■FRANCE
Sarkozy wants flags, anthem
President Nicolas Sarkozy is calling for more French flags to be flown in the country, and the Marseillaise anthem sung widely to instill a greater sense of pride. In an eight-page mission letter sent to the Minister of Immigration, Integration and National Identity Eric Besson e-mailed to the press on Tuesday, he asked members of his government to make national symbols more visible. He said they needed to reinforce the space for emblems and symbols of the Republic, its language, its flag, its anthem and the values of liberty, equality and fraternity. The letter also called for the government to firmly clamp down on immigration. France wants to integrate migrants already in the country, he said, and will only take in new immigrants selectively. It will give the ones it chooses temporary visas.
■FRANCE
Soldier kills three people
A French soldier allegedly killed two fellow Foreign Legion members and a peacekeeper from Togo in an unexplained shooting on Tuesday in Chad, French Defense Minister Herve Morin said late on Tuesday in Paris. The suspected killer was being sought by Chadian security forces. The three legionaries were reportedly members of a French regiment based with European EUFOR troops in Abeche, Chad. The slain Togolese soldier was assigned to the UN’s MINURCAT peacekeeping mission. There was no immediate explanation or motive for the shooting. Several thousand foreign troops are stationed in northern Chad to protect refugees from neighboring Sudan.
■FRANCE
Hijacked yacht located
A French yacht that was captured by pirates off Somalia over the weekend has been located, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said on Tuesday, without giving details of any rescue efforts. The sail boat, the Tanit, which was carrying two couples and a three-year-old child, was taken far from the coastline of Somalia, Kouchner told RTL radio. “Yes, they have been located. This has been the case since yesterday,” he said.
■GERMANY
Skeleton on tree found
The skeleton of a German pensioner who tied himself to the top of a tree and shot himself to death nearly 30 years ago has been found by a hiker. Police in southern town of Landshut said on Monday the 69-year-old man disappeared in 1980 and had been classified as missing. An 18-year-old hiker discovered a bone in the forest last week and brought it to police. They searched the area and spotted the skeleton hanging about 11m up, near the top of the spruce tree. Police were able to identify the man through DNA testing and an artificial hip. Police were able to identify the man through DNA testing and an artificial hip.
■GERMANY
Felix the cat is alive
A cat named Felix was found alive and well beneath the rubble of a six-storey building in Cologne that collapsed five weeks ago, the city fire brigade said on Tuesday. The 12-year-old cat was in surprisingly good health, authorities said. He was found beneath the city archives building that collapsed on March 3. Rescue workers were clearing away the rubble from the ruins, in which two people were killed, when they spotted a pair of small paws. “The men lifted some concrete blocks when suddenly a little cat came to light,” said Dietmar Paust, fire brigade spokesman.
■VENEZUELA
Chavez bashes bishops
President Hugo Chavez railed against Roman Catholic leaders on Tuesday for condemning a law that has weakened his political opponents. Chavez took issue with the Venezuelan Bishops’ Conference for accusing him of sidelining adversaries with a new law that let him take control of airports and seaports previously under the administration of opposition politicians. “This group of bishops is shameless,” Chavez told state television from China, where he is wrapping up a tour that also included visits to Japan, Iran and Qatar. “They side with all those who attack the government.” Quoting the Bible, Chavez said: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
■BRAZIL
Nun case to be retried
A court on Tuesday ordered the arrest and retrial of an Amazon rancher acquitted of orchestrating the murder of US nun and rain forest activist Dorothy Stang. Para state’s top court reversed last year’s not-guilty verdict for Vitalmiro Moura on a technicality, ruling that a video used by the defense was not admissible as evidence, the state prosecutor said. “We’re elated and we are convinced we will get a guilty verdict in the new trial,” prosecutor Edson Souza said. Souza said Moura is charged with ordering Stang’s murder and that he had yet to be arrested. Moura is accused of masterminding the 2005 death of the 73-year-old Stang, who was shot six times at close range with a revolver.
■UNITED STATES
Chinese cases in court
Federal prosecutors on Tuesday charged a Chinese businessman with conspiracy in the sale of materials to Iran that could be used in missiles and atomic weapons, in violation of UN restrictions on trade with Tehran. The 117-count indictment charges Li Fangwei (李方偉) and his company Limmt Economic and Trade Co with conspiring to conceal bank transactions through New York. Meanwhile in Virginia, a judge sentenced a physicist to 51 months in prison for illegally exporting space launch technical data and defense services to China and offering bribes to Chinese government officials. Shu Quansheng (舒泉聲), 68, a US citizen of Chinese origin, has already been ordered to forfeit US$386,740 in connection with the case.
■MEXICO
Caretaker admits killing
The caretaker of a Texas priest’s home in Nuevo Laredo admitted on Tuesday to killing the 69-year-old reverend and said the two were intimately involved. Manuel Martin Torres told police and reporters during a news conference that he stabbed and attacked Reverend Jesse Euresti with a machete after learning the priest was kicking him out of the home. Torres said he had demanded Euresti pay him between US$10,000 and US$15,000. Torres said he had been seeing the priest for the past year.
■UNITED STATES
Sex costs pilot license
A judge says a commercial helicopter pilot videotaped in a sex act while flying over San Diego committed gross negligence and cannot have his license back. National Transportation Safety Board administrative law Judge William Mullins upheld a Federal Aviation Administration order revoking the license of David Martz after a hearing on Tuesday. Martz had no comment after the ruling. A passenger was videotaping when Martz let an adult film actress perform a sex act on him during the 2005 flight and an edited version eventually became public. The judge watched the unedited tape in chambers and took testimony before his decision.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion