Late goals by Samuel Eto’o and substitute Juliano Belletti allowed Barcelona finally to overcome 10-man Arsenal 2-1 in a Champions League final of extraordinary drama at the Stade de France in Paris on Wednesday. Arsenal came close to pulling off what would have been one of the most unlikely triumphs in the tournament’s history.
Critics on Wednesday crucified Hollywood’s hotly awaited film of the runaway bestseller, The Da Vinci Code, ahead of its glittering premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. Several disappointed whistles were all that greeted the end of Ron Howard’s -million film, and, even worse, the 2 000-strong audience even burst out laughing at the movie’s key moment.
Justin Gatlin’s world-record time in the men’s 100m has been amended from 9,76 seconds to 9,77sec, equalling but not bettering the previous mark, world athletics governing body IAAF announced on Wednesday. Gatlin was timed at 9,76sec at an IAAF Grand Prix meeting in Doha, Qatar, on May 12, a mark which was one-hundredths of a second faster than the existing world record.
Arsene Wenger believes fate is propelling Arsenal towards victory over Barcelona in the most-eagerly anticipated Champions League final in years. He seen his young side defy the odds on their way to a Stade de France rendezvous with Barcelona, the one side in Europe who can reasonably claim to combine entertainment and efficiency as attractively as his own side.
Tom Hanks and the other stars of The Da Vinci Code were to arrive in Cannes on Tuesday ahead of an exclusive preview screening of the movie version of the bestselling novel by Dan Brown. This was to effectively raise the curtain on the Cannes film festival a day early this year.
Inspired by the human cannonball of circus fame, United States defence researchers have patented a device to fire police officers, firefighters or special forces to the top of a five-storey building in less than two seconds, New Scientist reported on Tuesday.
Two armed, masked men burst into a town hall north of Paris, taking 13 municipal councillors hostage and demanding tickets for Wednesday’s Champions League football final, officials said on Tuesday. ”As grotesque as it may seem, it appears that these people came with the intention of getting hold of places for the Champions League,” the police department said.
Ronaldinho will know where to celebrate if Barcelona wins the European Champions League title. There are not many nightclubs in Paris he hasn’t patronised. Ronaldinho spent a drama-packed two years in the French capital before leaving Paris Saint-Germain to join Barcelona for â,¬25-million after the 2002-2003 season.
A 280kg man had to be removed from his home by a crane because he could no longer leave the apartment through the door, an official said on Friday. In an operation that took three hours to complete and involved 12 firefighters, the man was taken out of his apartment through a window and transported by a van to Strasbourg’s University Hospital for treatment.
President Jacques Chirac was further drawn into a dirty tricks scandal rocking the French government on Thursday, with the publication of leaked evidence showing he knew of a secret enquiry into his political rival, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy.
Le Monde newspaper printed excerpts of hand-written notes kept by spy-master Philippe Rondot.
A remarkable meteorite the size of a beachball, found in heat-forged crystals in one of the world’s largest impact craters, may push back the boundaries of knowledge about space rocks. The 25cm fragment has been found in the Morokweng impact crater in north-west South Africa, where a massive object slammed into Earth around 145-million years ago.
After a humiliating exit from the 2002 World Cup, a disappointing Euro 2004, and a lacklustre qualifying campaign, France are not exactly surfing a wave of optimism as they head to Germany. Which is strange, because any side boasting the likes of Thierry Henry, Zinedine Zidane, David Trezeguet, Patrick Vieira and Claude Makelele would normally be considered strong favourites for the title.
Aspirin, red wine and green vegetables, already famous for helping the heart, may also delay the onset of age-related deafness and reduce hearing loss caused by powerful antibiotics and loud noise, suggests the New Scientist. Indirect evidence for this comes from research into the effect of antioxidants on hair cells, the delicate hairs of the inner ear that are essential for hearing.
Shares in the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS) jumped by 1,19% in early trades on Monday on an upgrade by Merrill Lynch and a report that the Russian airline Aeroflot might shift a major order to EADS’s aircraft manufacturing unit Airbus.
It may sound like science fiction, but the prospect that suicide bombers and hijackers could be made redundant by flying robots is a real one, according to experts. The technology for remote-controlled light aircraft is now highly advanced, widely available — and, experts say, virtually unstoppable.
Cheese is a serious business in France. General de Gaulle once famously remarked that it is impossible to govern a country that produces 246 different varieties of the stuff. If any product symbolises the visceral attachment so many French people have to their terroir, it is cheese.
Where once it was diamonds and other precious raw materials, now Europe is plundering Africa of the jewels in its footballing crown. Africa has long been a human resource pool that Europe has exploited, initially with the slave trade but now also in the football world.
They are among the most popular paintings in the world but for decades they were starved of natural light and displayed in a building likened to an oversized garden shed. Now, after six years of renovation work delayed by archaeological mishaps, Claude Monet’s giant Water Lilies are finally back on display at the Orangerie museum in Paris.
It had all the makings of a classic: the free-flowing football revolutionaries of Hungary against the flamboyant artistes from Brazil. Yet 90 minutes, three sendings off and several mass brawls later, and the 1954 World Cup quarterfinal between the two sides was jostling for top spot in the tournament’s hall of shame.
French philosopher, journalist, writer and academic Jean-Francois Revel, who died in hospital near Paris on Saturday night, was a brilliant nonconformist and bête noire of the French left. Revel, whose real name was Ricard, began his long and varied career as a teacher of philosophy in Tlemcen, Algeria.
Embarrassed by that tattoo with the name of that former lover? Or those characters in Chinese that you believed meant ”eternal love” but later found out to mean ”penguin hairball”? For those prepared to wait a little longer before going under the needle, help is on the way.
The French press were dreaming on Wednesday of a glorious World Cup send-off for Zinedine Zidane the day after he announced his decision to retire following this summer’s tournament. Leading sports daily L’Equipe dedicated five pages to the legendary 33-year-old Real Madrid playmaker’s comments on Tuesday confirming his decision to hang up his boots.
Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika was in Paris for a medical examination on Thursday, five months after undergoing stomach surgery in the French capital, French and Algerian officials said. Algerian officials said 69-year-old Bouteflika, who was operated on for a bleeding stomach ulcer at a Paris military hospital last November, was in the country for a routine consultation.
The French navy made a red-faced admission on Wednesday that it had lost a multimillion-dollar sonar navigation device after its cable ripped in stormy waters. Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said an investigation has been launched into how the $3,7-million device was mislaid.
Argentina clinched a home semifinal tie against Australia after narrowly beating reigning champions Croatia in the Davis Cup quarterfinals in Zagreb on Sunday. The tie went right to the wire but Juan Ignecio Chela kept his nerve over two tie-breaks to beat Sasa Tuksar 3-6, 6-4, 7-6 (8/6), 7-6 (7/5) in the deciding rubber.
Oil-company and Nigerian officials said on Friday they were optimistic that the country’s oil production would recover as soon as next week, following rebel attacks earlier this year that knocked out more than a quarter of the country’s oil flows.
The environment group Greenpeace on Thursday launched a campaign against McDonald’s, accusing the United States restaurant chain of abetting the destruction of the Brazilian rainforest by buying meat raised from Amazonian soya. Greenpeace protestors staged colourful but peaceful demonstrations at several McDonald’s restaurants in Britain and Germany.
The European Parliament called on Thursday for the creation of a European Union blacklist of countries where corruption is rife, to help the EU make decisions on providing development aid. In a report by Dutch Member of European Parliament Margrietus Van den Berg, backed by the 732-seat EU assembly, it also demanded more transparency in the massive development budget of the EU.
Arsenal progressed serenely into the Champions League semifinals for the first time in their history on Wednesday with a thoroughly professional performance against Italian giants Juventus. The Gunners drew 0-0 — winning 2-0 on aggregate — against a less-than-inspired Juventus outfit, whose appalling disciplinary record in the quarterfinal saw a third player sent off in Pavel Nedved.
Irish playwright Samuel Beckett was a man who weighed his words, a solitary, lonely figure obsessed by silence, whose works struggled to express the absurdity of life. One hundred years after his birth, his tragicomic plays stalked by a host of unforgettable, often grotesque, characters remain among the most important of 20th century theatre.
This year is likely to be another bad one for hurricanes, according to an early forecast issued on Wednesday by a scientific team that last year accurately predicted the 2005 storm season would be major. Tropical Storm Risk (TSR) said there was an 80% probability that 2006 would be in the top one-third of the most active seasons for Atlantic tropical storms in the record books.
The French Open will offer equal prize money to the men’s and women’s champions for the first time. Each champion will receive â,¬940 000 (,13-million), the French Tennis Federation said on Monday. ”We’re following the evolution of tennis in general a little bit,” said Stephane Simean, the federation official in charge of setting the prizes.