France's conservatives take over parliament

France's conservativestake over parliament
PARIS -- France's leftist parliament became the latest casualty in Europe's rightward shift as conservatives won a landslide victory in legislative elections that will give President Jacques Chirac the sweeping power he lacked in his last term.
Mainstream right parties won more than 350 of the National Assembly's 577 seats, exit polls from Sunday's elections showed. The left, including the Socialists, the Communists and the Green Party, won no more than 192 seats -- a stinging blow.
The extreme-right National Front was also a big loser, winning no seats at all as voters further stamped out a brief surge by its leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who stunned the nation by qualifying for last month's presidential run-off but was crushed by Chirac.
The vote makes France the latest European country to send its leftist government packing. Left-of-center governments have fallen recently in Italy, the Netherlands, Denmark and Portugal.
French voters were frustrated by rising crime and a government paralyzed by five years of "cohabitation," the awkward power-sharing arrangement that exists when the president and prime minister are from opposing parties.
Official: Italy won't selloff national treasures
ROME -- The Pantheon in private hands?
The Colosseum up for sale?
Unlikely, Italy's government says. Responding to concerns about a plan to privatize state property, Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti assured the nation that the government has no plans to sell off such treasures to battle debt.
"Selling the Colosseum is pretty far away from the logic" of the plan, Tremonti said in an interview broadcast on state radio Sunday.
He spoke a day after Italy's figurehead president, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, took the unusual step of attaching a letter of concern to his signature on a decree approved in April by Premier Silvio Berlusconi's government as part of cost-cutting, revenue-producing strategy.
Berlusconi, a media magnate with a business executive's bottom-line vision, backed the creation of two companies -- Heritage SpA and Infrastructure SpA -- as part of a plan to put state property into in private hands by granting concessions for use or by outright sales.
The Italian state owns many little-used villas and works of art it has no room to display. Other state properties include unpolluted beaches and unused military barracks.
Some preservation groups and environmental organizations have expressed concern that under the decree, the government might sell villas or allow commercialization of pristine stretches of coast to raise cash and cut upkeep costs.
Peru military evacuatesU.S. missionaries
LIMA, Peru -- Peru's military has taken control of the country's second largest city, where violent protests forced the evacuation of a group of American missionaries stranded at an airport.
A military helicopter plucked 11 Baptist missionaries from an airport in the Andean city of Arequipa on Sunday and carried them to a nearby air force base. The missionaries, from Cash Point Baptist Church in Ardmore, Tenn., were stranded over the weekend after residents staged massive riots over the sale of two state electricity companies.
The Peruvian government declared a state of emergency in the region surrounding Arequipa, a poor city of 1 million people about 465 miles southeast of Lima.
Residents fear the sale of the electric companies will lead to layoffs and higher utility bills. The sale is part of the Peruvian government's plan to privatize many state-run companies.
Anti-abortion banner
LOS ANGELES -- An anti-abortion group had an airplane fly over Southern California beaches towing a giant banner depicting what the group said were two photos of a 10-week-old aborted fetus.
The 30-by-100-foot banner passed back and forth over Santa Monica's beaches for almost 30 minutes on Saturday.
Gregg Cunningham, executive director of the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform, which financed the flyover, said both photos were of the same aborted fetus. The banner carried a message reading "10-Week Abortion."
The group used the plane to get its message out, Cunningham said.
"We are committed to unfalsifying abortion," he said, "and we think we can do that best visually."
Nancy Sasaki, president of Planned Parenthood in Los Angeles, said the campaign made "what should be a private matter into a media circus." She also doubted the authenticity of the photos used.