Quote a Insurance.com

Posts Tagged ‘paris’

PARIS — Plastic surgery patients have carried a new class of superbugs resistant to almost all antibiotics from South Asia to Britain and they could spread worldwide, researchers reported Wednesday. Many hospital infections that were already difficult to treat have become even more impervious to drugs thanks to a recently discovered gene that can jump

Go here to read the rest:

Two men who work for the U.S. Embassy in Paris underwent medical tests after handling a suspicious letter Friday, the embassy said, and Paris police said it appeared they had been exposed to tear gas fumes. Mailroom employees identified a suspicious letter and the embassy alerted French authorities, Embassy spokesman Paul Patin told The Associated Press. The letter was examined by chemical experts and the two people who handled it were examined at the Paris hospital Hotel-Dieu, he said. The central laboratory of the Paris police identified the irritant as tear gas, according to a police official who was not authorized to speak to the media. An embassy employee received a manila envelope sent as registered mail that had no mail inside, but it began emitting fumes after the employee opened it, the official said. The official said the throats and eyes of the employee and two others were irritated. There was no immediate explanation for the discrepancy in the number of exployees reported affected. Story continues below… Two months ago, Paris police were asked to investigate a similar case involving a letter to the U.S. ambassador, the Paris police official said. The embassy did not provide further information about where the letter came from or the nationalities of the employees. The mailroom is in the main building of the U.S. embassy, located just off the Champs-Elysees not far from the French presidential palace. The embassy, which is always surrounded by layers of security, remained open after the incident. Suspicious mail has gotten particular attention since 2001, when five people in the United States were killed and 17 fell ill after opening letters containing anthrax. Postal facilities nationwide were shut for inspection after the letters containing anthrax spores were sent to lawmakers and news organizations after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The FBI concluded that an army scientist, Bruce Ivins, was responsible for those attacks. Ivins, who killed himself in 2008, denied involvement in the anthrax letters and his family and some friends have continued to insist that he was innocent. ___ Associated Press writer Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report. Source: AP News Mochila insert follows… Powered by Mochila

See more here:

2 US Embassy workers in Paris undergo medical tests after opening suspicious letter. Two men who work for the U.S. Embassy in Paris underwent medical tests after handling a suspicious letter Friday, but the embassy said preliminary analysis suggested it was not harmful. “There is no indication that the envelope contained something dangerous or poisoned,” Embassy spokesman Paul Patin said. “There is no indication that anyone is in danger or hurt.” A Paris police official said the employees were “unwell” after the incident. The official, who was not authorized to be publicly named because an investigation was under way, did not elaborate on the workers’ condition. Mailroom employees identified a suspicious letter and the embassy alerted the French authorities, Patin said. Story continues below… “The letter is being examined by chemical experts. The two people who handled the letter are being examined by medical authorities” at the Paris hospital Hotel Dieu, Patin told The Associated Press. The embassy could not immediately provide further information about where the letter came from or what was suspicious about it, or the nationalities of the employees. The mailroom is in the main building of the embassy, located just off the Champs-Elysees and not far from the French presidential palace. The embassy, which is always surrounded by layers of security, remained open after the incident, and employees were entering and exiting the building as usual Friday afternoon. ___ Associated Press writer Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report. Source: AP News Two men who work for the U.S. Embassy in Paris underwent medical tests after handling a suspicious letter Friday, but the embassy said preliminary analysis suggested it was not harmful. “There is no indication that the envelope contained something dangerous or poisoned,” Embassy spokesman Paul Patin said. “There is no indication that anyone is in danger or hurt.” A Paris police official said the employees were “unwell” after the incident. The official, who was not authorized to be publicly named because an investigation was under way, did not elaborate on the workers’ condition. Mailroom employees identified a suspicious letter and the embassy alerted the French authorities, Patin said. “The letter is being examined by chemical experts. The two people who handled the letter are being examined by medical authorities” at the Paris hospital Hotel Dieu, Patin told The Associated Press. The embassy could not immediately provide further information about where the letter came from or what was suspicious about it, or the nationalities of the employees. The mailroom is in the main building of the embassy, located just off the Champs-Elysees and not far from the French presidential palace. The embassy, which is always surrounded by layers of security, remained open after the incident, and employees were entering and exiting the building as usual Friday afternoon. ___ Associated Press writer Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report. Source: AP News Two men who work for the U.S. Embassy in Paris underwent medical tests after handling a suspicious letter Friday, but the embassy said preliminary analysis suggested it was not harmful. “There is no indication that the envelope contained something dangerous or poisoned,” Embassy spokesman Paul Patin said. “There is no indication that anyone is in danger or hurt.” A Paris police official said the employees were “unwell” after the incident. The official, who was not authorized to be publicly named because an investigation was under way, did not elaborate on the workers’ condition. Mailroom employees identified a suspicious letter and the embassy alerted the French authorities, Patin said. “The letter is being examined by chemical experts. The two people who handled the letter are being examined by medical authorities” at the Paris hospital Hotel Dieu, Patin told The Associated Press. The embassy could not immediately provide further information about where the letter came from or what was suspicious about it, or the nationalities of the employees. The mailroom is in the main building of the embassy, located just off the Champs-Elysees and not far from the French presidential palace. The embassy, which is always surrounded by layers of security, remained open after the incident, and employees were entering and exiting the building as usual Friday afternoon. ___ Associated Press writer Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report. Source: AP News Powered by Mochila

See the original post:

PARIS — Scientists reported Wednesday the discovery of an extinct predator sperm whale with jaws and teeth so huge it probably hunted other whales not less than half its size. Named in honour of the author of “Moby Dick”, Leviathan melvillei lived some 12 to 13 million years ago, a 14-metre (45-foot) behemoth sharing top billing in the ocean food chain with giant sharks. The prehistoric sperm whale gripped large prey with its interlocking teeth, inflicting deep wounds and tearing large pieces from the body of its victims, the researchers said. Paleontologists had long suspected that some such air-breathing monster once roamed ancient seas, but up to now only a few gigantic teeth had turned up in the fossil record. The new find in Peru’s Pisco basin, reported in the British journal Nature, leaves no doubt that Leviathan existed, terrorising major marine fauna of the Miocene epoch. Story continues below… Olivier Lambert of Belgium’s Royal Institute of Natural Sciences and colleagues unearthed the animal’s skull and jaw, lined top and bottom with teeth each as long and thick as a man’s forearm. “It must have eaten very large animals, and the most common prey at the site are baleen whales about seven or eight metres long. It was a super-predator,” Lambert told AFP. Present-day sperm whales are also formidable, deep-diving hunters. But because their teeth are relatively small and restricted to the lower jaw, they use suction to ingest their prey, mainly squid. Leviathan more closely resembles modern orcas, or killer whales — except it was three or four times as big. Its tusk-like teeth must have been very robust and resistant in order to hang on to a mega-prey trying desperately to escape, Lambert said. “Baleen whales have hugely powerful tails, and when they struggle the tension would be enormous for the predator in whose jaws it has been caught,” he explained.

Excerpt from:

Panama’s ex-dictator Manuel Noriega on Tuesday dismissed charges of laundering drug money as an “imaginary banking scheme” concocted by the United States as he took the stand in a French court. The 76-year-old general denied taking payments from Colombian drug lords in the 1980s and told a Paris courtroom that cash deposits transferred to French banks came from his legitimate businesses and the CIA. “I say with much humility and respect that this is an imaginary banking scheme,” Noriega told the court in Spanish through his interpreter on the second day of his trial. “I will have the opportunity to produce documents that show that I was a victim of a conspiracy mounted by the United States against me,” he said. Noriega, who ruled Panama from 1983 to 1989, spent 20 years in a Miami cell for drug trafficking and money laundering and now faces the prospect of another decade in a French prison if convicted. Story continues below… His lawyers argue that the charges against Noriega, who was extradited to France two months ago, hinge on dodgy testimony from ex-drug traffickers who were paid and given protection by US authorities. Once a close US ally, Noriega testified that Washington turned against him in the 1980s when he refused to allow Panama to become a staging ground for operations against leftists across Central America. “That’s when the propaganda started against me after so many years of cooperation with the United States,” he told the court as his three daughters sat nearby, listening attentively. Presenting himself as a “professional soldier,” the ex-leader strongly denied dealings with Colombian drug cartels and said that on the contrary, he had fought narco-traffickers while in power in Panama in the 1980s. “I energetically fought against the drug trade and for this I received praise from the United States, Interpol and many other countries,” he said, wearing a dark suit and white shirt. Waving his hands at times to underscore his arguments, Noriega recounted that he had ordered a raid against a cocaine laboratory and waged other drug-fighting campaigns. “Based on these actions, I could not be friends with these gangs,” he said, referring to the Colombian drug cartels. The pock-marked general known as “Pineapple Face” was arrested by US troops that invaded Panama in December on a mission to arrest him and bring him to trial in the United States. The ex-leader was extradited to France on April 26 to answer charges of laundering the equivalent of 2.3 million euros (2.8 million dollars) from the Medellin cartel through French banks in the late 1980s. A French court in 1999 sentenced Noriega in absentia to 10 years in prison and a fine of some 13.5 million euros, but for years he fought extradition from his prison cell in Miami. French prosecutors say that drug money funnelled in the late 1980s was used by Noriega’s wife and a shell company to buy three luxury apartments in Paris. Much of the hearing on Tuesday was devoted to questions about Noriega’s bank accounts and his ties to the now-defunct BCCI bank, that allegedly handled his financial affairs. Asked about the source of millions in cash deposits at the bank, Noriega explained that the funds came from successful business ventures including duty-free sales at Panama airport and life insurance policies. After some three hours of testimony, Noriega’s lawyer Olivier Metzner asked him point blank if the funds in French bank accounts were drug money. “These funds were acquired in a transparent way. They come from my personal earnings,” he said. “And from the CIA?” added Metzner, to which Noriega responded by nodding. The one-time strongman who was a key asset for the Central Intelligence Agency in the early 1980s fell out with Washington after turning his strategically important Central American country into a hub for narco-trafficking. Convicted in the United States on charges of drug-trafficking and money-laundering, Noriega was sentenced to 40 years in prison in a Florida court. His time was reduced to 17 years for good behaviour. The trial wraps up on Wednesday and a verdict could come as early as next month.

Read more here:

PARIS — Tens of thousands of people marched and danced through the streets of the French capital Saturday to support gay pride and call for further gay rights. To the thumping beat of techno music, the 80-float parade wound through the city decrying the message: “Enough violence and discrimination! Liberty and equality everywhere and forever!” Organisers also called for France to recognise gay marriages and the right for gay couples to adopt. “Polls show 65 percent of French people are in favor of gay marriage and 57 percent in favor of adoption, all left-wing parties support marriage and adoption, but some on the right block any further advancement of rights,” said Vincent Loiseau, a spokesman for the Lesbian, Gay, Bi and Transsexual Inter-Association. A member of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s ruling conservative UMP party was blocked from marching with other lawmakers. Story continues below…

Read more:

PARIS (AFP) – The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is a catastrophe caused by human error which could have been avoided, the head of the International Energy Agency said here on Wednesday. “This is a catastrophe that could have been avoided,” IEA director general Nobuo Tanaka told a press conference on the occasion of publication of the agency’s medium-term outlook for the oil market.. He said: “We have to wait until the investigation.” But from the information available, “there is an accumulation of human errors.” While awaiting the results of an enquiry into the accident, the moratorium on deepwater drilling decided by the US administration, “is a reasonable measure,” he said. Story continues below… On Tuesday, a judge in Louisiana annulled the six-month moratorium. Referring to the effect of the spill on the oil market, Tanaka said that it had “so far has been minimum.” But he also said that the impact on new deepwater projects could reduce expected US oil output in the Mexican gulf by 100,000 to 300,000 barrels per day. Similar restrictions worldwide, although very unlikely, “could ramp the number up to 800,000 to 900,000 bpd.” The International Energy Agency is the oil policy arm of the 31-member Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Follow this link: