France dispatches plane to collect freed hostages
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PARIS, Dec 22  - A French air force 14-seater Falcon 900 was to leave early Wednesday from Villacoublay airbase in the Paris region to pick up two French hostages freed in Iraq, concurring sources said.
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France began evacuating its nationals and other Europeans from violence-torn Ivory Coast Wednesday, when an Air France Boeing-777 took off from Abidjan airport for Paris with 270 people on board, French military officials said here.
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A French negotiator said on Tuesday he met two French journalists being held hostage in Iraq and that an agreement had been reached to free them soon.
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France redoubled its diplomatic efforts on Tuesday to save two French reporters held hostage in Iraq ahead of a new deadline to scrap a school headscarf ban, as the Islamic militant group Hamas called for the men's release.
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A medical team was flying Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to France early today for emergency treatment in the
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The two French journalists held hostage in Iraq for 124 days and freed on Tuesday arrived at about 1730 GMT Wednesday at the Villacoublay military airbase near Paris,where French president greeted them in the drizzle.
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France was doing everything possible to secure the release of a woman journalist taken hostage in Iraq last month, Foreign Minister Michel Barnier said on Tuesday.
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BAGHDAD, SEPTEMBER 8: The French government held crisis talks on the fate of two French journalists held hostage in Iraq on Wednesday amid growing uncertainty over whether their kidnappers had demanded a ransom and two-day deadline.
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France scrambled to secure the release of  two French journalists kidnapped by Iraqi militants who gave  Paris until Monday evening to drop its controversial ban on  Muslim headscarves in schools.
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A WAVE of relief swept France last night after the Government confirmed the release of two French reporters held hostage by Islamic extremists in Iraq since August 20.
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Determined to save two journalists kidnapped in Iraq, France has frantically called on Arab leaders and Muslim imams and set in motion a swell of solidarity unseen in previous hostage dramas.
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French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier says government officials will go to Baghdad to work for the release of two French journalists abducted in the Iraqi capital.
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A C130 plane carrying two French journalists released after a four-month hostage ordeal in Iraq, sits on the runway in Paphos, Cyprus, December 22, 2004.
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France was doing everything possible to  secure the release of a woman journalist taken hostage in Iraq  last month, Foreign Minister Michel Barnier said on Tuesday.
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N'DJAMENA  - Six French aid workers sentenced to hard labor in Chad for trying to kidnap 103 children were being flown to France on Friday to serve their terms there, a Chadian justice ministry official said.
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The French government intensified efforts to secure the release of two journalists held hostage by Islamic militants in Iraq, a day after they were shown on Arabic television pleading for their lives.
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A C130 Hercules plane carrying two French journalists released after a four-month hostage ordeal in Iraq, sits on the runway at the Andreas Papandreou air base in Paphos, Cyprus, December 22, 2004.