It didn’t take for confirmation of our warning last week that the initial report into the causes of the 2009 crash of Air France flight 447 wouldn’t stifle debate about who was to blame for the calamity. Less than a week after France’s official Bureau of Investigations and Analyses (BEA) issued a preliminary finding stating …
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Preliminary Report On 2009 Air France Crash Indicates Pilot Responsibility
Some of the mystery behind the tragedy may be solved, but that doesn’t mean fighting is over about who’s to blame for the 2009 crash of Air France flight 447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. New findings released Friday by French investigators indicated pilots of the craft were insufficiently trained for the emergency situation …
Cover Story: How Murdoch Will Struggle to Preserve His Influence
The tabloid saga gripping Britain — a tangled tale of criminality and corruption, of politicians in thrall to the power of the press and of police in the press’s pay — has elements of farce but even more of tragedy. Take Graham Foulkes, whose 22-year-old son David was one of 52 people killed by suicide bombers in London six years …
America or China? The World Has Already Decided Who’s No. 1
Who’s the world’s new superpower? China, according to a poll by Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project, which surveyed more than 27,000 people globally:
In 15 of 22 nations, the balance of opinion is that China either will replace or already has replaced the U.S. as the world’s leading superpower…This especially is
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Out of Bounds: Illegal Land Drives China’s Golf Course Boom
In 2004, China outlawed the construction of new golf courses. The move was supposed to save a water-parched land and cut down on flashy displays of wealth by China’s nouveaux-riches. But you wouldn’t know about any such ban if you looked at the newly manicured greens ringing China’s growing cities. Indeed, the People’s Daily, …
U.K. Hacking Scandal! Read All About It! (But Not in the News of the World)
UPDATE: Andy Coulson, former communications director for British Prime Minister David Cameron, is to be arrested Friday over his alleged involvement in the hacking of mobile phones while editor of the News of the World, according to the Guardian.
The end, when it came, was quick and brutal—not unlike the punchy stories about the …
Facebook Revolution in Israel Takes the Form of Cottage Cheese
When Tahrir Square was going full steam, I spent an afternoon asking Israelis their thoughts on the matter in a sleek shopping mall in Ra’anana, north of Tel Aviv. The first question was whether, watching the events in Cairo, they felt inspired? I should have said “sympathetic,” because several people thought they were being asked if …
Greece’s Turmoil: A Brief History of the General Strike
As Greece withstands the second day of a 48-hour general strike shutting down much of the country, it’s worth considering the history of this radical, dramatic tactic. The pervasive feeling in the debt-ridden Mediterranean country seems to be a sense that something has altogether broken in their society. One middle-aged Greek told TIME …
China Pandas to Public Opinion in Britain
He called us his “dear friends from the press” and said he wished “to announce a piece of good news.” Chinese premier Wen Jiabao, on his first trip to London since David Cameron entered Downing Street, appeared in the most cordial of spirits at a June 27 press conference with Britain’s Prime Minister. And Wen’s news, or at least the
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Can French Bank Deal On Greek Debt Save The Euro?
Could the end of the Greek debt crisis be in view—and with it the pressure that has put the very future of the euro in jeopardy? That’s the hope behind a draft deal French President Nicolas Sarkozy confirmed Monday, under which France’s private banks holding some $21 billion in Greek sovereign debt would roll nearly 70% of that …
Better Late Than Never, Israel Outlaws Business with Iran
A month after the U.S. State Department sanctioned an Israeli shipping company for doing business with Iran, the government of Israel approved a measure making the same thing illegal on its books, too.
India’s Top Outsourcing Firms Under Fire
Allegations of visa fraud have been a constant complaint by critics of the outsourcing industry, who say that firms misuse complex U.S. immigration laws to get their Indian employees to work in the United States. That’s the subject of the investigation underway now against Infosys. It started with an Alabama lawsuit filed in February …
“Atomic Anne” Lauvergeon Replaced As Head Of Nuclear Giant Areva
Anne Lauvergeon–longed ranked by international publications as one of the most influential and powerful women in global business—will be replaced as chairman of Areva, the one-stop nuclear giant she created in 2001. Thursday’s announcement by France’s conservative government to part with Lauvergeon when her current contract …