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Politics : Israel to U.S. : Now Deal with Syria and Iran -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: hal jordan who wrote (616)	5/1/2003 5:11:20 AM
From: GUSTAVE JAEGER	Respond to of 22250

Re: Take a trip to the Chinese mainland Gus...then talk about engineered panic. Huh... Pardon me?! What are you freaking about?? APRIL 25, 2003 French PM braves Sars on China trip BEIJING -- French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin began a two-day visit to China on Friday, disregarding a crisis over Sars and overseeing the Chinese purchase of over a billion dollars of Airbus planes. After his arrival to Beijing, Mr Raffarin was welcomed by his counterpart Wen Jiabao, at the Great Hall of the People where the two leaders reviewed an honour guard as canons roared on nearby Tiananmen Square, saluting the French leader. Mr Wen expressed his thanks to the French PM for visiting China 'at a time when the Chinese people are fighting Sars.' Mr Raffarin said the outbreak was a global epidemic that needed to be addressed from an international perspective and reiterated his early comments that he never considered cancelling his visit because of Sars. He is the first Western leader to visit China since the war in Iraq and the Sars outbreak. He is also the first Western leader to meet China's new government headed by Premier Wen Jiabao, which was installed in March. During the talks, the Chinese side briefed Mr Raffarin on the recently ended tripartite talks between China, the United States and North Korea on the nuclear situation on the Korean peninsula. The Chinese leader said during the talks that ended on Friday in Beijing all three sides expressed the will to solve the situation peacefully and the use of force did not come up. This approach marked fundamental difference over the US attitude towards Iraq, the spokesman said. Beijing supported Paris's position against the US-led war in Iraq, but preferred to take a back seat to the much more vocal opposition to the war by France and Russia. Earlier on the flight out of Paris, the French PM told reporters, 'This trip was necessitated by reasons of state...When a country is in trouble we could desert it. But I'm not a deserter,' he said, stressing that he had never considered scrapping the trip in view of the Sars outbreak. Mr Raffarin is accompanied by Foreign Trade Minister Francois Loos and other senior ministers as well as heads of major French enterprises including Patrick Kron of Alsthom, Philippe Camus of EADS, Noel Forgeard of Airbus and others. Following talks, the two leaders oversaw the signing of a 30-plane deal between Airbus and the Civil Aviation Administration of China. Although no market value for the deal was released, the catalogue price for the planes was set at 1.7 billion euros (US$1.55 billion), of which 700 million euros would be earmarked for the French part of Airbus. -- AFP ----------------------------------------------------- Copyright @ 2003 Singapore Press Holdings. All rights reserved. 216.239.51.100