Word: sanaa
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...that al-Qaeda has been looking to consolidate and expand its base in the country of Osama bin Laden's ancestors. Yemeni authorities, prodded by Washington, have recently mounted an operation to wipe out the terrorist havens - including a missile strike this week that, officials in the Yemeni capital Sanaa say, killed 30 top al-Qaeda operatives. But if Abdulmutallab's plot did indeed originate in Yemen, then it would suggest that much more remains to be done. (See how al-Qaeda is creating a crisis in Yemen...
...Even in the capital, Sanaa, there were high-profile killings of foreigners earlier this year and a suicide attack against the U.S. embassy in 2008. When executives from the French energy giant Total, which built the new Balhaf gas plant, decided to go sightseeing in Sanaa's ancient quarter after the ceremony on Nov. 7, they drove through the city in a police-led convoy...
...Potentially more damning, though, is Yemenia's habit of flying newer A330s from Paris to Sanaa and then swapping them for older A310s to fly people continuing on to the impoverished Comoros. Surely that suggests better treatment for its richer clients than those from developing nations, right...
...that swapping planes is a common way for airlines to maximize fuel and cost efficiency. "And while much has been made about the crashed A310 having been banned in France since 2007, you hear no one pointing out that the same A310 has since then been regularly flown between Sanaa and London, where it has passed safety inspections by the British Civil Aviation Association." (Read: A brief history of Black Boxes...
...even if it is, as Tuesday's accident shows, an E.U. ban wouldn't prevent European travelers from flying Yemenia and other small airlines on routes between Sanaa and destinations outside Europe when they are the cheapest or only options. And with the doomed A310 having continued flying between Yemen and London with the approval of British safety officials even after the French ban, blacklisting individual airlines may not be an effective or fair approach...