Paris - French transport technology company Thales said Tuesday it had signed a contract in Saudi Arabia to provide a train control system for the North-South Railway project.

The contract, which was signed in cooperation with the Saudi BinLadin Group, is worth 340 million euros (451 million dollars), Thales said.

As part of the project, Thales is supplying main line signalling, telecommunication, supervision, security and fare collection systems, while the BinLadin Group will carry out the construction.

Paris - As stories of the extravagant bonuses of executives vie for headlines with reports of mass layoffs, a poll published Tuesday found that nearly half of all French adults approve of workers holding bosses hostage to press their demands.

In the survey, which was carried out by the CSA institute and published in the daily Le Parisien, 45 per cent of respondents said the tactic was "acceptable."

Paris - A team of French surgeons has performed the first- ever successful simultaneous transplant of a person's face and hands, French media reported Tuesday.

The recipient, a 30-year-old man, was severely burned in an accident in 2004. He suffered profound third-degree burns on his face and had to have all his fingers amputated.

Sainte-Engrace, France  - You had better not be prone to dizziness, if you cross the Himalayan-style suspension bridge at Holzarte in the French Pyrenees. Under your feet yawns a gorge some 150 metres deep, clearly visible in gaps between the slats. And the bridge sways more violently the closer you come to the middle.

Italian carpenters built the structure in the 1920s, when villages in the Pyrenees were isolated. Today, it serves as a starting point for hikes in Basque country and the former French province of Bearn.

Paris - The murdered Sri Lankan journalist Lasantha Wickrematunge has been named recipient of the 2009 UNESCO World Press Freedom Prize, the United Nations' educational and cultural organization said Monday.

"Jury members were moved to an almost unanimous choice by a man who was clearly conscious of the dangers he faced but nevertheless chose to speak out, even beyond his grave," said Joe Thloloe, president of the 14-member jury.

Nairobi  - A group that has kidnapped two aid workers with French organization Aide Medicale Internationale in Sudan's restive Darfur province has demanded a massive ransom for their release, media reports said Monday.

The Sudan Tribune, citing a news service close to Sudanese intelligence, said that the unidentified kidnappers want 200 million dollars to release the French and Canadian citizens.

The two workers were taken from AMI's compound in Ed El-Fursan, southern Darfur, on Saturday night.