Val d'Isere, France - World Cup leader Lindsey Vonn of the United States was the provisional winner on Tuesday in the world championship super-g ski race.

Vonn, 25, claimed her first career world title when she conquered the demanding Piste Rhones-Alpes in 1 minute 20.73 seconds. Vonn came second in the super-g and downhill at the 2007 worlds.

Marie Marchand-Arvier of France was ranked a surprise second in 1:21.07 minutes and Andrea Fischbacher of Austria was third in 1:21.13 minutes as all favourites in the
56-strong field had started.

Paris - Former French international Liliam Thuram said, in an interview published Tuesday, that President Nicolas Sarkozy recently offered him a cabinet post, even though the two had bitterly quarreled about minority politics.

"I met Nicolas Sarkozy and (his advisor) Claude Gueant, and they offered me the position of minister for (ethnic) diversity," Thuram told the daily Le Monde. "We had a long discussion. But I had no choice but to turn them down, for obvious reasons."

According to Thuram, the meeting took place at the end of last year.

Geneva - The Swiss set a new record for themselves, exporting in 2008 some 17 billion francs' (14.7 billion dollars) billion francs) worth of watches, a report released Tuesday said.

While this was an increase of over 6 per cent compared to 2007, the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry warned that the final months of last year saw a 7.8 per cent decline in exports, as the financial crisis began to be felt across the real economy.

This year, the association said, will begin in the red, continuing the trend, though the highest end timepieces were holding steady through the initial phases of the crisis.

Barcelona - Spanish police Tuesday detained 13 people on charges including the falsification of passports and drug trafficking, police said.

Police were investigating whether the detainees had links with the terrorist network al-Qaeda.

Eleven of the suspects were held in Barcelona and 2 in Valencia in the east of the country. They included 11 Pakistanis, an Indian and a Nigerian national.

Paris- A French man and his two sons have been found 10 years after he had abducted the children from their mother, French media reported on Tuesday.

Xavier Fortin, 52, made off with sons Shahi'yena and Okwari, then aged 8 and 6, on December 29, 1998, during a regularly scheduled visit, as prescribed by a court. Their mother had been given custody of the children.

Fortin headed into the woods, finding a home with the two boys in a barn located in a rural village in southwestern France.

Paris - French Prime Minister Francois Fillon on Monday launched the government's 26 billion-euro (33 billion-dollar) plan to pull the country out of the economic crisis, French media reported.

In the southern city of Lyon, Fillon outlined the proposal, which comprises 1,000 public projects, primarily involving infrastructure construction and renovation.

The plan, said Fillon, was part of an "urgent and concrete national mobilization to confront the ongoing crisis."

Some 11 billion euros are intended to provide cash to struggling enterprises, Fillon said.