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/ 7 February 2006
Outrage in the Muslim world over the publication of cartoons of the prophet Muhammad stems both from resentment over perceived double standards and from political exploitation by some regimes, experts say. Muslims worldwide have been angered by the publication of the caricatures of Muhammad.
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/ 6 February 2006
The first person to receive a face transplant appeared before the media on Monday, declaring that she was poised to live a normal life after the historic operation nine weeks earlier. In a press conference before scores of journalists and television cameras, Isabelle Dinoire (38) said she was making good progress since the groundbreaking surgery.
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/ 2 February 2006
About 50 000 people on France’s Indian Ocean island of Reunion have been hit by an epidemic of a crippling mosquito-borne disease that has no known cure. Doctors have recorded 45 000 new cases of ”chikungunya” since mid-December, when the epidemic started to gather pace.
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/ 2 February 2006
World motorcycling champion Valentino Rossi has received backing in his pursuit of switching to Formula One from Michael Schumacher. Schumacher, like Rossi a seven-time world champion, believes the Italian who has been testing for Ferrari in Spain this week has what it takes to make it on the Grand Prix circuit.
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/ 1 February 2006
Tetsuya Wakuda went to Australia 24 years ago in search of kangaroos and koala bears. What he found instead were ocean trout and octopus, two of the local ingredients that inspired his ground-breaking cooking style. In recognition of his singular impact on Australian cuisine he was last week named personality of the year along with French chef Pierre Gagnaire and British wine writer Hugh Johnson.
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/ 1 February 2006
From the heights of the twisted external blue, red and green pipes which lace its futuristic glass facade, the bosses of the Pompidou Centre in Paris are eyeing new horizons to the East. In collaboration with other partners, the Pompidou is taking part in government-run competitions in Hong Kong and Singapore to build new museums of modern art.
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/ 26 January 2006
People who are nervous about public speaking should first have penetrative sex to ease the stress, although masturbation is unlikely to have the same effect, an unusual study says. A British psychologist compared the effect of different sexual activities on blood pressure when a person later undergoes a stressful experience.
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/ 25 January 2006
French police who spent two years trying to identify a woman who was murdered by a blow to the head were relieved to discover the reason their efforts were failing: the woman died half a millennium ago. The skeleton of a woman in her 30s was found during an exceptionally low tide in 2003 near the seaside Brittany town of Plouezoc’h.
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/ 25 January 2006
Twenty years ago, the loss of the United States shuttle Challenger dealt an enduring blow to confidence in manned space flight yet also helped open up a golden era of exploration by machine. As Nasa this Saturday mourns the 1986 disaster, the contrast in fortunes between human and unmanned missions in space has never seemed more acute.
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/ 25 January 2006
In one of France’s most exciting artistic discoveries of recent years, two paintings by the 16th century Italian artist Caravaggio have been found in a church in the central town of Loches. <i>Pilgrimage of Our Lord to Emmaus</i> and <i>Saint Thomas putting his finger on Christ’s wound</i> were discovered in 1999 under the organ loft in the church of Saint Anthony.
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/ 19 January 2006
President Jacques Chirac for the first time on Thursday raised the threat of a nuclear response to states that launch "terrorist" attacks against France. "That response could be conventional, it could also be of another nature," Chirac said in a clear reference to nuclear weapons during a visit to a French nuclear base in the northwestern region of Brittany.
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/ 17 January 2006
A December sales surge kept Airbus on top of the global passenger jet market in 2005, the company said on Tuesday — bettering Boeing’s orders and deliveries in a record year by both measures. But Airbus also conceded it had lost ground to Boeing in the market for larger, more profitable planes and said it plans to review its A340 jet in the wake of disappointing sales.
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/ 17 January 2006
Global oil demand could buck seasonal trends and remain strong in the second quarter of 2006, the International Energy Agency said on Tuesday, warning that new developments in the oil market could compensate for a traditional fall in demand at the end of the northern hemisphere winter.
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/ 16 January 2006
Cameroon football legend Roger Milla claimed that African football would be a lot healthier if there was more transparency over the finances and if administrators were held to account if money was missing. The 53-year-old said it was criminal that the players suffered while the men in suits got richer.
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/ 13 January 2006
Fed up with the daily grind? Eager for something different? A little glory, perhaps? Well, how about helping a quest to understand the life and death of stars? And how about the reward of making your name immortal? Scientists are looking for people with keen eyesight, lots of patience and spare time on their home computer to help them sift through the results from an extraordinary space mission.
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/ 13 January 2006
The far-flung jihadist movement, much like the United States-led world economy it seeks to disrupt, is undergoing a rapid globalisation, evolving into a nebulous and loosely knit network more dangerous than what remains of al-Qaeda, international security experts say.
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/ 12 January 2006
Norway is to build a ”doomsday vault” in a mountain close to the North Pole that will house a vast seed bank to ensure food supplies in the event of catastrophic climate change, nuclear war or rising sea levels. Built with Fort Knox-type security, the -million vault will be designed to hold around two-million seeds representing all known varieties of the world’s crops.
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/ 10 January 2006
A self-confessed French serial killer believed to have murdered at least seven young women over a 15-year period was extradited on Monday from Belgium to France to face trial. Journalists saw 63-year-old carpenter Michel Fourniret handed over to French authorities after arriving at the French-Belgian border in one of two grey unmarked Belgian police cars.
Fast-evolving technologies and shifting family dynamics are forcing a rethink on furniture designers. Armed with new and surprising materials such as concrete, these designers are aiming to restyle our homes. The explosion of the latest must-have gadgets such as flat-screen televisions and home cinemas has raised the tricky question of just where we should put them.
A 77-year-old Frenchman was in police custody in Paris on Thursday after he attacked the famous urinal that Dada pioneer Marcel Duchamp presented as an art work, police said. The man, who was not identified, went at what is arguably the world’s most famous bit of porcelain plumbing on Wednesday with a small hammer.
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/ 30 December 2005
The sporting year of 2006, packed with high-profile events dotted around the globe, will reignite fresh debates over best teams, greatest players. Brazil, England or Argentina for the World Cup? Bode Miller or Hermann Maier to snatch the Winter Olympics limelight?
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/ 27 December 2005
French wine exports may be falling, but there is a sparkling exception to the prevailing gloom, as sales of champagne fizz with health thanks to a growing thirst for it abroad, especially at this time of year. French drinkers remain the chief clients for the legendary tipple, but they are consuming less.
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/ 27 December 2005
Inhabitants of a small village in north-west France were on Monday debating how to spend a fortune left to it by one of its sons who made his money on the other side of the world. Jean Kerfers died earlier this year at Noumea in the Pacific Ocean archipelago of New Caledonia. He had left the village after World War II to work in Australia.
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/ 23 December 2005
Paris pastry chefs are outdoing each other this holiday season in reinventing the most kitsch of all French desserts, the Christmas yule log cake, dressing them in ivy, marshmallows and snowflakes. More traditional than turkey, more feted than foie gras, the buche — literally ”log” — has crowned the French Christmas table since the 19th century.
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/ 19 December 2005
French MPs this week are to examine a Bill that, if passed, would impose tough restrictions on digital copies of music, software and films, despite an outcry from consumer groups that fear ordinary internet users would be punished. The draft law is to be debated by the Lower House of Parliament on Tuesday and Wednesday.
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/ 18 December 2005
In a world first, German scientists say they have reconstructed a key sequence in the genome of the woolly mammoth, enabling them to show that the extinct beast’s closest modern relative is the Asian elephant. The researchers say they devised a new technique for the feat, teasing out DNA from just 200mg of bone found at a mammoths’ graveyard in the Siberian permafrost.
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/ 17 December 2005
The world championships in a rain-swept Helsinki marked a year during which a new generation of athletes usurped the older guard. The youngsters are best personified by the likeable trio of American sprinter Justin Gatlin, Ethiopian runner Kenenisa Bekele and Russian polevaulter Yelena Isinbayeva.
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/ 15 December 2005
The free internet encyclopedia Wikipedia.org, recently embroiled in controversy over a fake entry, comes close in accuracy to the paid-for Encyclopaedia Britannica in its articles on science, the British journal Nature says in a report published in this Thursday’s issue.
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/ 6 December 2005
Driven by an infernal spiral of shrinking markets and falling prices at home and abroad, Bordeaux’s wine producers are searching, sometimes desperately, for new ways to bring their fabled product to market. For many — including more than a few venerable chateaux — there is no margin of error: they must adapt or die.
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/ 5 December 2005
Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao was expected to announce an order for Airbus airliners worth about seven billion dollars in Paris on Monday, a day after a deal that could see some Airbus aircraft built in China. According to sources close to the negotiations, the order entails China buying over 100 A320 aircraft, the mid-range, 150-seat workhorse of the Airbus fleet.
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/ 30 November 2005
South Africa captain John Smit received a six-week ban in France on Tuesday for striking French counterpart Jerome Thion and fracturing his larynx in the 26-20 defeat last Saturday. Smit’s suspension — which he will not appeal against — will start on January 14 next year, the opening day of the new season in South Africa.
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/ 29 November 2005
Ronaldinho has bad news for defenders around the world — he thinks he can get better. He won the Golden Ball award on Monday, selected as European player of the year, and he says it’s just the beginning. ”I want to come back and win next year and the years after that,” Ronaldinho said.