Click here to print
Recent Press Releases (U.S. and international) for magazine issues and staff changes may be found below. Please note that for many issues there exists only a highlights sheet, while for others there may also be a full press release. The cover of FORTUNE's current issue is pictured at right. Please contact the appropriate communications staff member with any questions.
|
Highlights of the August 6, 2007 Issue of FORTUNE
COVER STORY: AMERICA'S NUKE REVIVAL, by David Whitford, page 42 It may surprise you to know that nuclear power has stayed with us all these years, stubbornly clinging to about a 20% share of U.S. electricity generation — about the same as natural gas but lagging far behind coal (50%). And while no new plants have come online since 1996 (construction began on that one in 1973), suddenly we're hearing lots of talk about a nuclear revival — or "renaissance," as the boosters call it. In June, Dale Klein, chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), told a fired-up gathering of industry leaders in Atlanta that he's expecting applications for 27 new reactors over the next two years. "There is no serious opposition," says Tony Earley, CEO of Detroit's DTE Energy. "This train is moving." A lot of the push is coming from the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which is stuffed with generous subsidies for nuclear power and other alternatives to fossil fuels. Among them: billions of dollars in tax credits, loan guarantees, and insurance to cover licensing delays. Big corporations know which way the political wind is blowing. Probably the earliest a new reactor could come online in the U.S. is 2015, and even that seems optimistic. There is plenty of opposition, despite what Earley says. And anything could happen over the next decade or so to knock the train off its track. This developing story has continental sweep, a huge cast of characters and multiple moving parts. FORTUNE takes a road trip into America's nuclear future. LONDON VS. NEW YORK SMACK-DOWN, by Peter Gumbel, page 36 The City, London's financial district, is in the midst of its biggest redevelopment boom since the Blitz, one result of the $100 billion in foreign investment pouring into the British capital annually. The money is coming from the Middle East, Russia, India, China, and the U.S., and it's padding wallets, filling restaurants, pushing real estate prices through the roof, and fueling a feeling of self-confidence that spreads from coffee shops to Mansion House. New York is hardly in a Dark Age. But by comparison it seems stricken with self-doubt. Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Senator Charles Schumer commissioned a McKinsey report earlier this year that highlighted weaknesses in the city's position as a financial center, including too much litigation and heavy-handed regulation, and warned that New York will lose its global preeminence in a decade if they are not addressed. There's no shortage of evidence to underpin the contrasting moods in the two cities. The view from the British capital is that while New York has been riding the now faltering U.S. economy, London is riding an even bigger tiger, the booming global economy. So is this triumphalism justified? FORTUNE digs deeper to find out which city is the real financial capital of the world. THE MYTUNES REVOLUTION, by Hiram Henriquez and John Tomanio, page 59 Thousands of songs in your pocket might seem like nothing now, but it's taken more than four decades of breakthroughs in audio technology to get there. FORTUNE takes a look at the evolution of the portable playlist — and how it forever changed the way we listen to music — through the latest in a series of graphic takes on business stories. BEND IT LIKE CORNING, by Stephanie N. Mehta, page 69 Like any gigantic telecommunications company, Verizon is in love with optical fiber. It likes that the super-skinny tubes of glass are lightweight and durable. It appreciates that fiber can carry phone calls over long distances without needing lots of gear to keep the signals moving along. But no love affair is perfect, and Verizon has one big quibble with those wonderful glass filaments: They can't be bent the way copper can. Enter the brainiacs at Corning, a company best known to consumers for its sturdy cookware, a division it sold in 1998, and its Pyrex lab glass. Corning also happens to be the world's largest manufacturer of optical fiber (it is glass, after all), and when executives learned that Verizon was planning to spend billions on the stuff, they sprang into problem-solving mode. This year Corning completed work on a breakthrough fiber it is announcing this summer. The company gave FORTUNE an exclusive look at the technology, which has the potential to eliminate many of the challenges that have slowed fiber deployments worldwide. WHY WAL-MART CAN'T FIND HAPPINESS IN JAPAN, by William J. Holstein, page 73 The Seiyu superstore 90 minutes north of downtown Tokyo has all the hallmarks of true cultural fusion. Wal-Mart, which took control of Seiyu in 2005, built the store next to the train station at Hitachino-Ushiku, a "bed town" from which salarymen commute to Tokyo. It is a critical part of the U.S. retailer's attempt to achieve profitability in the Japanese market. But one store does not a success story make. The reality is that Wal-Mart is battling to survive in Japan, the world's second-largest economy, with a population of 127 million and one of the highest per capita incomes in the world. It's a battle that Wal-Mart cannot afford to lose because of the imperative to avoid overreliance on a U.S. market that may be reaching saturation. If Wal-Mart walks away from Japan, where it has invested more than $1 billion in a 51% stake in Seiyu and in bringing its own distribution and computer systems, the company's hopes of creating a credible international strategy will take a serious blow. Wal-Mart's foray into Japan is under pressure on two fronts, one Japanese and the other American. FORTUNE investigates to find out if Wal-Mart can stay the course. HARD NEWS, by Marc Gunther, page 80 Today a small army of bloggers, podcasters, chatroom hosts, radio voices, and TV talking heads, as well as a few old-fashioned ink-stained wretches, populates the newsroom at the 131-year-old Washington Post. They understand that Donald E. Graham, the chairman and CEO of the Washington Post Co., is hurrying the paper into the digital future. New avenues: That's the story of the newspaper business right now. Alarmed by declining circulation, advertising, and profits, America's newspaper publishers — as hidebound a collection of businesspeople as you can find — are thrashing about to see whether they can separate the news from the paper and still make money. And they're going way beyond the headlines. Can newspaper publishers turn the Internet from a threat into an opportunity — as Rupert Murdoch wants to do with his $5 billion bid to buy Dow Jones, owner of the Wall Street Journal? It's a long shot, but it's their only hope. Their plight is something not often seen in the business: Newspapers remain important institutions, providing a valuable public service, but their business model is slowly, or maybe not so slowly, going away. FORTUNE uncovers why the Washington Post, a first-class newspaper that dominates its local market, has the best shot of any at reinventing journalism for the Internet. DEPARTMENTS FIRST: News Corp's Trouble in Aisle 3 A little-known unit in Rupert Murdoch's empire is facing some nasty allegations. A Texas Outfit in Sudan What's an American oilfield-services firm doing in a country that's been under U.S. sanctions since 1997? COLUMNS: Value Driven Google's business is a dynamo, but its stock is a pipe dream. The Deal More sugar for Schwarzman: Blackstone's IPO was even sweeter for its founders than you thought. Questions for Jim Buckmaster The Craigslist CEO responds to queries from FORTUNE readers. INVESTING: Why Banks Beat Bonds These stocks offer an appealing combination of juicy yields and growth potential — plus they're cheap! BUSINESS LIFE: Joy Ride With a Genius Racing idol Michael Schumacher takes FORTUNE columnist, Sue Zesiger Callaway, out for the ride of her life. Life After Work The gentleman farmer.
# # #
CONTACT: Katy Reitz
Erin Clinton
|