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Polish troops have found four French-made advanced missiles in Iraq. Although the missiles are not considered weapons of mass destruction, their discovery surprised many as the UN had barred Iraq from importing arms after its invasion of Kuwait in 1990. The four Roland-type French-made missiles were discovered earlier this week, reportedly in the Hilla region near a highway. Experts say the missiles, fired from a mobile launcher vehicle, are highly effective against low-flying aircraft. "These missiles have a range of up to 9 kilometres. They can hit any aircraft," said Major Zbigniew Spiewakowski, Deputy Commander of 1st Combat Group. The...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - To get international help to rebuild Iraq, Congress may have to eat some French fries and French toast, according to Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee. Saying it is time to put aside differences with France, the Texas Democrat circulated a letter on Monday urging the House of Representatives to put back the word "French" back in fries and toast on House cafeteria and dining hall menus. Lawmakers ordered them renamed "Freedom" fries and "Freedom" toast last spring, reflecting anger at France for its opposition to the U.S.-led war to topple Saddam Hussein as Iraq's president. But times have...

"If we find that Hamas and Islamic Jihad are indeed terror groups opposed to peace, we may have to change the EU's stand. However, we must not limit ourselves to one, clear cut, position." – Maurice Gourdault-Montagne, Advisor to French President Jacques Chirac (August 25, 2003) I could not possibly have read this statement correctly, I thought to myself the first time I read it. So, I read it again. After the fifteenth time, I finally had to admit that I was really reading these words. What do you mean, you "may have to" change the EU's stand? "May have...

President George W Bush's personal chef has been humiliated by a team of French practical jokers who tempted him with a job offer to desert his employer and go to work for President Jacques Chirac.The stunt, which is threatening to spiral into a diplomatic incident, happened when Walter Scheib visited Paris in his capacity as president of the Chefs des Chefs d'Etat, a club for those who cook for the world's heads of state.On Wednesday evening he was due to attend a party at the Elysee Palace given by the French leader's wife, Bernadette. That afternoon a French television company...

Hume: "The French government now admits that American anger over its opposition to the war in Iraq is eating away at its tourist industry. But the damage may be even worse than the government is willing to say. The French Ministry of Tourism says the number of American tourists fell by 30% in the first quarter of this year. But the president of the French travel agents union tells The Scotsman newspaper that the number of Americans visiting France has actually fallen by as much as 80% so far this year."

SEAFOOD.COM NEWS [USA TODAY] - May 1, 2003 - The war is over. So the French boycott should be toast, right? Wrong. France continues to take it on the chin -- and in the gut. Nearly one in five Americans who regularly buy French products say they have stopped because of France's outspoken opposition to the war in Iraq, according to a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup survey. American venom toward the French just won't let up. It's hit everything from travel to wine sales to the unloading of French stocks by American investors. The French Government Tourist Office -- which figures France...

Dear (PoisedWoman), Thank you for your e-mail regarding our choice of the Airbus A320 aircraft. Airbus is, in fact, not a French company. It is a European organization owned by British, Spanish, French and German concerns. While the A320 is assembled in France, Airbus also operates numerous manufacturing and assembly plants throughout Europe and spends more money with suppliers in the U.S. than in any other country. In 2002 alone, Airbus spent $5.5 billion in the U.S., supporting 120,000 American jobs at hundreds of companies located across some 40 U.S. states. As an airline that calls New York City home,...

Gov't asked to replace 59 English terms with Japanese Sunday, April 27, 2003 at 06:00 JST TOKYO — The National Institute for Japanese Language proposed Friday that the government avoid using 59 English or English-like terms in their Japanese-language documents.In its first completed report, the institute's panel listed the 59 terms which it had selected out of 62 samples it examined and offered Japanese-language expressions to replace them, except for "normalization," for which it failed to find a Japanese phrase.The panel conducted a survey on public recognition of the sample terms and decided that only three — "impact," "care" and...

The Boycott Mania by William L. Anderson [Posted April 22, 2003] When I click onto the Drudgereport.com site these days, I often am greeted with an advertising bar at the top of the page that declares, "Boycott France." As we have heard ad nauseum, France was against the war, so France is against the United States, so we should not buy French products to punish the insolence of those people. For the past few decades, the boycott has been a tool of choice by interest groups seeking to spread the impact of their various causes. During the 1980s, we were...

2002-08-08) NASHVILLE, Tenn. (LA Daily News) - ABC News Anchor Peter Jennings is apparently not the only celebrity to take issue with Toby Keith's chart-topping country hit, "Courtesy Of The Red, White And Blue (The Angry American)." Now, the Dixie Chicks's lead singer, Natalie Maines, freely shares her dislike of the song. "Don't get me started," Maines told the Los Angeles Daily News. "I hate it. It's ignorant, and it makes country music sound ignorant. It targets an entire culture - and not just the bad people who did bad things. You've got to have some tact. Anybody can write,...

Second Thoughts By: William W. Lawrence 04/15/2003 We hear so much about young Americans -- teenagers and early 20s -- who give Americans a bad name. Then we watch our young GIs and our chest swells with pride.They were freeing an oppressed people while naked women, transvestites, dogs, dancers and singers joined Harry Belafonte in an antiwar protest to "praise the patriotism of the demonstrators" and condemn the military action in Iraq."We denounce governments that act with tyranny," Mr. Belafonte told the crowd. He was talking about our government, not Saddam Hussein's. Listen, there were always war protesters.I was a...

France's refusal to support the U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq has some New York diners in a stew, and French restaurants have been feeling the heat. Now, an effort is afoot to get New Yorkers to change their minds. NY1's Elizabeth Gerst reports. Some of the city's top chefs and restaurateurs teamed up at Le Cirque Thursday, to encourage diners to say "Oui" to French cuisine. The event, organized by NYC & Company, was an effort to bolster restaurants bruised by a backlash against France. Though some stopped short of calling it an official boycott, many acknowledged they have...

German scientists are telling the public to stop using words derived from English and use French terms instead. Armin Burkhardt, who heads the working group on language in politics, calls the project a way of "peaceful linguistic protest". He is a professor at the German department at Magdeburg University. In an appeal published by the committee, Burkhardt suggests Germans should buy billets not tickets, go on a rendezvous instead of a date and agree by saying d'accord rather than okay. He is also calling for "formidable" to replace "cool" and "bonvivant" to replace "playboy". French expressions have long been part...

Travel FeatureTake A Coalition Vacation!Christina Valhouli The news these days is full of the Iraq war and the impact it is having on travel. The airlines have just been awarded a $3 billion rescue package by Congress to stave off bankruptcy, and hotels around the world are watching advance reservations evaporate like water in the Iraqi desert. But for intrepid--and patriotic--Americans who are still looking to go on holiday overseas in coming months, this might be the year to take a pass on countries like France or Germany. Click here for slide show To be sure, Paris is always...

French plea as cemetery defaced Etaples contains 11,000 war graves French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin has pleaded for trans-Atlantic tolerance after graffiti was daubed on a British war cemetery in northern France. Slogans reading "Death to Yankees" and "Rosbeefs (Brits) go home" were painted on the central memorial in Etaples, near the Channel port of Boulogne in northern France. The slogans also called for UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President George W Bush to be sent to the war crimes tribunal in The Hague. "Saddam Hussein will win and spill your blood", one slogan read. Another claimed the...

France considers international TV news channel PARIS (Reuters) - France has asked media groups to draft proposals for a French-language international television news service like CNN, BBC World and al-Jazeera, officials said Monday. French authorities have been weighing such a venture for some time, seeing it as a means of spreading French influence, but want to press ahead even more since U.S. and British troops went to war in Iraq against Paris's wishes. "What's happening at the moment only proves how useful it would be to have a French-language international channel," said Cabinet spokesman Jean-Francois Cope. Officials said Prime minister...

PARIS, Mar 24, 2003 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- These are worrying days for fromages.com. Until recently, the French Internet cheese exporter was turning over brisk sales from its primarily U.S.-based clientele. Today, e-mail messages are still flooding in -- not with orders, however, but with angry letters from former American customers. "My wife and I have decided to boycott all French products," wrote one, signed simply A.M., adding he would buy more Spanish and Italian ones instead. "I cannot believe that France can treat the U.S.A as it does. It is ridiculous and unacceptable." Overall, the company's sales...

NEW BRUNSWICK: The Old Bay Restaurant's owner lashed out at France on Friday -- flushing nearly $1,000 in French wine and champagne down a toilet to protest the country's lack of support for the United State's position on Iraq. In response, local folk singer Spook Handy is spearheading an Old Bay Boycott. "The Old Bay is for the war and is apparently willing to attack any party that disagrees," he wrote in a mass e-mail distributed yesterday. Owner Anthony Tola had no comment yesterday about the proposed boycott. Handy of Cranbury urged bands and patrons alike in his e-mail to...

"To the French lying is simply talking" -- Fran Lebowitz January 24, 2003: The utopian fantasists in our State Dept., having persuaded Pres. Bush to place his faith in the UN are now obliged to face reality. Will they? Colin Powell, the chief utopian, argued against deposing Saddam in 1991 in favor of the wishful fantasy that military defeat would be sufficient to defang him. It wasn't, because in Saddam's psychopathic world of brute force, survival against the United States constitutes victory and is concrete evidence of our weakness. Saddam would never allow an enemy to escape alive if he...