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Israel said on Friday that it will reject any French initiative to re-start peace negotiations with the Palestinians. Israel said on Friday that it will reject any French initiative to re-start peace negotiations with the Palestinians. Jerusalem reacted shortly after French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said that his government will recognize a Palestinian state if its efforts in coming weeks to try to break the deadlock between Israelis and Palestinians fail. "France will engage in the coming weeks in the preparation of an international conference bringing together the parties and their main partners, American, European, Arab, notably to preserve and...

France will recognize a Palestinian state if its efforts in coming weeks to try to break the deadlock between Israelis and Palestinians fail, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on Friday. "France will engage in the coming weeks in the preparation of an international conference bringing together the parties and their main partners, American, European, Arab, notably to preserve and make happen the solution of two states," he said. Fabius said that as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, France had a responsibility to try to keep up efforts to find a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius declared on Friday that his country would recognize a Palestinian state if its efforts in coming weeks to try to break the deadlock between Israelis and Palestinians fail. "France will engage in the coming weeks in the preparation of an international conference bringing together the parties and their main partners, American, European, Arab, notably to preserve and make happen the solution of two states," Fabius said, according to Reuters. He added that as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, France had a responsibility to try to keep up efforts to find a two-state...

LE BOURGET, France — With the sudden bang of a gavel Saturday night, representatives of 195 countries reached a landmark climate accord that will, for the first time, commit nearly every country to lowering planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions to help stave off the most drastic effects of climate change. Delegates who have been negotiating intensely in this Paris suburb for two weeks gathered for the final plenary session, where Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius of France asked for opposition to the deal and, hearing none, declared it approved.With that, the delegates achieved what had been unreachable for two decades: a consensus...

A popular weatherman announced Saturday evening he has been sacked by leading French news channel France Télévisions for publishing a book which accused top climate change experts of misleading the world about the threat of global warming. Philippe Verdier, a household name in France for his daily weather reports on the France 2 channel, announced in an online video that he had received a letter of dismissal. "“My book ‘Climate Investigation’ was published one month ago. It got me banned from the air waves,” said the weatherman, who was put “on leave” from the TV station on October 12. “I...

UNITED NATIONS — UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has invited Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia to a meeting this month of the Middle East Quartet seeking a diplomatic solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The foreign ministers of the three Arab countries will join their counterparts from Russia, the United States and EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini for the talks on September 30, the UN spokesman said Friday. The secretary general of the Arab League will also attend the meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly gathering of world leaders. The invitation follows a decision by the Quartet in...

The Middle East and North Africa region is in turmoil from Iraq to Yemen and from Syria to Libya, but French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius warned Sunday of an “explosion” unless the deadlock in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations is broken. Speaking in Ramallah, he said both Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Jordan’s King Abdullah had expressed that view to him during talks with them over the weekend. Fabius was speaking after meeting with Palestinian Authority (P.A.) chairman Mahmoud Abbas during an intensive regional trip designed to push a French initiative to secure a U.N. Security Council resolution laying out the basis...

The south-eastern French wine capital of Bordeaux is up in arms over a Muslim-owned grocer’s decision to impose male and female-only days for customers. A small sign outside the De L'Orient à L'Occidental store stipulated that women were only welcome on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesday and Fridays. Men, on the other hand, were kindly asked to take their custom elsewhere on weekends. The gender split was put in place by the store's owners, recent converts to Islam, to make sure women and men do not meet. Naïma Charaï, a Socialist regional councillor and head of French equality group ACSE, criticised the...

France transferred several pieces of advanced technology and know-how to Russian shipbuilders before the Mistral warship deal was put on ice following Western sanctions, a news report said Thursday. “According to the contract between the Russian Defense Ministry and France's DCNS [shipbuilding company] there are three types of technology that were transferred,” said Alexei Diky, the director of military-industrial cooperation at Russia's massive state-owned United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC), RIA Novosti reported. Under the 1.2 billion euro ($1.4 billion) deal, signed in 2011, France was to build two Mistral-class helicopter assault ships for Russia and transfer shipbuilding expertise to the Russian...

A huge fire has broken out at an iconic church in France. Dramatic pictures show the top of the Basilica of Saint Donatien in Nantes engulfed in flames. Firefighters have been called out to deal with the blaze, which appears to have started this morning. The BBC is reporting that it broke out after morning mass, with worshippers evacuated from the building. Around 40 firefighters are fighting the flames at the church, which dates back to the late 1800s. Towering black clouds of smoke can be seen billowing from the roof of the building. Nantes is in the west of...

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls claimed on Monday that despite the overabundance of Islamist terror, there is no link between terrorist extremism and Islam, as he opened a conference aimed at improving ties with France’s large Muslim community. “We must say all of this is not Islam,” said Valls as quoted by AFP. “The hate speech, anti-Semitism that hides behind anti-Zionism and hate for Israel…the self-proclaimed imams in our neighborhoods and our prisons who are promoting violence and terrorism.” …

Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday told visiting French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius that any new Palestinian unity government should not include Hamas, AFP reports. The remarks came on the eve of a key meeting of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to discuss forming a new cabinet. The unity government between Hamas and Fatah collapsed last week as Abbas decided to dissolve it amid a deepening rift between the sides. "(Abbas) told me this government of national unity could only include women and men who recognize Israel, renounce violence and who are in agreement...

United Nations and its member regimes must sidestep the U.S. Constitution and the American people’s elected representatives to save the world from global warming, declared French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius (shown). Speaking to representatives of African governments and dictators during UN “climate” talks in Germany on Monday, the Socialist Party foreign policy chief explained that the U.S. Congress would refuse to approve the proposed planetary climate regime. As such, the emerging agreement, set to be finalized in Paris later this year, must be imposed on the United States by the Obama administration and the UN — without the consent of...

Iranian nuclear fuel stockpiles grew by a massive 20% over the past 18 months of negotiations between Iran and world powers, a report last month by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has revealed. The report comes just one month ahead of the June 30 deadline set for the P5+1 powers and Iran to finalize a deal over Tehran's nuclear program. News that Iran has been busily expanding its stockpiles contradicts claims by US President Barack Obama that the Islamic Republic had "frozen" its nuclear program during the last year and a half of negotiations. Despite that, western leaders appear...

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...

PARIS: Israel’s right to security does not justify its actions in Gaza, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Monday, as he called for a political solution to be “imposed” by the international community. “How many more deaths will it take to stop what must be called the carnage in Gaza?” Fabius said in a statement. “The tradition of friendship between Israel and France is an old one and Israel’s right to security is total, but this right does not justify the killing of children and the slaughter of civilians.” The statement comes amid global outrage over an Israeli strike next...

That the socialist French government of François Hollande just blocked a bad deal with Tehran, emerging as the hero of the Geneva negotiations, is on one level a huge surprise. But it also follows logically from the passivity of the Obama administration. American foreign policy is in unprecedented free-fall, with a feckless and distracted White House barely paying attention to the outside world, and when it does, acting in an inconsistent, weak, and fantastical manner. If one were to discern something so grand as an Obama Doctrine, it would read: "Snub friends, coddle opponents, devalue American interests, seek consensus, and...

The Geneva talks on Iranian nukes have turned into a "pull my finger" charade. Iran says that it's only making electricity, not nuclear bombs. The U.S., Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany are somehow all supposed to agree on reeling Iran in -- but let's face it: Russia and China are close Iranian allies and trading partners, while even Germany and France have significant geopolitical ties to Russia through, for example, the European defense conglomerate EADS and the Nord Stream pipeline running Russian gas into Europe. And Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman reportedly bragged to Russian journalists at the...

Revealed: Iran's Supreme Leader is a Billionaire Iran's supreme leader controls a business empire worth around $95 billion, exposes Reuters. While Iran has been buckling under the sanctions that have been crippling its economy, the country’s supreme leader is apparently enjoying the billions he has in the bank. The Reuters news agency exposed on Monday that supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei controls a business empire worth around $95 billion, a sum exceeding the value of his nation’s current annual petroleum exports. The little-known organization, called Setad, is one of the keys to the Iranian leader’s enduring power and now holds...

As PM demands that Washington keep up the economic pressure on Tehran, Kerry prepares to ward off new sanctions bills Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday fired another volley in what has turned into an ongoing, very public war of words with the Obama administration, saying that from what he had seen of a proposed interim solution to the Iranian nuclear standoff, the terms would allow Tehran to advance toward an atomic weapons capability while throwing off the yoke of economic sanctions. “Israel prefers a diplomatic option to other options, but we demand a real diplomatic solution in order to...