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The last remaining survivor of the sinking of WWII battle cruiser HMS Hood in May 1941 has died at the age of 85, his naval association has said.

Hi. Did you know that the Monarchy is today's Royal Family and the Royal Art and Residence? Not that I'm bothered it doesn't mean anything to me.

Japanese Royal Tomb Opened to Scholars for First TimeTony McNicol in Tokyo for National Geographic NewsApril 28, 2008 A rare visit by archaeologists to a fifth-century imperial tomb offers hope that other closely guarded graves in Japan might soon be open to independent study. This month a group of 16 experts led by the Japanese Archaeological Association released results from their February visit inside Gosashi tomb. The event marked the first time that scholars had been allowed inside a royal tomb outside of an official excavation led by Japan's Imperial Household Agency. Archaeologists have been requesting access to Gosashi tomb...

The head of the RAF has 'erupted' with rage over revelations Prince William landed a £10million RAF helicopter in girlfriend Kate Middleton's backyard during a military exercise. Air Chief Marshal Sir Glenn Torpy is said to have been furious at the 'sheer stupidity' of the situation and demanded a 'line-by-line' explanation from subordinates. Details of the angry reaction emerged as the young royal came under fire for using a RAF Chinook for a second time to fit in a personal visit.

Royal Bank of Scotland in fresh cash plea By Katherine Griffiths and Robert Winnett Last Updated: 11:12pm BST 17/04/2008 Britain's second biggest bank is to make a plea to the City to try to raise billions of pounds to help shore up its finances, which have been hit by the global credit crisis. The Royal Bank of Scotland, which owns NatWest, is to launch a rights issue for at least £5 billion. The move by RBS could lead to pressure on Sir Fred Goodwin to step aside as chief executive It is the first major British bank to concede that...

Act repeal could make Franz Herzog von Bayern new King of England and Scotland By Richard Alleyne and Harry de Quetteville Last Updated: 2:48am BST 07/04/2008 Gordon Brown is considering repealing the 1701 Act of Settlement as a way of healing a historic injustice by ending the prohibition against Catholics taking the throne. The Duke of Bavaria, with his niece Elisabeth, is a descendant of King Charles I But doing so would have the unforeseen consequence of making a 74-year-old German aristocrat the new King of England and Scotland. Without the Act, Franz Herzog von Bayern, the current Duke of...

Breaking: Prince Harry duty in Afganistan

Royal Goddesses of a Bronze Age State Volume 61 Number 1, January/February 2008 by Marco Merola Its arms arranged in a gesture of prayer, the figurine at right probably depicts a living queen worshipping the statuette of a dead royal, left. (Courtesy Maura Sala) It's been more than 30 years since Italian archaeologists found a vast archive of 17,000 cuneiform tablets at the Bronze Age site of Ebla in northern Syria. But the ancient city is still surprising those who work there. Last year archaeologist Paolo Matthiae's team discovered two almost perfectly preserved figurines that confirm textual evidence for a...

Amateurs Unravel Russia’s Last Royal Mystery Agence France PresseCzar Nicholas II of Russia, his wife, Alexandra, wearing crown, and their children in 1914, four years before they were killed. By CLIFFORD J. LEVY Published: November 25, 2007 YEKATERINBURG, Russia — On the outskirts of this burly industrial center, off a road like any other, on a nowhere scrap of land — here unfolded the final act of one of the last century’s most momentous events. Excavations were done near Yekaterinburg in September. An archaeologist oversaw the search. A short way through a clearing, toward a cluster of birch trees, the...

Royal burial ground Unearthed Publisher: Sonia Bennett Published: 20/11/2007 - 13:45:58 PM Royal burial ground unearthed A royal Anglo-Saxon burial ground and some of the finest gold jewellery ever unearthed in the country has been discovered by a freelance archaeologist. The 109-grave cemetery is arranged in a rectangular pattern and dates from the middle of the 7th Century. The cemetery, bed burial and high status objects are considered to all indicate the people buried must have connections with Anglo-Saxon royalty. Traditionally, Anglo Saxon royalty were always buried in the south of England and it is thought the royals buried at...

The intensity of combat in Afghanistan has been laid bare as one Army regiment revealed that it had fired one million rounds, killed 1,028 Taliban and lost nine men in a six-month tour of duty. At times, fighting saw 1Bn of the Royal Anglians having to "winkle out the Taliban at the point of a bayonet", said Lt Col Stuart Carver, the commanding officer, at the battalion's medal ceremony. At times the fighting was on a par with that experienced in the Second World War and the casualty rate was similar, with nine men killed and a further 135 wounded....

Army News video: RCA training for gun line defence SHILO, Manitoba - Royal Canadian Artillery provides fire support and defence from advancing enemy.

Swiss Consul to St. Petersburg Madeleine Lüthy is coming to the city Tobolsk in the first decade of August in the framework of creation of Romanovs` Royal Family tourist route in Russia.

Historians and Orthodox activists of Moscow call to rename the metro station Voikovskaya named after Peter Voikov, a Soviet commissar who was directly relevant to the death of the Russian Royal Family.

A day after President Nicolas Sarkozy’s conservative party captured a smaller majority in Parliament than expected, France’s Socialist Party was struggling to adjust to the awkward reality that its first couple — Ségolène Royal and François Hollande — had split up. The disclosure, made just hours after the polls closed Sunday night, threatens to complicate efforts by the Socialist Party to close ranks and serve as a counterweight to the powerful and well-disciplined machine of Mr. Sarkozy’s new government. “It’s as if the parents have gotten divorced and now have to decide who’s going to run the family and look...

British Forces based in Helmand Province, southern Afghanistan, deployed as part of NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), have launched a programme to raise awareness of the dangers posed by landmines. Having cleared Taliban forces from much of Helmand Province, British Forces have now begun the task of assisting the Afghan government in reconstruction and development programmes. It is hoped this will enable Afghanis to return to their villages and farmlands to begin a new life. Eliminating the threat of landmines is essential to the revival of the Afghan economy, and to safeguarding the lives of the Afghan men who...

Pivotal moments in history are rarely recognizable at the time, but the 2007 French presidential election will most certainly turn out to be one of them. Hurtling down the path of economic stagnation, multicultural crisis and Atlantic isolationism, France has been rescued from oblivion -- by none other than the French. The victory of reform-minded, pro-American, center-right Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, over the backward-looking Socialist Party candidate Ségolène Royal spoke to the people's discontent at the direction of their country. When a significant portion of the population has to exit in order to make a living and Paris suburbs have...

PARIS, May 12, 2007 (AFP) - Bitterly divided following the defeat of its presidential candidate Segolene Royal, France's Socialist Party (PS) bunkered down Saturday to draw up a battle plan for next month's legislative elections. Reeling from its third consecutive presidential election defeat, the party is struggling to forge a common front ahead of the June 10 and 17 vote to elect the lower house National Assembly. On combative form, Royal opened a meeting of the party's 300-member national council in Paris with a call for unity, vowing to remain a driving force in opposition despite her emphatic defeat by...

PARIS, May 11, 2007 (AFP) - Defeated French presidential candidate Segolene Royal said Friday she intended to help lead the socialist opposition to Nicolas Sarkozy's right-wing government, starting with the campaign for legislative elections next month. "After this wonderful presidential election campaign, and the 17 million votes for my name, when I see all the mail I receive, I know that many French people are expecting that I remain present," Royal said. "I didn't win, that is clear, yet at the same time there is a deep sense of pride, a movement... that allows us to hope for the coming...

There was a time when advisers to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) looked abroad for proof that women can get elected to a top leadership role in the modern world: Margaret Thatcher, the former British prime minister; Angela Merkel, the German chancellor; and Michelle Bachelet, the president of Chile. But as presidential candidate Ségolène Royal was defeated by a conservative man who had been France's chief law enforcement officer, the Clinton campaign was quick to dismiss comparisons between their candidate and her Socialist counterpart across the Atlantic. "Other than the fact that they are both women, they don't have much...

...It's not only on such issues as the global war on terrorism and preventing the Islamic Republic in Iran from developing a nuclear arsenal that Sarkozy is close to Bush. He has also promised a major tax cut, the first of its kind in modern French politics, the abolition of inheritance tax and more flexible labor laws. During the campaign, "Sarko" used a vocabulary that had all but disappeared from the French political lexicon. He spoke of work, merit, authority, respect, patriotism and national identity. He said he would fight against self-loathing, multiculturalism, political correctness and moral equivalence between the...

...Consider...: * "The best social model is one that creates jobs for everyone, and this is obviously not ours since our unemployment level is twice as high as that of our main partners." * "I admire the social mobility of American society. You can start with nothing and become a spectacular success. You can fail and get a second chance. Merit is rewarded." * "France is no longer the country that comes up with new ideas." ...[T]o those Americans who mindlessly praise the imaginary social justice and "better" quality of life in a France they know only from privileged vacations...

May 6, 2007 marks a break in the history of French elections. Nicolas Sarkozy's big victory closes the cycle opened by Francois Mitterrand's conquest of the Elysee on 10 May 1981. For the first time in approximately 30 years, the outgoing side is strengthened at the end of an election in which there is devolution of national power (presidential or legislative election, with the exception of those elections that took place on the heels of a race for the Elysee). France changed political sides in 1981, 1986, 1988, 1993, 1997 and 2002: a move to the left, a move to...

HAVING tried everything else in her quest to stop the seemingly inexorable march of Nicolas Sarkozy, the conservative candidate, Ségolène Royal played what she hoped was her trump card in the last hours of the battle for the French presidency: her femininity. In a desperate attempt to woo undecided voters, Royal was reduced to emphasising the novelty of having a woman in the Elysée Palace who was more than just a first lady. “I know there are those who thought – and who still think – is it really reasonable to choose a woman?” she said in her final campaign...

Riot police fired tear gas at stone-throwing protesters gathered in central Paris today to demonstrate against the presidential election victory of right-winger Nicolas Sarkozy, an AFP journalist said. The clashes took place on the Place de la Bastille where about 5,000 supporters of the defeated Socialist candidate Segolene Royal had gone to await the election results. Up to 300 rioters, some of whom were masked, made running attacks on riot police who took up positions at the entrance to boulevards leading onto the square. Earlier a small crowd of protesters, brandishing black and red anarchist flags, set fire to an...

PARIS (Reuters) - Socialist opponent Segolene Royal said on Friday that France risks violence and brutality if her opponent right-winger Nicolas Sarkozy wins Sunday's presidential election. On the last day of official campaigning, opinion polls showed Sarkozy enjoyed a commanding lead over Royal, who accused the former interior minister of lying and polarizing France. "Choosing Nicolas Sarkozy would be a dangerous choice," Royal told RTL radio. It is my responsibility today to alert people to the risk of (his) candidature with regards to the violence and brutality that would be unleashed in the country (if he won)," she said. Pressed...

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France's right-wing presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy has a commanding lead over his Socialist rival Segolene Royal ahead of Sunday's second round vote, according to a new poll on Thursday. The Opinion-way survey for the www.LEJDD.FR website said Sarkozy had the backing of 54 percent of voters against 46 percent for Royal. The survey of 1,415 people was carried out on May 2 and 3 after Wednesday night's television debate between the two.

PARIS (AP) - The two candidates to be France's next president faced off Wednesday in their first and last televised debate of the campaign, a highly anticipated encounter before the weekend vote, and sparks flew almost from the start. Segolene Royal, struggling in her quest to become France's first woman president, immediately went on the offensive, criticizing Nicolas Sarkozy's record as a minister in President Jacques Chirac's government before he became a candidate for the presidency. Sarkozy, leading in the polls and looking to get through the debate unscathed, was scrupulously polite and did not rise to Royal's baiting. He...

A video in French to support Nicolas Sarkozy. The title of the video is : "The judges of political correctness against Nicolas Sarkozy". And the text of the video is : "guilty of fighting crime", "guilty of fighting religious integrism", "guilty of fighting terrorism", "guilty of thinking of the future of France"

She smiled, then blew her top. "Don't speak to me like that!" thundered Segolene Royal, silencing Nicolas Sarkozy. That was 14 years ago — the last time they debated face-to-face. The two, now locked in battle for the presidency of France, have long been as incompatible as oil and water, his pugnacious, browbeating verbosity a trigger for Royal's temper and her steely refusal to be talked down to in the male-dominated world of French politics. Their clashing styles, temperaments, politics and proposals for reviving France should guarantee sparks when they meet on Wednesday in their first and last televised debate...

POLL Ipsos/Dell: Sarkozy 52,5% v. 47,5% Royal april 29 2007 Nicolas Sarkozy would win over Ségolène Royal in the 2nd round of the Presidential Election with 52,5% (no change) against 47,5% (no change) for the Socialoist party candidate, according to the 51st wave of polling done by Ipsos/Dell published Saturday night.. IFOP POLL Sarkozy would beat Royal 52,5% (-1,5) to 47,5% (+1,5) in the 2nd round. according to a poll conducted by Ifop-Fiducial taken for Channel 6 M6 and Le Journal du Dimanche, made public on Saturday. Nicolas Sarkozy the winner, Ségolène Royal on the rise, according to IFOP. Nicolas...

Baghdad - French presidential candidate Segolene Royal received a campaign endorsement from an unexpected quarter on Saturday when an Iraq-based Iranian rebel movement held a rally to support her. The People's Mujahedeen of Iran (PMOI), which is listed by the European Union and United States as a terrorist group, claimed that about 4 000 Iranian exiles and Iraqi supporters had gathered in the Iraqi town of Ashraf, northeast of Baghdad. The organisation has a long-standing enmity for the outgoing French President Jacques Chirac and his favoured successor, the Socialist Royal's right-wing opponent Nicholas Sarkozy. Photographs released by the group appeared...

(AFP) - Socialist Segolene Royal on Friday accused her French presidential rival Nicolas Sarkozy of conspiring to block a center-left alliance and said crucial talks with defeated contender Francois Bayrou would go ahead. Royal and Bayrou are due to meet Saturday for a "debate" that could provide a boost to the Socialist candidate, who is trailing behind rightwinger Sarkozy in the polls ahead of the May 6 runoff. Bayrou won 6.8 million votes coming third in the first round ballot and both Royal and Sarkozy have been aggressively courting his constituents. The planned rapprochement between Royal, the 53-year-old former adviser...

Ségolène Royal, the first woman with a chance of leading France, began re-shaping her campaign yesterday as she faced a runoff with the clear favourite in the presidential election, the rightwing former interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy.Ms Royal began the difficult task of convincing France that she was not merely an off-the-shelf traditional Socialist in designer clothing and could break away from her party roots to capture the centre ground. With the candidates racing to win over the 7 million people who voted for the centrist third-man François Bayrou, party advisers said Ms Royal would stand no chance of winning if...

http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/viewItem/itemID/15509 Nicolas Sarkozy of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) could win the second round of France’s presidential election next month, according to five voting intention polls conducted after the results of the first round were released. In surveys by Ifop, Ipsos and LH2, Sarkozy is ahead with 54 per cent, and Socialist Party candidate Ségolène Royal trails with 46 per cent. In addition, Sarkozy holds a seven-point edge over Royal in a study by CSA, and a four-point edge in a poll by BVA. First round voting took place on Mar. 22. Final results put Sarkozy in first...

Nicolas Sarkozy of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) could win the second round of France’s presidential election next month, according to five voting intention polls conducted after the results of the first round were released. In surveys by Ifop, Ipsos and LH2, Sarkozy is ahead with 54 per cent, and Socialist Party candidate Ségolène Royal trails with 46 per cent. In addition, Sarkozy holds a seven-point edge over Royal in a study by CSA, and a four-point edge in a poll by BVA.

Nicolas Sarkozy, the conservative, and Ségolène Royal, the Socialist, won the first round of the presidential election on Sunday, setting up a classic left-right contest next month between two candidates with competing visions of how to govern France. Whoever is elected will also usher in a new generation of leadership: For the first time, France will have an elected president who did not come of age during World War II. With more than 99 percent of the vote counted, Mr. Sarkozy was leading with about 30.7 percent of the vote, and Ms. Royal had about 25.2 percent. François Bayrou, the...

Segolene Royal can see it in her mind's eye: She, Hillary Rodham Clinton and German Chancellor Angela Merkel forming a triumvirate of women leading over a big part of the free world. By qualifying for the May 6 runoff that will select France's next leader, Socialist Royal is now a crucial step closer to her dream. She has two weeks left to convince the nation that it will be better off with a woman as president for the first time than with another man: her challenger, Nicolas Sarkozy, a crime-fighting conservative. Royal, 53, made an issue of her gender during...

Key Policies of Sarkozy and Royal Published: 4/22/07, 4:05 PM EDT By The Associated Press (AP) - Nicolas Sarkozy and Segolene Royal go head to head for the French presidency on May 6. Here is a glance at some of their key policy differences. NICOLAS SARKOZY: ECONOMY: Wants to make overtime pay tax-free to encourage people to work more. EUROPEAN CONSTITUTION: Wants to postpone controversial issues in favor of adopting a simpler constitution by 2009, without another referendum. 35-HOUR WORKWEEK: Says it's not creating jobs as intended but would not abolish it. Wants to relax rules to let people work...

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Conservative Nicolas Sarkozy and Socialist Segolene Royal are set to contest a French presidential run-off after topping the first-round poll on Sunday, Belgium's Belga news agency said. Belga quoted first projections which cannot be published in France by law until the last polling stations close at 1800 GMT (7 p.m. British time) as showing Sarkozy and Royal would go through. Belgium's RTBF radio station said Sarkozy was slightly ahead in the first round.

IFOP POLL :: SARKO 28% ROYAL 22.5% BAYROU 20% le PEN 13% Nicolas Sarkozy remains the top contender in France’s presidential race, according to a poll by Ifop released by Fiducial. 28 per cent of respondents would support the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) candidate in tomorrow’s election. Socialist Party (PS) candidate Ségolène Royal is second with 22.5 per cent, followed by Union for French Democracy (UDF) leader François Bayrou with 20 per cent, followed by Jean-Marie Le Pen of the National Front (FN) with 13 per cent. Yesterday, Sarkozy discussed the campaign, saying, "My family has suffered...

The last speeches have been given, the last polls taken. Saturday, by law, is a day of rest for the French presidential campaign before the first round of voting on Sunday. It is also a day for the French to mull over two questions: First, and most obviously, what will the large number of undecided voters do? Second, and more interestingly, who has been lying to the pollsters? For the past quarter century, one particular lie told to pollsters has had a very large effect on French politics: "I am not voting for Jean-Marie Le Pen." With his coarseness, anti-Arab...

Interviewee: Charles A. Kupchan, Senior Fellow and Director of Europe Studies Interviewer: Bernard Gwertzman, Consulting Editor April 17, 2007 Charles A. Kupchan, CFR’s top Europe expert, says the French presidential election that kicks off this Sunday is “one of the most open in modern French history. It’s anybody’s to win.” Even though former interior minister Nicholas Sarkozy is ahead in the polls, he says it is quite possible that dark-horse candidate François Bayrou can pull off an upset, if leftist voters throw their weight to him rather than Ségolène Royal. France has presidential elections coming up, which will be in...

THE French presidential election, which has its first round tomorrow, features a dozen candidates, none of whom seem to have much good to say about the performance of the man who is leaving office after 12 years in power, Jacques Chirac. A look at the economic performance of the country under Mr. Chirac does not easily explain the antipathy. Unemployment remains high, but it is lower than it was when he took office. Economic growth has lagged that of Britain and the United States, but it has outpaced that of Germany. But there is a widespread feeling that the country...

"snip" Here is a look at the issues, personalities and possible outcomes. Q: Can France, Europe and the United States expect anything new from this vote? "snip" Q: Who will the next French president be? "snip" Q: What's wrong with France? "snip" Q: If Sarkozy wins, will France change? "snip" Q: What would a Sarkozy presidency mean for the rest of the world?

Nicolas Sarkozy, the conservative candidate and front-runner for president, evoked his immigrant roots and quoted Martin Luther King Jr. Ségolène Royal, the Socialist, pledged to usher in 21st-century-style Socialism and never to kneel before President Bush. François Bayrou, the centrist, declared that he loved France more than he loved power. And Jean-Marie Le Pen, the head of the ultra-right National Front, branded all three of his main opponents worthless hypocrites. Fanning out to the far corners of France, all but one of the dozen French presidential candidates held their final major campaign rallies on Thursday night, offering starkly different personal...

TNS-Sofres POLL Sarkozy 28%, Royal 24% Nicolas Sarkozy is the top contender in France’s presidential race, according to a poll by released by Unilog. 28 per cent of respondents would vote for the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) candidate in the election. Ipsos POLL :: Sarkozy 30%, Royal 23.5% Nicolas Sarkozy keeps the upper-hand before this Sunday’s presidential ballot in France, according to a tracking poll by released by SFR and Le Point. 30 per cent of respondents would support the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) contender in the election. Ifop POLL :: Sarkozy 28%, Royal 22.5%...

Angus Reid Global Monitor : Polls & Research France 2007: Sarkozy 29.5%, Royal 24.5% April 19, 2007 (Angus Reid Global Monitor) - Nicolas Sarkozy keeps a five-point edge before this Sunday’s French presidential election, according to a tracking poll by Ipsos released by SFR and Le Point. 29.5 per cent of respondents would vote for the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) candidate in the ballot. Ségolène Royal of the Socialist Party (PS) is second with 24.5 per cent, followed by Union for French Democracy (UDF) leader François Bayrou with 18.5 per cent, and Jean-Marie Le Pen of the National...