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.
Sudan warns Blair
The enduring mystery surrounding the demise of Napoleon Bonaparte has just been given another twist. The official verdict, supported by an autopsy, was that l’Empereur died of stomach cancer on May 5, 1821, at the age of 51, while in exile on Britain’s South Atlantic island colony of St Helena.
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.
Microsoft has slashed its prices for Paris City Hall by more than half as the French capital prepares for a major computer systems upgrade and weighs a possible switch to free open source software. ”Microsoft has agreed to cut its prices to the suppliers who work with us,” a Paris official said on Thursday.
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.
United States computer company Apple is to launch a European version of its online music download service iTunes next week in a move likely to spur sales of its popular iPod MP3 player and hit struggling competitors, technology and other publications reported.
French trade union activists claimed responsibility for surprise power outages on Monday that delayed hundreds of thousands of rail passengers in Paris. They warned of more protests over plans for the partial privatisation of the country’s utilities. The outages began at 3.30am local time on Monday morning.
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.
Developing countries grouped in the G20 said on Thursday that the European Union and United States should do more to reduce agricultural subsidies but noted positive signs in talks on global trade liberalisation. On Friday, 28 ministers from World Trade Organisation (WTO) member countries are to try and jump start trade talks that broke down at a conference in Cancun, Mexico in September.
French wine producers are planning to create a premier league of wines as part of revolutionary changes designed to haul the country’s most emblematic industry out of its deepest crisis in nearly 150 years. The elite wines will be given the mark AOCE (appellation d’origine controlee), for AOC d’excellence.
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.
Reporters Without Borders said Monday that journalists in Africa faced worsening working conditions in 2003 and warned that the continent’s independent media were in the process of disappearing in several countries. ”2003 was not a very good year for press freedom in Africa,” the international press freedom advocate said in its annual report, released to coincide with World Press Freedom Day.
A new internet computer worm caused disruptions over the weekend but experts warned it may spread rapidly when businesses resume work on Monday morning. The worm, named Sasser, began to spread on Saturday, and unlike a virus does not travel through e-mails or attachments. It can spread by itself to any unprotected computer linked to the internet.
Blazing across the heavens during the next month or so will be two fiery stars — the first comets of the millennium that are expected to be visible with the naked eye. Then, in June, Earth, Venus and the sun will all be directly aligned, staging a cosmic eclipse that no human alive today has seen.
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.
Bush rips up the road map
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.
French customs officers at a Paris airport have seized more than 5 600 prehistoric artefacts, believed to have been looted from archeological sites in Niger’s desert, the economy ministry has announced. The objects consisted of 5 530 stone arrow heads and 90 other carved stones from the neolithic era.
French President Jacques Chirac sent a message of congratulations on Friday to his newly re-elected Algerian counterpart Abdelaziz Bouteflika, promising France’s support for future economic and social reforms. Chirac’s message of support was echoed by the leaders of Morocco and Tunisia, two of Algeria’s neighbours in north Africa, as well as by Jordan.
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.
France’s hugely popular Interior Minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, was handed the job this week of spearheading an immensely unpopular programme of reforms as President Jacques Chirac made sweeping changes to his Cabinet after the centre-right’s humiliating defeat in regional elections.
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.
France’s Interior Ministry confirmed last week that the police and security services were on full alert after a series of threats by an unknown group to blow up railway tracks countrywide unless it was paid a multimillion-pound ransom. To prove its threats were serious the group directed police on February 21 to a time bomb under a railway line.
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/ 27 February 2004
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.
Looting, killing in Haitian capital
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/ 26 February 2004
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.
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/ 17 February 2004
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.