Word: french
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...French architect Jacques Ferrier is a big fan of concrete. He has used it extensively in his latest work, including the French pavilion he has designed for the 2010 World Fair in Shanghai, and believes it has strong aesthetic appeal. "It has a sensuality," he enthuses. "It evokes images of white minerality." Most of all, Ferrier praises concrete for its environmental properties. One of his concept projects is Hypergreen, a showcase tower with a curved concrete lattice façade, designed to generate enough energy to meet most of its own needs...
...both environmentally friendly and more effective in fighting corrosion. Dulux Trade, the paint subsidiary of Netherlands-based chemical firm AkzoNobel, this year started selling Ecosure, a type of paint with much reduced amounts of embodied carbon and other volatile organic compounds. And at the R&D center of French cement firm Lafarge, director Pascal Casanova waxes lyrical about Ductal, a super-resilient product the center has developed that he calls the "Formula One" of concrete. It's what architect Ferrier intends to use in his 807-ft. (246 m) Hypergreen tower, a project that could not be built with regular...
...United Nations, Archbishop Celestino Migliore, has announced that the Vatican will oppose a proposed U.N. declaration calling for an end to discrimination against homosexuals. At first blush, no one should be surprised to find the Catholic Church hierarchy butting heads with gay rights activists. But this particular French-sponsored proposal, which has the backing of all 27 European Union countries, calls for an end to the practice of criminalizing and punishing people for their sexual orientation. Most dramatically, in some countries, including Iran and Saudi Arabia, homosexuality can be punished by death...
...Independent French terrorism expert Roland Jacquard is a little more skeptical of the report, however, at least as far as it claimed some of the fighters had used narcotics to numb themselves to pain as death approached. Though he understands the strategic logic of assailants using stimulants to overcome fatigue as their attack wears on - conventional armies, including the U.S. military, have used stimulants to counter combat fatigue - he does not believe the stern Salafist prohibition of soporifics would be ignored as the end loomed...
Even more embarrassing was Sarkozy's subsequent decision to cancel a post-Olympic meeting with the Dalai Lama in France. Though the French President initially said that "it's not up to China to fix my agenda", he wound up declining and sent his wife Carla Bruni and Foreign Affairs Minister Bernard Kouchner instead. By the time the day of the meeting rolled around, the French press was reporting that the Dalai Lama had become so disgusted at Sarkozy's cave-in that the Tibetan leader feigned an illness to avoid having to greet the Plan B delegation. (In vain...