Free Republic

Tom Enders stared at the phone on his desk as it began to ring. The Airbus boss had been expecting a call to his office in Toulouse. It was Tim Clark, chief executive of Dubai-based airline Emirates, the biggest buyer of the planemaker’s A380 “superjumbo”. Clark was angry. He wanted to know why Airbus finance director Harald Wilhelm had just raised the prospect of the death of the A380. The aircraft cost $25 billion (£16 billion) to develop, but it has struggled to chalk up the large orders Airbus had envisioned, at $440 million each. So far, it has just...

Half of S.Korean Businesses in China in the Red In mid-December of last year, the executives and employees of a medium-size South Korean leather company in China ran away under cover of night. About 30 South Korean executives and employees of company "S", including its president, fled to a nearby city and eventually left China, leaving the factory and facilities behind. Company S had been losing money because of a price war with Chinese competitors. It left behind debts of tens of millions of dollars owed to banks and skipped out on paying the wages of some 300 Chinese workers....