The Suicide Attacks on September 11, 2001 Essay

The Suicide Attacks on September 11, 2001 - Essay Example By the end of the day, close to 3000 people had lost their lives and the government had declared a war on the terrorist groups, in what could be termed as a paradigm shifting moment in US history (David, 2007). This paper is a critical evaluation of the events which occurred on this day and the aftermath. The suicide attacks on September 11, 2001 September 11 attacks, also known as 911 attacks, will always linger in the minds of Americans, who were the direct victims of 4 coordinated suicide assaults, which took place in two cities i.e. New York and Washington, in the morning of September 11, 2001 (David, 2007). At first, there were beliefs that the attacks were orchestrated by the al-Qaeda terrorist network but these were later confirmed by the then leader of this network, Osama bin Laden, who had denied those allegations at first. This was a unique occurrence based on the fact that they defied the norm with regard to the manner in which the network carried it out. The most common s uicide attacks involved individuals delivering explosives and detonating them once they were at the enclosure of their target. In this case, they opted to utilize hijacked air planes as their weapon of destruction. 4 planes were hijacked by the terrorists meaning that they had already identified 4 possible targets and as it later turned out, they included the Pentagon, the world trade center which had twin towers i.e. the north and south towers, and another target, which was alleged to be the white house (David, 2007). The hijacked airplanes comprised of; American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175, which were traveling from Boston to Los Angeles, American Airlines Flight 77, which was travelling from Dulles to Los Angeles and United Airlines Flight 93 from Newark to San Francisco (Lee, 2002). According to reports, these air planes combined had a total of approximately 246 passengers, 19 hijackers and approximately 33 crew members, figures which are said to be extreme ly low based on the fact that the planes had a total carrying capacity of approximately 694 passengers. Some reports tend to suggest that there was a possibility that the booking process had been manipulated allegedly to reduce the number of casualties (Spiegel, 2002). At approximately 08.46 hrs local time, flight 11 was crashed into the 96th floor of the north tower, killing all those on board while flight 175 was crashed into the south tower at around 9:30 am, which was about 44 minutes after the first crash. Flight 77 on the other hand was crashed into pentagon at around 9:37 am while flight 93 clashed in Pennsylvania at around 10:30 am. Apparently, passengers aboard flight 93 wrestled with the hijackers in an attempt to seize the control of the flight as they had become aware of the crashes that took place earlier during the day but on realizing their mission had been compromised, the terrorists decided to crash the plane so to avoid losing its control and probably get arrested by the US government (Lee, 2002). The north tower of the world trade center succumbed to the crash and collapsed after approximately 1hour 20 min from the time of impact, while the south tower burned for approximately 1 hour before giving in and collapsing. The result of these attacks was that 2996 people lost

France increasingly eclipsing Spain as the favorite destination for UK Essay

France increasingly eclipsing Spain as the favorite destination for UK property buyers to invest - Essay Example If you thought the overseas property market is dying due to the recent financial upheavals, then think again. The most-recent and the biggest-ever study of overseas holiday homeowners has revealed that in spite of price falls ranging from ten percent in France to fifty percent in Spain, the number of Britons purchasing homes in other European countries has actually increased in course of the recent recession. In 2006 for instance, some 385,000 Britons owned holiday homes in other European countries, a figure that has since increased tremendously to as high as 430,000 by 2010 (Avella, 2004). Reflecting travel and tourism trends, investments in long haul holiday destinations like Caribbean, Asia, and Africa, which generally offers warm climates enable holiday home owners to benefit from longer visiting seasons and therefore, longer rental periods. Correspondingly, holiday homeowners have been taking advantage of the short-term letting in the year-round city-break market (Keller, & Bieger, 2008). However, compared to inland nation and urban locations, it is beach holiday destinations that seem to attract most second home investment. Motivated both by the letting potential and their own holiday plans, over half of UK overseas properties owners have bought homes in coastal areas as can be demonstrated by the graph below. Due to this changing environment in the property market in Europe, we are going to explore the attractiveness of a number of countries in terms of overseas property investment. In this case, we will focus on three European countries namely; France, Italy, and Spain. ... currently, we will be able to advice our clients on those countries (Italy, France, and Spain) on whether to continue holding on to their property investment or to sell them. Sample Framework: In coming up with appropriate information to help ascertain which among France, Italy, and Spain is a better property investment destination at the moment, we will be required to ask property investor in UK a number of a question on each of these countries and score them on a 5-point Likert Scale before using a Frequency distribution as a quantitative technique to draw a conclusion. Sample Size and Technique: The sample of this research will be a total of ten property investors residing in UK. The research will make use a number of sampling techniques namely; a. Random sampling; questionnaires will be issued at random to people who have properties in all or any of the three countries (Italy, France, and Spain), something that is expected to ensure that each property investor residing in the UK is accorded an equal chance of participating in the research. b. Convenient sampling; because of the difficulty that might be involved in identifying a UK citizen who is not only conversant but also up-to-date with overseas property investment, it might be a bit difficult to achieve randomness in this research. However, in order to bypass this handicap it therefore becomes necessary to issue a questionnaire or hold an interview with any UK property investor that the researcher bumps on, which is a measure that will help the researcher achieve randomness in this research. c. Purposive sampling; because of the complexity of some of the issues, reaction of some research questions will require the input of particular property investor. This therefore calls for an approach that will see to it