.The French navy has captured 35 suspected pirates off the coast of Somalia in what French officials are hailing as the most successful mission since the European Union began monitoring the seas in 2008.
Four mother ships and six smaller boats have been seized over three days. .
The EU’s mission has focused on the Gulf of Aden – one of the world’s busiest shipping routes.
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Jurisdiction over the suspects remains unclear, and there have been renewed calls for an international tribunal to be set up
.France legend Zinedine Zidane says he would “rather die” than apologise to Marco Materazzi for his infamous headbut of the Italian defender in the 2006 World Cup final.
“I will ask forgiveness from football, from supporters, from the team,” he told Spain’s El Pais newspaper. It won’t change anything, but I’m asking for your forgiveness.
“After the match, I entered the dressing room and I told them ‘I’m sorry. Never, never.’
“But as for him (Materazzi) I cannot…. it would be dishonourable. I would rather die..
“A lot of things happen on the pitch,” he said.”
After a verbal altercation, Zidane was sent off for headbutting Materazzi during the World Cup final in Berlin, which France eventually lost in a penalty shoot-out. But in this case I couldn’t contain myself. . More than once they have insulted my mother and I said nothing.
“It’s not an excuse, but my mother was ill, she was in hospital.. But in this case.”
Zidane retired from professional football after the tournament and now works as an advisor to Real Madrid chairman Florentino Perez..
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.A storm that killed at least 47 people in France on the weekend has been officially declared a national disaster.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has visited the storm-battered Atlantic coast, where most of the storm’s victims drowned. . Others were killed by falling buildings or trees.
France’s Prime Minister Francois Fillon declared the storm a national disaster and said money would be allocated to help communities rebuild.
The Atlantic storm hit the western coasts of France, Portugal and Spain on Sunday, then swept towards Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands.
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He said the focus would now turn to protecting those left homeless and those threatened by rising waters
.Al Qaeda’s North African wing has released French hostage Pierre Camatte after Mali freed four Islamist prisoners in response to an Al Qaeda threat to kill him.
“We confirm the liberation of Pierre Camatte,” Malian presidency spokesperson Seydou Cissouma told state radio.
Mali freed four Islamist prisoners last week after Al Qaeda threatened to kill Mr Camatte unless they were released.
He said Mr Camatte, kidnapped in Mali in November, was in the hands of Malian authorities.
Algerian media said two of the freed men were Algerian.
Their release prompted Algeria to recall its ambassador to Mali earlier on Tuesday in protest.
He said he had thanked Malian president Amadou Toumani Toure for his handling of the crisis and pledged French support in the struggle against terrorism. .
The group has waged a campaign of suicide bombings and ambushes in Algeria, but in the past few years has shifted a large part of its activities south to the Sahara desert.
Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has also claimed responsibility for the abduction of three Spaniards and an Italian couple.
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.Mathieu Bastareaud’s rugby redemption has been completed at Murrayfield as Six Nations favourite France kicked off its campaign with an 18-9 win over Scotland.
Bastareaud was the difference between the two sides, his two first-half tries putting the French in control of an open contest and justifying coach Marc Lievremont’s decision to hand the giant centre the opportunity to resurrect a career he had done his best to destroy.
The bizarre episode quickly spiralled out of control with diplomatic relations between France and New Zealand becoming strained and Bastareaud himself, a shy 21-year-old, was hospitalised after an apparent suicide attempt on his return to France.
The 110-kilogram centre was starting his first Test since his ignominious involvement in last year’s tour of New Zealand, during which he falsely claimed to have been beaten up by All Black fans in order to cover up a drunken fall in his hotel bedroom.
Robinson, who cuts a happier figure than during his unsuccessful stint as England coach, said there were positives to be taken out of the match ahead of next week’s clash with 2008 Grand Slam winner Wales, which lost to England yesterday.
Scotland, as so often in recent seasons, was let down by its failure to convert openings and phases of pressure into tries although, in Andy Robinson’s first Six Nations match in charge, it posed the French enough problems to suggest it could yet make an impact on this tournament.
“Also we got behind the French defence several times but the French defence scrambled very well and Imanol Harinordoquy made two or three great tackles.
“We conceded two soft tries, but I thought we were in control defensively,” said Robinson, who was assistant coach when England won the 2003 World Cup final. We have a number of positives to take out of this match and I was especially pleased by the performances of Sean Lamont and Johnnie Beattie. .
“We are of course very happy to win, it was a very tough match out there,” said the 29-year-old, who was winning his 58th cap.”
Harinordoquy, who belied his nickname bestowed on him by some Anglophine commentators of ‘very ordinary’ and was named man of the match, said that he and his team-mates had never been able to let up. In the scrum we had to have a big performance and I believe we won in that area.
“We had to play till the last minute because Scotland play with all their heart.”
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.Two burqa-wearing robbers have held up a French post office using a handgun concealed beneath an Islamic-style full veil, court officials said.
Officials said postal office staff let the pair through the security double doors of the banking branch near Paris, believing them to be veil-wearing Muslim women.
Once inside, the pair flipped back their head coverings and pulled out a gun.
Police have opened an investigation.
They made off with 4,500 euros ($7,100) seized from the staff and customers of the branch in Athis Mons, just south of Paris, according to the online edition of Le Parisien newspaper.
President Nicolas Sarkozy’s right-wing party has already presented a bill to make it illegal for anyone to cover their faces in public on security grounds.
France is seeking to restrict use of the head-to-toe Islamic veil on the grounds it is incompatible with French values, after a parliament report called for a ban in schools, hospitals, government offices and public transport. .
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According to the interior ministry, only around 1,900 women wear the burqa in France, which is home to Europe’s biggest Muslim minority
.The Black Eyed Peas were mistakenly declared best international group at France’s top music awards.
Choreographer Kamel Ouali presented the US band with the prize at the NRJ Awards in Cannes on Saturday. .
Last year Katy Perry was mistakenly given the trophy for best international song when it should have gone to Rihanna.
The prize was then given to the real winners, German band Tokio Hotel.
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.French climber Alain Robert, known as Spiderman for his death-defying antics, has set his sights on scaling Dubai’s Burj Khalifa tower, a report said.
The Gulf emirate of Dubai opened the glistening 828 metre concrete, glass and steel skyscraper on January 4 this year.
“I’ll have to do it …
“I know the people of Dubai, they are interested [in seeing me climb the skyscraper]. maybe between January and April 2011,” Mr Robert was quoted as saying by Malaysia’s official Bernama news agency.”
The tower, the tallest in the world, was named in honour of the Abu Dhabi leader whose billions of dollars bailed out Dubai from its financial crisis last year.
He has climbed skyscrapers including the Empire State Building, the Sears Tower and Taipei 101, according to his website.
Mr Robert, 47, was in Malaysia to receive an award for his extraordinary feats in scaling tall buildings.
“The problem in Dubai is the hot weather [of] up to 40 degrees Celsius,” he said.
He admitted that climbing the Dubai tower will be a tough mission because of the Middle Eastern heat. For me, climbing is as important as eating and breathing.
“My biggest fear is to waste my time on Earth. Climbing skyscrapers is my lifetime love and passion. .
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.A French court found the niece of a British minister guilty of murder and has sentenced her to 15 years in jail for the alcohol-fuelled slaying of a young Frenchman she had befriended in a bar.
Jessica Davies, 30, was also ordered to pay 105,000 euros ($165,452) in damages to the family of the dead man.
Davies told the court close to Paris that she had knifed Olivier Mugnier, 24, to death in November 2007, but said her recollection of the multiple stabbings had vanished “into a black hole”. Her uncle is Quentin Davies, the British minister for defence equipment and support.
Davies, a former model, was born in London and has a French mother and British father. Later that night she phoned the emergency services and when police arrived they found her cradling the young man’s naked body.
Davies met Mr Mugnier by chance in an Irish bar on the outskirts of Paris and took him back to her flat.
French media said she told police: “I am a monster…”
It emerged that she had been drinking heavily and had also taken a large quantity of medicines prescribed to treat her depression. I wanted to cut him a bit and [the knife] went right in.
The court heard that Davies had been traumatised by the separation of her parents during her adolescence and had once tried to commit suicide, using the same knife she later turned on Mr Mugnier. .
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.Revellers have started ringing in the New Year across the globe with spectacular fireworks displays and massive parties hosted by world capitals against a backdrop of tightened security.
Party-goers in the South Pacific were the first to raise their glasses to 2010, leading the world into a new decade after one scarred by war, terrorist attacks, natural disaster and financial turmoil.5 million people crowded the Sydney Harbour foreshore to watch a vast array of fireworks burst into the night sky at midnight, launched from the iconic Sydney Harbour Bridge and four barges on the water.
In Australia, about 1.
Paris’s Eiffel Tower was ready to be transformed into a multicoloured light show for its party while in Berlin more than 1 million revellers were expected on the boulevard leading to the Brandenburg Gate, the symbol of German unity, with live bands and DJs to crank up the party.
Thousands of people crammed into Hong Kong’s harbour, where 9,000 fireworks were unleashed in a display that lasted close toly five minutes, shot off from the city’s tallest skyscraper as well as other buildings
But in Thailand, police banned fireworks after a New Year’s Eve blaze at a Bangkok nightclub a year ago killed 65 people.
In New York, a downpour of confetti was to mark midnight at a traditional mass celebration in Times Square in the heart of Manhattan.
Celebrations in Britain centred on the London Eye, the giant wheel across the River Thames from the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, the world’s most famous clock.
“It will be a full fledged deployment of resources,” city police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.
But after security jitters rekindled by a Christmas Day bomb plot against a passenger jet claimed by Al Qaeda, undercover police, surveillance cameras and radiation and biological detection equipment were to monitor the crowds.”
In Finland, a lone gunman chose the last day of the year to kill four people in a rampage in a shopping mall. “We assume here that New York is the number one terrorist target in America.
The US embassy in Indonesia said meanwhile it had received a warning of a possible attack on the resort island of Bali, the scene of multiple bombings targeting Westerners, but local authorities denied knowledge of any alert. He also murdered a former girlfriend and was later found dead himself. .
In Pakistan, where the Taliban’s bloody campaign rebounded in 2009, spirits were dampened in the city of Karachi by a deadly suicide attack during a holy Shiite Muslim ceremony on Monday that killed 43 people.
For Cyprus, New Year’s Eve was the last chance to smoke in pubs, clubs and cafes, with new anti-smoking law in force from January 1.
In neighbouring Afghanistan, soldiers maintained their alert after two deadly militant attacks claimed the lives of eight Americans and five Canadians, while two French journalists were reported kidnapped by Taliban.
“New Year’s Day, the 1st of January 2010, marks the beginning of the most important year in our country since 1994,” Zuma said.
And in South Africa, President Jacob Zuma used his New Year message to call for unity for the 2010 football World Cup – the first ever to be held in Africa. “We have to put the culture of negativity behind us.
“It must be the year in which we work together to make the Soccer World Cup the biggest turning point in the marketing of our country,” he said.
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New Year’s Eve also presented much of the world with a blue moon – the second full moon appearing in a calendar month – for only the second time in close toly two decades