 France is awaiting a ruling by its top constitutional body on the legality of a highly controversial youth employment law which has sparked weeks of protest. Students and trade unions have called for another one-day strike next Tuesday in a drive to get the law scrapped. If the Constitutional Council rules the law valid, it could be put into effect at once by President Jacques Chirac. The president is expected to address the nation soon - possibly as early as Thursday evening, correspondents say. Universities across the country have been disrupted for weeks by protests over the First Employment Contract (CPE), which would make it easier for employers to fire workers aged under 26. ...
http://news.bbc.co.uk
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Editor - 08:13:00 03-30-06
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 US journalist is set free in Iraq |
A US reporter held hostage in Iraq for more than two months has been freed. Jill Carroll, who works for the Boston-based Christian Science Monitor, was abducted by unknown gunmen in west Baghdad on 7 January. She told Iraqi television she had been treated well and was looking forward to being reunited with her family. The US ambassador to Iraq said no ransom was paid by the US embassy. Ms Carroll's release came a week after three other Westerners were freed. "I'm just happy to be free. I just want to be with my family," Ms Carroll said in a brief interview in English shown on Baghdad television. "I don't know why I was kidnapped," said the 28-year-old journalist, who was wearing a headscarf. Ms Carroll said she had been only allowed to move between her room and the bathroom....
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4860824.stm
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Editor - 08:10:00 03-30-06
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| Massachusetts High Court Rules That Gays From Out of State Cannot Come There to Marry |
The state's highest court ruled Thursday that same-sex couples from other states cannot legally marry in Massachusetts. The Supreme Judicial Court, which three years ago made Massachusetts the first state to legalize gay marriage, ruled in a challenge to a 1913 state law that forbids non-residents from marrying in Massachusetts if their marriage would not be recognized in their home state. "The laws of this commonwealth have not endowed non-residents with an unfettered right to marry," the court wrote in its 38-page opinion. "Only non-resident couples who come to Massachusetts to marry and intend to reside in this commonwealth thereafter can be issued a marriage license without consideration of any impediments to marriage that existed in their former home states." ...
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1786128
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Editor - 08:07:00 03-30-06
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| US 'open' to Israel borders plan |
The US secretary of state has said Washington may be open to backing Israel's Kadima party in drawing the country's borders unilaterally. Condoleezza Rice said a negotiated deal with the Palestinians was preferable, but seemed unlikely since the militant group Hamas won Palestinian elections. But she added that there had been no chance to discuss the Israeli proposal. It is the first time the US appears to have dropped its insistence that the conflict must be solved bilaterally. Ms Rice was speaking to reporters travelling with her to Berlin for talks about Iran's nuclear programme. Ms Rice pointedly did not rule out supporting Kadima's plan for withdrawing from parts of the occupied West Bank by 2010 but consolidating other Jewish settlements there. ...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4860340.stm
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Editor - 08:01:00 03-30-06
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| First Brazilian goes into space |
Lt Col Marcos Pontes has become the first Brazilian to go into space after a successful launch aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket from Baikonur. He will spend nine days on the International Space Station while a Russian and a US colleague accompanying him will stay for six months. Col Pontes took with him a Brazilian flag and a football shirt - to help, he said, his team in the World Cup. His father, 84, was at the launch with other relatives and friends. They applauded and cheered afterwards, watching video from an onboard camera at the ex-Soviet base Russia leases in Kazakhstan. "I am very emotional," said his wife Fatima, with tears in her eyes. ...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4859622.stm
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Editor - 07:59:00 03-30-06
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| Darfur violence 'as bad as ever' |
Conflict in Sudan's Darfur region has forced 50,000 people from their homes since the year began, the International Organisation for Migration says. The group said this was the highest quarterly figure in three years. The IOM warned the level of violence in Darfur had not lessened since fighting began in 2003, and was putting many areas beyond the reach of aid agencies. Hundreds of thousands of people have died in the Darfur conflict, with more than 1.5m made homeless. "Darfur is a difficult, dangerous conflict that has a good chance of getting worse," the IOM's head of operations in Darfur, Robbie Thompson, told journalists in Geneva. ...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4860570.stm
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Editor - 07:57:00 03-30-06
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