Sana'a, Yemen - Yemen has agreed to provide French navy ships operating in the EU-led anti-piracy mission off Somalia with logistical services at its ports, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said on Saturday.

Kouchner, who paid a one-day visit to Sana'a, made the announcement after a meeting with Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

"France and Yemen will exert joint efforts to fight piracy. It is unacceptable to let pirates attack cruise and commercial ships," the French minister said.

Sestriere, France - Didier Cuche of Switzerland won the men's giant slalom in Sestriere Saturday for his first World Cup victory of the alpine ski season.

The 34-year-old veteran, who won the super-g at the world championships in Val d'Isere earlier this month, posted a combined time of 2 minutes 49.57 seconds to beat a trio of Austrians.

It was a ninth World Cup career win for Cuche who had led after the first leg and now moves to fifth in the overall standings.

Cuche's last World Cup victory was 13 months ago when he won last season's Kitzbuehel downhill.

Brussels - The European Union's executive fears that an Italian plan to support the car industry could break EU rules, officials in Brussels said Friday, just days after they raised similar concerns over French and Spanish plans.

"As far as the Italian measures are concerned, we do have some concerns," European Commission competition spokesman Jonathan Todd told journalists in Brussels.

The commission "will be writing to the Italian authorities today, and we will ask them for detailed information on this system, to be provided within five working days," he said.

Paris - The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg confirmed Friday that it had halted the extradition of radical Muslim cleric and suspected al-Qaeda member Abu Qatada from Britain to Jordan.

The Court decided to halt the extradition to examine Qatada's claim that, contrary to declarations by the Jordanian government, he would be exposed to treatment, such as torture, that was in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights if extradited.

In 2000, Qatada was sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment in Jordan for his involvement in a plot to bomb hotels during the Millennium celebrations.

Beijing  - Chinese lawyers said Friday that they had filed a lawsuit with a Paris court in a last-minute bid to stop the auction of two bronze animal heads that were allegedly stolen from China by British and French troops 150 years ago.

"We handed the lawsuit to the Paris court just now," Xie Tongxiang, one of the leaders of a group petitioning for the return of the bronzes to China, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

The lawyers asked the court to order the withdrawal of the two heads from the auction of a Yves Saint Laurent art collection scheduled to be held by Christie's in Paris beginning Monday, Xie said.