Word: european
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...price-conscious consumers in Europe and the U.S., that may augur a shot of good news. Consider the example of cocoa. Futures prices for the crop have tumbled in recent weeks amid signs of dwindling demand for chocolate products in mature markets. The European Cocoa Association said last month that grinding - the process that turns the crop into cocoa butter or powder and a handy proxy for demand - by its members fell 11% in the first quarter of this year. Grinding across the U.S., Canada and Mexico fell by slightly more in the same period. That's prompted some manufacturers...
...millions of young people who have roamed the Continent with a pack on their back and Eurail pass in hand can attest, there is something quintessentially European about traveling by train. Or was. European airline deregulation 12 years ago has turned hopping on a plane into a bargain-basement no-brainer. Thanks mostly to the increased competition, improved services and lower prices spawned by regulatory liberalization, air travel in Europe grew at an average annual rate of 4.5% between 1995 and 2005. Over the same period, the total number of miles traveled by all rail passengers chugged along at less...
...most radical change arrives this December, when European Union regulations will for the first time allow all rail operators to compete with one another for passengers on international routes. The change, which comes four years after similar moves in the freight sector, is designed to open up routes that currently are controlled by state monopolies. For travelers, deregulation will mean lower prices, faster trains and greater convenience - for example, passengers now are usually forced to change to trains run by the incumbent state-owned operator when they cross into another country. Under the new rules, railroads will be able...
Still, no one is predicting railroads will put airlines out of business. Railteam, a ticketing consortium of seven leading high-speed rail operators, aims to boost the number of people who now use fast trains for international European travel each year from 15 million to 25 million by 2011. That compares with some 160 million who travel across borders by air in Europe every year, a number that is expected to double by 2020. The railroads' relatively modest growth expectations are grounded in some harsh economic realities: new high-speed rail lines take years to plan and build as well...
...destination faster and more comfortably than by air. And which is more glamorous these days: a high-tech Eurostar train with interiors designed by Philippe Starck and Christian Lacroix, or a crammed Ryanair plane that asks you to pay to use the restroom?" Perhaps train travel will become quintessentially European once again...