Paris - Formula One engines will have to last for three instead of the present two race weekends from the 2009 championship season, motorsport authorities decided Wednesday.

The decision was taken by the world motorsport council of international motorsport federation FIA in a further effort to save costs in F1 racing.

The council also agreed to some adjustments in its officiating system following a number of controversial rulings by race stewards in the just-ended 2008 season.

Tunis, Paris - On the 21st anniversary of his taking power, Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali has pardoned the last members of the banned Tunisian Islamic group Ennahdha still in prison, a judicial source told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa on Wednesday.

According to the source, 21 leaders and activists of the Islamic movement, including the former head of the group, who was known as Sadok Chourou, received a "conditional release" from jail.

Several members of the group, including Chourou, were sentenced to life imprisonment in 1992 for terrorist activities.

Mogadishu/Paris  - A group of armed Somali men kidnapped six foreigners - four aid workers and two pilots - near the town of Dusamareb in central Somali on Wednesday, residents said.

Mohamoud Dhaqane, a businessman in Dusamareb, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that the six were seized by a convoy of armed gunmen at an airstrip.

Paris - As black French civil rights activists and their friends began celebrating Barack Obama's election early Wednesday in a private club in Paris, one reveler sounded a sobering, and largely unappreciated, note of caution.

"Obama is an American politician and he will govern like an American president," said Cameroonian journalist Paul Heutching. "Let's not jump to unrealistic conclusions just because he looks like us."

Paris - Stung by the impact of the global financial crisis, French bank BNP Paribas said its profits for the third quarter of 2008 had fallen significantly compared to the same period last year.

Third-quarter profits stood at 901 million euros (1.16 billion dollars), down 55.6 per cent from 2007, BNP Paribas said in a statement.

The loss was attributed to "a direct impact of the financial crisis," which the bank estimated at 1.1 billion euros.

Turnover fell by a more modest 1 per cent, to 7.614 billion euros, compared to the third quarter of 2007.

"The direct impact of the financial crisis was significantly greater than in previous quarters," the bank said.

Paris - French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Wednesday sent a letter to US President-elect Barack Obama congratulating him on what he called a "brilliant victory."

After extending the "warmest congratulations" on his behalf and that of the French people, Sarkozy wrote that Obama's election triumph "crowns an exceptional campaign ... (that) has shown the vitality of American democracy to the entire world."

Sarkozy added, "In choosing you, the American people have chosen change, openness and optimism."