France

Queen Mary 2 ship makes first test run

The world’s largest passenger ship — featuring a planetarium, 22 elevators and the largest floating library — tested the open water for the first time Thursday as it began a three-day cruise off the French coast.

The Queen Mary 2’s trip was a preparation for a maiden voyage across the Atlantic early next year. The $800 million, 150,000-ton trans-Atlantic liner will undergo three days of tests as its operators check the ship’s stability, make sure the hull is perfectly watertight and examine other functions.

The QM2 — the world’s longest, tallest and most expensive passenger ship — will accommodate 2,600 passengers on its first trip, scheduled for January from Southampton, England, to Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Vatican City

Pope resumes schedule, returns early to Rome

Pope John Paul II resumed his regular schedule Thursday and returned to Vatican City from his vacation home, indicating he had recovered from the mild intestinal problem that forced him to skip his general audience a day earlier.

The pope waved as he left Castel Gandolfo, his summer residence in the Alban hills south of Rome where he had been living for more than two months. His motorcade pulled into Vatican City a short time later.

The 83-year-old pontiff had been expected to make the trip today. No reason was given for the change.

The pope’s rare absence at Wednesday’s general audience raised fresh concerns about his health just weeks before he presides at ceremonies marking his 25th anniversary as pope.

France

EU’s head office faces fraud allegations

The European Commission president vowed Thursday to root out fraud amid allegations that European Union officials siphoned $6 million into secret bank accounts and spent it on travel, lavish dinners in New York and a riding stable.

Addressing a special European Parliament panel, Romano Prodi of Italy distanced himself from the financial irregularities, saying they occurred before he took the helm at the EU head office in 1999.

He was summoned before the parliament’s budget control committee and leaders of all political groups in the 626-seat assembly at Strasbourg to explain how $6 million in funds at Eurostat — the agency that collects and tracks data for the 15-nation bloc — can be missing. Most of the money apparently was diverted between 1996 and 2001.

Paris

Group’s new card deck mocks U.S. military

The ace of spades? Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld gets the honor in a new French deck of cards. President Bush is the king of diamonds and Osama bin Laden the joker.

The game takes a jab at the famous deck of cards created for U.S. soldiers hunting down ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and other leaders from the deposed regime.

“I found it completely indecent to present a manhunt as a game,” said Thierry Meyssan, the man behind the French deck.

Meyssan heads the Voltaire Network, a left-wing association that put the cards on its Internet site.

More than 2,500 decks have been sold, at $9.20 each, on the Internet in recent weeks, Meyssan said.