Two a penny

.

LATEST:
Nearly 30 years after an Air New Zealand jet slammed into Mt Erebus in Antarctica, killing all 257 on board, the airline has apologised to families of the dead this morning. .

Hundreds gathered at Air New Zealand headquarters in Auckland today to hearthe apology.

The airline said today’s apology was to takecare of some of the “many of the gaps and failings that occurred in the days, months and years after November 28, 1979″.

He said he hoped that the way the airline dealt with the Perpignan, France, tragedy at the end of last year showed they had learned from the fallout over Erebus.

Air New Zealand chief executive Rob Fyfe acknowledged the families of those who had lost loved ones in the crash, and apologised for the way the companyhad handled the aftermath 30 years ago.

“We cannot bring them back but we can honour and remember those brave and true people and we can learn from our past,” Mr Key said.

Prime Minister John Key, at the headquarters for today’s apology,said: “Both tragedies brought shock, disbelief and mourning to our country”.

A carbon fibre sculpture was also unveiled this morning.

He said the crew of the doomed Perpignan flight died in service to the country. Called Momentum, it was designed to reflect the beauty and fragility of air travel, according to creator Phil Price.

.French President Nicolas Sarkozy says the US warrant issued for Oscar-winning director Roman Polanski on a 32-year-old sex charge was “not a good administration of justice”. .
“But I add that it is not a good administration of justice to do this 32 years after the facts when the person concerned is today 76 years old.
The Polish-French national was arrested on September 26 in Zurich, where he had gone to collect an award at the Swiss city’s film festival.”
Polanksi has been regarded as a fugitive by US authorities since he fled the country in 1978 after admitting to having sex with a 13-year-old girl.
But Mr Sarkozy says his comments were a mistake.
French Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand labelled Polanski’s arrest “absolutely horrifying”.
“Frederic Mitterrand has recognised that his declaration was an error and that he regretted it.
Mr Mitterrand’s remarks turned the spotlight on himself and his 2005 autobiographical novel. I couldn’t say it any better,” Mr Sarkozy said.
–

.
He was forced to appear on national television last week to deny having ever engaged in paedophile acts

.French authorities have rescued six people who survived in the Mediterranean Sea for more than five hours after their small plane crashed off the coast of Corsica, officials say.
The first two survivors were found thanks to a distress beacon and were plucked from the choppy sea by a helicopter.
They were treated for hypothermia at a beach before being taken to hospital, a medical source said. .
A third person was rescued later by an army helicopter.
The pilot, who is in his 50s, reported engine failure to air control and announced he would try to land in the sea one hour after take-off, officials said.
The plane was flying from Propriano in southern Corsica to the French Riviera city of Cannes when it crashed in the sea in the Gulf of Porto.
-

.
French Minister of the Interior Brice Hortefeux heads to Poitiers on Monday following violent anti-prison demonstrations that erupted on Saturday near a street performance festival.

Hortefeux will meet with local shopkeepers whose properties were harmed in the incidents, which resulted in no injuries.

17 people were placed in custody in the wake of the violence, three of whom are accused of armed assault against policemen.

Several blogs report that the demonstration had been organised to protest the transfer of prisoners from the city old prison to a new one. According to the police, approximately 250 protestors — many of them masked and hooded — descended on the Poitiers town centre Saturday afternoon, breaking about 20 storefront windows and damaging bus stations and telephone booths.

.
France Telecom announced the replacement of the group deputy head Louis-Pierre Wenes, whom labour unions claim is the man behind stress-inducing management policies blamed for a tense working climate. The French telecom company has come under fire for the alarming suicide rate among staff members, with 24 employees having taken their lives in the last 18 months alone.

French socialist and communist opposition leaders have been calling for the resignation of both Lombard and Wenes, but the group chief executive enjoys the backing of the French government.

Wenes has been replaced by Stephen Richard, a former cabinet director for French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde, who joined France Telecom on September 1 and was being groomed to replace the group CEO, Didier Lombard, in 2011. According to the website of French weekly Le Point , the finance minister mentioned Richard as a possible replacement for Wenes at that meeting. Lagarde reasserted her full and unwavering support for the troubled CEO after the two met last Thursday. Wenes is symbolic: he was responsible for &lsquoterror management&rsquo tactics.

A concession to unions

News of Wenes&rsquo departure was greeted with satisfaction by employees and union members.

CFDT union member Pierre Dubois told them that Wenes&rsquo ousting was the logical consequence of his perceived insensitiveness to employee suicides. He had to leave, CFE-CGC union member Pierre Morville told AFP.

France Telecom, which had suspended forced transfers until October 31, announced on Monday that the halt was prolonged until December 31. A second sticking point was his refusal to negotiate on the policy of forced transfers, whereby France Telecom managers are required to change postings every three years.

There was never any kind of dialogue with Wenes, Dubois told them. . On September 24, Wenes had told French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur that he would consider himself the victim of a monstrous manipulation if he were to take on the responsibility of employee suicides. He never accepted to meet us, not until we published an open letter calling for his resignation on September 25.

Iin a joint press release, leftwing unions Sud and Solidaires said: The nomination of St&eacutephane Richard, a close collaborator of President Nicolas Sarkozy, has raised concern among employees about the future of France Telecom.

Deontological concerns

Although most unions are hopeful that negotiations will start afresh with Richard, some warn against hasty optimism. Dubois was also cautious: Richard remains a big question mark &ndash we don&rsquot know much about him. We hope he will rapidly shed light on his future role.

Deontological concerns surfaced immediately after Richard nomination. We hope the management style will change, and that he will bring a fresh look to the heart of the issue: restructuring France Telecom. However, it is not altogether clear how Richard is expected to do so, given that the state is one of the company main shareholders. As a former member of government, he has been authorised to join France Telecom on condition that he abstain from any contact with the cabinet of the finance until June 30, 2012 .

France – France Telecom – telecommunication

.
AFP – Egypt announced on Wednesday that it has cut all cooperation with France’s Louvre Museum until it secures the return of stolen Pharaonic relics in the latest row involving the exhibits of a major European institution.

We made the decision to end any cooperation with the Louvre until they return the works, antiquities chief Zahi Hawass told AFP.

He alleged that the renowned Paris museum bought the antiquities in 1980 even though its curators knew they were stolen.

French sources said that the antiquities Egypt was demanding are decorative fragments from a tomb in the Valley of the Kings near Luxor.

The purchase of stolen steles is a sign that some museums are prepared to encourage the destruction and theft of Egyptian antiquities, he said.

Mitterrand said he has convened a meeting for Friday of a special commission that is empowered to rule on restitution, according to a culture ministry statement on Wednesday.

French Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand pledged that France is ready to return the relics to Egypt if the Pharaonic antiquities at the Louvre Museum are indeed stolen.

The minister is ready, if the commission were to issue a favourable ruling, to implement provisions of the UNESCO convention and restitute the relics to the Egyptian authorities without delay, the statement said.

In order to return the works, we would need the agreement of the National Scientific Commission for the Museum Collections of France, he told on condition of anonymity.

A member of the Louvre’s executive said it is open to the idea of returning the works, which are on display in its galleries, but that the decision is not the museum’s alone.

Hawass said it had been taken two months ago, implying that it had nothing to do with Egyptian unhappiness over the defeat of Culture Minister Faruq Hosni in the race to become the new director of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) the previous month.

Egypt’s decision to suspend cooperation will affect conferences organised with the museum, as well as work carried out by the Louvre on the Pharaonic necropolis of Saqqara, south of the capital Cairo.

A number of the world’s most famous museums have collections of Egyptian antiquities, many of them acquired during British colonial rule.

A French source said the atmosphere created by Hosni’s defeat doesn’t help, but insisted that there is no real obstacle and a solution should be found soon.

But in recent years the Egyptian authorities have been increasingly vociferous in campaigning for the return of important works.

But in recent years the Egyptian authorities have been increasingly vociferous in campaigning for the return of important works.

Egypt has also long demanded the return from Berlin of a bust of the legendary Queen Nefertiti that was discovered on the banks of the Nile by German archaeologist Ludwig Borchardt in December 1912. .

archaeology – Egypt – France – Frédéric Mitterrand – Louvre
.

The case mirrors that of the so-called Elgin Marbles, the decorative frieze that used to adorn the Parthenon in Athens whose return by the British Museum in London Greece has long demanded

.
AFP – French Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand was in the spotlight Saturday for standing as character reference for two rapists after a row over his admission of paying boys for sex.

Mitterrand, an urbane television personality and a nephew of former Socialist president Francois Mitterrand adopted a pugnacious tone and threatened legal action over what he said was a new orchestrated campaign of insensitive calumny.

The latest scandal emerged just after Mitterrand managed to retain his job following a fresh furore over his 2005 autobiographical novel La Mauvaise Vie (The Bad Life) in which the hero describes paying Asian boys for sex.

The minister will launch legal action against those who are complicit in the latest ignominy he has suffered, a statement read out at a news conference in the southwestern town of Bordeaux quoted Mitterrand as saying.

I absolutely condemn sexual tourism (and) I condemn paedophilia in which I have never in any way participated, and all the people who accuse me of that type of thing should be ashamed, the 62 year old told TF1 television.

Mitterrand had angrily denied having ever engaged in paedophile acts or condoning sex tourism.

The minister on Saturday said he was godfather to one of the youths, whose mother is a former make-up artist, and underlined that his letter attesting to their good moral character was a gesture of compassion and generosity to a modest family in great distress.

The latest controversy emerged after a French newspaper said Mitterrand had testified to the good character of two youths in the French overseas territory of La Reunion charged with the gang rape of a 16-year-old girl.

Is it not a shame that this letter has found its way in all the Internet networks? he said, calling it an ignominy, a shame, and manipulation.

He underlined that he had met one of the youths three times in (my) life.

The three youths were charged with rape and sentenced to between eight and 15 years in prison.

Le Quotidien de la Reunion newspaper on Friday published a letter that Mitterrand, who was then director of the Villa Medici, the French Academy in Rome, had written to the court.

The controversy over Mitterrand’s book erupted this week after his staunch defence of fugitive film-maker Roman Polanski, arrested in Switzerland on a US warrant on child sex charges. .

Frédéric Mitterrand – French politics – homosexuality – paedophilia – scandal

.
The Clearstream trial that has held France in its grip the past few weeks came to a head Wednesday as former French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin and General Philippe Rondot, a former top intelligence official, faced off in the courtroom. Details of the exchange are not expected until later in the evening.

&raquo Special Report on France&#039s trial of the decade
&raquo Who&#039s who in the trial
&raquo How a finance trial turned into a major political scandal
&raquo A glossary of terms in the Clearstream saga
&raquo From Ben Barka to Elf, justice turns a blind eye to political elites
De Villepin, who served as France’s interior minister between March 2004 and May 2005, stands accused of seeking to derail Nicolas Sarkozy’s presidential campaign by linking him to a corruption scandal.

On Monday, key witness General Rondot appeared in court to discuss his notes , which claim that de Villepin clearly mentioned Sarkozy — then vying for the Elys&eacutee — in connection to Clearstream at a meeting held on January 7, 2004. The trial, which began September 21, has been marked by contradictory testimony.

them correspondent Catherine Norris Trent reported that the two men were expected to stand side by side before judges aiming to iron these inconsistencies out. This, however, contradicts de Villepin statements last week, when he took the stand and flatly denied the notes were an accurate reflection of the conversation. Questions likely to be explored include when exactly de Villepin first heard Sarkozy name in connection with the affair and whether or not he said he was passing on orders from Chirac. .

The legal confrontation was called for by de Villepin lawyers, who Norris Trent says want to make sure that their client doesn&rsquot come out of this examining embarrassed because of these discrepancies between his evidence and that of General Rondot.

Clearstream trial – Dominique de Villepin – Nicolas Sarkozy
.

The trial is scheduled to end on October 23 and judges are expected to take several months to render a verdict

.
AFP – France served notice Sunday that it no longer supported Guinea leader Moussa Dadis Camara after scores of people were killed in an opposition rally in the capital Conakry last week.

Something terrible and savage happened.

It seems to me that we can no longer work with Dadis Camara and that there has to be an international intervention, he said, adding that France was pressing West African leaders from regional bloc ECOWAS to engage. We cannot accept it, Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said in an interview to RTL radio.

We can no longer work with Dadis Camara, international intervention is needed.

Dadis Camara said Sunday he bears no responsibility for the September 28 massacre in which the United Nations said more than 150 people were killed…

The junta says 56 civilians were killed, but the Guinean Human Rights Organisation has claimed that at least 157 people were killed and 1,253 wounded in the crackdown.French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner
The violence erupted after thousands of people had gathered at Conakry’s main stadium to protest against the prospect of Camara becoming a candidate in presidential elections set for January 31.

Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaore, tasked by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to act as a facilitator to ease tensions in Guinea, is to arrive in Conakry on Monday, his foreign minister Alain Bedouma Yoda told AFP. The United Nations has put the toll at more than 150. .

Kouchner said France was pressing for a role in Guinea for ECOWAS, whose current chairman is Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua.

Bernard Kouchner – France – Guinea Conakry – Moussa Dadis Camara

.
AFP – An Air France pilots’ union will present a report to investigators this week blaming defective air speed probes for the crash of Air France Flight 447 over the Atlantic, a newspaper reported Sunday.

The pilots’ report contradicts the findings of the French agency leading the investigation, the BEA, which has said that the speed monitors were a factor, but not the leading cause of the crash that left 228 people dead on June 1. .

The union points the guilty finger to the plane’s manufacturer Airbus, Air France, civil aviation authorities and the European Aviation Safety Agency among others for under-estimating the problems with the sensors.

Just before dropping off radar screens it had emitted a series of automatic warning signals indicating systems failures.

Air France Flight 447 was flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris during stormy weather when it crashed into a remote area of the Atlantic, about 1,000 kilometres (600 miles) off Brazil’s coast.

Such an event cannot be reduced to a single cause, said Gerard Arnoux, president of the Spaf pilots’ union.

The Airbus A330′s black box flight recorders have not been found, but French investigators said in a report that the faulty speed sensors were not the only explanation for the accident.

The crash was the worst in Air France’s 75-year history.

But there is an unchallengeable truth that we must insist on: without the breakdown of the pitot tubes, the accident wouldn’t have happened, Arnoux told the newspaper.

Both the European air safety agency and Airbus advised airlines after the disaster to replace the type of pitot tubes used on the doomed jet with a more reliable model made by a US firm.

AF 447 crash – airplane crash – aviation – Brazil – France – investigation