France

By Paul Rhys in Asia on October 6th, 2011
England's Tom Wood will be hoping to surf into the semi-finals

On Sunday morning, 60 men will wake up in their hotel rooms, pack their XL shirts into their suitcases, and say goodbye to their dreams.

Sixty more will do the same on Monday, at about the time that some of the first batch are arriving home.

This weekend is the quarter-finals of the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand. The eight squads that remain have slugged it through the group stages, but now this is knockout. And even the best can be knocked out.

To say it doesn't get any bigger than this would obviously be a farce. There are two semi-finals and a final to come.

By Tristan Redman in Europe on July 19th, 2011
Photo by Reuters

DSK is old news. France has a new obsession: Voeckler-mania.

Frenchman Thomas Voeckler is wearing the Tour de France leader's yellow jersey just a few days from the finish line in Paris. And the French are dreaming that maybe - just maybe - he could win the whole thing on Sunday July 24.

He'd be the first French champion for 26 years and, in this cycling-mad country, that's a big deal. Think tens of thousands under the Arc de Triomphe. Think a Legion d'Honneur medal at the Elysée Palace.

Voeckler, or Monsieur Panache, as he's known, may have all this ahead of him. But two gruelling Alpine Stages and a punishing time trial stand between him and victory on the Champs Elysées.

Does he really stand a chance of winning it? Probably not. 

So why do the French care so much? Because it's good to dream, and Voeckler is what they love.

By Sue Turton in Africa on July 7th, 2011
Sue Turton talks to budding journalists about press freedom

Farooq, our Libyan fixer, turned up at the Al Jazeera house here a couple of nights ago and asked me to do him a favour. Would I give a talk to a bunch of budding young Libyan journalists about journalism and, in particular, about how to handle press conferences? 

We had been at a 'presser' the night before and I had pushed the Council's Military Head to tell us that he was talking to France about a possible weapons' air drop to Misrata. They wanted to know how to get the best out of these media rituals.

I expected a handful of journalists to turn up. But as we walked into the lecture hall there must have been over one hundred people waiting patiently for a proper lecture. 

Tags: France
By Kristen Saloomey in Americas on April 11th, 2011
Gerard Longuet, left, France's defence minister, briefs media in Paris on the Cote d'Ivoire crisis after Gbagbo's arrest [AFP]

Being sceptical is part of being a journalist.

Especially at the United Nations, where every action - and every failure to act - is influenced by the political interests of countries who sit on the Security Council.

By Al Jazeera Staff in Asia on March 14th, 2011

Follow the latest events around the Pacific Rim after an 8.9-magnitude earthquake off Japan's coast triggered a devastating tsunami.

Blog: Mar11-12 - Mar13 - Mar14

(All times are local in Japan GMT+9)

By Al Jazeera Staff in Africa on March 9th, 2011
Rebel fighters move toward the front lines outside Ras Lanuf [GALLO/GETTY]

 

As the uprising in Libya continues, we update you with the latest developments from our correspondents, news agencies and citizens across the globe. Al Jazeera is not responsible for content derived from external sites.

By Alan Fisher in Europe on November 9th, 2010
Photo from AFP

In the dull north German morning, they moved slowly towards their final destination. The blue flashing lights of the police escort provided the only colour in the uniform grey cloak of the landscape.

Beside the road, the cast aside remnants of the protesters last stand. Thousands of them who came to block the path of the 11 lorries carrying nuclear waste to the former saltmine which will be its home for now, and many worry may be their home for always.

The police came after dark. I have never seen so many: hundreds upon hundreds. Each pair assigned to one protester, lifting up the dead weight, moving them to the side and starting over again. The police queued to take their turn. There were the odd shouts of anger, but this was largely peaceful and dignified. 

It took hours. The demonstrators covered a lot of ground. The roads to the area outside Gorleben were blocked. No cars, no buses - even bikes were eyed suspiciously.

By Alan Fisher in Europe on September 16th, 2010
Benedict celebrated Mass on Thursday in Glasgow's Bellahouston Park [AFP photo]

 
They came in their tens of thousands - for a while the scandals, the controversies the arguments forgotten.
 
In the warm early autumn sunshine – unseasonably nice for Glasgow - they waited patiently for the man they all want to see.
 
It's a curious mix. One of our team said it felt like a music festival, with the strains of the organ rising above the general chatter of an excited crowd.
 
With the flags and the smell of burgers hanging in the air, the vendors pushing their programmes, to me it felt more like a football match.
 
Looking across the crowd – and there are easily 60,000 here, there are flags from Spain and France, from Ireland and Sweden, from Denmark and even India.
 
And there are the flags of the Vatican City, the world's smallest nation and of course, the white cross on the blue background, the Scottish Saltire.
 

By Abid Ali in Business on July 13th, 2010
Photo from Reuters

The United States, Britain and France have lost their triple-A credit rating - that’s according to China's Dagong Global Credit Rating.  

This is a pretty unique piece of research by a credible organisation which is challenging the dominance and ideology of the big three - Fitch, Moody’s, and Standard and Poor’s.

By Nick Spicer in Americas, Europe on June 23rd, 2010
Photo by Reuters

At the risk of insubordination:

Is there not an eerie parallel between the travails of the French national football team and those of the United States' top man in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal?

Of late, each has greatly suffered at the hands of reporters revealing things they apparently weren't supposed to.

France's team self-imploded in the World Cup after the usually quite writerly sports newspaper L'Equipe ran an utterly vulgar headline on June 19.

It was apparently printing the words of star striker Nicolas Anelka uttered to France coach Raymond Domenech at half-time, during the recent match France lost to Mexico.

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