Six employees arrested over Air France violence

PARIS • Six Air France employees were arrested yesterday as part of the investigation into the violent scenes which saw one of the airline's executives have his shirt ripped off and scale a fence to escape an angry mob, police said.

The six men arrested work for the Cargo Air France division but are not elected union officials, one of the sources said.

Several hundred employees disrupted a meeting on Oct 5 at Air France's headquarters while executives were detailing plans to lay off 2,900 workers.

Human resources director Xavier Broseta had his shirt ripped off and was helped over a fence by security guards.

Since the clashes, it has resumed negotiations with its pilots about introducing more flexible working practices. It said last Friday that meetings had gone well, according to a union source.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

Violence grows in Israel as 'terrorists' stab two

JERUSALEM • Two "terrorists" stabbed two Israelis in the east Jerusalem settlement of Pisgat Zeev yesterday, the day's third such attack in the city, police said, adding that one attacker was killed and the other shot.

"The victims were Jewish minors, one gravely wounded, the other, seriously," a statement said. It was the 18th stabbing attack targeting Israelis or Jews since Oct 3.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

Pioneer trial for foetuses with brittle bones

PARIS • Foetuses with a crippling form of brittle bone disease will receive stem-cell treatment early next year in a pioneering trial, British hospitals participating in the study said yesterday.

Stem cells will be injected into the foetuses to help strengthen bones so frail they may break before birth, researchers said, and into stricken newborns to compare the results.

Children with severe forms of the condition, osteogenesis imperfecta, suffer repeated fractures of bones throughout the skeleton, leading to painful disability and, sometimes, death in early infancy.

The trials, coordinated by the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, will involve a group of foetuses and a group of newborns.

The approach had already been tested on a handful of young children suffering from brittle bone disease, with encouraging results, said the institute.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE