News In Brief

HERE'S WHAT WE THINK OF YOU

If you consider their handmade posters and resorts to violence, the protests at recent global business conferences have been strictly low-tech. But it was only a matter of time before tactics grew more sophisticated. For this weekend's World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, a public broadcaster is offering to project demonstrators' messages via a laser onto a nearby mountainside for all to read. The service can be accessed on the Internet (www.hellomrpresident.com) or the short message function on a cellphone. But if you have a grievance, don't try anything sneaky: Organizers plan to nix profanity and personal insults.

HE'LL NEED A SCRATCHING POST

It appears the future of Socks the cat, who for eight years roamed the Clinton White House, has been settled. Reports that the feline is off to live with ex-presidential secretary Betty Currie turn out to be true. Remarked a Clinton aide who insisted on anonym-ity: "She loves the cat."

Winner - and still champion: Tokyo is world's priciest city

Changing times have pushed some previously high-ranking cities out of the top 10 most expensive to live in: notably Paris. But according to the latest bi- annual report of the London-based Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), a division of The Economist magazine, Tokyo remains immovable as the costliest. The rankings are based on the prices of goods and services in 133 of the largest cities. A notable addition to the top 10: Belgrade, Yugoslavia, which soared from 122nd previously to third as the effects of 1999's NATO bombing campaign took hold. Paris, while still not cheap, now ranks 26th. The EIU list:

1. Tokyo

2. Osaka/Kobe, Japan

3. Belgrade, Yugoslavia

4. Hong Kong

5. Seoul, South Korea

6. Taipei, Taiwan

7. New York

8. London

9. Oslo

10. Tel Aviv

- Associated Press

(c) Copyright 2001. The Christian Science Publishing Society