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/ 12 September 2007
Gorillas, China’s baiji dolphin, Asian vultures and Pacific corals on Wednesday joined the list of species hurtling to oblivion as the World Conservation Union (IUCN) warned of a fast-track ”global extinction crisis”. In an update of its famous Red List of biodiversity, the Swiss-based IUCN said it had identified 41 415 species at threat.
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/ 12 September 2007
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South Africa flanker Schalk Burger will not play at this year’s World Cup again unless his team reach the semifinals. Burger was banned for four matches at a disciplinary hearing that ran into the early hours of Wednesday morning after he was found guilty of a dangerous tackle on Samoa scrumhalf Junior Polu in South Africa’s 59-7 victory on Sunday.
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/ 11 September 2007
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England captain Phil Vickery was suspended for two matches on Tuesday for tripping United States centre Paul Emerick. It is a ban that rules the tighthead prop out of the world champions’ key Pool A clash against South Africa in Paris on Friday and the September 22 fixture with Samoa in Nantes.
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/ 11 September 2007
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South Africa coach Jake White kept England guessing by delaying naming his team for their World Cup Pool A match at the Stade de France on Friday. White announced a 22-man squad on Tuesday and said he would reveal his starting team only 48 hours before kick-off as tournament rules allow.
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/ 11 September 2007
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Percy Montgomery almost sounds like he should have been sitting with King Arthur and his knights but instead the fullback will be chasing his own Holy Grail of the Rugby World Cup. Montgomery is the national side’s record points scorer with 797 and if selected for Friday’s match will join Joost van der Westhuizen as the leading cap winner with 89.
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/ 11 September 2007
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South Africa flanker Schalk Burger was cited on Tuesday for a high tackle on Samoa scrumhalf Junior Polu in his team’s World Cup Pool A 59-7 victory on Sunday. If Burger is suspended he will miss the Springboks’ pivotal group clash against defending champions England at the Stade de France on Friday evening.
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/ 10 September 2007
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South Africa will beat world champions England in their crucial World Cup clash on Friday, Springbok coach Jake White claimed after his side walloped Samoa 59-7. White said he wasn’t basing his optimism on the poor performance of England in their 28-10 win over the United States or the 1995 world champions’ comprehensive defeat of Samoa, but on more solid factors.
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/ 9 September 2007
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Veteran South Africa full-back Percy Montgomery made up for missing the 2003 World Cup through suspension as he inspired his side to a 59-7 victory over a valiant Samoa in Paris on Sunday in their World Cup clash at the Parc des Princes as he scored 29 points.
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/ 9 September 2007
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New Zealand and Australia scored a combined total of 167 points and 24 tries as the southern hemisphere giants ruthlessly exposed the huge gap in international rugby at the World Cup on Saturday. The All Blacks swept aside Italy, who had beaten both Wales and Scotland in the Six Nations this year, 76-14 while Australia crushed Japan 91-3.
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/ 9 September 2007
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South Africa unleash their massive forward pack against a robust Samoa team in the second Rugby World Cup Pool B match on Sunday. Springbok coach Jake White is worried about the power of the Pacific Islanders having an impact on his team’s chances of beating 2003 world champion England in the crucial Group A match on Friday.
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/ 8 September 2007
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An unforgiving French media gave no quarter in its appraisal of a ”catastrophic” France team after the World Cup hosts’ shock defeat to Argentina here on Friday. France lost the tournament’s opening match 17-12 to the Pumas — a result which has severely dented their chances of even reaching the final four of the competition.
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/ 8 September 2007
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South Africa test their World Cup credentials against the rugged Samoans on Sunday in Paris in a warm-up for their Pool A decider against defending champions England next Friday. The Springboks, who were knocked out in the quarterfinals in 2003, have had a relatively smooth preparation compared to their own rocky standards and are regarded as one of few sides capable of stopping the All Blacks.
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/ 7 September 2007
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The media boycott of the Rugby World Cup was lifted on Friday, just 90 minutes before the first match kicked-off, after an agreement was reached between the International Rugby Board and the media coalition, the management of Agence France-Presse announced.
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/ 7 September 2007
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Rugby World Cup organisers turned down requests on Thursday from the French government and the European Union to return to negotiations and diffuse a media row which threatens coverage of the tournament opening on Friday. The International Rugby Board (IRB) and its subsidiary RWC declined all requests to resume negotiations.
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/ 6 September 2007
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Leading international news agencies on Thursday launched a boycott of the 2007 Rugby World Cup, plunging the event into controversy on the eve of its opening game. Agence France-Presse (AFP), Reuters, the Associated Press, Getty Pictures and the German agency, dpa, said no text, photo or video news on the World Cup would be sent for 24 hours.
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/ 5 September 2007
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Springbok coach Jake White pledged on Wednesday that his side will launch an all-out assault on Samoa when they kick off their World Cup campaign on Sunday. ”We will play against Samoa with the best team that we can put on the pitch,” said White ahead of the Paris Pool A encounter.
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/ 5 September 2007
Former French president Jacques Chirac on Wednesday discussed his plans to set up a foundation with Nelson Mandela, who is on a private visit to France to raise funds for his charity institutes. Chirac is, in the coming months, to launch a foundation devoted to the environment and promoting understanding among cultures.
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/ 5 September 2007
Former South African president Nelson Mandela, in Paris on a private visit, met French President Nicolas Sarkozy for dinner at the Élysée Palace on Tuesday, Sarkozy’s spokesperson said. Sarkozy presented Mandela with a book of photographs from an early campaign of civil disobedience in 1952.
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/ 4 September 2007
Gaz de France and Suez on Monday agreed to create the world’s third-largest listed power and gas company after President Nicolas Sarkozy stepped in to prevent the 18-month old deal from collapsing. The politically charged ”merger of equals”, delayed by disputes over valuation and control, will be on the basis of 21 Gaz de France shares for 22 Suez shares.
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/ 3 September 2007
Nelson Mandela arrived in Paris on Monday for a three-day visit, and was greeted at the airport by French President Nicolas Sarkozy. The 89-year-old Mandela, moving with difficulty, climbed off the airplane at Orly Airport with the help of a white cane and was met by Sarkozy and Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner.
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/ 3 September 2007
Gaz de France and Suez on Monday cleared the way to the creation of Europe’s third-largest power company after their boards approved the revised terms of a politically charged merger plan. The companies’ boards met late on Sunday to approve the deal, hammered out in government offices over the weekend.
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There’s no question that great athletes take their sports to the level of art. But as the French host the Rugby World Cup, they’re pushing that concept a step further by bringing rugby into an art museum. It’s a genteel Parisian touch to a sport more often associated with muscle, body-crunching tackles.
Club rugby in the northern hemisphere has long been derided as the poor cousin in world rugby. But the post-World Cup exodus of a raft of top-flight internationals from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa will help confound that long-standing belief.
Former French Prime Minister Raymond Barre, an economist who also served as a European commissioner, died on August 25, his family said. He was 83. Barre was plucked from the obscurity of being a backroom technocrat and thrust into frontline politics when then president Valery Giscard d’Estaing made him prime minister in August 1976, dubbing him ”France’s best economist”.
More than two million tickets have been sold for the Rugby World Cup, which kicks off on September 7, the organising committee of rugby’s showpiece four-yearly event said on Wednesday. "We have sold 2,05-million tickets and it’s not finished since we’re still shifting about 1Â 500 a day," said committee head Bernard Lapasset.
The Duke of Wellington may have said that the Battle of Waterloo was won on the fields of Eton College, but more surely the game of rugby was founded on the fields of another British public rugby school appropriately called Rugby. And who is to blame for that? An Englishman called William Webb Ellis, who — horrors of horrors for the English — is buried in the town of Menton in the south of France.
Nine years after millions took to the streets of the capital to celebrate victory amid the euphoria of one of the most successful Soccer World Cup tournaments ever, the rugby equivalent is failing to ignite similar enthusiasm among the French. While the multi-ethnic population living in the shadow of Stade de France could identify with the 1998 soccer team, rugby is seen as an elitist sport.
French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said on Monday that the worst of the United States mortgage crisis was over even if some US investment houses and funds could still be in trouble. Stock exchanges worldwide were sent reeling this month as US borrowers with risky credit histories — the so-called subprime sector — defaulted on their mortgage repayments.
World leaders on Thursday insisted that the United States credit crunch would not cause an economic crisis but stock markets across the world plummeted yet again as investors remained unconvinced. US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson admitted that American growth will be hit but said the economy would weather the storm.
Nicolas Sarkozy’s hectic 100 first days in power have earned him the nickname of "hyperpresident", but can France’s new leader keep up the dizzying pace to deliver his promised reforms? For three months, France’s new-look president has grabbed the spotlight: jetting to meet world leaders, micro-managing his government team or coaching the French rugby side.
United States home-loan woes caused more turbulence on world markets on Friday despite the tens of billions of dollars released by central banks to stop the problem turning into a global economic crisis. London’s FTSE stock market closed a whopping 3,71% lower and European and Asian shares slumped after losses tied to US subprime mortgages spread.
Libya has reached a multimillion-dollar deal to buy anti-tank missiles and radio systems from European aerospace giant EADS in what would be the first such purchase since an arms embargo was lifted on Tripoli in 2004. French Defence Minister Herve Morin confirmed on Friday that a letter of intent had been signed.