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/ 18 December 2007
Special edition high-end cognacs are common enough, but until now priced in a — relatively speaking — affordable bracket of anywhere from €3 000 to €33 000 ( 300 to 500) a bottle. Now Hennessy has gone the extra mile — while other companies are turning cognac into scent.
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/ 18 December 2007
Brazil and AC Milan’s Kaka has simply been the outstanding footballer of 2007 and proved that claim by winning the Fifa player of the year award on Monday to add to his European Footballer of the Year honour. The 25-year-old Kaka starred in AC Milan’s run to the European Champions League title, then the European Super Cup and the recent Club World Cup.
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/ 15 December 2007
South Africa’s World Cup winning fullback Percy Montgomery endured a painful European Cup introduction on Saturday when he limped out of Perpignan’s 23-6 win over London Irish. Montgomery suffered a dead-leg and was substituted on the hour mark but the Bok star insisted the injury was not connected to his knee problem.
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/ 15 December 2007
Snail’s egg caviar anyone? It may sound like a challenge to the taste buds, but the salty, pink-white delicacy could be gracing hundreds of French tables this Christmas. Caviar and champagne are a byword for the festive season in France, while a dozen "escargots" — or snails — cooked in garlic and parsley butter and served in or out of their grey-brown spiralled shells, are a much-loved staple.
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/ 13 December 2007
Glasgow Rangers’ Champions League campaign came to a heartbreaking end on Wednesday when a 3-0 defeat by Lyon meant they failed to complete a British sweep of clubs into the last 16. Rangers were attempting to join city rivals Celtic as well as Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea in the knockout stages.
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/ 13 December 2007
Libyan leader Moammar Gadaffi, who has proved an awkward guest for Nicolas Sarkozy, described his visit to France as "historic" and condemned terrorism after a second meeting with the president. Gadaffi told France 24 television in an interview he saw it as "an opening to have relations with Europe. It’s historic."
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/ 12 December 2007
French President Nicolas Sarkozy warned of a risk of a war with Iran if Israel considered its security seriously threatened by Tehran’s nuclear drive in a magazine interview to be published on Thursday. Sarkozy also said he was ready to travel to Tehran to discuss a civilian nuclear partnership if the country steps up its cooperation.
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/ 12 December 2007
Liverpool’s habit of leaving it to the last to qualify for the important stages of big tournaments was repeated on Tuesday as they inflicted a record 4-0 home defeat on Marseille to make the knockout stage of the Champions League. The 2005 Champions League winners’ victory probably also ensured that manager Rafael Benitez keeps his job.
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/ 12 December 2007
Libyan leader Moammar Gadaffi fought back against criticism of his rights record on Tuesday by accusing European countries of abusing African immigrants. ”They brought us here like cattle to do hard and dirty work, and then they throw us to live on the outskirts of towns and when we claim our rights, the police beat us,” he said.
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/ 11 December 2007
It’s crunch time in the Champions League on Wednesday as four teams attempt to secure the two remaining tickets into the knockout stage of Europe’s top club competition. With Barcelona already qualified and German champions Stuttgart out of contention, Rangers and Lyon are left to scrape it out at Ibrox for second place.
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/ 10 December 2007
Liverpool and Real Madrid, with an astonishing 13 European titles between them, face the humiliating prospect of being dumped out of the Champions League on Tuesday. Liverpool, who have lifted the continental crown five times, are in the most precarious position, having to travel to France where only a Group A win will suffice against 1993 winners Marseille.
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/ 6 December 2007
A parcel-bomb explosion in central Paris killed a legal secretary and injured five others on Thursday, investigators said. The blast went off on the fourth floor of a building housing lawyers’ offices in the capital’s fashionable eighth arrondissement, or district, staff said.
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/ 4 December 2007
Rugby Sevens, the abbreviated form of rugby union, is seeking to ride the wave of popularity in the sport generated by the highly successful World Cup in France. The three-day season-opening Dubai leg of the World Series Sevens circuit attracted 32 000 spectators a day, but importantly offered a showcase for many future international stars.
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/ 4 December 2007
The Paris boat show, extended this year to 15km of alleys with 1Â 200 stands, opened this weekend stressing measures by the boatbuilding industry to protect the environment. Yachting is a huge leisure activity in France, which is home to leading boatbuilder Beneteau.
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/ 2 December 2007
AC Milan’s Brazilian midfielder Kaka was named on Sunday as France Football‘s Player of the Year, winning the prestigious Ballon d’Or award. He succeeds Italy’s World Cup-winning captain and defender Fabio Cannavaro and comes two years after the last Brazilian winner of the trophy, Barcelona’s Ronaldinho.
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/ 2 December 2007
Activists and global leaders used World Aids Day on Saturday to warn against complacency in fighting the disease and called on governments to fill a multibillion-dollar funding gap. ”We have made tangible and remarkable progress on all these fronts. But we must do more,” United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said.
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/ 1 December 2007
Activists on Saturday sought to keep the battle against HIV in the public eye on World Aids Day in the face of growing complacency amid progress in treating and slowing the spread of the disease. The December 1 event is traditionally a time of grim stocktaking as Aids campaigners sound the alarm over the disease’s rampage through Africa.
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/ 28 November 2007
Widows long ago racked up a name for themselves in France’s bubbly Champagne region, where the most celebrated of all, Veuve (Widow) Cliquot, struck gold over 100 years ago by discovering how to turn the cloudy tipple sparkling clear. As Champagne, now a victim of its success faces a turning-point in history, a new widow joins the elite club of top tipplers — with a weighty agenda on her plate.
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/ 28 November 2007
French President Nicolas Sarkozy vowed on Wednesday that rioters who shot at police during two days of Paris suburban unrest would be severely punished, as police struggled to contain the violence. Back from a state visit to China, Sarkozy visited a police chief seriously injured in the country’s worst troubles since nationwide riots in 2005.
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/ 27 November 2007
Youths battled police for a second night in Paris suburbs, burning down government buildings and injuring more than 70 officers, forcing tighter security in the troubled towns. The riots lasted about six hours and continued into the early hours of Tuesday.
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/ 26 November 2007
A French judge ordered a manslaughter inquiry on Monday after the death of two teenagers in a crash with police sparked a night of rioting in a flashpoint Paris suburb. The violence was some of the worst since the nationwide riots in 2005, which erupted in similar circumstances, prompting President Nicolas Sarkozy to appeal for calm.
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/ 26 November 2007
Inter Milan, Barcelona, AS Roma and Rangers are on the brink of qualifying in Tuesday’s Champions League group matches though Arsenal and Manchester United have already reached the knockout stages. Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger intends to give some of his young Gunners another chance to impress in the Group H trip to Sevilla.
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/ 23 November 2007
A transport strike that crippled the French rail network for nine days petered out on Friday after workers voted to give talks on pension reform a chance. The number of trains on the rail system and the Paris underground approached near-normal levels for the first time since the dispute started on November 13.
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/ 22 November 2007
A nine-day transport strike that has crippled the French rail network appeared to be drawing to a close on Thursday as many local union committees voted to suspend their stoppage and give negotiations a chance. Both the nationwide railways and the Paris local transport network put more trains, metros and buses into service during the day.
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/ 21 November 2007
A French judge has placed former president Jacques Chirac under formal investigation for embezzlement of public funds during his time as mayor of Paris, Chirac’s lawyer Jean Veil said on Wednesday. Chirac, who lost his immunity from prosecution after stepping down as president in May, has consistently denied any wrongdoing.
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/ 21 November 2007
Widespread sabotage has damaged France’s high-speed rail network and caused huge delays to services already hit by an eight-day transport strike, a senior executive at the SNCF state railways said on Wednesday. The majority of railwaymen are now back at work ahead of the resumption of negotiations in their dispute over pension reform.
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/ 20 November 2007
Pressure from the street against French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s programme of reforms intensified on Tuesday as hundreds of thousands of state employees went on strike, joining a week-long stoppage by rail workers. Teachers, postal staff, nurses, air-traffic controllers, tax officials and other civil servants staged a one-day protest.
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/ 20 November 2007
The cast list for Euro 2008 will be completed on Wednesday with England, Northern Ireland and Portugal among those nations scrapping it out for one of the four remaining places. The treacherous business of qualifying began 15 months ago and now, after more than 3 000 minutes of play, it’s make or break time for England.
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/ 18 November 2007
Italy, Spain and France secured their Euro 2008 passages on Saturday but there was heartbreak for Scotland while England’s slim hopes received a major boost from Israel. After last month’s defeat in Moscow, England’s Euro 2008 fate was taken out of their hands but Israel’s 2-1 upset of Russia in Tel Aviv made them masters of their own destiny once again.
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/ 16 November 2007
Five people were injured when an Airbus A340-600 carrying out a ground engine test in France slammed into a wall, the company said on Friday in a press statement. Of those injured, three remained in hospital on Friday. Nine people were taken to hospital to be examined after the accident, which took place late on Thursday.
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/ 16 November 2007
An art lover who kissed a -million painting, leaving red lipstick smears on the canvas, was fined by a French court on Friday and ordered to carry out 100 hours of community work. Rindy Sam told the court that she was ”overcome with passion” when she saw the painting by United States artist Cy Twombly.
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/ 14 November 2007
Scientists said on Wednesday they had created the world’s first cloned embryo from a monkey, in work that could spur cloning of human cells for use in medical research. In a paper published online by the journal Nature, a United States-led team said it had created cloned embryos from rhesus macaques.