France

The children ensnared in the three-day hostage drama in North Ossetia will have probably suffered major psychological damage and some may never get over their ordeal completely, a French expert warned on Friday. "This case is of the gravest kind," he said. "The psychological problems will be major."

A French air-force fighter jet collided with an ultralight aircraft over central on France Monday, killing its two occupants, the Defence Ministry said in a statement. The Mirage 200 N was on a training flight over the city of Clermont-Ferrand when it hit the ultralight, a small, low-flying recreational plane resembling a paraglider.

The French government declared war on racism on Monday, one day after arsonists torched a Jewish centre in Paris and scrawled swastikas inside. Responsibility for the attack was claimed on the internet in the name of Jamaat Ansaw Al-Jihad al Islamiya (Group of the Holy Islamic War Supporters) ”in response to racist acts by Jews”.

Freak storms packing howling winds and heavy rain that lashed Britain and France this week were set to continue on Wednesday, after already causing significant destruction and the deaths of at least four people. Rescuers in France resumed searches for at least five swimmers caught by surprise by the sudden change in the weather.

Thousands of members of the Italian security forces and hundreds of ambulances were preparing to deploy on Rome’s streets at the weekend ahead of an al-Qaeda-linked group’s deadline for the government to pull its troops out of Iraq. The deadline was given in a statement published in an Arab newspaper on August 1.

The international community stepped up efforts this week to avert a humanitarian catastrophe in Sudan’s western Darfur region, with Washington threatening sanctions against Khartoum if it does not bring Arab militias to heel. ”It’s a catastrophe. People are dying at an increasing rate,” said United States Secretary of State Colin Powell.

The De Beers diamond group of South Africa, the world’s largest supplier of rough diamonds, has agreed to plead guilty to price-fixing charges and is now set to return to the United States market after an absence of 60 years, the Financial Times reported on Monday.

Belgian investigators on Thursday continued to question confessed French serial killer Michel Fourniret, who has already admitted to nine murders, over a number of other alleged crimes. French police are reportedly reinvestigating about 30 unsolved murders and Belgian authorities have reopened a dozen unsolved cases.

French police on Thursday discounted reports that a man arrested in Italy on suspicion of masterminding the March 11 bombings on four trains in Madrid was also planning an attack on the Paris underground rail network. An Italian news agency said Italian intelligence officials had intercepted a telephone conversation implying such attacks.

Energy-sector unions in France have started staging wildcat power cuts in a bid to stop the partial privatisation of the state-run electricity company EDF, prompting condemnation from the government concerned about widespread disruption. The outtages are ”not acceptable” and are ”extremely worrying”, a government spokesperson said.

Cheap digital technology is revolutionising the way news is gathered, disseminated and perceived — and in doing so, it is stoking a controversy. Over the past weeks, the world has reeled to the pictures of United States troops abusing Iraqi prisoners and the beheading of US contract worker Nicholas Berg.

The Cannes film festival, due to open next week, on Thursday braced for possible disruptions by angry French arts workers after they rejected a government plan to settle a row over unemployment benefits. French Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres urged workers not to wreak havoc on the glittering Riviera event.

Washington’s surprise policy shift on the Middle East was criticised on Thursday amid fears it would fuel further violence in the volatile region, as the outraged Palestinian leadership called for an emergency meeting of Islamic nations. ”This is a real violation of the road map,” Palestinian Premier Ahmed Qorei said.

Many foreign correspondents in Iraq are restricting themselves to Baghdad hotel rooms or are leaving the country because of the risk of being kidnapped or killed, media organisations said on Wednesday. The capture of at least five journalists among hostages believed to be in the hands of Iraqi insurgents has prompted the extra caution.

A French court has issued an international warrant for the arrest of Congo Republic Army Inspector General Norbert Dabira, accused of crimes against humanity, sources said on Thursday. The warrant is related to allegations of crimes against humanity and torture in the case of about 350 Congolese who went missing in the late 1990s in Brazzaville.

The population of Africa’s eastern lowland gorilla has slumped by more than 70% in the past decade, from 17 000 animals in 1994 to fewer than 5 000 today, a conservation group said on Tuesday. Virtually all of the world’s population of this highly endangered species lives in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

A passenger ferry from the Comoro Islands with 120 passengers and crew on board sank off the coast of Madagascar during Cyclone Gafilo last weekend, the French Foreign Ministry said on Friday. ”We confirm that the Samson ferry sank with at least 120 passengers, including two French nationals,” a spokesperson said.

Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide must quickly resign and hand over the reins to a power-sharing government if he is to stop his country’s rapid slide towards ”uncontrolled” bloodshed, France told a delegation of senior Haitian officials in Paris on Friday.

Gay marriage, likely to become a hot issue in this year’s United States presidential election, stirs little emotion in Europe although few countries have accepted it. Even The Netherlands, the first state to legalise homosexual civil marriage on April 1 2001, still restricts the ability of gays to adopt children.

Israeli President Moshe Katzav has called for Muslims around the world to end suicide bombings, but said that as long as ”terrorism” existed his country would have no option but to build its controversial barrier cutting off the Palestinian population. Katzav made the comments late on Monday in Paris.

The big worry in the bird-flu scare is that the virus, at present a low-scale killer, could mutate into a pathogen that could claim millions of lives. A mutated bird-flu virus erupted among humans in 1918, killing as many as 40-million people, and lesser pandemics occurred in 1957 and 1968.

A pair of German scientists have become early frontrunners for the 2004 ”Ig Nobels” — the annual awards handed out for eccentric research — thanks to their work in calculating the pooping power of penguins. These flightless birds are known to expel their faeces with great force.

The crash at Cotonou in West Africa of a Boeing 727 passenger plane belonging to a Guinea airline, piloted by a Libyan crew and without a proper flying licence, highlights problems of flying in Africa, experts say. The Christmas Day crash in the African state of Benin killed 113 people.

The past 12 months have been the most dramatic year in the history of space exploration since the 1969 Apollo lunar landing, throwing up events whose importance will resound for decades to come, including the catastrophic loss of the United States shuttle Columbia.

Air France cancelled several passenger flights to the United States over Christmas after US officials passed on ”credible” security threats involving passengers scheduled to fly to Los Angeles on flights from Paris. US officials have repeatedly warned that al-Qaeda terrorists may be eyeing Los Angeles International airport.