Posts Tagged ‘news’
Red Shirts on the roll
Trouble is looming over the weekend in Bangkok as the “United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship” assembles its largest protest in recent memory, predicting up to 600,000 protesters will be in the capital by Sunday. According to CNBC:
“Anti-government demonstrators prepared to launch Friday what they hope will be one of the country’s biggest protests ever, aiming to force Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to call new elections.
Leaders of the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship, called the Red Shirts because of their hallmark garb, have vowed to keep their “Million-man march” protest nonviolent. Demonstrators will start meeting around the country Friday, and converge in the Thai capital Bangkok on Sunday.
The group’s last major protest in Bangkok in April last year deteriorated into rioting that saw two people killed, more than 120 people injured and buses burned on major thoroughfares. The army was called in to quash the unrest.”
There’s been a lot of to-do over the last couple years about Airbus’s new A-380, the world’s largest passenger airplane. Since Airbus is headquartered in France, I suppose it’s fitting that Air France should get on board and outfit some of these planes with their signature tricolore.
Air France marks the first superjumbo to depart from Europe, taking off at 1:30pm from Paris Charles de Gaulle on Friday heading to JFK with 380 passengers on board. As with Singapore Airlines’ inaugural A-380 flight, the ticketed passengers’ fares for this flight were auctioned off and donated to charity, generating $450,00 for the Air France Foundation, an organization that helps children in difficulty
A lot of news has come out of the gulf region’s airline industry of late. In the past ten years, four separate high-quality airlines have come out of that part of the world and are all vying for the title of number one. While Emirates has a business model that pretty much puts the others to shame, there’s several national carriers that are headquartered in that area doing what they do very well.
A little piece of literary travel history will be squeaking its last brakes, and with hardly a whimper. The last piece of the proverbial Orient Express, the legendary sleeper train that once connected Calais, France and Istanbul in high fashion and efficiency, will, as of December 12th, cease to exist.
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