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/ 7 April 2008

Somali officials back assault on pirates

Somali officials on Monday urged tough action against pirates holding a French yacht after an elite French army unit was placed on standby to intervene if negotiations failed. The local governor in Somalia’s breakaway northern region of Puntland, Musa Ghelle Yusuf, said he would be "happy … to see the pirates killed".

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/ 29 February 2008

France to review Africa defence pacts

France will renegotiate all its defence accords with African countries, President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Thursday in a move that could scale back France’s military support for some of its closest allies. France has defence cooperation agreements with several former colonies under which its forces provide varying degrees of military assistance.

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/ 4 February 2008

As evacuees flee, Paris puts role in Chad in play

Resolutions at the United Nations or African Union could alter the mission of French troops in Chad, France’s Foreign Minister said on Monday as a first planeload of evacuees landed at a Paris airport. Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and Defence Minister Herve Morin said French forces secured Chad’s airbases and were protecting French and foreign civilians.

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/ 29 October 2007

France scrambles to rein in Chad ‘adoption’ scandal

Paris scrambled on Monday to contain a row sparked by a French charity’s bid to airlift more than 100 children out of Chad, a key ally for Europe’s peacekeeping strategy in Sudan’s war-ravaged Darfur region. Chad President Idriss Déby Itno reacted furiously to the botched operation, even suggesting the charity planned to sell the children to paedophiles.

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/ 27 September 2007

DRC hopes hi-tech ID cards will tame unruly army

Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) hopes a new biometric identity card (ID) scheme backed by the European Union can help overhaul its undisciplined armed forces, branded by campaigners as the central African state’s worst rights abuser. After decades as a tool of repression under former leader Mobutu Sese Seko and a devastating 1998 to 2003 war, DRC’s army is bloated, unmanageable and corrupt.

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/ 23 September 2007

French mime artist Marcel Marceau dies

The world’s best-known mime artist, Marcel Marceau, has died aged 84, French Prime Minister Francois Fillon’s office said on Sunday. For decades, Marceau epitomised his silent art, eliciting laughter and tears from audiences around the globe. His comic and tragic sketches appeal on a universal level.