London, Dec 18 : French president Nicolas Sarkozy made a mockery of the republican principles of liberty, equality and fraternity, denouncing the race and class discrimination that has poisoned France.

But the president''s plans to get a more ethnically diverse section of people from disadvantaged estates into France''s notoriously elitist top graduate schools, civil service, political parties and the media was greeted with caution by equality campaigners who said they would judge Sarkozy on his results.

Tokyo - Japan will accept around 30 refugees from Myanmar who are currently seeking refuge Thailand in the fiscal year starting April 2011, the Kyodo news agency reported Thursday.

Government officials quoted in the report referred to a recent government decision to introduce a so-called third-country refugee resettlement programme.

The programme calls for third countries to accept refugees who flee from their conflict-stricken home countries to nearby states but find it hard to resettle in either of those nations.

London, Dec 18 : Hamayra Abedin, a doctor working with Britain's National Health Service (NHS), who was held captive by her parents in Bangladesh, has said that she was forced to marry a stranger against her will.

Abedin was held captive by her parents who disapproved of her Hindu boyfriend and was forced to marry against her will during her four months in captivity enlarge, The Independent reported

The 33-year-old doctor, who flew back to Britain this week after a court in Dhaka ordered her release, said her parents had picked out a man and made her marry him at a Muslim wedding in November.

Sana'a, Yemen - Talks aimed at freeing three German hostages held by tribesmen in western Yemen continued Thursday as authorities added a new member to its negotiating team, one of the abductors said.

"We met representatives of the government today, and discussed our demands with them," the abductor, who requested anonymity, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

He was speaking from Naba'ah, a remote mountainous area in Khawlan district, some 60 kilometres south-east of the capital Sana'a.