Paris - French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, will welcome Pope Benedict XVI when he arrives Friday at Paris's Orly Airport for a four-day visit to France, Sarkozy's office announced on Wednesday.

Sarkozy will then host the pope at the Elysee Palace for talks, which are to be followed by a reception at which both men will deliver speeches.

Pope Benedict XVI is scheduled to spend two days in Paris before travelling to the pilgrimage site of Lourdes.

Paris - The International Energy Agency (IEA) said Wednesday that it has revised downward its forecast of global oil demand for this year and 2009.

In its Monthly Oil Report, issued in Paris, the IEA said the reason was that the global economic slump and high crude oil prices during the summer caused weaker-than-expected oil deliveries in industrial nations.

"The data suggest that the demand impact of weaker economic conditions and high prices during the summer - when oil prices reached an all-time peak - was more marked than expected, notably in the United States," the IEA said.

"Furthermore, the effects of the ongoing hurricane season on US demand are subject to considerable uncertainty."

London, Sept 9: French President Nicolas Sarkozy is planning to turn the suburbs of Paris to make it look more like Croydon.

The project could see a new generation of high rise buildings linked by an orbital railway in the city's suburbs in a bid to encourage the middle classes to move out of the centre of the French capital and to allow ordinary working people to move in.

British architects have now been invited to submit their plans for hundreds of new buildings.

Evian, France  - European Union and Ukrainian leaders are set to shift their summit, planned for Tuesday, from the Alpine spa town of Evian to Paris after the EU's top officials took longer than expected in talks in Moscow.

"Given the delays to the visit to Russia and Georgia today, the EU-Ukraine summit, originally planned for Evian, will take place in the Elysee Palace," home of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, a statement from the Elysee press service said.

The long-planned summit had been intended to deal with talks on an ongoing partnership between the two sides, with Ukraine's President Viktor Yushchenko pushing for closer ties with the bloc.

Moscow - French President Nicolas Sarkozy will spearhead international efforts to pressure Russia into withdrawing more troops from Georgia, in talks in Moscow and Tbilisi on Monday to save the ceasefire pact he brokered last month.

Sarkozy is attempting to force Moscow's full compliance with the accord that stopped the five-day war over South Ossetia, by threatening to suspend talks on a new EU-Russia partnership agreement. The French president, who currently holds the EU rotating presidency, is backed by an EU ministers vote at an emergency session on September 1.