Paris - The French co-author of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Stephane Hessel, was on Wednesday awarded a UNESCO prize for his life's work.

The 91-year-old Hessel, who was honoured on the 60th anniversary of the document, said that it remained difficult today to implement human rights in the world.

As one example, he criticized France for its handling of illegal immigrants.

"Immigrants are not treated as they should be," said Hessel, whose mother was German. "The problem will be be even more important in the future, because climate change will provoke more migration."

Paris - French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner was quoted Wednesday as saying that he had made a mistake in asking President Nicolas Sarkozy to create a ministry for human rights.

"I think I was wrong to ask for a junior minister for human rights. It's a mistake. Because there is a permanent contradiction between human rights and a nation's foreign policy, even in France," Kouchner said in an interview published in the daily Le Parisien on the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Melbourne, Dec 10 : French scientists are trying to develop self-cleaning windows and windshields – with the help of butterfly wings.

Butterfly wings – and lotus leaves – can repel water with ease because of the microstructures on their surface.

The waffle-like structures found on butterfly wings can make it difficult for water droplets to spread out.

Paris  -

Bogota  - Wilson Bueno Largo, a young former member of Colombia's Marxist FARC rebels, left the country late Tuesday bound for exile in France.

Largo, also known as Isaza, gained hero status for freeing a kidnapped Colombian lawmaker, Oscar Tulio Lizcano, 62, whom he dragged to freedom in October, earning a 400,000-dollar reward.

The 28-year-old was accompanied to Paris by another former FARC hostage, Ingrid Betancourt, and his girlfriend, who deserted from the rebels three months earlier.

Betancourt, a former Colombian presidential candidate, who was freed by the military in July after eight years as a FARC hostage, proposed the exile to Largo, as a message to other rebels still holding hostages.

Paris - French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Tuesday that he would not accept any watering down of his ambitious climate package at this week's EU summit, the head of the centre-left faction in the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

During a meeting with a group of EU parliamentarians in Paris, the serving EU president said that negotiations over the package would not result in "a compromise at any cost."