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With a cast of characters including a former prime minister, some of the richest executives in France and Germany, Paris' biggest-ever corporate crime trial continued this week with 37 defendants in the dock. France's largest-ever corporate corruption trial resumed in Paris this week with more drama than your average Mexican soap opera. The case offered further tales of illicit backroom dealing, a €5 million divorce settlement tab picked up by French taxpayers and allegations that a former French prime minister accepted bribes in connection with a string of acquisitions made by the state-owned French oil conglomerate Elf Aquitane in the...

"Dispelling concerns"? These idiots don't realize Hollywood is on the same side as Eurotrash. All is forgiven as Cannes welcomes back Hollywood By LIAM LACEY Dispelling concerns about tense international relations between Paris and Washington over the Iraq war, Cannes Film Festival organizers promised a full complement of Hollywood movie stars for the event next month.These include both Nicole Kidman and her former husband Tom Cruise, with his new love, Penelope Cruz, along with Meg Ryan, Lauren Bacall, Chloë Sevigny, Sean Penn, James Caan and Ewan McGregor. Laurence Fishburne and Keanu Reeves, who will be on hand with the entire...

Threat of switch to Euro currency inspired war April 18, 2003 Dear Editor,Oil has been traded with U.S. dollars since 1971. Other countries must stockpile dollars to be able to purchase oil, which gives America the dominant economy. The only economic bloc to contest America's power is the European Union. Yet, the EU still has to hoard dollars to buy oil, making the Euro's power limited indeed.Iraq switched to the Euro in 1999. Of course, America didn't take this seriously, since the Euro was relatively weak. However, within two years the Euro was gaining on the dollar. Venezuela also has...

France's Islamic heartland by Hugh Schofield The wooded hills of deepest Burgundy are the unlikely setting for a place that could play a key role in the development of a European Islamic identity. The sound of Arabic mingles with the birdsong The unhelpfully-named European Institute for Human Sciences (IESH) is in fact a theological college, which for 13 years has been training up a new generation of indigenous imams for France and the rest of the continent. In the heart of what the French call "La France profonde" (deepest France) - amid the herds of cream-coloured cattle and the breathtaking...

RUSSIA SPIED ON BLAIR FOR SADDAM... // Top secret documents obtained by the Sunday Telegraph in Baghdad show that Russia provided Saddam Hussein's regime with wide-ranging assistance in the months leading up to the war, including intelligence on private conversations between Tony Blair and other Western leaders... MORE...

We didn't think it was possible, but it seems the French are even more degenerate than previously believed: A Paris judge has opened an inquiry into allegations a French company exported HIV-tainted blood to impoverished nations. The investigation into this long-running scandal is prompted by charges filed in November by a Tunisian couple whose son died 14 years ago. The death of 19-year-old Abdelkader Fradi in Sousse, Tunisia was officially blamed on a "cerebral hemorrhage." But the young hemophiliac had in fact contracted the AIDS virus, a taboo subject in Tunisia, his parents say. According to French news reports, the...

EU incenses French perfume makers The European Union now wants perfume makers to reveal the exact contents of their fragrances to alert consumers who might be allergic to some ingredients — but French producers say the idea stinks. Françoise Medgyesi reports. In June, the European Parliament approved a directive aimed at banning the sale of cosmetics tested on animals, but the draft also included a clause requiring fragrance makers to print the components of their scents on the bottle. The move is aimed at helping allergy sufferers to choose aromas that will not cause them harm, but Han Paul Bodifee,...

Guide to French TV channels The French think they have the best TV in the world, just like every nation does - and like everyone else, they're wrong! There's the usual over-abundance of game, talk and variety shows - but in which other country could you find a prime-time programme on culture? This is a guide to the six national terrestrial channels. TF1 This privately-run media is one of the two most popular channels (the other being state-run France 2), and fills up most of its programming with game shows (it bought the rights to Who wants to be...

Middle East - AP Turkish Airlines Flight Hijacked 4 minutes ago ANKARA, Turkey - A Turkish Airlines flight from Istanbul to Ankara was hijacked Friday, the Anatolia news agency reported. The plane was hijacked after takeoff from Istanbul and was now heading toward Greece, private NTV television reported. The plane at first diverted course and began heading toward the Aegean coastal city of Izmir, but later changed course again and began heading toward neighboring Greece, NTV reported. There was no information on the hijackers.

As you all know, as conservatives, we believe it is good sometimes to spank our kids and our wife (ahem), as well as make love to the wife and tickle the children. Why? Because emotions of pleasure and pain etc, have a tendency to hard wire a learned fact. It is called the law of effect, and it is the enemy's strategy that aims at bypassing reason. The left is crude because the left is in a long range process of rewiring what people were taught at birth. They do not go beyond that, yet the scary thing is they...

Home PageArticlesNewsOpen ForumDirectory Peace Think TankIn the NewsIsraeli-Arab ConflictDomestic PoliticsIsraeli-World RelationsReligion/CultureGeneral DiscussionPhotos Forum HomeChange SettingsRegisterFAQSearch Now Do You Understand What Israel Is Up Against?March 25, 2003By ibrodsky So what can the U.S. expect in Iraq once the conventional war ends? Count on a protracted campaign of lies, terrorism, and public gloating over cruelly-inflicted coalition losses. There is no doubt we will win the conventional war with Iraq. But will we win the war of attrition that is certain to follow? (IsraelForum.com) -- Many Americans thought Operation Iraqi Freedom would be a cakewalk. They didn?t expect enemy soldiers dressed like...

Explains the Muslim swing vote in France and Germany and how it influences EU policy Hindu Sitah 3/19/2003 Europe's Muslim Street The continent's assertive new ethnic lobby spells trouble for trans-Atlantic relations. Muslims confront the United States, in the place their votes count most. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/story.php?storyID=13576 By Omer Taspinar Islam may still be a faraway religion for millions of Americans. But for Europeans it is local politics. The 15 million Muslims of the European Union (EU) - up to three times as many as live in the United States are becoming a more powerful political force than the fabled Arab street....

A Muslim France? In the early 8th century, about 100 years after Prophet Muhammad had passed away, Arab armies had seized all of North Africa and crossed the straits of Gibraltar into Europe. The Visigothic Kingdom of Spain quickly fell. Next was the land north of the Pyrenees, inhabited by the Franks, a tribal people of Germanic origin. These were the ancestors of the modern French. They were led by Charles Martel, grandfather of Charlemagne, the greatest of all Franks. The Arabs sent a raiding party across the Pyrenees and into France, penetrating into a region not far from Paris....

A superb dissertation which explains the pro-Islam, anti-American attitudes prevalent in France. The Crescent and the Tricolor France today has more Muslims than practicing Catholics, and couscous has arguably become the country's national food by Christopher CaldwellWHEN, two days before Bastille Day in 1998, the French national soccer team upset Brazil 3-0 to win the World Cup, a million people staged an impromptu parade on the Champs-Elysées. Within days it had become a cliché to call it the most important demonstration since the liberation of Paris from the Germans, in 1944. It was a celebration less of French sports than...

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Electronic bugging devices have been discovered at offices used by France and Germany in the building where European Union leaders are due to hold a summit from Thursday, an EU spokesman said on Wednesday. Dominique-Georges Marro, head of the EU council press service, said these were not the only delegations affected and it was not known who had planted the devices. "I can confirm that in the course of regular inspections, interception devices have been found...which do not only affect France and Germany," Marro told reporters, partially confirming a report in the French newspaper Le Figaro, which...

<p>A new German study reveals a global media bias against the United States.</p> <p>Increasingly negative coverage has given the United States an all-time low image according to Media Tenor, a Bonn-based watchdog group founded in 1993 by investigative journalists and academics to "ensure and protect balanced journalism."</p>

The Sun storms Paris Zut alors! ... The Sun's Paris editionClick pic to enlarge THE Sun is handing out a special edition of the paper on the streets of Paris today. In it we ask the French people if they are ashamed of their spineless President, Jacques 'Le Worm' Chirac: **Translation below** THE SUN, journal lu quotidiennement par dix millions de personnes, présente ses salutations aux parisiens. Nous pensons qu’en menaçant constamment de recourir à son droit de veto pour empêcher toute action militaire destinée à faire appliquer la volonté des Nations Unies en Irak, votre président, Jacques Chirac, est...

Cleric’s rant at space ace By SIMON HUGHES A MUSLIM cleric accused of preaching race-hate yesterday launched an astonishing attack on dead Israeli shuttle hero Ilan Ramon. Bearded Abdullah El-Faisal, 39, was being quizzed at the Old Bailey about a claim he had made that Jews were “naturally deceitful”. Citing what he called “a more splendid example”, he replied: “They were told not to work on the Saturday — that is their law. The Jewish astronaut died trying to go to the skies on a Saturday.” Ilan, 48, died with six crewmates last Saturday when the Columbia disintegrated as...

Public loses faith in the Chancellor By Toby Helm and George Trefgarne(Filed: 31/01/2003) Labour's lead over the Conservatives has been cut to its lowest level since the fuel protests of September 2000, amid clear signs that the Government is losing its hard-won reputation for economic competence.A survey by YouGov put Labour on 36 per cent (down three since December), the Tories on 32 per cent (unchanged) and the Liberal Democrats on 24 (up three).Crucially, Labour and the Tories now stand almost neck and neck on the issue of economic management, the subject on which Tony Blair based much of his...

By Al Kamen Friday, January 31, 2003; Page A25 At the Conservative Political Action Conference, which featured Vice President Cheney as its opening luncheon speaker yesterday, one of the various exhibition booths hawking paraphernalia had some virulently anti-Muslim vinyl bumper stickers, for $3.95, including one that said: "No Muslims -- No Terrorism." rest of the article. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3956-2003Jan30.html