Freed French hostages arrive home

Paris (CNN) -- Two French journalists held for 547 days in Afghanistan arrived home Thursday, stepping into the arms of relatives and friends after they landed at an airbase near Paris.

"This is the moment that we had dreamed about, imagined, fantasized about," said Herve Ghesquiere, one of the two journalists for France 3 Television.

Ghesquiere, co-worker Stephane Taponier and their interpreter Reza Din were captured on December 30, 2009.

The journalists said they had remained optimistic they would be freed throughout their ordeal.

They left Afghanistan on Wednesday evening aboard a French government plane, authorities said.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy thanked his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai "for the management of this crisis and all those who participated in the liberation of the hostages."

The three were released Wednesday, and landed at an airbase near Paris a day later.

Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said France does not pay ransoms.

CNN affiliate France 2 asked Juppe whether he would reveal the information if a ransom had been paid.

"There are cases where the reason of state prevails over other considerations, and I think nothing should be done that would threaten the process of freeing other hostages," Juppe said.

Nine French hostages are being held in Africa and the Middle East, he said.

Taliban militants had threatened to kill the journalists if several demands were not met, including the release of a number of detainees held by France.

It was unclear whether the demands had been met, but French officials said their strategy in Afghanistan or elsewhere would not change.

CNN's Richard Greene and Alan Silverleib contributed to this report.

CNN

AF447 crash bodies arrive in France

A ship transporting the remains of around 104 victims of the Air France 447 crash arrives in southwestern France Thursday.Ship transporting remains and wreckage arrives in FranceThere are believed to be around 104 bodiesA long process now begins to identify the victims, French authorities say

Paris (CNN) -- The ship carrying the remains of victims and wreckage from the Rio-Paris Air France 447 crash arrived in France on Thursday morning with around 104 bodies on board, according to French police sources.

A French police spokesman said "it is very difficult to give an exact number of bodies, but we believe there to be around 104."

AF 447 crashed two years ago close to the coast of Brazil, killing all on board.

The Ile-de-Sein, the cable ship chartered by French investigation body the BEA, docked at the port of Bayonne for unloading. All access to the port was blocked by police for the sake of discretion for the families of the victims. Dr. Bernd Gans, father of a German victim, said, "They showed us pictures of freezing containers, saying this is how the remains were transported. I think it's right that the families were not present at the port today."

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Once the unloading procedure has been completed, the remains will be sent to the forensic institute in Paris for autopsy and identification. Debris from the aircraft will be sent to a hangar in Toulouse for technical analysis.

Colonel Francois Daoust, head of the Institute of Criminal Research of French National police told French press that identification would be made in two stages, ante mortem and post mortem, through the use of medical records, dental records, comparison with DNA of relatives, and identification of jewellery.

He also described the state of the bodies: "These bodies have been damaged by the shock of the crash. And then nature does the job, obviously. The temperature at 2-3 ° and the almost total lack of oxygen slowed the deterioration process, but after two years, the bodies are inevitably damaged."

Gans told CNN that he had been in Paris Wednesday with other victim's families. "They explained to us that they would start identifying the remains recovered in contrast to what we were told a couple of weeks ago that the bodies could be identified by photos or clothes," he said. "It turns out it's really just a case of remains being identified by DNA. We are afraid that not much remains.

"When we were first told that the bodies could be identified by looking at them I thought... It's brilliant. With the way thing are now, I have changed my mind. They died all together at this particular spot and we should have left them there."

No exact time frame has been given for the process. Daoust told French media, "It will take time. To give you an idea, identifying the first 50 bodies, two years ago, had taken two months of work. For 104 new bodies, up to 40 people will be mobilized for several weeks."

Gans described the reaction of two French victims' relatives at the meeting held for victims relatives. "They were very emotional at this point. They asked if it could be arranged for all the relatives to get the results at the same time, so that some wouldn't be waiting whilst others had results. This was denied by representatives. They said this is the order we have for the investigation. When we have results we have to contact families," he said. "The victims' families will just have to sit and wait. This was very painful to hear."

Operations onboard the Ile-de-Sein came to an end on June 3. A total of 154 bodies have now been brought up, however this still leaves more than 70 which will never be recovered.

Gans explained, "Difficult days begin now. Some families will have hope; will be in this situation of waiting for the next months. Some will have an answer while others will never know."

CNN

More African refugees arrive in Italy

Refugees from Libya wait after disembarking from a boat onto the Italian island of Lampedusa on April 19, 2011.One ship was from Libya and the other was from TunisiaPeople have been making the journey since FebruaryLampedusa and Malta have borne the brunt of refugee flight

Lampedusa, Italy (CNN) -- More than 400 people fleeing Libya and Tunisia arrived overnight in an Italian island on Saturday, the latest in a stream of refugees escaping volatile and unstable North Africa.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said the people reached the Mediterranean island of Lampedusa in two boats, one from Libya and the other from Tunisia.

The vessel from Libya carried 199 people fleeing the country's civil war, and the other carried 218 Tunisians looking for better lives in Europe.

Five boats containing 1,271 passengers reached Lampedusa on Friday.

Many of the refugees are from sub-Saharan Africa, including Sierra Leone and Senegal. Others include Bangladeshis and Egyptians.

More than 30,000 migrants and refugees from Tunisia and Libya have risked this dangerous journey to Lampedusa since last February.

Lampedusa and Malta, both islands less than an hour's flight from the North African coast, have borne the brunt of the subsequent wave of migration.

At one point, the population of migrants vastly outnumbered the tiny population of Lampedusa, which numbers less than 6,000.

The number of new arrivals from Tunisia has reduced somewhat, thanks in part to a recent agreement with Italy to improve patrolling along the Tunisian coast.

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