Word: french
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...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...
...last week by announcing that its delegation of more than 150 political and business leaders would stay at home because, in the words of China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang, "the summit cannot be held in a sound atmosphere, nor can it achieve expected goals." The reason? The French President's plan to meet with Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama on December 6 as part of an event honoring fellow Nobel peace prize winner Solidarity leader Lech Walesa in Poland.(See pictures of the Dalai Lama's decades of spiritual leadership...
...have grown worse since China's suppression of riots in Tibet in March, which prompted Sarkozy to call on Beijing to "end the violence" there. Sarkozy suggested he might boycott the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, a course of action taken by both Brown and Merkel. But after French companies in China weathered months of protests and boycotts by infuriated Chinese nationalists Sarkozy turned up at the Games opener claiming that France's role as E.U. president obliged him to make an appearance...
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...