Zouaoui's temporary replacement is his assistant Lotfi Jbara but Tunisian newspapers have been speculating about the possiblearrival of Italian Francesco Scoglio, who has previously coached Tunisia and Libya as well as his native Genoa.
The United States has pressed Russia to retire Mir as soon as possible because delays in building the living quarters of the new station have already put the arrival of the first crew back to January 2000, a year and a half later than planned.
Mr Chirac has not enjoyed the arrival of new central and eastern European countries, and is under pressure over the possible opening of negotiations with Turkey.
It is even possible that the importance of handset appearance (and therefore brand) will diminish thanks to the imminent arrival of wireless headsets and earpieces.
With the arrival of the steamship, Pacific deepwater harbours were briefly eyed as coaling stations, until design improvements made possible non-stop travel from San Francisco to Australia.