Left victory shatters Chirac dreamsGENEVA: France's Socialist-Communist coalition led by Lionel Jospin has won Sunday's parliamentary elections. This has set France on the rocky road to cohabitation where a conservative president will have to share power with a socialist prime minister. As polling stations closed 11.30 IST, early reports showed that the Left coalition had won 334 seats in the 577-seat National Assembly or Parliament with President Jacques Chirac's ruling coalition relegated to the second place. Chirac, who called elections 10 months ahead of schedule to prepare France for a busy year in the European calender, including European Monetary Union (EMU), has lost the gamble. Jospin say he favours the Euro, Europe's future single currency, but not at the cost of jobs. The Communists oppose the Euro.Jain to go abroadNEW DELHI: SK Jain, one of the three Jain brothers who are the main accused in the multi crore hawala scam, has been granted one month's permission to go abroad by two Delhi courts. Jain, who has already been discharged in seven of the 34 hawala pay-off cases, along with brothers N K Jain and B R Jain, was granted permission by additional CMM, Sunita Gupta.China explosionBEIJING: A gas explosion in a coal mine in northeastern China's Liaoning province killed more than 50 people. Some 68 miners were working in the north Dragon Phoenix coal mine in the city of Fushun when the blast ripped through the pit. Rescue teams had pulled more than 50 bodies from the rubble later.ED drops chargesNEW DELHI: The Enforcement Directorate has dropped cases against former Union Ministers N D Tewari, Arif Mohammed Khan, Balram Jakhar and P Shiv Shanker, regarding alleged violation of Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA) in the Rs 65-crore hawala case. Thane deathsMUMBAI: Eleven people died in two separate road incidents in Thane district since early Sunday morning. The Thane Rural police said, five persons died near Talasari when the Armada jeep (MH14 G 4664) in which they were travelling collided with a luxury bus RJ16 P 0218 heading from the opposite direction. In another accident, six occupants of a Maruti died on the spot near Padgya on Nashik-Mumbai highway.
