Nicolas Sarkozy

IMHO, a sad day for Europe. The Lisbon treaty will "federalize" Europe and take away a lot of the powers from sovereign nations .. RIP Europe!

Europe’s elite celebrated the imminent arrival of its first president last night as the last lingering resistance to the Lisbon treaty fell away with the stroke of a pen in Prague.

European leaders wasted no time in starting the process to choose their new president from a range of names including Tony Blair. Fredrik Reinfeldt, the Prime Minister of Sweden, which holds the EU presidency, began a round of telephone diplomacy to determine a shortlist of names.

France: 8 graves of Muslim soldiers desecrated

Eight graves of Muslim soldiers who died for France in World War II have been desecrated in a village cemetery, according to local officials.
President Nicolas Sarkozy on Thursday denounced the "particularly odious racist acts" and asked that those responsible be found and severely punished.

Last week, the French Council for the Muslim Faith complained that those responsible for the desecration in December of some 500 Muslim soldiers' graves in Arras, in the north, have yet to be identified. It was the third time Muslim graves there had been desecrated.

http://www.foxnews.c...

http://www.jpost.com...

during speech

What lengths our leaders go to ...............:O)

Twenty short people were ordered to stand behind French President Nicolas Sarkozy to make him look taller while delivering a televised speech.

They were bused in after being "vetted" by aides of the French President who made sure none were more than his own height of 5ft 5ins.

The extraordinary scene unfolded at the Faurecia motor technology plant in Caligny, south of Caen, in Normandy, last Thursday.

Despite Mr Sarkozy's lack of inches, he looked far more statuesque than usual as he posed in front of the group of white-coated technicians on a specially erected stage.

Repeat offenders who persist in illegally downloading music from file-sharing sites such as Limewire could be blocked from accessing the Web under British government proposals issued on Tuesday.

The government said it was publishing new ideas to speed up the process of tackling unlawful peer-to-peer file sharing to prevent damage to the content industries.

Proposals include requiring Internet Service Providers to take action against individual repeat infringers, including blocking access to download sites, reducing broadband speeds or by temporarily suspending an individual's Internet account.

Once again.. I take my Beret off to the Froggies.. Government interference is going beyond what is acceptable...

Washington Post Foreign Service

Alain Refalo, a veteran elementary schoolteacher in this luxuriant corner of southwestern France, decided enough was enough.

In a defiant letter to local authorities, he refused to carry out a new Education Ministry rule mandating extra classroom work for slow learners because, in his view, it would overtax his young charges. Worse, he explained in an interview, the orders from Paris seemed to be part of a trend inching French schools away from some of their most cherished ideals, making them resemble something in England or even America.

"I told myself I could not do things that were against my conscience," Refalo said.

posted already; http://www.qatarlivi...

"Sarkozy lavishes U.S. with praise in Victory Day speech, but makes no mention of British sacrifice in World War Two

By Peter Allen

http://www.dailymail...

French President Nicolas Sarkozy praised the American contribution to victory over Germany in World War Two today – with no mention of the British whatsoever.

Instead he heaped compliments on his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama for agreeing to travel to Normandy for the 65th anniversary of D-Day next month.

TIME Magazine released its annual list of the 100 Most Influential People in the World.

TIME Managing Editor Rick Stengel said, “The TIME 100 is not a list of the most powerful people in the world. It’s not a list of the smartest people in the world, it’s a list of the most influential people in the world. They’re scientists, they’re thinkers, they’re philosophers, they’re leaders, they’re icons, they’re artists, they’re visionaries. People who are using their ideas, their visions, their actions to transform the world and have an effect on a multitude of people.”

Here are some of the most influential personalities:

LEADERS & REVOLUTIONARIES

Nicolas Sarkozy, Joaquín Guzmán, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton

BUILDERS & TITANS

Did he do the right thing ???? Do the artifacts belong to the people ??????????????

A Chinese collector deliberately sabotaged an auction of two 18th Century bronze animal heads by refusing to pay after 'buying' them at a Christie's sale in Paris last week.

The two heads were part of an elaborate 18th century fountain constructed by European Jesuit priests at the Summer Palace outside Beijing

The heads, which were seized from Beijing's Summer Palace 150 years ago, belonged to the late fashion designer Yves St Laurent and had been cleared for sale by the French courts.

The Newsweek magazine has published the list of the 50 most powerful people in the world.

The List

1: Barack Obama
2: Hu Jintao
3: Nicolas Sarkozy
4-5-6: Economic Triumvirate
7: Gordon Brown
8: Angela Merkel
9: Vladimir Putin
10: Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud
11: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
12: Kim Jong Il
13-14: The Clintons
15: Timothy Geithner
16: Gen. David Petraeus
17: Sonia Gandhi
18: Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva
19: Warren Buffett
20: Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani
21: Nuri al-Maliki
22-23: The Philanthropists
24: Nancy Pelosi
25: Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan
26: Mike Duke
27: Rahm Emanuel
28: Eric Schmidt
29: Jamie Dimon
30-31: Friends of Barack
32: Dominique Strauss-Kahn
33: Rex Tillerson
34: Steve Jobs
35: John Lasseter
36: Michael Bloomberg