Word: planes
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...finalize the release and return of three French journalists and four Spanish crew members of a jet Zoe's Ark had chartered to airlift 103 children it claimed were orphans from Darfur. Chadian police in the eastern city of Abéché moved in to stop the plane from departing on Oct. 25, amid charges the group was planning to sell the children to adopting parents in France. Since then, police and U.N. agency investigations have discovered most if not all the 103 children are not orphans nor from Darfur - but instead were taken from villages in Chad...
...home in Paris that Bastille Day holiday, Alexandre's mother Véronique got the call at four in the morning telling her what had happened. "My instinct was to get on the first plane to Dubai," she says. But another instinct kicked in too - that of a veteran political journalist, with connections at the top levels of the Elysée Palace and the French foreign ministry. Within minutes of speaking to Alexandre, Véronique Robert - who spent years as a producer for Canal Plus Television - woke up French diplomats in Dubai, who dispatched the consulate's attorney...
...same U.N. officials said most of the children hailed not from Darfur, but rather villages near to the eastern Chadian city of Abéché, where police arrested the Zoe's Ark workers on Oct. 25 as they sought to spirit the kids away on a chartered plane. Zoe's Ark officials had not obtained authorization from Chadian officials to expatriate the children, saying their condition required immediate action that time-consuming administrative procedure would have stalled. Members of Chad's government, however, have said many of the children that were being hustled aboard the plan were in fine...
...heart of the international flap are six French nationals working for child relief NGO Zoe's Ark, who were arrested last Thursday as they prepared to spirit 103 Darfur orphans away from the Chadian city of Abéché on a chartered plane. According to press comments by Zoe's Ark colleagues in France, the unauthorized attempt to hustle the children out of the region flouted administrative procedure to obtain permission. Such time-consuming steps, they say, clashed with the greater humanitarian urgency of getting the orphans to care and safety in France. But Chadian authorities swooped...
...alarmed some French human rights activists over a perceived presumption of guilt in the affair. They also decry Chad's decision to try the three journalists and seven flight crew members for complicity, since they were not actively involved in selecting children for expatriation, nor hustling them aboard the plane. French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Wednesday responded by asking Déby to free the French journalists rapidly...