France election: De Villepin to stand for president
French former prime minister and centre-right politician Dominique de Villepin has announced he will stand for president in the 2012 election.
The long-time rival of incumbent President Nicolas Sarkozy made his announcement on French TV.
Mr Sarkozy himself has not formally declared a bid for re-election but is widely expected to do so.
France's Socialist opposition recently elected Francois Hollande as their candidate for the presidency.
Recent opinion polls suggested Mr de Villepin, 58, would only get 1 or 2% of the vote.
His candidacy will certainly annoy the president because he will take away precious votes in the first round of the election at the end of April, the BBC's Hugh Schofield reports from Paris.
But it is hard to see him as a serious contender as many of his former friends and allies have moved over to President Sarkozy's camp, our correspondent adds.
Furthermore, he has just been named in a corruption enquiry, accused of putting pressure on a businessman not to give information to the police that might implicate one of his friends.
Nadine Morano, the election chief of Mr Sarkozy's governing UMP party, called on Mr de Villepin to abandon his bid and "back Mr Sarkozy instead".
'Divided again'
Mr de Villepin is presenting himself as a candidate above party politics, correspondents say. He recently set up a new political movement, United Republic (French: Republique solidaire), which contains members of the UMP.
"I want to reunite all the French, those on the left, those on the right, and those in the centre," he told the TF1 channel.
"I intend to defend a certain idea of France," Mr de Villepin.
His words evoked a famous phrase of General de Gaulle, our correspondent says.
The former prime minister said he was "concerned" to see France "humiliated by the law of markets which encroaches further and further in austerity".
This was a clear reference to the deal in Europe just masterminded by Mr Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in order to save the euro, our correspondent says.
Describing Mr de Villepin as a "man on his own without financial means or a political movement", Ms Morano said she hoped he would not "make the mistake of [causing] a division in 2012".
She said he belonged to the "UMP family" and should stand in the French parliamentary election - which follows the presidential poll - instead.
A Socialist senator, Andre Vallini, said: "I don't think it's good news for us but it's bad news for Mr Sarkozy. The right is a bit more divided again."
Troubled career
Dominique Marie Francois Rene Galouzeau de Villepin, 58, was a protege of Mr Sarkozy's predecessor as president, Jacques Chirac.
As foreign minister in February 2003, Mr de Villepin opposed the invasion of Iraq at the United Nations.
As prime minister between May 2005 and May 2007, he saw his plans for labour reforms scrapped in the face of public protests and strikes.
He was later involved in a long and bitter legal battle centring on allegations that he had tried to smear Mr Sarkozy in the run-up to the 2007 presidential election through the Clearstream affair.
A French appeals court cleared him of complicity in September.
One French tweeter, Aure Lianna, quipped on Sunday: "At least it's certain he's not standing in order to negotiate a ministerial post from... Nicolas Sarkozy."
The new corruption case in which Mr de Villepin has been named relates to an embezzlement case against his friend Regis Bulot, former head of Relais & Chateaux, a French-based association of exclusive small hotels and gourmet restaurants.
"This case does not concern me," Mr de Villepin told TF1 on Sunday. "One may have a friend, friends, and not be implicated in their business dealings."
Obama Makes His Case for Second Term
U.S. President Barack Obama has made a case for his re-election by setting himself apart from his Republican challengers.
In an interview Sunday on American television (the CBS news show 60 Minutes), the president compared himself to a ship's captain in stormy waters. He said he did not expect the American people to feel satisfied with the state of the U.S. economy.
He said if the voters believe in the Republican agenda of lower taxes for the wealthy and weaker regulations, he will lose the next presidential election next year. But, he said, he does not think “that's where the American people are going to go.”
Instead, he said he is counting on the voters to give him credit for averting a second Great Depression, saving the auto industry and lowering health care costs.
He rejected Republican criticism that his policies amount to class warfare. He said he is trying to restore an America that builds the middle class and requires rich Americans to pay a little more.
Republican contenders for the presidency, including leading contenders Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, have said Mr. Obama is not capable of steering the country out of the economic crisis.
US Military Vacates Pakistani Air Base
U.S. military vacated an air base in Pakistan's southwest Sunday, meeting a December 11 deadline set by Islamabad in response to NATO's November 26 air strike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.
The Pakistani military said it took over the Shamsi base in Baluchistan province shortly after the last U.S. personnel departed.
The Pakistani government ordered the move as part of several punitive measures reflecting Pakistani anger about the deadly incident. Islamabad also closed its border crossings to trucks delivering supplies to NATO forces in land-locked Afghanistan and boycotted an international conference in Bonn on Afghanistan's future.
There was no immediate confirmation of the base withdrawal from U.S. officials.
Pakistan accused NATO forces of deliberately targeting Pakistani soldiers during an operation against militants on the border with Afghanistan. The U.S. military and NATO deny the charge and have launched investigations of the incident.
U.S. intelligence experts say the withdrawal from the Shamsi air base is not likely to have a major impact on the drone war in the border region because the U.S. military can fly the unmanned planes out of air fields in Afghanistan.
In another development, two prominent Pakistani Taliban members have denied claims by the group's deputy chief Maulvi Faqir Mohammad that the militants are engaged in peace talks with Islamabad.
Mohammad had announced Saturday that negotiations with the government were progressing well and could soon lead to an agreement. The Pakistani government has not confirmed any negotiations with the militants but officials have spoken of a need for dialogue.
The United States has long pressured Pakistan, a major U.S. aid recipient, to fight the Islamist militants who use bases in Pakistani tribal regions to attack U.S.-led NATO forces in Afghanistan.
Also Sunday, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani denied reports that President Asif Ali Zardari suffered a stroke and offered to resign. Mr. Zardari flew to the United Arab Emirates Tuesday after falling ill. Medics say the president likely suffered a transient ischemic attack, which can produce stroke-like symptoms but no lasting damage to the brain.
Mr. Gilani said the president was making good progress and needs to rest for two more weeks before returning home.
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