Minister of Foreign and European Affairs Bernard Kouchner of France
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Original source: originally posted to Flickr as World Economic Forum
Original source: originally posted to Flickr as World Economic Forum
BAGHDAD (AFP) French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said on Sunday that the security situation in Iraq was improving and reaffirmed France's willingness to help rebuild the war-ravaged country.
Earlier on Sunday, two people were killed and five were wounded in a car bombing in Baghdad just outside the Green Zone which houses the Iraqi government and the US embassy, as Kouchner was visiting the capital.
Kouchner has three children (Julie, Camille and Antoine) by his first wife, Évelyne Pisier, a professor of law, and one child, Alexandre, by his present wife Christine Ockrent, a television journalist.
Kouchner is a long-time advocate of humanitarian intervention.
After the election of Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007, Kouchner was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs in François Fillon's government, even though Kouchner supported Sarkozy's Socialist rival Ségolène Royal during the campaign.
French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner was in Gaza yesterday and made a total jerk of himself.
Kouchner said he knew Israel was concerned that Hamas would use any such lull to build up and improve its weaponry.
The humanitarian activist and former Health Minister Bernard Kouchner is widely admired in France, not least for his passionate, often outspoken declarations on human rights and the need to intervene to protect them.
Bernard Kouchner came to prominence in France in 1979 when he chartered a cargo ship and took it to the South China Sea with a group of doctors to rescue Vietnamese boat people trying desperately to make it to Hong Kong.
Mr Kouchner remains a popular public figure in France, though not necessarily with his socialist colleagues, many of whom see his acceptance of the foreign minister's job under the right-wing government of Nicolas Sarkozy as a betrayal.
Mr Kouchner had seen for himself the suffering of the Kurdish population under Saddam Hussein when he travelled there in the early 1990s with Danielle Mitterrand, wife of the late president, on a humanitarian mission.
The outspoken Mr Kouchner knows how to use the media to best effect to make his point or back a cause, though he was criticised by some in France in 1992 for images of him wading ashore alone in Somalia during the famine, carrying a sack of rice on his back.
In a February 4, 2003 editorial with Antoine Veil in Le Monde, entitled "Neither War Nor Saddam," Kouchner said that he was opposed to the impending War in Iraq, and, as the title suggests, to the remaining in power of Saddam Hussein, the removal of whom should be accomplished via a concerted United Nations, preferably diplomatic, solution.
In 2005, Kouchner was a candidate for the position of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), but lost the appointment in favour of former Portuguese Prime Minister, António Guterres, who was nominated by the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
In 2006, Kouchner was also a candidate to become Director-General of the World Health Organisation.
After the election of Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007, he was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs, even though Kouchner supported Sarkozy's Socialist rival Ségolène Royal during the campaign.
Kouchner is married to the journalist Christine Ockrent, his second wife.
Socialist politician and human rights activist Bernard Kouchner has been waiting for a prominent position in the French government for years.
Even though Kouchner has been part of the political landscape for years, he never quite fit into the picture.
During his entire humanitarian career Kouchner has opposed traditions that appeared senseless to him.
The handsome Kouchner has become known and loved throughout the world as the "French doctor.
Kouchner is the right man for the job.
Kouchner is as close as a Frenchman comes to being pro-American," the New York Times commented.
And that's what Kouchner has declared his goal: "We will fight for a more just globalization and a stronger Europe, by restoring to France the ambition it has been given by history," he wrote in an article for Le Monde shortly after his nomination.
And issues where they do disagree, such as Turkey's possible membership of the European Union (EU) -- Kouchner is in favor of Turkey's EU membership while Sarkozy is opposed -- will probably not come to the fore during the five years of Sarkozy's term.
But then Kouchner was never expected to be a soft-soaper on the diplomatic scene.
French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner has a reputation for challenging convention and authority.
Kouchner is a humanitarian as well as a patriot, with a strong commitment to human rights.
But the plain-speaking Kouchner is unlikely to be deterred by fears of upsetting the White House when he has criticisms to make of US policy.
Certainly Mr Kouchner is making clear that France no longer takes the view once expressed by President Chirac that a nuclear-armed Iran might be inevitable In continuing to ratchet up the rhetoric over that threat and to underline the West's resolution on Iran's nuclear enrichment program Mr Kouchner is supplementing his president's warnings.
AP) French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner says France is ready to talk officially to Hamas, if it renounces violence, recognizes Israel and accepts previous peace accords.
Less than six months into the job, Mr Kouchner has been a blast of fresh air.
Wherever on the planet in the past twenty or so years there has been fighting, shooting, wars and disease, earthquakes and flooding, French physician Dr.
Bernard Kouchner has been there with his closely knit humanitarian team.
Bernard Kouchner was always at the center of attention.
Bernard Kouchner has played two roles his whole life, allowing them to intermingle according to need: a humanitarian of world renown who visited every crisis spot in the world and a leftist politician who almost constantly, though not always smoothly, made gains on the French political scene.
Kouchner was asking for an "international air offensive" against Yugoslavia.
Kouchner is the one about six year-old Sanela, the little girl who kept a war diary and because of this was presented to the public as the Anne Frank of Sarajevo.
Kouchner was to give Sanela 38,000 marks as her writer's honorarium.
Bernard Kouchner has expressed his wish to meet him.
Kouchner is the co-founder and former president of Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), a Paris-based non-profit humanitarian organization made up of voluntary medical personnel who contribute their time and expertise in assisting in situations of emergency or inadequate medical care in the developing world.
The first person to challenge the Red Cross's stance of neutrality and silence in wars and massacres, Kouchner has played an important role in international humanitarian efforts for more than twenty years.
A medical doctor by profession, Kouchner was born in 1939 in Avignon, France.
Calling himself a traitor to France's peaceful position on Iraq, yet not on board for America's looming war, Doctors Without Borders founder Bernard Kouchner said it is the Iraqi people - machine-gunned, gassed, and murdered by the hundreds of thousands - who are forgotten in the debate.
Kouchner described victims of the 1988 Iraqi gas attacks on Kurdish villages, the piles of bodies left after Iraqi troops machine-gunned a crowd from helicopters, and described the continuing stream of refugees from razed villages in Hussein-controlled Iraq into the independently run Kurdish zone in the north.
Still they're suffering and they have not been taken into account," Kouchner said of the chemical attack victims from Halabja in northern Iraq.
Despite the ongoing brutality, however, Kouchner said he also knows the brutality that war brings and said he does not support an American war on Iraq.
Kouchner said it is still possible to force Hussein from power, given the ever-tightening noose of American military force.
Kouchner was also critical of peace protests, saying he supported their goals but that they were forgetting Hussein's brutality.
The questions following the speech explored different facets of the Iraq debate, with one School of Public Health faculty member saying he thought Kouchner was "being used" by those who support a war in Iraq.
on Health and Human Rights at HSPH on March 6.
Bagnoud (FXB) Center for Health and Human Rights.
Committee on Macroeconomics and Health.
decades or even a century to fully realize, Kouchner said in a later interview.
War that would provide the legal groundwork for such a charge.
for Health and Human Rights, where Kouchner is a visiting professor.
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CAIRO -- It is the only story in the Arab world: Gaza's battering at the hands of Israeli planes.
Kouchner Bernard Kouchner is one of these people.
it Most recently, Kouchner has stepped up to the platform on his opinions of the Iraq War.
While his critics hate him, Kouchner is quick to point out his high popularity in the polls.
Kouchner was never a humble man; in fact, it is easy to accuse him of being ambitious.
Lederer, Associated Press WriterThe presidents of Egypt and France have proposed a plan to end the escalating Israeli-Hamas conflict in Gaza, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said Tuesday.
Kouchner says Russia has broken international lawAug 27 - By Associated PressFrench Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner on Wednesday accused Russia of breaking international law by recognizing the independence of the Georgian territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
France plans for possible Lebanon evacuationMay 9 - By Associated PressFrance is creating a plan to evacuate its citizens from Lebanon in case the country's sectarian violence spreads, Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said Friday.
France Mulls Olympic Ceremony BoycottMar 18 - By Associated PressFrance's Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner says the European Union should consider boycotting the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics if violence continues in Tibet.
EU Calls for China Restraint in TibetMar 14 - By Associated PressFrench Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner says EU leaders have appealed to China to show restraint in Tibet after reports of gunfire amid rioting during the largest demonstrations in nearly two decades.
France to Recognize Kosovo IndependenceFeb 18 - By Associated PressFrance will recognize the independence of Kosovo, Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said Monday.
Having apologized to Iraq's prime minister for saying he should be replaced, Kouchner is now under fire for raising the possibility of war with Iran.
comEuropean Union leaders are considering imposing sanctions against Russia ahead of a summit on Monday to discuss the situation in Georgia, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said today.
world-news, revolutionary-guards, bernard-kouchner, mohamed-elbaradei, iranian, white-house1910 French Foreign Minister: "World Should Prepare for Possible War With Iran"Sep 16 - Seeded by FaustaSource: Pajamas MediaPJM ROUNDUP: French FM Bernard Kouchner said on Sunday his country must prepare for the possibility of war against Iran over its nuclear program.
Kouchner is a devotee of crisis, drama, danger a rsistant eager for an evil worth resisting.
in from jogging and was still wearing a mousy gray T-shirt, jeans and sneakers.
Kouchner had just come from Washington.
not bring themselves to believe it that they were going to their death.
himself at the expense of the humorless left.
But Kouchner was ambitious and careful to make friends as well as enemies.
Glucksmann says that Kouchner was ousted by rightists.
Kouchner is a kind of emotional Stalinist, Brauman says.
government jet Kouchner had requisitioned.
Kouchner was implying that the problem in fact lay with Guant, who was now emerging as an unexpected rival.
An American consultant who worked with Kouchner found him wildly disorganized and unequal to the demands of running even a rump state.
and Kouchner had to stay put until the end of December.
grandly, but not the spirit of France.
Kouchner had lunch with leaders of Bhuttos Pakistan Peoples Party at the French Embassy.
Kouchner was not about to leave Pakistan without honoring Bhuttos memory.
Larkana would have been a more dramatic setting, but Kouchner had made his point, and made it in front of the national and global media: France, and the West, would not stand by while democracy was snuffed out in Pakistan.
democracy and human rights at the heart of policy.
in the cafes and parlors of Paris, Kouchner is routinely tarred as a neoconservative.
Kouchner is also damned as a hypocrite and a dupe.
Kouchner says he doesnt read articles critical of him, but he obviously absorbs their gist quite thoroughly.
for judicial inquiries, and Musharraf would likely throw a fit.
Kouchner was instrumental in altering French policy in Bosnia-Herzegovina and later in filling the position—between 1999 and 2001—of UN.
placeAd2(commercialNode,'midarticleflex',false,'')Since taking office, Kouchner has convened some very serious meetings in Paris to beef up the French policy toward the African Union's flagging commitment to save the people of Darfur.
Even the generally staid IAEA has been impelled to rebuke his crude warmongering (recall that in the past Kouchner has been wise enough to cloak his martial ambitions in humanitarian garb), along with the generally restrained Austrians.
1 on France's hit parade of political popularity, an iconoclastic and intermittent minister, Bernard Kouchner was first celebrated for fishing out the boat people who fled Communist Vietnam and for bearing sacks of rice on his ministerial shoulder in Operation Restore Hope in Somalia.
Faced with the globalized inhumanity that is burning the 21st century, Kouchner is introducing a new humanism without geographical or political borders.
Kouchner was France's Minister of Health until picked by Secretary-General Kofi Annan as his Special Representative for Kosovo.
Kouchner has played an important role on the French political scene for the past 20 years, holding a number of ministerial positions in different French Governments.
Kouchner is the author of several books, and co-founder of the news magazines L' Evenement and Actuel.
Kouchner was born in 1939 in Avignon.
Kouchner takes up post as UNMIK head in Pristina.
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The French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner has said Israel is expected to launch a military strike on Iran before it acquires a nuclear bomb, and urged the Jewish state to hold back in favour of sanctions.
Kouchner knew beforehand UNSC would favour Gaza truce New York, Jan 09: After tense negotiations on Gaza, the UN Security Council (UNSC) witnessed some light moments when presiding French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner was handed over the results.
PARIS, Jan 12, 2009 (AFP) - A well-known French investigative reporter has written a book accusing Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner of having lobbiedAfrican leaders for payments to consultancy firms, it was reported Monday.
The presidents of Egypt and France have proposed a plan to end the escalating Israeli-Hamas conflict in Gaza, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said Tuesday.