11.   The then Taliban government refused to arrest Sheikh, who disappeared into Afghanistan and later resurfaced in Pakistan.

12.   Officials said although the then government ordered the power cuts to stop in the run-up to the elections, the energy situation remained critical.

13.   Several ministers in the then government of socialist premier Laurent Fabius were indicted over the affair.

14.   The interior minister also seriously embarrassed the then Chirac government when his ill-disciplined police beat a Franco-Algerian student to death in a Paris demonstration.

15.   The LTTE declared a similar Christmas truce last year and extended it for four months, but the then government of President Chandrika Kumaratunga refused to reciprocate.