France: Tour meant to help heal U.S.-French rift

Attempting to mend fences, France’s finance minister on Sunday took U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow on a tour of Normandy beaches and said differences between the two countries about Iraq could not hurt traditional ties.

The visit to the beaches where thousands of American soldiers lost their lives to liberate France from Nazi occupiers followed a two-day Group of Eight meeting with monetary officials from the world’s wealthiest countries and Russia.

Mer and Snow also sought to move beyond differences over Iraq to work together to spur global economic growth at the G8 meetings at the seaside resort of Deauville.

The two were regularly seen sharing warm handshakes and smiles — in contrast to the harsh exchange of words between Washington and Paris after France refused to back the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Belgium: Liberal coalition keeps power after elections

A liberal coalition that legalized gay marriage, euthanasia and marijuana easily held on to power Sunday in parliamentary elections, according to preliminary results.

With almost complete results in, the Liberals won 47 seats and the Socialists 46 for a total of 93 of the 150 seats in the Chamber of Representatives. Final results were expected today.

“This is a fantastic result,” Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt said.

The Christian Democrats, who ruled for 50 years until ousted in 1999, were third with 31 seats, while the anti-immigration Flemish Bloc won 19 seats, and the Greens 6.

About 7.5 million voters were registered to vote in the election in a nation divided between a French-speaking south and Dutch-speaking north, with about 70,000 German speakers in the east.

Iraq: UNICEF predicts crisis without more aid

The U.N. agency that cares for the world’s children warned Sunday that postwar Iraq could slip into a “major crisis” without quick action to meet its urgent humanitarian needs.

UNICEF’s executive director Carol Bellamy, on a four-day visit to Iraq, said her agency was pressing to get more children back to school and deal with a worsening sanitation problem.

She said UNICEF had secured pledges of $70 million for an emergency, six-month program to help provide Iraqi children with food and clean drinking water and to stave off disease. The funds, she added, were promised in response to an appeal made by the agency for $165 million for Iraq.

Iraq: Crowd dumps statue of Saddam’s predecessor

With the help of a crane, dozens of Iraqis chanting anti-Baath Party slogans toppled a statue of former President Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr on Sunday in the upscale Baghdad district of al-Mansour.

The black bronze statue’s head was first cut off, and then the rest tumbled down. Some in the crowd later stood atop the statue in triumph, bludgeoning it with sledgehammers.

Al-Bakr came to power in a 1968 coup and remained in office until 1979. Saddam Hussein wielded vast influence during al-Bakr’s years at the helm.