Those who say eclipses herald history-shaping events will find support for their superstition when, on Friday, the sun will be briefly plunged into darkness on the day of Pope John Paul II’s funeral. Astronomers, though, say the eclipse is simply part of a ballet in celestial physics between the sun, Earth and moon.
The tourists streaming through the Louvre in quest of the Mona Lisa will look in vain this coming Monday in the pink room, where she has traditionally been housed. Leonardo da Vinci’s portrait, also known as La Giaconda, has a new home in the renovated Salle des Etats, about 150m away in the famous Paris museum.
Any visitor to France who thinks the country’s drivers are pushy, rude and prone to parking wherever their cars might conceivably fit had confirmation from an unlikely source this week — the drivers themselves. According to a recent survey, six out of 10 French drivers believe their fellow motorists are impolite and aggressive behind the wheel.
Sophie Guilbaud not only holds down a decent job, she also finds time to help run her son’s nursery and treat herself to regular weekdays of shopping, movies and art shows. The secret to her balancing act is a remarkable piece of social engineering — France’s 35-hour working week.
Newcastle manager Graeme Souness was cautiously optimistic about Wednesday’s Uefa Cup match at home to Olympiakos, especially as his side have not lost a single match in Europe this season. Following the 3-1, last 16, first-leg win, Souness said: ”I have been in professional football 37 years and nothing is over until it is over.”
Got a problem with burglars? Try leaving an apple, a carrot or a piece of pizza out for them. Police say thieves often cannot resist tucking into a snack after breaking into a home, and traces of saliva on the food remains can yield a telltale signature of the criminal’s DNA.
The English Premier League will have two flag-carriers in the quarterfinals of the Champions League after Liverpool coasted to a 3-1 victory over Bayer Leverkusen in their knockout round second-leg match on Wednesday. But another English Premier League side, Arsenal, failed to overcome a 3-1 away defeat to former winners Bayern Munich in Germany.
A controversial header late in the second half by Chelsea captain John Terry gave the Premiership leaders a remarkable 4-2 win over Barcelona in their Champions League first knockout-round clash on Tuesday. Elsewhere, the dream of Sir Alex Ferguson to give Manchester United a second Champions League title under his stewardship ended — perhaps for good.
Parisians are confident of seducing the 13-strong International Olympic Committee evaluation commission who arrived in Paris on Tuesday to evaluate the French capital’s bid to host the 2012 Olympics, Sports Minister Jean-Francois Lamour said.
Arsenal will need to pull off a first-class performance, as Monaco and Deportivo la Coruna did last season, to avoid elimination from the European Champions League by Bayern Munich on Wednesday. Liverpool, however, have a great chance of reaching the quarterfinals of the competition after beating Bayern’s Bundesliga rivals Bayer Leverkusen.
A Swiss musician sees colours when she hears music, and experiences tastes ranging from sour and bitter to low-fat cream and mown grass, astounded scientists say. Zurich University neuropsychologists were so intrigued by the case of ES — whose full name has been withheld — that they recruited her for a year-long inquiry.
The Burmese python is able to boost the size of its heart chambers by half in order to help it digest a big meal, thanks to a remarkable protein that expands cardiac muscle, researchers say. The reptile’s "extraordinarily rapid" increase in heart size enables it to cope with a 40-fold rise in metabolic rate during digestion.
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/ 28 February 2005
As a call to arms, few national hymns are as bloody as La Marseillaise. Originally entitled the War Song of the Army of the Rhine, it exhorts citizens of France to take up arms: ”Form in batallions, March, march! Let impure blood water our furrows!” Now, after a 10-year battle, French schoolchildren are to be made to learn the words after a vote by French MPs.
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/ 24 February 2005
The controversial sending-off of Chelsea striker Didier Drogba saw Barcelona come back from 1-0 down to beat the English Premiership leaders 2-1 in their Champions League first knockout round first-leg clash on Wednesday. Chelsea’s defeat was somewhat softened by the fact they have an away goal, whereas Manchester United lost 1-0 to AC Milan at Old Trafford.
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/ 23 February 2005
The French telecommunications equipment maker Alcatel and United States software giant Microsoft on Tuesday announced a partership to develop software to deliver internet-based television services to broadband operators worldwide. The tie-up will also promote innovations in ADSL or cable-based television platforms.
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/ 23 February 2005
French prosecutors are taking action against the youngest son of the Libyan leader Moammar Gadaffi, who is alleged to have beaten a pregnant woman during a rampage in a Paris hotel. Motassim Bilal Gadaffi, known as Hannibal, will be summonsed for questioning about the alleged attack, during which he is also said to have scuffled with police and brandished a gun.
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/ 18 February 2005
Dutch duo Boudewijn Zenden and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink scored the goals to give Middlesbrough a 2-2 draw at GAK in Graz on Thursday and put the English side in sight of the last 16 of the Uefa Cup. The Austrians were playing their first match in two months because of their winter break.
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/ 16 February 2005
She was "Big Meg", the largest of all spiders that ever strode the Earth. The 300-million-year-old fossil was so famous that plaster casts of her body are on display in numerous museums and copies can be purchased over the internet for hundreds of dollars apiece.
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/ 11 February 2005
Former champion Amelie Mauresmo, the second seed, ousted fellow Frenchwoman Mary Pierce to advance to the quarterfinals of the 000 Paris Indoor Open on Thursday. Mauresmo, the 2001 champion, won 6-4, 6-3 in a tight second-round match against the unseeded Pierce, the 1998 winner.
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/ 10 February 2005
Top seed Serena Williams smashed a racquet on her way to a quarterfinal berth at the 000 Paris Indoor Open on Wednesday. Playing in her first tournament since winning a second Australian Open title in Melbourne last month, the 23-year-old American claimed a 6-3, 6-2 victory over French wildcard entry Stephanie Cohen-Aloro.
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/ 10 February 2005
A dish of pasta in an ashtray? Baguettes displayed in a vase? The old traditions of setting a table are flying out the window as amateur chefs get creative in their homes. And it seems, according to a new French study, that anything goes. Well almost.
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/ 3 February 2005
Formula-one chiefs are stepping up their campaign to slash escalating costs with cutbacks in testing as well as reducing the mini army of people on team duty at grand-prix weekends being proposed. The governing body of the sport, the FIA, believes significant savings can be found by restrictions on testing and by reverting to just one tyre supplier.
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/ 25 January 2005
Only three tournaments into the 2005 United States PGA season and already modern golf’s ”big three” — Tiger Woods, Vijay Singh and Ernie Els — have proved just how far ahead of the rest of the best they are. All three have already banked more than -million in earnings, with Woods at the top of the money list on 214 000.
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/ 16 January 2005
To a tamer motorist, the haze of exhaust fumes rising amid a chorus of klaxons on the junction of Rue de Varenne and Rue Bourgogne would denote impossible gridlock. But plumber Manu Mota always finds a way. ”There are plenty of places to park. It’s just that they are not legal,” announces the 57-year-old plumber.
Libya has ordered a -million (R73-million) telescope from France, a facility that will give it the finest astronomical views in North Africa, the French magazine Ciel et Espace (Sky and Space) reported on Tuesday. The telescope was ordered by Libyan leader Moammar Gadaffi, who has a passionate interest in astronomy.
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/ 22 December 2004
The French press said on Wednesday that the release of journalists Christian Chesnot and George Malbrunot after four months of captivity in Iraq is surrounded by mystery and murky politics. But the sense of joy and relief that swept the country on the news of the release was reflected in bold headlines — ”Free!” and ”At last!”.
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/ 20 December 2004
A butcher from suburban Bordeaux in south-western France is the sole winner of Europe’s latest lottery jackpot and is to pocket the hefty sum of €26,2-million (about R200-million), French lottery officials said on Sunday. It was the second-highest EuroMillions jackpot in France following May’s record of €33,8-million.
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/ 18 December 2004
Six people died on Friday when hurricane-strength winds lashed Paris and large areas of northern and eastern France, cutting power to hundreds of thousands of homes and disrupting air, rail and road traffic. Gusts of up to 130kph blew through the region, prompting the national weather service to issue its second-highest alert.
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/ 14 December 2004
There is the Scarsdale diet … the Atkins diet … and now: the diet of pig whipworms. The parasite known as Trichuris suis has been given the okay in an unconventional experiment to tackle inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Twenty-nine people with a mild form of an IBD were asked to swallow 2 500 worm eggs every three weeks for six months.
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/ 13 December 2004
Women who suspect that the lean, muscled divorcee they married lets himself go as soon the ring is on his finger have been given scientific backing. A study of nearly 40 000 American men aged between 40 and 75 found that men who remarry put on weight and exercise less.
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/ 10 December 2004
Holiday on ice takes on new meaning when you’re high above the rooftops of Paris doing figure eights inside the Eiffel Tower. During the 115 years of the Eiffel Tower’s existence, it has added refreshment stands, trinket shops and fancy restaurants — but nothing quite matches the skating rink in the sky that opened to the public on Friday.
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/ 1 December 2004
As the world focused on the murderous advance of Aids on Wednesday with pledges, appeals, processions and concerts, the day was stamped by China’s warnings about its exposure to the epidemic. In a World Aids Day message to China’s 1,3 billion people, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao called for ”still greater, substantial efforts” to stir public awareness about Aids.