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blog

Europe In Mourning After Germanwings Plane Crash

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"Nothing but debris and bodies" reads French daily Libération"s front page, conveying the state of shock and disbelief around Europe the day after an Airbus A320 carrying 150 people crashed in the southern French Alps.

According to Alain Vidalies, France's junior minister of transport, there were no survivors from the crash of flight 4U9525. Search operations for the plane's black boxes resumed Wednesday morning in the hard-to-reach area. Retrieving and identifying the 150 bodies will take weeks, Marseille Prosecutor General Brice Robin said.

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said one of the plane's two black boxes was recovered from the crash site. It is reportedly "in a damaged but usable" state, and will help shed light on the causes of the crash. So far, no hypotheses have been ruled out.

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Sixty-seven Germans, 45 Spaniards, two Australians and three Britons were on board the plane that was travelling from Barcelona to Dusseldorf.

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"Not arrived" writes Berlin-based Die Tageszeitung, together with a simple yet poignant picture of an airport flight information screen in Düsseldorf, where the plane — operated by Germanwings, a Lufthansa budget airline — was supposed to land.

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"Under shock," headlines Hamburg Morgenpost as 67 German passengers — including 16 students and their two teachers returning from a school exchange — are among the victims of the crash.

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Spanish daily El Mundo featured a picture of the crash site, while wondering why "The plane fell for 8 minutes without sending a mayday call." (Investigators now believe the aircraft actually slowly lost altitude for 18 minutes)

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Flight 4U9525 took off from Barcelona's airport, but it was a "Flight without a destination," writes Spanish daily ABC.

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Economy

The West Has An Answer To China's New Silk Road — With A Lift From The Gulf

The U.S. and Europe are seeking to rival China by launching a huge joint project. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States will also play a key role – because the battle for world domination is not being fought on China’s doorstep, but in the Middle East.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Indian Prime Minister Narendra and U.S. President Joe Biden shaking hands during PGII & India-Middle East-Europe Economics Corridor event at the G20 Summit on Sept. 9 in New Delhi

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Indian Prime Minister Narendra and U.S. President Joe Biden during PGII & India-Middle East-Europe Economics Corridor event at the G20 Summit on Sept. 9 in New Delhi

Daniel-Dylan Böhmer

-Analysis-

BERLIN — When world leaders are so keen to emphasize the importance of a project, we may well be skeptical. “This is a big deal, a really big deal,” declared U.S. President Joe Biden earlier this month.

The "big deal" he's talking about is a new trade and infrastructure corridor planned to be built between India, the Middle East and Europe.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi described the project as a “beacon of cooperation, innovation and shared progress,” while President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen called it a “green and digital bridge across continents and civilizations."

The corridor will consist of improved railway networks, shipping ports and submarine cables. It is not only India, the U.S. and Europe that are investing in it – they are also working together on the project with Saudi Arabia, Israel and the United Arab Emirates.

Saudi Arabia is planning to provide $20 billion in funding for the corridor, but aside from that, the sums involved are as yet unclear. The details will be hashed out over the next two months. But if the West and its allies truly want to compete with China's so-called New Silk Road, they will need a lot of money.

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