England’s clubs have edged back from the brink of exclusion from European competition next season following a dramatic day in a dispute destined to continue for another year.

England’s clubs have edged back from the brink of exclusion from European competition next season following a dramatic day in a dispute destined to continue for another year.

FORMER military strongman Manuel Antonio Noriega was flown home to Panama yesterday to be punished once again for crimes he committed during a career that saw him transformed from a Cold War ally of Washington to the target of a US invasion.

Air France said today that it has cancelled about 20% of its flights due to a strike by flight attendants.

WORKERS opposed to a higher retirement age blocked roads to airports around France yesterday, leaving passengers in Paris dragging suitcases on foot along an emergency breakdown lane.

Police broke through barricades around French fuel depots today as the government took a tough line with strikers threatening to bring the country to a halt.

MASKED youths clashed with police and set fires in cities across France yesterday as protests against a proposed hike in the retirement age took an increasingly radical turn. Hundreds of flights were cancelled, long lines formed at petrol stations and train service in many regions was cut in half.

AIRLINE passengers flying to or through France face disruption today as air traffic controllers join in the escalating general strike in that country.

Striking French air traffic controllers disrupted flights for the fourth consecutive day today.

Hundreds of flights were cancelled or delayed today as air traffic controllers across France began a four-day strike.

PANICKED passengers scrambled and pushed to the emergency exits of an Airbus 320 preparing to carry 165 passengers from Paris to a holiday city in Spain after an engine suddenly caught fire yesterday, a passenger said.

Panicking airline passengers struggled for emergency exits after an engine caught fire on the ground today.

Around 10 passengers were injured evacuating an airliner which caught fire at Orly airport in Paris today.

France’s largest general strike in three years hobbled transportation, school, hospital and mail services as unions demanded that President Nicolas Sarkozy protects jobs and consumers during the global economic crisis.

France sent a jumbo jet to Thailand today to pick up some of its nationals stranded by the closure of Bangkok’s two civilian airports.

British Airways boosted its new continental-Europe-to-America operations today by announcing that it had agreed to buy a French airline for £54m (€68m).

Paris air traffic controllers began a five-day strike today, causing flight delays and cancellations.

French counter-terrorism police arrested nine suspects today in a pre-dawn sweep aimed at breaking up an alleged al-Qaida-linked recruiting network to send radical Islamic fighters to Iraq, the Interior Ministry said.

French authorities said today they are investigating low-cost airline easyJet for suspected labour code violations.

THREE teenage girls have confessed to starting a fire in a suburban Paris housing project over the weekend that killed 16 people, including three children.

Air traffic controllers at Paris’s second-largest airport began a strike today, forcing the cancellation of nearly 60% of flights.

ARSENE WENGER has publicly committed himself to Arsenal for at least the next two seasons following reports that he held a recent meeting with Real Madrid president Florentino Perez in Paris.

Sinn Fein’s administration chief at Stormont headed the IRA’s intelligence unit, establishing links with ETA, the PLO and other worldwide terrorist groups, a court heard today.