TORONTO -- Was it a nefarious Canadian plot that left French President Nicolas Sarkozy standing silently at a microphone in the dark?
At the end of two back-to-back summits hosted by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the French leader ignored protocol, which dictates that meeting hosts get to hold their press conference before other leaders.
But when he took to the stage in a small tented room at a summit site, Sarkozy's microphone didn't work and the lights were turned off.
The leaders of the world's eight top industrial democracies on Saturday condemned the alleged sinking by North Korea of a South Korean warship and called on Iran to halt its suspect nuclear program and do more to respect human rights.
The countries -- the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Japan and Russia -- also called current restrictions on the flow of goods to Gaza "unsustainable." And they sketched out a five-year exit strategy on Afghanistan.
But the joint statement by the so-called Group of Eight powers did not go as far as some nations, including the United States and Japan, wanted.
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VILLEPINTE, France – The CEO of EADS' defense and security division said Wednesday that the European company will keep financing its drone project until cash-strapped governments are able to commit.
EADS will keep ploughing its own funds into the project because to fall behind in this technology would mean being excluded from large parts of the defense industry, Stefan Zoller told The Associated Press.
The unmanned aerial vehicle or UAV business is currently dominated by the U.S. and Israel.
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