PARIS: Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy has suggested he could return to politics, not out of a desire for power but out of a “duty” to the French people. Right-winger Sarkozy, defeated by Socialist President Francois Hollande in May, told weekly business magazine Valeurs Actuelles that he may have no choice but to return. “There will unfortunately come a time when the question will no longer be ‘Do you want to?’ but ‘Do you have any choice?’,” Sarkozy said. “In this case I won’t be able to keep saying: I’m happy, I take my girl to school, I go to conferences all over the world,” he said. “In this case I will be required to go. Not by desire. By duty. And only because it is France.” Defeated after a single five-year term, Sarkozy withdrew from politics following May’s presidential vote, saying he wanted to spend more time with his ex-supermodel wife Carla Bruni and their newborn daughter Giulia.
Italian businessman shoots two dead
ROME: An Italian clothes maker whose business was turned down for credit shot dead two civil servants and himself in the city of Perugia yesterday in an attack that the local mayor Vladimiro Boccali blamed on economic crisis. The man, named by Italian media as 43-year-old entrepreneur Andrea Zampi, shot the two women several times before turning the gun on himself. PerugiaToday news website said the regional administration had turned down his request for credit that would have allowed him to raise some ¤130,000 ($169,000). He had come to their offices several times in recent days to complain.
Dog saves woman from suicide attempt
AVIGNON, France: A French woman’s loyal German Shepherd dog saved her from committing suicide by knocking aside a rifle she tried to fire into her heart, local police said. The 63-year-old woman had walked into her garden in the southern town of Sorgues in the Vaucluse region, fired several test shots of a 22-calibre rifle and then turned the gun on her chest. “At the moment she pulled the trigger, her dog jumped on her and diverted the shot,” a local police officer said, adding that the dog “probably sensed things and knocked into her to save her”. The woman was found by her husband, conscious but suffering from a chest wound. She was taken to hospital but her injury is not considered life-threatening.
Two Polish climbers missing
WARSAW: Two Polish climbers are missing after making the first ever winter ascent of the 12th highest mountain in the Himalayas called Broad Peak, the expedition leader said yesterday. Tomasz Kowalski, 27, and Maciej Berbeka, 51, were among four Poles who summited the 8,051-metre peak on Tuesday. “We lost phone contact with them at 0300 GMT (Wednesday),” expedition leader Krzysztof Wielicki said. Agencies
