Rome - Roma coach Luciano Spalletti was suspended for insulting the referee and his club was fined for the racist jeers its fans aimed at Inter Milan striker Mario Balotelli at the weekend, Italian media reported.

Balotelli, an 18-year-old born in Italy to Ghanaian parents, was insulted on two occasions by Roma fans occupying a section of Milan's Giuseppe Meazza stadium, a sports judge wrote in a sentence that fined Roma 8,000 euros (10,000 dollars).

Paris  - French President Nicolas Sarkozy and several other conservative politicians have in recent days been the targets of letters threatening their lives, French media reported on Tuesday.

Sarkozy, Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie, Justice Minister Rachida Dati, Culture Minister Christine Albanel and the mayor of Bordeaux, Alain Juppe, have all received letters containing implicit threats to their lives and 9mm bullets.

Paris - In a turn of events worthy of Hollywood, a 17-year- old illegal immigrant from Afghanistan will receive his French residency permit after winning the national amateur boxing championship, French media reported on Tuesday.

Paris - Despite the degenerating security situation in Afghanistan, France has no plans to send more troops to the conflict- torn country, Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said Tuesday in Paris.

"We do not have the intent (to send more troops). We have just increased the number of soldiers in the region," Kouchner told reporters.

Paris - Former French prime minister Alain Juppe has received a letter threatening his life, the third politician from the ruling UMP party to have been menaced recently in this fashion, French media reported on Tuesday.

The anonymous package contained a 9mm bullet and the message: "You believe that you control our lives, but no, it is we who control yours and those of your families."

It was delivered on Monday to the Bordeaux City Hall. Juppe is currently mayor of that south-western French city.

Paris - The entire year of 2009 will be an economic crisis, with no date in sight for a recovery, French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said on Tuesday.

"Today, no one can know when we will emerge from this crisis. What is known is that the entire year 2009 will be a year of crisis," Fillon told Europe 1 radio.

The French premier also admitted that the government's stimulus package would not prevent the crisis from taking hold in France.