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TAGAB VALLEY, Afghanistan (AP) -- Rockets slammed into a market northeast of Kabul on Monday, killing 12 civilians but missing their presumed target: a meeting between France's top general in Afghanistan and dozens of tribal elders and senior local officials. The attack also wounded 38 people, 20 of them critically. The market was crowded with shoppers because Monday is bazaar day in Tagab, a sprawling town of mud brick fortress-like compounds and small fields along a river surrounded by the barren slopes and snowcapped peaks of the Hundu Kush mountain range.

SNIPPET: "An al Qaeda leader wanted by the US for a string of deadly attacks has been named the new leader of terror group's network in East Africa. Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, one of several al Qaeda leaders charged with carrying out the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, was appointed the leader of al Qaeda in the Horn of Africa. Fazul was "inaugurated" during an open ceremony in the southern city of Kismayo, according to a translation received by The Long War Journal of an article posted Waaga Cusub, a website operated by the Hawiye clan,...

"For it is impossible for any one to begin to learn what he thinks he already knows." -- Epictetus In a little-known book entitled Capital Rules: The Construction of Global Finance written in 2007 a year before the global financial meltdown, Harvard professor Rawi Abdelal tells how it was French socialists, not Wall Street or the U.S. Treasury or credit rating firms (S&P, Moody’s, etc.), that liberalized global finance. The only problem with this book is that it is not one of the many books on the financial meltdown that follows the successful pop journalistic formula of demonizing greedy financial...

France deports Muslims, launches national pride campaign in battle against Islamic fundamentalism

MAISONCELLE, France — The heavy clay-laced mud behind the cattle pen on Antoine Renault’s farm looks as treacherous as it must have been nearly 600 years ago, when King Henry V rode from a spot near here to lead a sodden and exhausted English Army against a French force that was said to outnumber his by as much as five to one. snip...They devastated a force of heavily armored French nobles who had gotten bogged down in the region’s sucking mud, riddled by thousands of arrows from English longbowmen and outmaneuvered by common soldiers with much lighter gear. It would...

The heavy clay-laced mud behind the cattle pen on Antoine Renault’s farm looks as treacherous as it must have been nearly 600 years ago, when King Henry V rode from a spot near here to lead a sodden and exhausted English Army against a French force that was said to outnumber his by as much as five to one. No one can ever take away the shocking victory by Henry and his “band of brothers,” as Shakespeare would famously call them, on St. Crispin’s Day, Oct. 25, 1415. They devastated a force of heavily armored French nobles who had gotten...

When ten French soldiers were killed last year in an ambush by Afghan insurgents in what had seemed a relatively peaceful area, the French public were horrified. Their revulsion increased with the news that many of the dead soldiers had been mutilated — and with the publication of photographs showing the militants triumphantly sporting their victims’ flak jackets and weapons. The French had been in charge of the Sarobi area, east of Kabul, for only a month, taking over from the Italians; it was one of the biggest single losses of life by Nato forces in Afghanistan. What the grieving...

Supermodel Lara Stone poses in blackface for French Vogue photoshootBY Nicole Carter DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER Tuesday, October 13th 2009, 1:27 PM French Vogue has gotten into some more haute controversy. This month's issue of the fashion magazine features a photoshoot with white supermodel Lara Stone in blackface, according to Jezebel.com. No stranger to shocking shoots — it recently featured a faux-pregnant model smoking a cigarette— the magazine enlisted photographer Steven Klein to shoot the 14-page spread, styled by editor Carine Rotifeld. The story that goes along with the photos praises Stone for her "radical break with the wave of...

SNIPPET: "Arabic language schools in Nasr City are doing well and many Salafists come to Egypt in to learn the language of the Koran. Many deeply religious students from Europe come to Egypt to learn Arabic. The question is: are these European Salafists coming to study the language of the Koran or to prepare terrorist attacks?" SNIPPET: "In addition to language lessons, they usually follow courses in Islamic law offered by teachers ranging from the renowned Al-Azhar University to clandestine imams without permits. "Religious fanatics want to be taken seriously," says Walid al-Gohari, founder and director of the Al-Fajr institute,...

"President Obama, I support the Americans' outstretched hand. But what did the international community gain from these offers of dialogue? Nothing." -- French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Sept. 24 WASHINGTON -- When France chides you for appeasement, you know you're scraping bottom. Just how low we've sunk was demonstrated by the Obama administration's satisfaction when Russia's president said of Iran, after meeting President Obama at the U.N., that "sanctions are seldom productive, but they are sometimes inevitable." You see? The Obama magic. Engagement works. Russia is on board. Except that, as The Washington Post inconveniently pointed out, President Dmitry Medvedev said...

PARIS — The French government on Wednesday dropped its public support for Roman Polanski, saying the Oscar-winning director held in Switzerland over a three-decade-old child sex case was not "above the law." "Roman Polanski is neither above nor beneath the law," said government spokesman Luc Chatel. "We have a judicial procedure under way, for a serious affair, the rape of a minor, on which the American and Swiss legal systems are doing their job," he told reporters. He added: "One can understand the emotion that this belated arrest, more than 30 years after the incident, and the method of the...

just breaking, no article link yet.

...The horrific accident (that killed Diana) illustrated the difference between the French and U.S. approaches to emergency care -- a relatively small piece of the French medical system, but deemed by some people to be the best in the world and often cited as a model for U.S. health care overhaul. When rescue workers arrived, Diana was conscious...although she had suffered internal injuries, she did not arrive at the Parisian hospital for 110 minutes -- too late for the surgery that some speculated could have saved her life. Her last hour -- in cardiac arrest and bleeding to death --...

MOGADISHU, Somalia - A French security agent kidnapped by insurgents in Somalia has escaped, reportedly by killing three of his captors, Somali officials said Wednesday.

Does the name Shi Pei Pu mean anything to you? It’s not an unreasonable question: last month newspapers the world over published this person’s obituary. Shi was a beautiful Chinese opera singer — but also a spy who in the 1960s honeytrapped Bernard Boursicot, an official working at the French embassy in Beijing. Even after Boursicot was moved from China, he continued to see and pass documents to Shi when they were able to meet. At one such meeting he was delighted to see the son whom Shi had produced, Shi Du Du, whose looks seemed only partially Chinese. In...

An article in the Wall Street Journal dissects the moves made by President Sarkozy to mold the crumbling French health care system into one that resembles the U.S. healthcare model. While France struggles with a broken universal healthcare model, Democrats in the House and Senate want to reform US healthcare to look more like the moribund French version.The article contained a time line of budgetary actions since the inception of a universal health care system in France. Note the number of times taxes were raised and services curtailed - by studying the past, we can see the future of...

7/28/2009 - MANAS AIR BASE, Kyrgyzstan (AFNS) -- Thought not traditional Air Force linguists, two multilingual Airmen bring a unique skill to Manas Air Base. Capt. Jecek Dempnaik and Staff Sgt. Maria Hudgeons, who speak a combined seven languages, reduce communication barriers between Air Force members and coalition forces through written translations and verbal interpretations. They are the ears and eyes to the director of the Transit Center here. When acting in this capacity, they are referred to as the 376th Air Expeditionary Wing coalition coordinators and linguists. Shifting tongues between English, French and Spanish is as easy as breathing...

The French Army were branded ‘imbeciles’ today after an artillery exercise caused a massive fire which destroyed dozens of houses and left hundreds homeless. Rather than improving the marksmanship of the Foreign Legion, the shelling led to mass evacuations in a suburb of Marseilles.

Two French agents held by rebels in Somalia will be tried soon under Islam's Sharia law, an official of the radical Shebab group told AFP, as a Somali minister said they had been taken out of Mogadishu and expressed concern for their safety. "The men were caught assisting the apostate government and their spies, so that they will soon be tried and punished under the Sharia law, they will face the justice court for spying and entering Somalia to assist the enemy of Allah," a senior Shebab officer told AFP on condition of anonymity. "The decision about their fate will...

NEW YORK (AFP) – Carla Bruni-Sarokzy will lead a glittering line-up of stars at a concert here to mark Nelson Mandela's birthday, in what will be her first public show since becoming France's first lady. Bruni-Sarkozy, a model-turned-musician, will perform for the first time in public since marrying French President Nicolas Sarkozy at the concert at Radio City Music Hall in Madison Square Garden. The event, which also stars Stevie Wonder and soul queen Aretha Franklin, ends a week of celebrations for the 91st birthday of the former South African president.

Note: Photo included. # SNIPPET: "Two French security advisers helping the Somali government have been kidnapped in the capital Mogadishu, French officials have said. Gunmen who were wearing police uniforms entered the hotel where the two were staying and took them away, eyewitnesses said. The abductions took place in a government-held part of Mogadishu. Islamist rebels are battling troops from the UN-backed interim government for control of the city." SNIPPET: "The French foreign ministry said the two advisers were in Mogadishu on an official mission to provide help to the government. They were seized at the Sahafi Hotel, which has...

PARIS (Reuters Life!) – French tourists are the worst in the world, coming across as bad at foreign languages, tight-fisted and arrogant, according to a survey of 4,500 hotel owners across the world. They finish in last place in the survey carried out for internet travel agency Expedia by polling company TNS Infratest, which said French holidaymakers don't speak local languages and are seen as impolite. "It's mainly the fact that they speak little or no English when they're abroad, and they don't speak much of the local language," Expedia Marketing Director Timothee de Roux told radio station France Info....

PARIS (Reuters Life!) – French tourists are the worst in the world, coming across as bad at foreign languages, tight-fisted and arrogant, according to a survey of 4,500 hotel owners across the world. They finish in last place in the survey carried out for internet travel agency Expedia by polling company TNS Infratest, which said French holidaymakers don't speak local languages and are seen as impolite.

As far as I’m concerned, Frenchmen are back in vogue. Who could ever have predicted that the French President would stand up for women’s universal rights and for freedom as a universal right—while the American President would hang back, wait, temporize? It’s almost as if we’ve elected a Frenchman President of the United States–and an American-style President is ruling France. Please contrast the following two speeches. On June 22th, 2009, President Nicholas Sarkozy stated that he viewed the full-body burqa and niquab as a sign of the “debasement” of women and that it won’t be welcome in France. According to...

Two passengers with names linked to Islamic terrorism were on the Air France flight which crashed with the loss of 228 lives, it has emerged. Debris from Air France flight AF 447 has been recovered from the Atlantic French secret servicemen established the connection while working through the list of those who boarded the doomed Airbus in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on May 31. Flight AF 447 crashed in the mid-Atlantic en route to Paris during a violent storm. While it is certain there were computer malfunctions, terrorism has not been ruled out. Soon after news of the fatal crash...

Undeterred by an on-court intruder, Federer beat surprise finalist Soderling 6-1, 7-6 (1), 6-4 on Sunday to complete a career Grand Slam and win his 14th major title, matching Sampras' record. On his fourth try at Roland Garros, Federer became the sixth man to win all four Grand Slam championships. When the stylish Swiss hit a service winner on championship point, he fell on his knees to the clay that had vexed him for so long, screamed and briefly buried his face in his hands. He was teary by the time he met Soderling at the net, and fans gave...

A US "taster" tested the food being dished up to President Barack Obama at a dinner in a French restaurant, a waiter said on Sunday. "They have someone who tastes the dishes," said waiter Gabriel de Carvalho from the "La Fontaine de Mars" restaurant where Obama and his family turned up for dinner on Saturday night. "It wasn't very pleasant for the cooks at first, but the person was very nice and was relaxed, so it all went well," he said on the Itele news channel.

(CNN) -- A French passenger aircraft carrying 228 people has disappeared off the coast of Brazil, airline officials say. A file photo shows an Air France jet on take off. Some 228 passengers are aboard the missing aircraft. A file photo shows an Air France jet on take off. Some 228 passengers are aboard the missing aircraft. Air France told CNN the jet was traveling from Rio de Janeiro to Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris when contact was lost. The airline said flight AF447 was carrying 216 passengers in addition to a crew of 12. The plane is listed...

Well, surprise, surprise! If there was any doubt remaining in anyone's mind that the Troopergate investigation was politically motivated, you can put those doubts aside. From Sean Cockerham at the ADN: I just spoke to Hollis French and he sounds very interested in running for governor as well, although he's not ready to announce his candidacy yet. "I love public service and I've been encouraged to run by many people I respect." French said. "I'm seriously considering it."

PARIS (AFP) – France's special envoy to Pakistan painted a grim picture Thursday of a country collapsing under pressure from Islamist rebels which could one day seize control of its nuclear arsenal. "Today the Taliban are making progress not just in Afghanistan but in the Pakistani interior itself, and at the end of this road there's a stock of nuclear weapons," Pierre Lellouche told Europe 1 radio. Lellouche is President Nicolas Sarkozy's representative dealing with the conflicts in Afghanistan, where French forces form part of a NATO force, and in Pakistan, where the government is struggling to deal with the...

You gotta watch this video from France. Some group called Europalestine.com organized a "boycott" to protest the Israeli's. Boycott's usually mean your not going to buy the product anymore right? Not for these French. Instead it means to steal what you can while screaming about the "criminal" Israeli's.... [video at site] A reader to Powerline notes it is even more disgusting then first glance: This video is even more grotesque than you think. It was shot in a suburb of Paris called Aulnay-sous-Bois. The next-door town to Aulnay is called Drancy, about 1 mile away. Drancy was used by the...

A FRENCH computer hacker is thought to have tapped into Twitter's internal system, gaining access to millions of accounts including that of US President Barack Obama. The hacker, under the name "Hacker Croll", posted a series of screenshots showing him viewing internal website settings and the private details of user accounts. The screenshots show Croll looking at the behind-the-scenes details for the account of US President Barack Obama, including the IP address of the last person to use it. Twitter co-founder Biz Stone confirmed unauthorised access was gained by an outside party during the week, but said only 10 individual...

The French Navy said they seized 11 pirates Sunday after they apparently mistook a French military vessel for a commercial ship and made a run at it off the coast of Kenya. Two pirate assault boats approached the Nivose "at great speed," Capt. Christophe Prazuck said, but a French helicopter intervened before the attackers had time to fire at the French navy ship. The helicopter fired warning shots, he said. The pirates, who had a mother ship as well as the two assault boats, are being held for questioning on the Nivose, Prazuck said. The vessels were carrying AK-47 rifles...

France has been cooing along with everyone else over the arrival of Bo Obama at the White House, but the master of America's new First Dog is no longer in good odour with President Sarkozy. Mr Sarkozy is pouring cold water on President Obama's efforts to recast American leadership on the world stage, depicting them as unoriginal, unsubstantial and overrated. Behind leaks and briefings from the Elysée Palace lies Mr Sarkozy's irritation at the rock-star welcome that Europe gave Mr Obama on his Europan tour earlier this month

NDJAMENA (AFP) - European peacekeepers were hunting for a "deranged" French Foreign Legion officer who fled after going on a shooting spree in Chad, killing two comrades, a Togolese UN soldier and a farmer. The shootings began Tuesday at Camp des Etoiles, the main base of the European peacekeepers near the airport in the eastern town of Abeche near the Sudan border, a French military official said. "Gunshots were heard in the (military) camp and then the two legionnaires were found and then a little further away the body of the Togolese soldier was discovered," said Captain Christophe Prazuck. The...

The Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions (CRIF), the umbrella body of French Jewry, will not renew dialogue with French Muslim groups that equated Operation Cast Lead in Gaza with the Holocaust, the group's vice president, Meyer Habib, told The Jerusalem Post on Monday. Palestinian supporters protest against the Israeli operation in Gaza, in Berlin. Similar protests were held in France. During Operation Cast Lead, some Muslim organizers of pro-Palestinian demonstrations equated Israel's actions with the Nazi Holocaust, and even carried banners that read "death to Jews."

I am in need of assistance with translation to Spanish and French. We are in a local battle up here near Seattle with the ACLU who is putting signs in the transit buses telling illegals they do not have to cooperate with Border Patrol agents. We (R) party , demanded equal 1st amendment protection and are getting it. So, we have our sign but we want to translate it and include French since we are just below the Canadian border.

A common starting point for examining conservatism is Edmund Burke(b 1729- d.1797), English statesman, and notable thinker, born in Ireland. As a young man, Burke traveled extensively in France. Burke’s philosophy and world view would fill many pages. The most important thing to know is that he was a staunch opponent of the French Revolution, while strongly supporting the American Revolution. Burke’s antipathy can best be understood by learning what took place in France in the time span from 1789 to about 1845. The events that took place in the early years of this time span are commonly referred to...

President Barack Obama has yet to answer a U.S. congressman's plea to spare France's Roquefort cheese from a crippling 300-percent import duty, the lawmaker's office said Monday. Democratic Representative James Oberstar wrote Obama on February 2, urging him to take steps against "this mean-spirited and unproductive punitive duty" as part of a campaign "to reestablish America's moral authority in the world."

Last Tuesday, a Parisian appeals court overturned the convictions of five former Guantanamo inmates who had been found guilty on terrorist conspiracy charges in 2007. The development should give pause to wonder not only about the wisdom of plans to transfer Guantanamo inmates to European countries (see my earlier New Majority piece here), but more fundamentally about the very idea of treating the "disposition" of Guantanamo inmates as an issue for civilian courts, whether in the US or abroad. The five French Gitmo detainees were repatriated to France in 2004 and 2005. They were tried and convicted on charges of...

CEG deal with French utility OK'd by FERC February 20, 2009 Constellation Energy Group has cleared one regulatory hurdle for sale of half of its nuclear power business to France's largest utility. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved yesterday the $4.5 billion transaction, saying the deal "will not adversely affect competition, rates or regulations." The Baltimore company agreed in December to sell half of its nuclear business to Electricite de France. In doing so, Constellation scrapped an earlier agreement with MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co., a deal reached in September amid a liquidity crisis facing the company. Federal law prohibits full...

We Are All Socialists Now In many ways our economy already resembles a European one. As boomers age and spending grows, we will become even more French.

Hey folks, Do you remember the rats who tried to whack Sarah? How about the shrew who allowed bogus ballots in Ohio? Ever thought of donating money to their opponents in their next election? Would be sweet if the conservatives sent a little payback via the ballot box. State Senator Hollis French http://www.hollisfrenchforsenate.com/ Ohio Secretary of state Jennifer Brunner http://www.jenniferbrunner.com/

The Alaska Senate on Friday found Gov. Sarah Palin's husband and nine state employees, including some of her top aides, in contempt for ignoring subpoenas to testify in the Legislature's Troopergate investigation.

LONDON: It is often suggested that there's natural smell in females that arouse males, but a team of testers have now found that women smell of onions while men smell of cheese. A Swiss team of researchers, who studied the armpit sweat samples from 24 males and 25 females, found marked differences in the sweat from men and women after they had spent time in a sauna or 15 minutes on an exercise bike. "Men smell of cheese, and women of grapefruit or onion," said Christian Starkenmann of Firmenich, a company in Geneva that researches flavours and perfumes for food...

That the French resent the global supremacy of the English language is nothing new, but as Hugh Schofield finds out, a newly evolved business-speak version is taking over. They were giving out the annual Prix de la Carpette Anglaise the other day. Literally it means the English Rug Prize, but doormat would be the better translation. As the citation explains, the award goes to the French person or institution who has given the best display of "fawning servility" to further the insinuation into France of the accursed English language. Also the Paris band Nelson (it is the Admiral, not Mr...

Former French president Jacques Chirac was rushed to hospital after being mauled by his own 'clinically depressed' pet dog. The 76-year-old statesman was savaged by his white Maltese dog - which suffers from frenzied fits and is being treated with anti-depressants. The animal, named Sumo, had become increasingly violent over the past years and was prone to making 'vicious, unprovoked attacks', Chirac's wife Bernadette said. The former president, who ruled France for 12 years until 2007, was taken to hospital in Paris where he was treated as an outpatient and sent home, VSD magazine reported. Mrs Chirac said: 'The dog...

LEVALLOIS, FRANCE — Yvon Portier begins teaching his sixth-grade physical education class at College Jean Jaures with a few simple and increasingly vehement instructions. “Pair up. Choose your partner. Stop running please. Mind the stairs. Don't push your classmate! Be quiet please! Shut your mouth!!” Mr. Portier's exhortations may sound perfectly normal to anyone who has ever been in a gym class with 11- and 12-year-olds. The difference is that Mr. Portier is speaking English at a junior high school in the heart of France – a country that still falls into existential crises over whether musicians who sing in...

Follow up to my earlier post about 14 Belgians arrested for being al Qaeda members. It turns out one of them is Malika El-Aroud, who has been arrested in the past for running an al Qaeda support website. If you speak French and hang around the eHadis, you'd probably recognize her from her frequent appearances at the minbar-sos forum.

THROUGH FRENCH EYES Posted at 9:01 a.m. ET Reader Hunter Schultz alerts us to a wonderful - just wonderful - article by a French soldier serving close to American troops in Afghanistan. Hunter got this from his friend, Renee Nielsen, in Mumbai, India, which shows the power of the internet to bring us material that we'll never see in the mainstream media. Some things should not be condensed. Herewith, the whole piece, at times a bit awkwardly translated, but highly recommended: “We have shared our daily life with two US units for quite a while - they are the first...