(ajz) Spain's ruling Socialist party has claimed victory in the country's general elections. The conservative opposition conceded defeat on Sunday, saying the Socialist Workers party appeared to have won. But while the party led by Jose Luis Zapatero, the prime minister, picked up seats in the lower house, it fell short of a majority and will have to form some sort of an alliance with smaller regional parties in order to govern. With 97 per cent of the vote counted, Zapatero's Socialist party had 43. 7 per cent, versus 40.  More...

(skynews) The body of former catwalk star Katoucha Niane has been found under a bridge in the river Seine in Paris, police have confirmed. Katoucha disappeared in JanuaryDetectives said the woman - known as the Black Princess - died from drowning and there was no indication she had been attacked. According to a source close to the investigation, police believe her death was an accident. "She fell into the water and went straight to the bottom," the source said. The 47-year-old, who was originally from Guinea, went missing on January 31 after being dropped off from a party in Paris.  More...

(nyt) Cork-born and proud of it, George-Jordan Dimbo is top to toe the Irish lad. He studies Gaelic, eats rashers, plays hurling, prays to the saints, papers his walls with parochial school awards, and spends Saturdays at the telly watching Dustin the Turkey, a wisecracking puppet, mock the powerful. If the Irish government has its way, he may soon be living in Africa. George, 11, is an Irish citizen and has been since his birth when Ireland, alone in Europe, still gave citizenship to anyone born on its soil. His mother and father, Ifedinma and Ethelbert Dimbo, are illegal immigrants from Nigeria, who brought him back to Ireland three years ago, judging it the best place to raise him.  More...

(eveningstandard) Twins separated at birth married each other without realising they were brother and sister. The British couple have now been granted an annulment after a special High Court hearing. Judges ruled the marriage had never validly existed. Full details of how the brother and sister fell in love and married have been kept secret, along with their identities. But the Evening Standard has learned that they were separated soon after birth.  More...

(bbc) A statue of former South African President Nelson Mandela has been unveiled in London. Mr Mandela, 89, his wife Graca Machel, and Prime Minister Gordon Brown were among those at the unveiling in Parliament Square. Mr Brown hailed Mr Mandela as the "greatest and most courageous leader of our generation". The late South African anti-apartheid activist Donald Woods had the idea for the 9ft-high (2. 7m) bronze statue.  More...

(CSM) Negative attitudes in Europe about America hardened steadily during the Iraq war, particularly among Europeans under age 30. Yet the harshest anti-US feelings may be peaking among Europe's young – giving way to more complex and ambiguous views of the US and its identity, interviews show. Formative views among Europe's "next generation" have been shaped, if not seared, by a war lasting longer than World War II. Some call it an "Iraq generation," harking back to the "Vietnam generation" here in the 1960s. "The longer the war runs, the more intense the feelings of younger Germans," says Heinrich Kreft, a senior adviser for the Christian Democrats in Berlin.  More...

(AFP) - A top anti-discrimination body has ruled that French schools were violating the rights of headscarf-wearing Muslim mothers by preventing them from taking part in their children's outings. A group of Muslim women petitioned the French anti-discrimination authority HALDE after they were barred from accompanying school trips or extra-curricular activities. The school invoked a 2004 French law which bans students from wearing religious insignia, including Muslim headscarves, Jewish skullcaps, Sikh turbans or large Christian crosses, in state schools. In a ruling dated May 14 the HALDE stressed the ban only concerns students, and that "the refusal on principle for mothers wearing the headscarf" to join in school activities was a form of "discrimination on religious grounds. " France, which has Europe's biggest Muslim population, is one of the few countries to have passed legislation banning visible religious symbols in public schools.  More...

A US-European Union deal struck in October allows US authorities to inspect the credit card transactions of passengers who use a credit card to reserve flights, the British newspaper, the Daily Telegraph reported Monday. Calling it a "license to snoop" on flying Europeans, the daily added that passengers who provide an e-mail address to an airline could see other messages sent or received on that account studied by the US government. The newspaper added that the details were revealed in "undertakings" or briefings given by the US Department of Homeland Security to the EU and published by Britain's Department for Transport following a Freedom of Information request. . .  More...

Police had been told where and when the shooting would take place and the name of the intended victim, although this was not Mr Fearon. The information was passed to Operation Trident, which investigates gun crime in black communities, but it was decided that a "proactive operation" was not justified. Officers then passed the information on to local police. The Metropolitan Police says it has made significant changes to the way it handles information about threats to people's lives. A review was carried out following the shooting of Jason Fearon after a group of men stormed the Turnmills nightclub in central London in April 2003.  More...

Officers investigating the murder of three prostitutes and the discovery of two more bodies say they have had a massive response from the public. Suffolk Police said it was likely the bodies found near Ipswich on Tuesday were those of two prostitutes. Paula Clennell, 24, and Annette Nicholls, 29, have been missing for several days. A reward of £250,000 has been offered by a national newspaper to catch the killer of the Ipswich prostitutes. Police have linked the murders of Gemma Adams, 25, Tania Nicol, 19, and Anneli Alderton, 24, whose bodies were found in nearby villages within 10 days.  More...

A French internal police inquiry has severely criticised the police for failing to prevent the electrocution of two youths whose deaths touched off last year's riots, a lawyer said on Thursday. According to Jean-Pierre Mignard, who represents the dead teenagers' families, a report carried out by the police investigation service IGS found the officers involved to have behaved "thoughtlessly, with surprising absent-mindedness". The deaths in October 2005 of 15-year-old Bouna Traore and 17-year-old Zyed Benna, from the north Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois, were the spark for three weeks of rioting in high-immigration suburbs across France. Based on analysis of radio exchanges, the report confirms the pair were chased by police into a power sub-station, and that the officers did nothing to ensure their safety despite knowing them to be inside the dangerous site. .  More...

French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said Friday he "deeply regretted" the deterioration in diplomatic relations with Rwanda centered on the central African nation's 1994 genocide. "Personally, and this is also the position of France, I deeply regret the situation in which we find ourselves today," de Villepin said during a speech at Johannesburg's Witwatersrand university. . . .  More...

Rwanda on Friday recalled its ambassador to France and said it might break diplomatic relations with Paris in a row over arrest warrants related to the 1994 genocide issued by a French judge. A day after some 25,000 people rallied in Kigali to denounce France, alleged French complicity in the genocide and the judge, Rwanda's foreign minister announced the move, accusing Paris of trying to destroy the government. . . .  More...

A French police officer — a black man in plain clothes — shot dead a Paris-Saint Germain football fan after being turned on by a mob during racist violence that followed the team's defeat by Israeli side Hapoel Tel-Aviv. Antoine Granomort, who was in custody Friday morning, fired his handgun into a threatening crowd near the Parc des Princes stadium late Thursday after seeking to defend a French fan of the Israeli club from attack, police and witnesses said. A 24-year-old man was killed and a 26-year-old who was wounded is in serious condition in hospital, police said. Five fans were in police custody Friday morning and face possible charges for "racist and anti-Semitic insults", police said. .  More...

Ségolène Royal's ambition to become France's first woman president leapt forward Friday after her opposition Socialist Party overwhelmingly endorsed her as its candidate in elections next April. Royal, 53, vowed to take France in a new direction after more than a decade of being led by conservative President Jacques Chirac, following an overnight party primary in which she won 60. 6 percent of the votes. "Don't be afraid of new ideas. The French are ready for reforms, but they are not willing to see the burden always weighing on the same people," she said in a victory speech in Melle, in her home region in western France.  More...

City authorities in Philadelphia are suing their counterparts in Paris and its suburb of Saint Denis for honouring a US prisoner on death row for the murder of a policeman he denies committing, a lawyer said Saturday. Gilbert Collard, representing the US city, said complaints alleging "apology for crime" had been officially lodged with prosecutors in the French capital and the adjoining region of Seine-Saint-Denis. In October 2003 Paris awarded Mumia Abu Jamal honorary citizenship at a ceremony attended by the head of his support committee, black US activist Angela Davis, in a symbolic gesture against the death penalty. . .  More...

Lyrics from Joey Starr of the group NTM 1995 song: "What is it, what is it you're waiting for to start the fire? / The years go by, but everything is still the same / Which makes me ask, how much longer can it last?" (view source for more) . . . . .  More...

One year ago on 10. 27. 05 three weeks of rioting ignited in the suburbus of France, presenting another face of this land of wine, romance and history. It seems France has its own set of social and cultural issues it's been able to keep hidden from the world until things boiled over last year. (view source for more) .  More...

Here is the dilemma: You are an African American man from West Philadelphia thousands of miles away from a culture you are keenly familiar with. In this new land you are invited to a social gathering, where you are racially insulted by the host. What do you do? Poet, Rendell Dolen Smith, faced that dilemma at one of his first social events after arriving in France. How did Rendell handle the scenario? Read on. .  More...

Nearly a year after the riots in the French suburbs, police predict more rioting. BBN: What is causing the tension? . . . .  More...

From BBN Editors. . . . .  More...