Whatever the goal, the message of the militant takeover of the gas complex, in a country that has perhaps the world's toughest record for dealing with terrorists, seemed clear, at least to Algerian officials: the Islamist ministate in northern Mali, now under assault by French and Malian forces, has given a new boost to transnational terrorism.
Now, in one of the toughest environments on record for retailers, the company must contend with its heavy debt load.
It is no secret that times are tough for record stores, but bucking the gloom are the Rough Trade shops in London: both the original branch in Ladbroke Grove that opened in 1976 and Rough Trade East, the 500sq m (5,000sq ft) store just off Brick Lane.
The rise of illegal file sharing and the correspondingly steep worldwide decline in CD sales have made these tough times for record companies and recording artists alike.
The deal, which was first reported yesterday on The Wall Street Journal's Web site, is the latest example of how tough times for record labels and concert promoters have set off a free-for-all over the rights to the various revenue streams created when a musician becomes a star.
But Ferreira, lean and tough, was remarkably durable and set the men's record for consecutive Grand Slam singles tournaments played with 56.
Zamperini was the "Torrance Tornado," the tough kid turned track star who set a national high school record for running the mile.
Pedestrians are tougher to record, but they are also accounted for.
But if life in the small, legal digital space is tough for the mainstream record industry and content-distribution companies, it's even more precarious for those in classical music, whose audience has traditionally exhibited very different buying, listening and collecting habits to those in the pop world.
And while these first-week sales numbers are impressive in a tough climate for the traditional record business, they're numbers that reflect, at best, pent-up demand: proof of concept, if you will, that an artist's virtual fame can translate to fans spending real-world dollars on a product that they could easily steal (unlike a T-shirt).
