PARIS (Reuters) – Relatives of some of the 228 people killed in a Rio-Paris jet crash voiced hope Thursday that their two-year wait for an explanation may soon be over as experts prepared to open the aircraft’s “black box” recorders.

Investigators into the crash of Air France flight 447 over the Atlantic in June 2009 said they were optimistic at least some of the data could be retrieved but interpreting it could take months.

Watched by relatives of some of the crash victims as well as French and Brazilian police, investigators displayed the two, bright-orange voice and data black-box recorders in public for the first time at a crowded news conference.

The recorders from the Airbus A330 aircraft were hauled nearly 4 km (2.5 miles) to the sea surface at the start of May after a lengthy search operation costing $50 million and shipped subsequently to Paris, where they arrived Thursday.

“We have been waiting for 23 months, which is a long time,” said Robert Soulas, who lost his daughter and son-in-law in the crash. “We were frustrated during these long months and we hope this is a new departure and things will move more rapidly.”

Investigators said they expected to know by Monday whether it would be possible to extract information from the recorders, which were displayed inside tanks filled with dematerialized water to prevent them being damaged by exposure to the air.

Police also expect to know within days if DNA identification can be carried out on some 50 bodies French public prosecutor Jean Quintard said had been found among the wreckage.

PARIS (Reuters) – Investigators of an Air France crash into the Atlantic two years ago will begin to decode black-box flight recorders but say it will take months and there was no guarantee of finding what caused the destruction of the flight with 228 people on board.

The two orange cockpit voice and flight data recorders, preserved in demineralised water after their recovery from the ocean’s depths nearly two weeks ago, were displayed in public for the first time Thursday.

The investigators said any information gleaned would take months to process and there were no certainty it would be possible to determine what went wrong before the June 2009 crash, when an Air France A330 Airbus flying to Paris from Rio de Janeiro encountered stormy weather and crashed.

“We hope to be able to read them, even though this isn’t yet guaranteed,” Jean-Paul Troadec, director of France’s BEA air accident investigation agency, told reporters.

He said it would take a minimum of three days to extract copies of the data — one for crash investigators and another for French prosecutors probing the cause of the disaster — but it could take months or longer to piece together what happened.

“It’s a very complex process,” Troadec told a news conference that was also attended by relatives of victims. “It will take a certain amount of time.”

In the best case scenario, they could issue a report with their findings at the beginning of 2012.

PARIS (Reuters) – Pakistan’s prime minister defended on Wednesday his country’s failure to spot Osama bin Laden hiding out in a luxury compound near Islamabad, saying the whole world was to blame for any intelligence failure.

Pakistan is under pressure from the West to explain how bin Laden, who was killed this week in a U.S. raid on his hideout, could have lived for several years in a military garrison town near the Pakistani capital without its intelligence finding out.

“There is an intelligence failure of the whole world, not just Pakistan alone,” Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani told reporters in Paris on Wednesday where he met French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

“Certainly we have intelligence sharing with the rest of the world, including the United States, so if somebody points out that there are … lapses from the Pakistan side, that means there are lapses from the whole world,” he said.

Gilani said Pakistan had paid a heavy price for its involvement in the U.S.-led “war on terrorism,” with more than 30,000 Pakistanis killed since fighting in Afghanistan began.

“I told President Sarkozy Pakistan has no other interest but to see normalcy returning to Afghanistan, so that the transition is completed smoothly by 2014,” he told reporters after meeting Sarkozy at the Elysee Palace presidential offices.

Sarkozy had agreed to help enhance the capacity of the Pakistan’s law enforcement agencies, he added.

PARIS (Reuters) – A set of love letters penned by Edith Piaf to her cycling champion lover Louis Gerardin have been published in France, where the late singer is as famous for her anguished love affairs as for her mournful ballads.

The great chanteuse’s passionate months-long affair with the married Gerardin inspired a torrent of flowery, emotional missives, dotted with spelling mistakes and crossings-out, that reveal Piaf’s fragility and desperate need to be loved back.

He was not Piaf’s only paramour but it is the first time such heartfelt letters by the singer — dubbed “La Mome Piaf,” or little waif sparrow, as her mesmerizing presence propelled her from the streets of Paris to international stardom in the 1940s and 50s — appear in a published collection.

“You have taken me like no other man has ever done, and I have given you what I have never before given, which is to say: myself!” wrote Piaf in early 1952 to her blond blue-eyed lover.

Three years her senior at 39, Gerardin was the object of Piaf’s passion from November 1951 to September 1952, during which time she wrote over 50 letters to her lover, nicknamed “Toto.”

“This is what I would like before leaving for America,” Piaf wrote on April 13, 1952, before a tour. “To be so worn-out, so filled with love, that I cannot make love anymore for months but await my marvelous return to be with you again like your little pet dog.”

Piaf wrote of her desire to have a baby with Gerardin, and offered to give up her singing career to be with him, yet her letters suggest an undercurrent of insecurity and desperation and a love that was not fully reciprocated.

PARIS (Reuters) – Pakistan’s prime minister defended his country’s failure to spot that Osama bin Laden had been hiding out in a luxury compound near Islamabad, saying that fighting terrorism was the whole world’s responsibility.

Pakistan is under pressure from the West to explain how bin Laden, who was killed this week in a U.S. raid on his hideout, could have lived for several years in a military garrison town near the Pakistani capital without local intelligence finding out.

“There is an intelligence failure of the whole world, not just Pakistan alone,” Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani told reporters in Paris on Wednesday where he was due to meet French President Nicholas Sarkozy.

“Certainly we have intelligence sharing with the rest of the world, including the United States, so if somebody points out that there are … lapses from the Pakistan side, that means there are lapses from the whole world,” he said.

Gilani said Pakistan had paid a heavy price for its involvement in the U.S.-led “war on terrorism,” with more than 30,000 Pakistanis killed since the fighting in Afghanistan began.

Bin Laden, architect of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, was killed by U.S. commandoes on Monday in a raid on his fortified compound in Abbottabad, about 65 km (40 miles) north of Islamabad.

Gilani, speaking to representatives of French employers’ group Medef, sought to convince business leaders considering investment in Pakistan that the country was plagued by what he called “exaggerated” and “misleading” perceptions.

PARIS/ALGIERS (Reuters) – France promised Libyan rebels on Wednesday it would intensify air strikes on Muammar Gaddafi’s forces and send military liaison officers to help them as fighting raged in the besieged city of Misrata.

Rebels said they fought pro-government troops for control of a main thoroughfare in the port city that is the insurgents’ last stronghold in the west of the country. Eight people had been killed the previous day, mostly civilians.

In Paris, President Nicolas Sarkozy pledged stronger military action at his first meeting with the leader of the opposition Libyan National Council, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, the Elysee presidential office said in a statement.

“We are indeed going to intensify the attacks and respond to this request from the national transition council,” it said, quoting Sarkozy as telling Abdel Jalil: “We will help you.”

He did not say how NATO-led forces planned to break a stalemate on the ground after the United States and some European allies declined last week to join ground strikes.

Vice President Joe Biden said in an interview with the Financial Times that American strike aircraft were not needed to achieve the alliance’s mission in Libya.

“If the Lord Almighty extricated the U.S. out of NATO and dropped it on the planet of Mars so we were no longer participating, it is bizarre to suggest that NATO and the rest of the world lacks the capacity to deal with Libya — it does not,” he was quoted as saying.

* Energy from effluence under Paris to provide heating

* Presidential palace next on list to use technology

By Alexandria Sage

PARIS, April 5 (Reuters Life!) – The Paris sewers — whose murky labyrinths have been reviled and romanticized through history — are at the centre of a renewable energy experiment to harness heat for buildings, including the presidential palace.

Paris wants green sources to fuel 30 percent of its energy needs by 2020 and a new heating project at a primary school is the city’s first using power from sewers, where temperatures average between 12 and 20 degrees Celsius (53 to 68 Fahrenheit).

The technology takes advantage of the warm waste water flowing into the sewers from showers, dishwashers and washing machines. A steel plate containing heat-conveying fluid is submerged in the waste and feeds a heat exchanger pump — in this case located in the school’s cellar — which circulates heat through an existing network of radiators.

Engineers say the process is safe, non-polluting and — more importantly, does not smell.

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb 24 (Reuters) – Gap Inc (GPS.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) said soaring cotton and petroleum costs might hurt margins in fiscal 2011, as it struggles to re-energize growth, offsetting a higher-than-expected 4 percent jump in quarterly earnings.

The shares of the operator of the Gap, Old Navy and Banana Republic brands, which in 2010 was overtaken by Spanish fashion label Zara in global sales worldwide, gained about 2 percent in after-hours trading.

Sourcing costs will drive down operating margins this year from 2010′s 13.4 percent, squeezed by the higher prices of cotton and petroleum-based synthetics that have swelled the cost of making garments for all apparel makers.

That warning came as a fiscal 2011 income forecast squeezed past Wall Street’s targets. The company also raised its 2011 dividend 25 percent and approved $2 billion in additional share buybacks.

Gap — battling a slew of rivals, including American Eagle Outfitters Inc (AEO.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) on its home turf while fending off Inditex (ITX.MC: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) Zara and H&M (HMb.ST: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) globally — has been revitalizing its merchandise to try and spur shopper loyalty.

But its sales performance has remained inconsistent. Chief Executive Glenn Murphy has expressed frustration with the slow turnaround of its flagship Gap chain, recently replacing the head of that casual brand with outlets chief Art Peck. [ID:nN01291177]

Gap said the focus in 2011 would be to continue remodeling its large Old Navy stores, focusing on a smaller format, while opening company-owned and franchise stores abroad.

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb 16 (Reuters) – Blame the high price of cotton for T-shirts that might feel just a bit scratchier this spring, or pants that seem to stretch out after one washing.

As manufacturers tinker with fabrics to limit the use of pricey cotton, they risk compromising quality. Synthetics are less expensive than natural fibers, but associated with cheap clothing in the minds of consumers.

That creates a dilemma for some U.S. clothing brands trying to protect the bottom line and yet maintain “high-quality products”. While some, especially lower-cost brands, will be more willing to cut cotton weights or consider a cheaper man-made fabric, stronger labels will refuse to compromise in order to keep their customers satisfied.

“Re-engineering” is the term heard in the industry today – code word for determining what can be sacrificed in a garment in the name of cost savings and what cannot. [ID:nN29105221]

“No one will come out and say they’re going to lower quality,” said Roth Capital Partners analyst Liz Pierce.

“I do think everyone is going to look at their options to re-engineer products. But anybody who has a great brand understands the risk associated with taking a hit to quality,” she said.

That means strong brands like Ralph Lauren (RL.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) or Coach (COH.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) won’t be kissing their rolls of cotton goodbye any time soon. Instead, they’re sticking by cotton and reconciled to inevitable price hikes at retail as the cost to make apparel rises between 10 to 20 percent.

SAN JOSE, California (Reuters) – EBay Inc thrust its PayPal business into the limelight on Thursday, saying the online payments unit would surpass its main marketplaces division within three to five years as executives cast the Web company as an innovator.

Shares of eBay, which over the past two years has sought to shed an image of an Internet has-been, jumped nearly 8 percent during an investor meeting at eBay’s San Jose, California headquarters, after executives said PayPal revenue could double by 2013.

“PayPal is the star of the company and people we talk to are investing in eBay for the PayPal aspect,” said BGC Partners analyst Colin Gillis.

Although eBay has pointed to PayPal as its prime growth driver in recent years — fueled by more new consumers and businesses adopting the service and using it more frequently — questions about competition and the regulatory environment for payment processors are still a concern among investors.

At the same time, many investors remain underwhelmed by the more familiar marketplaces unit, a high-margin unit that connects online buyers and sellers but is largely mature.

Executives sought to allay those concerns on Thursday, focusing on innovation and eBay’s position at the forefront of shopping and payments.

Those efforts would send adjusted earnings per share up between 10 percent and 14 percent by 2013 on total revenue of $13 billion to $15 billion, the company said.