Reporters on the Job

• Parking Blues: Traffic is always bad in Istanbul, but staff writer Scott Peterson and his translator thought they had found a way to avoid the worst of it for a massive rally of the ruling AK Party (see story). Scott drove well around the back side of the venue, via the airport, assuming that most of the hundreds of thousands of rally-goers would exit the other way.

But getting to the spot required a long ride along the sea; a beautiful drive, but with few turnoffs until well past the venue. Scott made the U-turn, but found now that he had to drive to the site and hunt for parking.

"Police forced us out of the first few spots where we wanted to park," says Scott. Eventually he found a spot a very long way away – but apparently with a straight shot home.

"Our relief disappeared when we tried to beat the rush," says Scott. They got tied up again in a one-way system, which was completely clogged by flag-waving people swarming across the road on their way home. "Exit time? 90 minutes."

• World Stage: The legal tangle that some Chinese pharmaceutical firms have gotten into, accused in a New York court of price fixing, is a characteristic example of the price China is paying for its explosion onto the world stage, says staff writer Peter Ford (see story). "In Africa, Chinese firms find themselves condemned for imposing working conditions that Chinese find unremarkable at home, and they are having a hard time coming to terms with that," says Peter. "In Pakistan, Nigeria, and Ethiopia, its expatriate workers have been kidnapped and killed. Chinese companies, citizens, and the government itself have yet to fully realize what it means to be a world power."

– Amelia Newcomb
Deputy World editor