Word: ark
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...deft performance on the world stage - a shine that dimmed during the following three months spent largely at home. But by flying to Africa to personally bring home seven Europeans involved in the child kidnapping case that Chadian authorities have lodged against French charity group Zoe's Ark, Sarkozy may be on the receiving end of tough questions being asked at home about his real motivations...
...also pointed to a report in Friday's Le Parisien paper, citing a copy of the mission statement Zoe's Ark provided to Chadian authorities, which clearly limited its action to providing aid to refugees in local camps. "It says nothing about repatriation of children, which is what Children's Rescue stated as its goal from the outset...
...arrested workers have denied the most sinister charges of attempted kidnapping. They've also rejected allegations their goal was to sell the children to couples in France who paid as much as $8,400 to Zoe's Ark parent organization Children's Rescue to take Darfur orphans into their homes. Children's Rescue officials in France have acknowledged the Oct. 25 operation to remove the children from Chad lacked required authorization, but say the urgency of getting the children care made rule-breaking expediency necessary. Zoe's Ark's French lawyer, meanwhile, has suggested there is a political motive driving...
...That surge of suspicion hasn't solely been limited to Chad. French government officials have condemned Zoe's Ark for its illegal attempt to fly the children out of Chad, and acknowledge they were sufficiently concerned about ambiguity in Children's Rescue's actual mission that they repeatedly warned its leaders from breaking any rules...
...allegations, this diplomat stresses too many questions remain to be answered before the innocence of the six aid workers and their backers should be doubted. The stakes in an unfair conviction would be far too high, he says: 20 years of hard labor for the Zoe's Ark members, and years of additional difficulty for other NGOs operating in the area...