Diplomatic Briefing
Your exclusive news aggregator handpicked daily!Archive for France
Newsline: France, Britain, Australia and Canada expel Syrian diplomats
France, Britain, Australia and Canada are expelling senior Syrian diplomats, officials said Tuesday, increasing pressure on Damascus after a massacre in which the United Nations says families were shot at close range in their homes. French President Francois Hollande told reporters Tuesday that Ambassador Lamia Shakkour will be notified “today or tomorrow” that she must leave. British officials said Tuesday that the U.K. is expelling three Syrian diplomats in protest at the killings, among them Charge d’Affaires Ghassan Dalla, the country’s top ranking diplomat in London. In Canada, Foreign Minister John Baird said in a statement that the Syrian diplomats and their families have five days to leave Canada. Another Syrian diplomat expected in Canada will be refused entry. In Canberra, Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr said Charge d’Affaires Jawdat Ali, the most senior Syrian diplomat in Australia, is to be expelled along with another diplomat from the Syrian Embassy. He said they were told to leave the country within 72 hours, in response to the massacre in Houla. In Vienna, Foreign Ministry spokesman Nikolaus Lutterotti said the Syrian ambassador is being summoned to the ministry where officials will deliver a very hard protest about the massacre. When asked if the expulsions were EU-wide, Lutterotti said this had not yet been decided. He said the ambassador to Austria would not be expelled as he holds an additional function as the representative to the UN organizations in Vienna. The Syrian ambassador to Britain left the country in March. The United States and Britain have closed their embassies in Syria.
http://wcfcourier.com/news/world/europe/european-nations-australia-expel-syrian-diplomats/article_6ef36bb4-22de-50bb-8aa7-5db147aeaf00.html
Newsline: India embassy in Paris was terror target
Responding to a report in a French daily about threat from Taliban to the Indian mission in Paris, the Indian government said its embassy there was in touch with relevant French authorities for its security. Without making any direct comment about the Le Monde report, which said a slain terrorist had been asked by his Taliban handlers to target the Indian embassy, the foreign ministry said in a statement that the embassy took account of all possible threats “including those mentioned in the press report”. “The ministry is in regular contact with embassies abroad for detailed review of the security situation from time to time. Paris is one of the stations where the security requirements of the embassy are reviewed in consultation with the ministry,” the statement added. According to the Le Monde report, two months after he was shot dead by French special forces, a 23-year-old Algerian origin terrorist was found to have been plotting to attack the Indian embassy in Paris on the direction of his Taliban handlers in Pakistan. Quoting sources from the French Internal Intelligence and the special forces, Le Monde reported that Mohamed Merah’s Taliban handlers in Pakistan had tasked him to attack the Indian mission in Paris.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/India-embassy-in-Paris-was-terror-target/articleshow/13277381.cms
Newsline: French embassy says Sarkozy supported in Israel
It may be small consolation, but outgoing French President Nicolas Sarkozy garnered almost 93 percent of the votes from the 9,899 French voters who cast their ballots in Israel, Sunday, according to unofficial results released Monday by the French embassy. Victorious Francois Hollande received slightly more than seven percent. Hollande received almost 52 percent of the vote after having built up a lead of 20 percent in public opinion polls.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/239176
Newsline: No Anthrax in Packets received by French Embassy in Indonesia
Jakarta police confirmed that the two envelopes received by two staff members of the French Embassy in Jakarta did not contain Anthrax. “The two employees can now perform their daily routines,” said the Jakarta Police spokesperson Senior Commissioner Rikwanto. The police are also tracing the sender by checking postal stamps whether they are real or fake. Yesterday it said that the envelopes only mentioned the addressees, although today, Rikwanto corrected that they have US postal stamps. “We are also investigating the motive, whether it’s personal or it is related to the institution,” he added. On Monday, April 23, 2012, at around 19.30 pm, the French Embassy in Jakarta received envelopes suspected to be containing Anthrax powder. The two envelopes were addressed to two French national embassy staffers named Fabien and Ghaillan. Only the writing ‘Anthrax’ was found in the envelopes. Anthrax bacteria can cause damage to human nerves and tissues, bleeding and even death. The bacteria can spread via direct contact via air or with skin.
http://www.tempointeractive.com/hg/nasional/2012/04/26/brk,20120426-399881,uk.html
Newsline: Indonesian police probing French embassy threat
Two French embassy staff in the Indonesian capital were put in isolation in hospital after coming into contact with a suspicious package, police said. But intelligence chief Lieutenant General Marciano Norman later said no harmful material was found in the envelope, which had been labelled “ANTRAC” and was suspected of possibly containing anthrax. “It has been confirmed that it’s not anthrax. It was just a threat,” Marciano said. “It was just the writing, but we will investigate it further.” Neither police or the embassy were immediately reachable for an update on whether the two French nationals had now been released. Earlier, the French embassy confirmed a suspicious package was received. Anthrax is a potentially lethal bacterium which has been used as a biological weapon by terrorists. A homemade bomb exploded outside the Indonesian embassy in Paris in March, causing damage but no injuries.
http://www.emirates247.com/news/world/indonesia-police-probing-french-embassy-threat-2012-04-25-1.455579
Newsline: Australia’s embassy flouts French unions and faces court
It is one of the most sought-after diplomatic postings, but Australia’s embassy in Paris has been a hotbed of industrial disputes including claims of unfair dismissal, harassment and union bashing. The saga, involving three former embassy staff who are French, is being played out in that country’s industrial relations court. An investigation by The Sun-Herald into the embassy, picturesquely located next to the Eiffel Tower, has revealed a long-running legal stoush with former workers. Documents obtained under freedom-of-information laws show the Australian government is being sued for a raft of claims, including unfair dismissal, unpaid pension payments and damages related to a medical disability caused by unsafe working conditions. Allegations of harassment have also been made against a former senior embassy official. The former employees will be represented by France’s biggest trade union, the Confederation Francaise Democratique du Travail, when the matter returns to court in October. In the meantime, other French staff in the embassy have been forced onto non-union workplace agreements, imposed by the Australian government in the past 18 months, and have lost the right to be represented in negotiations by a French union. A Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman said it would not comment on legal action while the matter was before the French courts.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/embassy-flouts-french-unions-and-faces-court-20120421-1xdks.html
Newsline: Ousted Mali Leader at Senegal Embassy in Bamako
Senegalese President Macky Sall says Mali’s ousted leader Amadou Toumani Toure is being sheltered at Senegal’s embassy in Bamako, Mali. Toure’s whereabouts had been previously undisclosed. Sall spoke in the French capital, where he signed new defense and financial agreements during his first official visit. Sall expressed concern about the security situation in West Africa, where Mali and Guinea Bissau have been shaken by coups. During a joint press conference with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Sall said through the regional body ECOWAS that West African nations are trying to find a rapid and peaceful solution to Mali’s crisis. A coup there last month emboldened Tuareg rebels to seize control of the northern half of the country.
http://www.voanews.com/english/news/africa/Ousted-Mali-Leader-at-Senegal-Embassy-in-Bamako-147951775.html
Newsline: French embassy in Cambodia says bodies identified as missing family
DNA tests have confirmed that the remains of five people found in a submerged car in Cambodia in January are those of a Frenchman and his four young children, embassy officials said Thursday. The Cambodian government has agreed to send the skeletal remains to France for “additional examination” by forensics experts, the French embassy in Phnom Penh said in a statement. No cause of death has been determined yet for widower Laurent Vallier, 42, and his young children. The family’s badly decomposed bodies were discovered inside Vallier’s white 4×4 vehicle after it was retrieved from a large pond behind his house in southern Kampong Speu province on January 14. Judicial inquiries into the deaths have been launched in France and Cambodia. Vallier and his two sons and two daughters, thought to have been aged from two to nine, had been missing since September. Vallier’s Cambodian wife died in childbirth in 2009. “I believe my son-in-law and my grandchildren would not have committed suicide. I believe they were murdered,” the late Frenchman’s Cambodian father-in-law Tith Chhuon told AFP. Vallier, who according to his relatives worked as a tour guide, is understood to have moved from France to Cambodia around 12 years ago, arriving in Kampong Speu in 2007. When police pulled his car out of the water they said they found several bones inside an open suitcase, having apparently drifted in there over time as the vehicle is thought to have lain submerged for weeks. An urn was also among the items recovered from the muddied car and relatives said it appeared to be the same one that contained the ashes of Vallier’s wife.
http://news.ph.msn.com/regional/article.aspx?cp-documentid=6083322
Newsline: Frenchman suspected in Indonesian embassy blast
A French militant was allegedly involved in last week’s bomb blast at Indonesia’s Embassy in Paris, a top anti-terrorism official said Thursday, citing intercepted emails and online chats. The package bomb that exploded March 21 did not cause any injuries or major damage to the building. Indonesia’s anti-terrorism agency chief Ansyaad Mbai told The Associated Press that French investigators had confirmed that Frederic C. Jean Salvi, who allegedly spent several years studying with Islamic militants in this predominantly Muslim nation, was the main suspect. The attack was apparently meant as a warning to Indonesia to stop a U.S. and Australia-funded security crackdown that has resulted in the arrests, convictions and imprisonment of hundreds of Islamic militants in recent years.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/03/29/frenchman-suspected-in-indonesian-embassy-blast/
Newsline: Indonesia Will Not Close Paris Embassy After Bomb
Indonesia will not close its embassy in France after a homemade parcel bomb exploded outside the building in Paris, officials said. “We’re quite a resilient lot, Indonesians. No, I don’t think it takes a little explosion to deter us from going on with the business of our activities,” Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said. “But we will be very vigilant obviously.” “Thankfully, no-one has been injured as a result of this explosion,” he said. A police spokesman in Paris told reporters that a bag had been spotted under the embassy’s windows by a worker clearing bins in the street. “He looked inside the bag, opened it and thought it must be a bomb since he saw a cannister attached to wires. He dropped it, left the area and called the police. That’s when it exploded,” Jean-Louis Fiamenghi said. There were no immediate claims of responsibility for the attack but Indonesian officials said it was unlikely the explosion was linked to domestic security threats. The Indonesian embassy was not the intended target of a bomb blast outside the mission in Paris, Indonesia’s intelligence chief said Thursday. Indonesian intelligence agency head Lieutenant General Marciano Norman told reporters in Jakarta that closed circuit television (CCTV) footage had shown the bomb had been moved away from the embassy before exploding. He said the package was initially placed in a garbage bin outside the embassy. “Based on the CCTV footage, we can strongly say that the bomb was not targeting the Indonesian embassy,” he said. No group or individual has claimed responsibility for the attack. A similar bombing occurred at the Indonesian embassy in Paris in 2004 at around the same time of day.
http://www.tempointeractive.com/hg/nasional/2012/03/21/brk,20120321-391831,uk.html
