Briefly

UNITED STATES

'No financing offers' to Turkey on F-16 jets

The United States on Monday did not confirm Turkish President Recept Tayyip Erdogan's comment that Washington had made an offer to Ankara for the sale of F-16 fighter jets, but added that it has not made Turkey a financing offer for the warplanes. Erdogan said on Sunday that the US had proposed the sale of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey in return for its investment in the F-35 program, from which Ankara was removed after buying missile defense systems from Russia. He said Washington had made the F-16 proposal in return for Turkey's payment of $1.4 billion that it made for the F-35 joint fighter program. The decades-old partnership between the NATO allies has gone through unprecedented tumult in the past five years over many issues.

FRANCE

Miss France pageant sued over selection rules

A leading feminist organization said on Monday that it was suing the promoters of the Miss France beauty contest in a labor court, alleging they used discriminatory criteria to select participants. The "Dare to be a Feminist" group, along with three failed contestants, said they were targeting the Miss France company as well as Endemol Production, which makes the annual TV program screened on the TF1 channel. The plaintiffs argued that the companies are breaking French labor law with discriminatory selection criteria by obliging aspiring beauty queens to be more than 1.7 meters tall, single, and "representative of beauty". The Miss France company declined to comment when contacted by media.

Agencies Via Xinhua