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French lawmakers will vote on November 28 on a proposal by the Socialist Party urging the government to recognise Palestine as a state, a parliamentary source said Wednesday. The non-binding but highly symbolic vote would follow a similar vote in the British parliament and after Sweden announced it formally recognised the state of Palestine. A draft of the proposal states that the lower house National Assembly "invites the French government to use the recognition of the state of Palestine as an instrument to gain a definitive resolution of the conflict". France will "obviously at a certain moment recognise the Palestinian...

Ex-French PM accuses Hollande aide of lying over Sarkozy legal case claims PARIS Sun Nov 9, 2014 4:36pm EST (Reuters) - Former French prime minister Francois Fillon accused President Francois Hollande's chief of staff of lying on Sunday after a media report accused Fillon of asking him to accelerate a legal case against his rival Nicolas Sarkozy. Newspaper Le Monde said that Fillon had asked Jean-Pierre Jouyet in June to speed up legal cases involving Sarkozy to undermine his political comeback, including one linked to fines over the funding of the former president's 2012 campaign.

Only hours after a firebomb was hurled at a kosher restaurant in the 17th district of Paris, a group of French teenagers assaulted a Jewish boy outside of his school. The attack took place Thursday in the 3rd district, outside of private high school Progress - known for having a large number of Jewish students. The victim was standing in front of the school with a group of friend when a gang of approximately 15 youths ages 16-19, described as "African," assaulted him. He was wearing a kippah, according to the National Bureau for Vigilance against Anti-Semitism (BNVCA), which reported...

FULL TITLE: Nurse who confessed to strangling EIGHT of her babies 'because she did not want to use contraception' to stand trial for murder in France A nursing assistant who strangled and buried eight of her newborn babies will be tried in France four years after she admitted the country's worst ever infanticide case. Dominique Cottrez, 50, is said to have killed the children and hid their bodies in bin liners between 1989 and 2000 because she did not want to use contraception. After her confession in 2010, she tried to escape the charges by claiming the crimes all took...

While the treasure – consisting of about 90 silver objects weighing more than 50 pounds – was first discovered in 1830, it was not until 1861 and again in 1896 that the site was extensively surveyed and excavated, uncovering the foundations of a Gallo-Roman fanum, a square colonnaded precinct with two temples. One was dedicated to Mercury Canetonensis (of Canetonum), while the other was devoted to his mother Maia or his consort Rosmerta. A theater-shaped gathering space was also found nearby... The most impressive objects in the Berthouville Treasure bear Latin inscriptions stating that they were dedicated to Mercury by...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his associates think slanders recently published against him in the name of a senior White House official were intended to soften public opinion toward a developing major US agreement with Iran, Israel’s NRG News reported Tuesday. Netanyahu believes that the Obama administration wants to minimize Israel’s visibility in the United States, in order to muffle attempts to delegitimize such a deal, one that Israeli officials fear would allow Teheran a “breakout” ability to quickly assemble a nuclear weapon. However, at this point, Netanyahu plans to work behind the scenes and is not planning an overt...

France insisted on Thursday that conditions "have not been met" to allow for the controversial delivery of a warship to Russia, but with the deadline approaching, Paris finds itself in a real predicament - lose billions or risk NATO's wrath? As a deadline for the controversial delivery of a warship to Russia nears, France faces a gruelling dilemma: ditch the deal, lose billions and antagonise Moscow - or go ahead and attract NATO's wrath. Until the deadly crisis in Ukraine erupted this year, the €1.2 billion ($1.5-billion) contract to build and sell two mammoth Mistral-class assault ships to the Russian...

Half-way into his five-year mandate the popularity of French President Francois Hollande hit a new low on Thursday, hours before the Socialist leader addresses the nation to defend his shaky record on the economy. In the worst score for a president in modern-day polling, Hollande received a 12 percent approval rating in the monthly survey by pollster YouGov, down 15 percent from the prior month. Other recent polls have put his popularity at 13 percent. Hollande is due later to face journalists and members of the public for a question-and-answer session on prime-time TF1 evening television. He will likely face...

Lech Walesa: Putin declares war on world. We must give proper answer Former Polish president Lech Walesa said in the European Parliament that Russian president Vladimir Putin had declared war on the world, UNN reports with a link to Polskie Radio. He raised his concerns about the situation in eastern Ukraine. “When Ukraine handed over its nuclear weapons, powerful states guaranteed Ukraine's territorial integrity, but he [Putin] violated the agreements. He declared war on the world,” the ex-president said. He is confident that Putin “uses illegal methods”. “Europe and the world bear responsibility and try to prevent confrontation, while he...

The Canadian military has emerged as a potential destination for the controversial French-built Mistral-class helicopter carrier ships, built for Russia, the International Business Times is reporting. The possibility of a Canadian solution appeared in French media after French President François Hollande visited Canada this week, the newspaper reported. This type of suggestion has surfaced before. Former Conservative Senator Hugh Segal suggested that Canada or NATO should buy the Mistral-class military assault ships rather than allow them to be added to the Russia naval fleet. The deal is worth $1.6 billion to $1.8 billion (different figures are out there) to the...

A U.S. airstrike in Syria appears to have killed a key French jihadist who is part of the militant Khorasan Group, a U.S. defense official said Thursday. The strike happened overnight Wednesday near Idlib, according to the official, who has access to the latest information about the strikes. The U.S. fired at a vehicle it believes carried David Drugeon, a skilled bomb-maker in his 20s who also has ties to core al Qaeda members in Pakistan. The Khorasan Group is made up of senior al Qaeda leaders who have moved into Syria. The United States targeted the Khorasan Group with...

Oil prices tumbled to their lowest point in more than two years after Saudi Arabia unexpectedly cut prices for crude sold to the U.S., likely paving the way for further declines and adding to pressure on American energy producers. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia raised the prices for its oil in other locations, including Asia, where the country had cut its prices for four consecutive months.

Will the UN Security Council Impose a Palestinian State?Posted By Joseph Puder On November 3, 2014 @ 12:25 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 6 Comments January, 2015 does not bode well for Israel at the United Nations (UN). The UN Security Council (UNSC) will officially induct five newly elected non-permanent member-states replacing outgoing Rwanda, S. Korea, Australia, Argentina and Luxembourg, representing all the global regions. Unfortunately for Israel, the incoming states, particularly Venezuela and Malaysia, are hostile to the Jewish state. The other three, Angola, New Zealand, and Spain are pondering their position on recognizing Palestine as a full member-state...

Iran might be willing to ship much of its uranium stockpile out of country to Russia as part of a comprehensive agreement with world powers over its nuclear program, US officials said this week. Quoted in The New York Times, officials said that much of the 28,000 pound stockpile would be converted to fuel rods by the Russians for peaceful use in Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant. Russia is engaged in talks with Iran alongside the US, United Kingdom, France, China and Germany, working toward a November 24 deadline for a final agreement. "There's no doubt that the talks have...

U.S. officials report that more than 1,000 foreign fighters are streaming into Syria each month as a United Nations report says that the terrorist influx has reached an "unprecedented scale." According to the new U.N. report, a lot more terrorist boots are on the ground these days as an "unbelievably small" — to use Secretary of State John Kerry's phrase — air campaign, which has taken months to do what should have been done in a day, has failed to achieve the administration's proclaimed goal: to "degrade and destroy" the Islamic State. More than 15,000 foreign fighters from as many...

Fury: The Mother of all Tank Movies starring Brad Pitt, no I'm not a fan of his, but did enjoyed the movie. The authenticity of the tanks was the real thing, Sherman's and the German Tiger I. Pitt's character is a bit reminiscent of the role he played as a soldier in Inglorious Basterds, which also took place during WWII. He takes his five-man crew behind enemy lines, where they are outnumbered and outgunned. FURY is the first war film to feature a real life German Tiger I tank which actually came out of a museum collection. Tigers were the...

Air Independent Propulsion equipped diesel electric submarines offer incredibly stealthy and long diving capabilities, but they have remained somewhat diminutive in size and limited in capabilities compared to their larger nuclear counterparts. Now, renowned French naval ship builder DCNS is looking to change that with their super-sized SMX-Ocean sub concept. The SMX-Ocean's size is telling — 328 feet long and displacing 4,750 tons while surfaced (more while submerged). That makes her roughly three times the size of the innovative AIP capable Swedish Gotland Class AIP diesel electric subs (diesel electric subs are also known as SSKs) that largely introduced the...

PARIS --- France’s DCNS shipyards group has for the first time officially confirmed the sale of 10 Gowind corvettes to Egypt and Malaysia, together worth about 1.5 billion euros, and which have vindicated the company’s investment in this new class of warships. Further sales are anticipated. The Gowind design is derived from L’Adroit, an innovative ship combining certain attributes of frigates and offshore patrol vessels that DCNS developed on its own funds to meet what it believed was a market niche offering significant growth potential and a lack of credible competition. Gowinds are small frigates or large corvettes, rather than...

A bronze statue of St. John Paul II has been placed in the gardens of Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, as “gift of the Russian people.” Sculptor Zurab Tsereteli, the president of the Russian Art Academy, said that the statue, which stands nearly 12 feet tall, shows the character of the Polish Pontiff as a man who “reflects the tragedy and contradictory character of the 20th century,” and a spiritual leader “who personified universal conscience.” Russian sculptor Tsereteli to open a monument to John Paul II at Notre-Dame de Paris (Interfax)

Putin's Western Allies: Why Europe's Far Right Is on the Kremlin's Side Gabor Vona, president of the Hungarian radical right-wing party "Jobbik," delivers a speech at a rally in Budapest, March 15, 2014.(Bernadett Szabo / Courtesy Reuters) Given that one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s stated reasons for invading Crimea was to prevent “Nazis” from coming to power in Ukraine, it is perhaps surprising that his regime is growing closer by the month to extreme right-wing parties across Europe. But, in both cases, Putin’s motives are not primarily ideological. In Ukraine, he simply wants to grab territory that he believes...