1909: France Flies, England Worries

On July 25, 1909, the French aviator Louis Blériot climbed into a monoplane in Calais, France, and flew to Dover, England. He made history. No one had crossed the English Channel in an aircraft before.

The next day, his flight dominated the European edition of The New York Herald, which later became the International Herald Tribune, now celebrating its 125th anniversary.

In a way, the flight was the Sputnik of its day, boosting national pride (for the French) and creating fear (for the British). It also tapped into emotions that are familiar today - excitement over technology's ability to weave the world together, but anxiety over whether this was an altogether good thing.

The Herald printed excerpts of reaction from newspapers on both sides of the Channel.

The French could barely contain their elation.

”The crossing of the Channel gives the impression of a definite conquest,'' said Pétite Republique. ‘‘It is the suppression o f the Channel. It is the realization of a dream which has long been entertained. It gives to mankind, to ourselves, poor mortals who have not yet left the ground, a sensation of mastery over the air such as we have not yet felt.''

The London press was gracious, though occasionally grudging. The Standard praised Blériot's ‘‘pluck and dexterity'' but sniffed, ‘‘The Channel steamer service is not yet threatened nor are we appreciably nearer the day when friends or enemies will fly to our shores.''

The Daily Express observed: ‘‘Great Britain has ceased to be an island.”

Other British newspapers described a bruise to national esteem and expressed alarm over a darker future.

Under the headline ‘‘Shock to Englishmen,'' an excerpt from The Morning Post said: ‘‘We are a cautious race, skeptical of all innovation. … But here it is: conjecture and theorizing are at an end. This country not only can be, but has been reached, by mech anical flight. While fully and freely congratulating M. Blériot, it is impossible not to feel a touch of jealousy that this historic achievement has not fallen to the lot of an Englishman.''

‘‘Wake up, England!'' roared another headline, under which The Daily Graphic noted: ‘‘What M. Blériot can do in 1909 a hundred, nay, a thousand, aeroplanes may be able to do in five years … a machine which can fly from Calais to Dover is not a toy, but an instrument of warfare which soldiers an statesmen must take into account.''

A half-decade later, the dogfight became a staple of World War I combat. Three decades later, English people huddled in subway stations to hide from the terror of German bombs dropped from the sky.

Photographs from the archives of the International Herald Tribune will be sold on Nov. 19 at 2 p.m. at the auction house Drouot in Paris.

U.S. and Iraq: Game Changers in the Global Oil Supply?

LONDON-The International Energy Agency's long-term forecast that the United States would exceed Saudi Arabia in production led to a clash between the OPEC secretary general, Abdalla El-Badri, and the executive director of the agency, Maria Van der Hoeven, at the Oil and Money Conference convened Tuesday in London by the International Herald Tribune and Energy Intelligence, an energy consultancy.

After a long and inconclusive debate about why oil prices remain high despite plentiful supplies, Ms. Van der Hoeven asserted that Iraq, an OPEC member whose production is growing rapidly, and the U.S. are the “game-changers” now. In other words, they will both put large new supplies of oil into the system over the coming years.

Mr. El-Badri, who had been conciliatory, appeared to lose patience. “Please, don't give this message to the market,” he said. He warned that OPEC states like Saudi Arabia won't invest in more capacity if they don't see a market for their oil. “They don't want to invest in something they don't use,” he said.

Interestingly, another OPEC kingpin, Abdulla Al Attiyah, who masterminded Qatar's rise as a gas power, said the U.S. shale gas boom was a good thing for the gas industry. Consumers used to worry about gas supplies, he said. “Today, shale gas gives trust that the world has 300 years of using gas,” he said.

Read more about energy issues in the IHT Special Report: Oil & Money.

Trouble With Numbers

As careful as we try to be with words, sometimes our eyes glaze over and our brains freeze when we encounter numbers. Just pausing for an extra moment over a number - does this figure make sense? - might be enough to save us from some unfortunate corrections.

Here are a few examples from the last few weeks.

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Correction, 10/3:

The DealBook column on Tuesday, about private equity funds' growing need to get their cash holdings invested, misstated the amount of money that the firms would have to return to investors if it is not invested in the next 12 months. It is $200 billion, not $200 million.

Aaarrgh! The most common and most frustrating numerical error of all. Confusing “million” and “billion” is not a typo - it's wrong by a factor of 1,000, an indication that we weren't thinking about what we were writing. Every reference to millions, billions and trillions should be double-checked, in every story.

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Correction, 10/9 :

An article on Monday about the popularity of carwashes as a fundraising tool for various causes in Phoenix misstated the number of cars per capita. There are about 600 cars for every 1,000 residents, according to the Department of Energy, not one car for every 600 residents.

This flunked the common-sense test. One car for every 600 people? How do they all fit? How does everyone else get around? An editor raised a question, but the reporter mistakenly confirmed the original figure. A quick check of national figures online would have made clear that this wasn't right.

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Correction, 10/12:

A headline on Wednesday about a report by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life outlining changes in Americans' religious affiliations misstated a trend. The percentage of those calling themselves Protestants has sharply declined, not the number of those calling themselves Protestants.

A somewhat more subtle mistake. The wording in the story was cor rect, but the headline confused “percentage” or “portion” with “number”: Study Finds That the Number of Protestant Americans Is in Steep Decline. Be careful of the nuances of numbers when condensing for a headline.

 
More Trouble With Numbers

Sometimes the number problem is not an error, but an omission or a lack of context to help the reader understand the numbers. An interesting sports column (10/16) about plans to renovate a famous English soccer stadium said this:

Liverpool has yet to confirm the capacity of the new-look Anfield, but the consensus seems to be that it will grow by about 15,000 from its current size.

Unfortunately, the story never says what the current capacity is, leaving a gaping hole in the reader's understanding of the situation.

 
In a Word

This week's grab bag of grammar, style and other missteps, compiled with help from colleagues and readers.

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The hosts insult and mock, like Alex Wagner did in recently describing Mr. Romney's trip overseas as “National Lampoon's European Vacation” - a line she borrowed from an Obama spokeswoman.

Avoid this use of “like” as a conjunction. Make it “as Alex Wagner did.”

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Still, the pace of economic activity is short of what's needed to substantially reduce the unemployment rate, now at 7.8 percent and also well below the level of growth typical in this stage of a recovery after a sharp downturn.

We needed a comma after “percent.” Without it, this reads as though the unemployment rate is “also well below…” - not what we meant.

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Sandy is expected to be a strong - perhaps historic - tropical storm that could cause severe coastal flooding, intense wind damage and knock out power to millions of people for days.

The elements in the series are not parallel. One fix: Replace the comma after “flooding” with “and.”

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“It was a stup endously bad decision to hold this race, and the fact that they pulled the plug at the last minute only hurts the very people they tried to help in the first place,” said Alan Vinegrad, a former U.S. Attorney who has run six marathons, including New York City twice.

Style: make it “a former United States attorney.”

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To college students: “Because the president has been spending about a $1 trillion more every year in this country than we are taking in, he is putting debt on you that you didn't even know about. Each man women and child in this country has about $50,000 worth of government debt.”

Assuming “a” was part of the quote, make it “about a trillion dollars more.”

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Each of the three songs written with Mr. Martin and Shellback feel like inside jokes about the squeaky-clean pop of eras past.

Make it “The three songs … all feel like inside jokes” or “Each of the three songs … feels like an inside jo ke.”

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In other scenes, other principals, played by actors, are filmed as if in a documentary, laconically recounting what happened to the camera.

O.K., so what did happen to the camera? (Be careful where you put those prepositional phrases.)

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Some of these investors will succeed, and these lucky few will pay fewer taxes because of the use of these retirement plans, costing the government money that could total billions.

We're referring to the amount, not the number of taxes, so make it “less in taxes.”

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Whether they have gone through formal reparative therapy, most ex-gays agree with its tenets, even as they are rejected by mainstream scientists.

In this case - where the meaning is “regardless of whether” - we needed to say “whether or not.”

It\'s Not Speed Dating. It\'s Job Hunting.

HONG KONG -Two groups of potential partners-each with their own set of criteria and standards-work their way down the line. They size one another up as quickly as possible. Some have high hopes of finding that special spark. Some, bouncing back from rejection, just want to fulfill minimum requirements. Yet others have had to take an honest look in the mirror and lower expectations.

It's not speed dating. It's job hunting.

A special report in the IHT's education pages on Tuesday examines both sides of the issue. New graduates are struggling to find work, especially in suffering Western economies. Meanwhile, employers may have a hard time finding top applicants. Both job-seekers and recruiters are increasingly expected to cross national borders to find what they want.

As Miki Tanikawa reports from Tokyo, Japanese tech firms have had to change their ways to attract, say, that new M.I.T. hotshot. Talented 20somethings have little time for old hierarchical man agement systems. They want English-speaking, multicultural workplaces, as well as exciting projects and more responsibility.

Japanese companies are reaching out to the world. But there are factors that no company can change. Some recruiters expressed a desire to hire more Chinese engineers, but have been blocked for political reasons, as Beijing continues to seethe over a maritime dispute.

Expectations in China have also changed. Young Westerners reading about the country's booming economy might be tempted to buy a one-way ticket to a better job market. A generation ago, a foreign native English speaker with a Western university degree could land at the airport and expect to find decent work. But today, they are competing with many more Chinese- including overseas-educated “returnees”- who are fluently multilingual. Lara Farrar braves the crowds at the Job Fair for Foreigners in Beijing, and discovers that it can be harder than expected for young expats to f ind top positions in their field of study.

Still, a minimally paid job may be better than nothing if the cupboard is bare back home.

Economic news from Europe seems to be getting worse all the time. Christopher F. Schuetze at The Hague looks at the first E.U. benchmark for graduate employability and asks if setting a Continent-wide goal of pairing young people with jobs will actually work.

Sara Hamdan, reporting from the United Arab Emirates, talks to European expatriates who have left home for the Gulf. Manuel Ayas, a Spaniard who has set up his own successful consultancy in Dubai, said he often got requests from his countrymen back home: “I got one today from a 27-year-old with two master's degrees and five years of work experience asking for any job, just anything, even as a waiter,” he said.

Even those with a job realize that they may have to work hard to keep it, which is why many professionals are going back to school.

Kristiano Ang si ts in on a new executive M.B.A. course in Singapore offered by the Insead business school. Here's a typical student: A Japanese lawyer gets on a plane Thursday night in Tokyo, grabs a few hours of sleep before three days of intensive study in Singapore, returns to the airport Sunday night, and is back at his desk Monday morning.

In today's world, it's often a case of try, try again.

Are you a recent graduate looking for work? Or a company seeking that perfect candidate? What are some of the challenges you face?

When a Spouse Is Posted Abroad

Military duty in particular - but also other professions that require people to travel a lot or work away from home for long periods of time- can put serious strains on marriages and family life. If you or your spouse is in such a role, how do you make your family life work?

IHT Quick Read: Nov. 13

NEWS Gen. John Allen, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, is under investigation for “inappropriate communication'' with Jill Kelley, who was seen as a rival for David H. Petraeus's attentions by Paula Broadwell, the woman who had an affair with Mr. Petraeus, officials said. Elisabeth Bumiller reports.

Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany sought to reassure Portuguese leaders on Monday that fiscal overhauls would be rewarded with long-term growth and stability. Melissa Eddy and Niki Kitsantonis report.

The European Commission said Monday that it would seek to delay a plan to charge foreign airlines for greenhouse gas emissions for one year. James Kanter reports from Brussels.

The cabinet of China has ordered that all major industrial projects must pass a “social risk assessment” before they begin, a move aimed at curtailing the large and increasingly violent environmental protests of the last year. Keith Bradsher reports from Beijing.

Betting its future on natural gas, Shell is building a giant vessel that will float over a gas field off the coast of Australia, housing a massive processing plant, so that the product can be transported just about anywhere. Stanley Reed reports.

EDUCATION The Emirates have long played a unique role in global recruitment because of a high proportion of foreign workers, and Europeans are increasingly joining the flow. Sara Hamdan reports from Dubai.

FASHION The painter Gustav Klimt is inspiring designers fascinated by the glint of his gilt. Suzy Menkes writes from London.

ARTS Herman Wouk, author of 1950s blockbusters like “The Caine Mutiny” and “Marjorie Morningstar,” returns with a novel made of text messages, e-mails and Skype transcripts. Brooks Barnes reports from Palm Springs, Calif.

SPORTS The National Football League is expanding into China, hoping to become one of the ten most popular sports in the world's most populous nation by the end of the decade. Jonathan Landreth reports from Beijing.

Britain\'s Dilemma: to Extradite or Not to Extradite

A British judge's refusal on Monday to extradite a radical Muslim cleric to Jordan is the latest twist in a string of terror-related extraditions in the U.K. The recent flurry of high-profile extradition cases - some that resulted in extradition, some that did not - has exposed an unsettling randomness at the heart of the country's extradition policy.

Abu Qatada, a Palestinian-born Jordanian believed to have had close ties to Osama bin Laden and other senior Al Qaeda figures, will be set free on bail today after an intense decade-long court battle. “Judge John Mitting ordered Abu Qatada, 52, whose real name is Omar Mahmoud Mohammed Othman, to be released from prison on Tuesday under tight bail conditions,” my colleague John F. Burns reported yesterday.

The judge's ruling was “deeply unsatisfactory,” said Home Secretary Theresa May. As she told the BBC, “Qatada is a dangerous man, a suspected terrorist, who is accused of serious crimes in his home cou ntry of Jordan.” The government had lobbied for Mr. Qatada's removal from Britain for years, saying it had been doing “everything it could to get rid of [him].”

Britain has long struggled with how to balance civil liberties and national security prerogatives, often opting to freed radicalized Muslims whose calls for holy war against the West the government has deemed offensive and dangerous. In 2004, Britain adopted laws to make extradition to the United States easier in the wake of the September 11th attacks. But those laws were later questioned, examined and found, in one report, to be biased.

The British government said it had gone to great lengths to obtain legal assurances from the Jordanians about the treatment Abu Qatada would receive if he were sent home, but the presiding judge ruled against Ms. May and the government, saying that British and Jordanian guarantees were flimsy and did nothing to prevent information about Abu Qatada gleaned through to rture of other suspects from being used in court.

While never formally charged with a crime in the U.K., Mr. Qatada has been in and out of custody and detention for years, and is believed to have been instrumental in plotting bomb attacks in Jordan, where he was convicted in abstentia in 1999.

Ms. May says she plans to take a fresh look at Britain's extradition laws. This could include enacting a measure that would give judges more discretion to extradite if all or part of the alleged criminal activity took place on British soil. Ms. May has also indicated she might want to get rid of the automatic appeal stage that is currently part of the country's extradition policy.

Ms. May has often pushed for extradition, but in mid October another high profile case arose in which she lobbied against it, and won. As my colleague Harvey Morris explained on Rendezvous, Ms. May led the government's decision not to send Gary McKinnon to face trial in the United States. Th e 46-year old Scottish computer hacker admitted to breaking into NASA and Pentagon military computer systems, causing an estimated $800,000 in damage.

While Ms. May said the decision not to extradite the hacker was a “one time event” linked to his health - he has Asperger's Syndrome - she then went on to say she planned to begin a review of pending extradition cases to determine whether a trial in Britain would ultimately be more effective in other instances. The U.K.-based anti-extradition group Liberty said it “welcomed this compassionate and common sense announcement.”

Last month, in yet another high-profile case, the government sent five terrorism suspects to the United States to face trial. Among them was Abu Hamza al-Masri, a one-eyed Egyptian preacher with a lame hand who had been serving time in a British prison since 2006 on charges of incitement to murder for his radical preaching at a London mosque. Abu Hamza now faces 11 charges in a Manhattan Federal District Court ranging from calling for holy war in Afghanistan to attempting to set up a terrorism training camp in Oregon. In that case, Ms. May said British and American authorities worked hand in hand to ensure that Mr. Masri would be “handed over within hours of the court's decision.”