 News Makers
(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-07-02 07:41 French army chief quits after incident French army chief of staff General Bruno Cuche resigned yesterday after a soldier fired live ammunition instead of blanks at a weekend military show and injured 17 people, the presidential office said.
President Nicolas Sarkozy had pledged to react rapidly and severely and to seek explanations from the army. "The President, the head of the armies, has accepted the resignation presented by army General Bruno Cuche, head of the land army," said a statement from Sarkozy's office. Cuche answers to a higher-ranking officer in charge of the overall armed forces. Sarkozy is the ultimate head of the armed forces in France. The incident occurred during a military show by the Third Marine Parachute regiment, open to the public in the southern French town of Carcassonne. The soldier has been questioned by police. The wounded were mostly members of the public who had been watching the soldiers simulate an attack and included a 3-year-old boy who was hit in the heart and in the arm. The boy's situation has stablized in the hospital. Man charged with axing relatives An Australian man was charged yesterday with hacking his wife and two grandchildren to death and badly wounding his daughter in an ax attack that has shocked Australia. John Walsh, 69, did not enter a plea and was ordered to be held in custody when he appeared in court briefly on three charges of murder and one of attempted murder stemming from Monday's attack in Cowra, 250 km west of Sydney. He will return to court next Monday. He faces a maximum penalty of life in prison. Investigators had few clues to the motive of the attack, which took place in the house where the man and his wife often looked after their grandchildren while their mother went to work as a police officer. "We're all at a bit of a loss. We will get to the bottom of it," said New South Wales state police Commissioner Andrew Scipione. Walsh was arrested without incident at a motel in the town of Hay, 415 km west of Cowra, about six hours after the attack, police said. "One can only say that he's bearing up as well as anyone in that situation," defense lawyer Matthew Lees told reporters in nearby Deniliquin where the court hearing occurred. Paramedics who were called to the Cowra house on Monday found three bodies - a 7-year-old boy, a 5-year-old girl, and their grandmother, aged 52. Their mother, Shelley Walsh, 31, was allegedly attacked as she returned to the house, and fled to a neighbor's home bleeding from a deep gash on the side of her head. Agencies (China Daily 07/02/2008 page10) |
