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Argos Media

Sarkozy to end France's 40-year Nato feud | World news | guardian.co.uk - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...france-sarkozy-nato

France NATO

shared by Argos Media on 12 Mar 09 - Cached
  • Nicolas Sarkozy has made the most symbolic foreign policy gesture of his presidency by announcing France's return to Nato's military command
  • "A nation alone is a nation with no influence," he said of France's self-imposed exile from Nato's military command at the height of the cold war.
  • the historic gesture nonetheless faces resistance from the French political establishment, where distrust of Nato runs deep. Although two polls this week showed more than half the French public supported rejoining the alliance's military command, politicians remain divided.
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  • Others in the ruling party accused Sarkozy of betraying his Gaullist heritage. The Socialist MP Jean-Louis Bianco said France would be forced to give up its special foreign policy standing and join "a race with Britain to be America's pet"
  • Jean-Pierre Maulny, a defence expert at Paris's Institute for International and Strategic Relations, said: "Rejoining the Nato command won't change anything with regard to French policy. It's more a question of perception abroad, above all in the Middle East. France has a certain specificity in its foreign policy. Arab countries could get the feeling that we are more aligned to American policy. Likewise in France, there could be a perception that this is a betrayal of de Gaulle. But it's more a question of perception than reality."
  • Sarkozy said that fully rejoining the alliance would allay suspicions of France's efforts to promote an autonomous European defence system, adding that he was still committed to European defence.
Argos Media

Al-Qaida group demands release of Abu Qatada or British hostage will be killed | World ... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...alqaida-north-africa-hostages

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb Abu Qatada

shared by Argos Media on 27 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Al-Qaida's North African wing has threatened to kill a British tourist taken hostage in the Sahara unless the radical cleric and terrorism suspect Abu Qatada is released within 20 days.
  • Qatada, once described by a Spanish judge as "Osama bin Laden's righthand man in Europe", is being held in Britain pending deportation to his native Jordan, where in 1999 he was convicted in his absence of conspiracy to cause explosions and sentenced to life imprisonment. The charges related to bombings at the American school and the Jerusalem hotel in Jordan. He was convicted a second time in 2000 over a plot to bomb tourists.
  • "We demand that Britain release Sheikh Abu Qatada, who is unjustly [held], for the release of its British citizen. We give it 20 days as of the issuance of this statement," the group al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) said in a posting on an Islamist website yesterday. "When this period expires, the mujahideen will kill the British hostage."
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  • The threat comes after AQIM last week released two of the hostages, Marianne Petzold, from Germany, Gabriella Greitner, from Switzerland. Greitner's husband would be held "until we have achieved our legitimate demands", the group said yesterday. Two Canadian diplomats - Robert Fowler, the UN special envoy for Niger, and his aide, Louis Guay - who were kidnapped in a separate incident near Niger's capital, Niamey, in December, were also freed on Wednesday.
  • AQIM had demanded the release of 20 of its members detained in Mali and other countries. Details of the deal reached over the four victims freed so far remain murky, but there has been speculation that a ransom was paid. Canada has denied making any payment to the kidnappers, but said it could not speak for other governments.
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