Since the end of the Cold War, from the Middle East to Africa, almost every military intervention carried out by the world’s top powers leads to regime change. But rarely to stability.
Source: LES ECHOS
France’s top business daily, Les Echos covers domestic and international economic, financial and markets news. Founded in 1908, the newspaper has been the property of French luxury good conglomerate LVMH (Moet Hennessy – Louis Vuitton) since 2007.
Longer life expectancy is changing the demographics of our politicians. Wiser and less worried about reelection, the elderly are bound to make better leaders in our fast-moving society.
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UK’s Risk Of Double-Dip Secession
It’s not recession, but secession that’s worrying many: Scotland will vote on independence from the UK, while Britain’s own potential exit from the EU could stunt an economic rebound.
Bashar al-Assad still in power in Syria, al-Qaeda still strong in Iraq. The West’s double failure, incapable of building a common strategy, is a sign of a now ‘post-American’ region.
Wednesday, January 14, 2014 NEW CHARLIE HEBDO ISSUE SOLD OUTOne week after the terrorist attack on the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo, thousands of people lined up at newsstands to get a copy of the much-awaited “survivors’ issue” of the satirical magazine. As many as one million copies were distributed today and every single one […]
Thursday, January 8, 2014 FRENCH MANHUNT CONTINUES AMID MORE VIOLENCEThe search continues in France for the two gunmen who killed 12 people in the course of attacking the offices of satirical paper Charlie Hebdo with Kalashnikovs yesterday, a terrorist attack that Le Monde describes on today’s front page as “France’s 9/11.” Here are 31 front […]
PARIS — A 4G offer? Danger! Bitcoin? Warning! The World Cup draw? It’s a trap! This is the story of a strange country blessed by the gods, with beautiful scenery and heir to a long and rich history. Though full of talented people and worldwide economic powerhouses, everything now seems to be full of peril […]
As the Brazil’s “commodities supercycle” grinds to a halt, Dilma Rousseff’s economic policy has failed to find a new path. Is World Cup excitement enough to avoid a national bust?
Jeanne was looking for work when she came across a telemarketer offer for an Apple contractor in Barcelona. She took the job without hesitating. A few months later, she is a broken woman: constant surveillance, timed breaks, aggressive customers … The pressure is constant. BARCELONA — My story begins several months ago. I wanted a […]
Russia and China risk setting off global conflicts for the sake of national pride. A century later, the lessons of Otto von Bismarck are being ignored again.
TOKYO — Since the beginning of 2013, as many as 3,500 people have died on Japanese roads. Some 52% of these victims were aged over 65, representing a high mortality rate of 6 per 100,000 in an age category that is progressively becoming the dominant generation — in the aging archipelago, 1 out of 4 […]
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The Disney Princess Polemic
Social pressure is on to create genuine heroine characters not animated models with impossible body images. But Disney continues its pursuit of pure fantasy.
The recent dual suicide of Bernard and Georgette Cazes at Paris’ landmark Lutetia Hotel is a symbolic nod to the right-to-die movement, but also a melancholic reminder of eternal love.
Friday, November 28, 2014 OIL PRICES CONTINUE TO FALL Oil prices continued their slide today after OPEC member states refused yesterday to cut their output to force higher prices, Reuters reports. “It was a great decision,” Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said after yesterday’s talks. Iran and Venezuela, whose economies are badly hurt by the […]
Pleyel pianos, founded in 1809, built pianos for Chopin and other masters. In the end, it couldn’t find a new business strategy to survive against Asian competition.
Wednesday, November 12, 2014 CHINA-U.S. AGREE ON GAS EMISSIONS Presidents Xi Jinping and Barack Obama signed a landmark deal to limit their greenhouse gas emissions, The Washington Post reports. China, for the first time, agreed to cap its output by 2030 or even earlier if possible, and pledged to increase the share of non-fossil fuels […]
As demand for organ transplants skyrockets, a new artificial heart and other sophisticated prostheses are among the medical-tech advancements raising troubling questions.
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Thailand, A Foreign Investment Paradox
Thailand saw a record of capital infusion from abroad in 2012, but the country needs critical upgrades, as it remains totally dependent on technology from outside its borders.
The explosion of digital technologies and other techonological advances will continue to draw casualties from a surprisingly wide array of employment sectors.
TOULOUSE — After a year of work and five million euros in investments, Sigfox, a start-up from Labège, near Toulouse, southern France, has just finished deploying a new communications network — an Internet of Things — in 95% of the cities in France. Sensors spread out across cities and their suburbs will be able to […]
Bad-mouthing your colleagues can actually have unexpected benefits, both for the gossiper and the company itself, says the French author of a controversial new book.
A young climber discovered a treasure believed to be from a 1966 Indian plane crash and turned it in to authorities. Now nearby alpine towns fear wreckage seekers may come in droves.
PARIS — Are Nobel Prizes a wicked luxury? This year, like every year for more than a century, Scandinavian juries will honor researchers in physics, chemistry and medicine, an author, and a man or a woman who contributed to peace. The season will end with the presentation of the latest prize, created a little more […]
ANGOULEME — What if, thanks to technology, you could literally dive into pictures? This technological prowess would make dreams of unexplored applications come true, especially with regard to defense simulation or the presentation of urban projects. Andreas Koch, a 54-year-old animation entrepreneur in France, has reinvented the 360-degree image. The idea is not altogether new. […]
PARIS — Five years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, it seems that we are passing through an unprecedented layer of thick fog. We see one country suddenly accelerating while its neighbor suffers a “sudden stop.” But this isn’t the first time. The world was consumed by the same sort of uncertainty five years after […]
Imagine a future where all high school students could go on to study whatever subject they want, where a university isn’t forced to limit the number of applicants it can accept or base its enrollment policy on grades or finances, but only on the wishes of students. It’s the dream of an education revolution that […]
PARIS – Between 2004 and 2005, Zheyun Ye knocked on the door of almost every professional soccer club in Belgium. By introducing himself as a timely investor, this Chinese expat managed to convince the board of the penniless Lierse SK club to accept a check worth 370,000 euros ($500,000). Except that Zheyun Ye was not […]
A school in the low-income banlieues of Paris has been living in the digital age for three years. Results are starting to show.
A port city just like Marseille, but less riddled with crime, Rotterdam is nonetheless equipping itself with an unlikely new unit to fight illegal activity. Forensic police plan to use five big brown rats to shed light on criminal plots. After two years of training that will soon end, Derrick, Magnum, Poirot, Dupond and Dupont […]
One writer outlines what German Chancellor Angela Merkel is doing right; and sees potential deep flaws in the economic policies of Japan’s Shinzo Abe.
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Nestle And The Chocolate Factory
In the French city of Noisiel, the old Menier chocolate factory is a grand architectural landmark of the industrial age. It’s now the luxurious headquarters of Nestle France.
DA LAT — It’s 30°C (or 86°F) on the high plateaus of Lam Dong in the southern central part of Vietnam. Hanoi is two-and-a-half hours away by car, and the damp heat envelops the coffee trees, their supple branches fanning out and loaded with green coffee cherries. As the second-largest global coffee producer, Vietnam lags […]
SETE – French poet Paul Valéry called it “the singular island” – an expression that the inhabitants of Sète have adopted as their own. How else to describe this quasi-archipelago at the foot of Mount Saint-Clair, bordered in the north by the string of lakes that make up the Etang de Thau, and in the […]
CHANGSHA – Is it a stroke of genius or a gigantic bluff? The Chinese conglomerate Broad Group announced on July 20 that it had started preliminary work on the construction of the “Sky City” tower near the central Chinese city of Changsha. This is a project with exceptional dimensions: with its 838 meters (2,750 ft.) […]
It should be “Casual Monday-Through Friday” all summer long — and not just for women. It might change everything at the office, odors and energy bills included.
Young people sign up for higher education solely for scholarship money, while officials turn a blind eye to those permanently absent from class. Is this a twisted way to buy social peace?
PARIS – He first visited libraries as a researcher, before crossing on to “the other side of the mirror.” That’s how Philippe Galanopolous describes his life as a curator for the Inter-University Science Library of Paris (BIUS), one of the world’s best collection of science texts and documents. BIUS was created after the merger between […]
That is one bold idea floated to prevent older voters from paralyzing the democracy and blocking necessary reforms for the future.
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Is Apple Still A Luxury Brand?
PARIS – So Yves Saint Laurent“s CEO has been named vice president at Apple. We don’t know much yet about what Paul Deneve’s role will be beyond the company’s mention of “special projects” and his reporting to Apple chief Tim Cook, but let’s try to analyze the move from the perspective of luxury strategy. We […]
BRUSSELS – You know, those spy movies of some bespectacled hero photographing secret files, looking up every few seconds to make sure there’s not a burly KGB agent around. One executive from the Degussa chemistry group found himself in such a scene in 2002, entering a fancy Zurich building with a camera in his hand, […]