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France's health ministry on Wednesday reported the country's first case of a SARS-like virus that has killed 18 people so far, mostly in Saudi Arabia. An unidentified person who came back to France from a trip to the United Arab Emirates was diagnosed with the deadly novel coronavirus, the ministry said. "This is the first and only confirmed case in France to date," it added. The patient is currently in intensive care in hospital and has been placed in isolation. The virus, known in medical jargon as nCoV-EMC, was first detected in September 2012 and since then more than 30...

As Francois Hollande marks one year in office, he may go down in history for the sharpest popularity loss. His approval ratings have sunk to less than 25 per cent - the biggest fall for any French president in the past 50 years. To express their discontent with Hollande’s policies, tens of thousands of leftists marched through Paris on Sunday. Police put the number of leftwing rally participants at 30,000, while the organizers claim the crowd was six times that figure.A major source of public anger is skyrocketing unemployment, the worst in years, with 3.2 million French now looking for...

Amid growing calls from Tory MPs for David Cameron to respond to the Ukip threat by bringing forward legislation on an EU referendum, Farage warned that his party would not go away even if No 10 "starts singing the same song". William Hague, who famously suffered a major defeat in the 2001 election after tacking to the right, called for a cautious response to Ukip as he warned of the dangers of "quick fixes". Philip Hammond, the defence secretary, said many Ukip voters were "frustrated Conservatives". As the Tories work out their response to Ukip, which won nearly a quarter...

A campaign against Griffon vultures is gathering pace in France after it was revealed that the carrion eaters had devoured the body of a 52-year-old woman who fell to her death in the Pyrenees. Major Didier Pericou of the gendarmerie said the woman had fallen down a 300-metre slope while taking a short cut walking with two friends. "There were only bones, clothes and shoes left," he told The Times. "They took 45 to 50 minutes to eat the body." French farmers are now demanding the right to shoot the protected birds after attacks on sheep and cows. The birds...

India likely to vote with U.S. on Iran in IAEA URL: http://www.india-defence.com/reports/377 Date: 17/9/2005 Agency: The Hindu India will vote with the United States, France, Britain and Germany in the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) board of governors if forced to make a choice on referring the question of Iran's nuclear intentions to the United Nations' Security Council. Highly-placed South Block sources told The Hindu that such a decision to vote with the U.S. in a crunch situation was taken even before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh went into a meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush in New York. At...

The World Gold Council has advised Italy to deploy its 2,000 tonnes of gold to break free of EMU austerity dictates. By using the reserves – the world's fourth largest – to collateralise the first chunk of any losses for bondholders, Italy could raise €400bn or so on the capital markets and determine its own future for a while. Italy did this in 1974 when it borrowed $2bn from the Bundesbank, using gold as collateral. Portugal did the same thing to borrow $1bn from the BIS in the 1975-1977, and India used its gold to borrow from Japan in 1991....

Muslim men in Germany take advantage of the social welfare system by bringing two, three, four women from across the Muslim world and then marrying them in front of an imam. Although polygamous marriages are not officially recognized -- and are technically illegal and punishable by fines and imprisonment -- government agencies are reluctant to take action. Once in Germany, the women request social welfare benefits, including the cost of a separate home for themselves and their children, on the claim of being a "single parent with children." ... Rather than asking Muslims to take responsibility for their "image problem"...

The Franco-German axis that has driven EU affairs ever since Schuman and Adenauer in the early 1950s is collapsing before our eyes. This was inevitable. Their interests have become incompatible under monetary union. The currency that was supposed to bind them is turning them into enemies, as this newspaper long warned. The latest argument gaining traction – advanced by Prof Bernd Lücke and the German eurosceptic party AfD among others – is that the only way to save the Franco-German relationship and therefore the EU is to break up the euro before it does more damage. Interesting twist. In the...

An Iranian man screaming “Allahu Akbar!” attacked a rabbi and his son outside a synagogue in Paris with a box-cutter. The father and son were wearing kippahs. An escapee from a psychiatric institution slashed a rabbi and his son with a box-cutter on Tuesday, prompting witnesses to tackle and subdue the attacker after a chase through a Paris synagogue, officials said. The rabbi, who is in his late 40s, was recovering from surgery for a neck injury and his 18-year-old son sustained lesser injuries in the attack north of a touristic shopping area near Paris’ gilded Opera Garnier, according to...

It seems that migration policies of a leading country in Europe, France, are seriously changing. The country is no longer able to hold back the crowd of migrants, many of whom do not want to integrate into the social and economic life of their new home country. The upcoming radical changes for migrants were announced by French Interior Minister Manuel Valls. After a meeting on the National Immigration and Integration, French Interior Minister Manuel Valls announced significant changes in the countryÂ’s migration policy. The government will reduce financial assistance to immigrants, and this reduction will be substantial. Starting March 1...

Revolutions are often sparked by an unexpected shock to an already-weakened regime. As commentators in France remark not only on the crisis engulfing François Hollande’s government but also on the apparent death rattle of the country’s entire political system, it could be that his flagship policy of legalizing gay marriage—or rather, the gigantic public reaction against it, unique in Europe—will be the last straw that breaks the Fifth Republic’s back. … (T)he deeper explanation for the strength of feeling lies in the fact that, in French law, marriage is indissociable from the right to start a family. There is currently...

Rats or Humans? Inside Saddam's Extermination Plant(August 29, 2002)This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/ He was introduced as director of research and development at Falluja, one of the remote factories where the United States claims Saddam Hussein could be making chemical and biological weapons. Asked if he had worked on any of Saddam's chemical weapons programs, Dr Mohammed Frah played a straight bat: "In the early 1980s I worked for five years on the chemical and biological programs at Al-Muthanna." This is the name of a critical centre in Saddam's weapons program - a huge pesticide complex that produced...

Islamist militant group Boko Haram was paid more than $3m (£2m) before releasing a French family of seven, a Nigerian government report says. The confidential report, seen by Reuters news agency, does not say who paid the money. Both France and Cameroon deny paying a ransom while Nigeria has not commented on the issue. The French family, including four children, were captured in Cameroon in February and freed last week. The were handed over to the Cameroon authorities last Thursday. The Nigerian report also says that Cameroon freed some Boko Haram detainees as part of the deal, according to Reuters....

The number of jobless reached 3.224 million in March, the equivalent of 10.2 percent of the workforce. Unemployment has increased by 11.5 percent in a year, exceeding the record set in 1997. “Moreover, although it cannot admit it, the government does not really believe in the presidential cant about a reduction in unemployment this year,” notes Le Figaro. …

BEIJING (AP) -- China's President Xi Jinping and France's President Francois Hollande pledged to push for a world free of domination by any superpower Thursday as the French leader visited the Chinese capital on a mission to boost trade amid his country's worsening economic woes. Both leaders stressed their desire for a "multipolar" world that would dilute Washington's influence - though they did not mention the U.S. in their comments. "China and France are both great countries with a strong sense of independence," Xi said at a news conference, adding that the two countries would "actively promote a multipolar world...

PARIS — An escapee from a psychiatric institution slashed a rabbi and his son with a box-cutter on Tuesday, prompting witnesses to tackle and subdue the attacker after a chase through a Paris synagogue, officials said. --snip-- The Simon Wiesenthal Center, which monitors anti-Semitic incidents worldwide, said in a statement that the assailant screamed “Allah-u-Akbar” — or “God is great” — during the attack.

The Department of Justice said in a lawsuit filed Tuesday that cyclist Lance Armstrong was "unjustly enriched" while he used steroids to win multiple Tour de France titles. In the formal complaint, the Justice Department said they would seek triple damages against Armstrong, who admitted earlier this year that he doped to win his seven straight titles. The U.S. Postal Service paid some $40 million to appear as the title sponsor of Armstrong's team during six of those seven races. "Defendants were unjustly enriched to the extent of the payments and other benefits they received from the USPS, either directly...

The French Embassy in Tripoli was attacked early this morning by a car bomb that left the scene, located in a residential area, one of destruction with the embassy's ground-floor reception area and neighboring homes badly damaged. Two guards and a few civilians were injured, but no fatalities were reported. Libyan Foreign Minister Mohammed Abdel Aziz quickly condemned the attack, while the French President called on the Libyan government to "shed the fullest light on this unacceptable attack" and deployed his own foreign minister to Tripoli who said officials from both nations would work together to find those responsible. No...

The French embassy in Libya has been attacked and two guards have been injured. The attack took place in the country's capital, Tripoli. "There was an attack on the embassy. We think it was a booby-trapped car," the official told Reuters. "There was a lot of damage and there are two guards wounded." A Libyan source said the blast caused serious damage to the building.

LUXEMBOURG (AP) -- The European Union on Monday lifted its oil embargo on Syria to provide more economic support to the forces fighting to oust President Bashar Assad's regime. The decision will allow for crude exports from rebel-held territory, the import of oil and gas production technology, and investments in the Syrian oil industry, the EU said in a statement. Any export or investment initiatives will be taken in close coordination with the leaders of the Syrian opposition, the bloc's 27 foreign ministers decided at a meeting in Luxembourg. The move marks the first relaxing of EU sanctions on Syria...