk is of "Musikstadt Berlin" these days.
My friends and I have been enjoying the last two weeks of revelation after revelation of the financial and legal shenanigans of Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head and recent presidential candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲). Every day brings fresh news — allegations that a building had purchased with party subsidies but listed in Ko’s name, allegations of downloading party subsidy funds into his personal accounts. Ko’s call last December for the regulations for the government’s special budgets to be amended to enforce fiscal discipline, and his September unveiling of his party’s anti-corruption plan, have now taken on a certain delightful irony.
The number of scandals and setbacks hitting the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) in such quick and daily succession in the last few weeks is unprecedented, at least in the countries whose politics I am familiar with. The local media is covering this train wreck on an almost hourly basis, which in the latest news saw party chair Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) detained by prosecutors on Friday and released without bail yesterday. The number of links collected to produce these detailed columns may reach 400 by the time this hits the streets. To get up to speed, two columns have been written: “Donovan’s
President William Lai’s (賴清德) vision for Taiwan to become an “AI island” has three conditions: constructing advanced data centers, ensuring a stable and green energy supply, and cultivating AI talent. However, the energy issue supply is the greatest challenge. To clarify, let’s reframe the problem in terms of the Olympics. Given Taiwan’s OEM (original equipment manufacturer) roles in the technology sector, Taiwan is not an athlete in the AI Olympics, or even a trainer, but rather a training ground for global AI athletes (AI companies). In other words, Taiwan’s semiconductor ecosystem provides world-class training facilities and equipment that have already attracted
Despite her well-paying tech job, Li Daijing didn’t hesitate when her cousin asked for help running a restaurant in Mexico City. She packed up and left China for the Mexican capital last year, with dreams of a new adventure. The 30-year-old woman from Chengdu, the Sichuan provincial capital, hopes one day to start an online business importing furniture from her home country. “I want more,” Li said. “I want to be a strong woman. I want independence.” Li is among a new wave of Chinese migrants who are leaving their country in search of opportunities, more freedom or better financial prospects at a