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CNN) -- New France coach Laurent Blanc has chosen not to select any of the 23-man World Cup squad, that refused to take part in a training session during their disastrous tournament, for next month's friendly international against Norway.
Blanc, who took over from Raymond Domenech following France's exit at the group stage of the competition, opted to exclude the whole squad for one match as a punishment for their role in the protest that came just two days before their final match against host nation South Africa.
The French Football Federation confirmed the decision on their official website, with a statement saying: "Laurent Blanc proposed to the federal council not to retain any of the 23 players officially selected for the World Cup in South Africa, for the friendly match against Norway in Oslo on Wednesday August 11.
"Laurent Blanc will release the list of players selected for this match on Thursday August 5."
France's tournament fell into disarray after Chelsea striker Nicolas Anelka was sent home following a row with Domenech.
Captain Patrice Evra then became involved in a heated public argument with coach Robert Duverne -- resulting in Duverne storming off the training ground with the squad retreating to their team bus and refusing to train.
Among the players now not available to Blanc are Arsenal trio Bacary Sagna, Gael Clichy and Abou Diaby, Bayern Munich winger Franck Ribery, Barcelona's Eric Abidal, Chelsea's Anelka and Florent Malouda and playmaker Yoann Gourcuff -- who Blanc coached when he the pair were at Bordeaux.
However, there is no suggestion that the ban will last longer than a single match and many of the players are expected to return for the opening Euro 2012 qualifier at home to Belarus -- although it remains to be seen whether Anelka and Evra, who were perceived as the ringleaders, will return to the squad.
Goalkeeper Hugo Lloris earlier admitted to L'Equipe newspaper that the players had made a mistake in refusing to train.
"We acted as a team. To strike was the decision of a squad who felt lonely, who believed that no-one had stood up for them and who had a message to convey.
"We went too far. It was a very awkward decision, a big mistake. It was completely stupid. But there were so many problems."
Lloris' Lyon teammate Jeremy Toulalan told the Journal du Dimanche: "I'm not proud of what I did but I accept responsibility. There were no ringleaders and no slaves, no good guys and no bad guys. We were all involved and we are all responsible because nobody said a word against the boycott."
London, England (CNN) -- Theirs was a royal love affair immortalized in diamonds and gold.
Now, more than 70 years after England's King Edward abdicated the throne to marry Wallis Simpson, some of the couple's jewels are coming up for sale.
Sotheby's announced plans to auction 20 items that were owned by the couple in London in November. The items include 11 pieces by Cartier, some of which are estimated at more than 1 million pounds ($1.5 million) each.
"The offering comprises not only incomparable examples of the genius of Cartier in collaboration with the Windsors, but also pieces whose inscriptions tell the story of perhaps the greatest love story of the 20th century, the romance that led Edward VIII to abdicate the throne of Great Britain," said David Bennett, the chairman of Sotheby's Jewelry in Europe and the Middle East.
The couple commissioned jewels from the great European jewelry houses during their courtship in the 1930s and after they were married, Sotheby's said.
Cartier was one of their favored jewelers, and the company's high jewelry director Jeanne Toussaint created some of her best work just for the couple, who came to be known as the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
One of the pieces she created was an onyx and diamond bracelet in the form of an elongated panther. Designed in 1952, the bracelet was among the finest of Toussaint's "great cats" jewels and is in the sale at an estimated 1-1.5 million pounds.
Also up for sale is a diamond flamingo brooch with feathers of rubies, sapphires and emeralds, and a beak of citrine.
The brooch, also estimated between 1 and 1.5 million pounds, was the showpiece of an earlier sale of the couple's jewels, held in Geneva in 1987.
All the items up for auction in November belonged to a single owner, but Sotheby's did not disclose their identity.
Edward had been on the throne for just 11 months when he decided to give up the crown in December 1936 to marry Simpson, an American divorcee. He chose to abdicate because, as supreme governor of the Church of England, he was not permitted to marry a divorced woman.
The abdication speech he gave Dec. 11, 1936, revealed his love for the woman who would later become his wife.
"I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as king, as I would wish to do, without the help and support of the woman I love," Edward said.
The auction includes a favorite bracelet of Simpson's, made of diamonds and supporting nine gem-set Latin crosses -- each with an intimate inscription on the back, Sotheby's said.
The crosses represent special moments in her life, including her marriage and the assassination attempt against the king.
A heart-shaped brooch of rubies and diamonds was commissioned for the couple's 20th wedding anniversary and features the initials W.E. -- for Wallis and Edward -- in emeralds on the front.
Cartier also created a six-piece diamond-encrusted dress suite in 1935, with inscriptions on the back.
One piece is a gift Simpson gave to her husband -- an 18-carat gold and gem-set cigarette case, engraved with a map of Europe. It shows the routes of trips they had taken together and has gems marking meaningful locations. The inscription reveals it was a Christmas present in 1935.
Other items in the sale include a purse made by Van Cleef and Arpels of gold mesh, rubies, turquoise and diamonds, and a series of silver items and medals once owned by Edward.
Very sad news from Ed Bouchette of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - Kaye Cowher (pictured, far left), wife of ex-Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Bill Cowher, lost her battle with skin cancer and passed away on Friday in North Carolina at the age of 54.
Mrs. Cowher was a native of North Carolina - the Cowhers met while attending North Carolina State in 1976 - and the Cowhers moved there after Bill retired from coaching in January of 2007.
Services will be held on Monday.
Mrs. Cowher played basketball at North Carolina State, and was one of the first women in her home state to receive an athletic scholarship, according to Bouchette. She later played in the Women's Professional Basketball League until that league folded in 1981. She then married her husband, who was playing for the Cleveland Browns. The Cowhers' three daughters, Meagan, Lauren, and Lindsay, have all been basketball players, speaking to the strong influence of their mother -- and grandmother. Their father originally didn't want them to play, but was overruled by Mrs. Cowher's mother.
"The reason we played is because of my mother," Kaye Cowher told the Post-Gazette in 2002. "She said that absolutely, these girls are going to have the opportunity to play."
Perhaps the most abiding public memory of Mrs. Cowher is the hug she gave her husband after the Pittsburgh Steelers lost Super Bowl XXX to the Dallas Cowboys. She was, according to Bouchette, a regular presence in press boxes on Steelers game days.
Our thoughts and prayers go out to the Cowher family.
SEOUL — North Korea warned Saturday that it will respond with "powerful nuclear deterrence" to joint U.S. and South Korean military exercises poised to begin this weekend, saying the drills amount to a provocation that cannot be ignored.
North Korea routinely threatens war when South Korea and the U.S. hold joint military drills, which Pyongyang sees as a rehearsal for an attack on the North. The latest threat comes amid increased tensions on the peninsula over the deadly sinking of a South Korean warship that Seoul and Washington blame on Pyongyang.
The allies' defense chiefs announced earlier in the week they would stage the drills to send a clear message to North Korea to stop its "aggressive" behavior. Forty-six South Korean sailors were killed in the March sinking of the Cheonan, considered the worst military attack on the South since the 1950-53 Korean War.
North Korea vehemently denies any involvement and says any punishment would trigger war.
On Saturday, North Korea's powerful National Defense Commission — headed by leader Kim Jong Il — backed that threat up by promising a "retaliatory sacred war" against South Korea and the U.S. for what it called a second "unpardonable" provocation after wrongly accusing the North in the Cheonan incident.
"The army and people of the (North) will legitimately counter with their powerful nuclear deterrence the largest-ever nuclear war exercises," the commission said in a statement carried by the country's official Korean Central News Agency.
A day earlier in Hanoi, a North Korean spokesman for the delegation attending a regional security conference warned the drills would draw a "physical response" from Pyongyang.
South Korea's Defense Ministry said no unusual North Korean military movements were detected.
Games set for Sunday
The nuclear-powered USS George Washington supercarrier is already docked in the southern port of Busan for the military games set to begin Sunday. In addition, the U.S. keeps 28,500 troops in South Korea to deter against aggression, a presence that Pyongyang cites as a key reason behind its drive to build nuclear weapons.
"The more desperately the U.S. imperialists brandish their nukes and the more zealously their lackeys follow them, the more rapidly the (North's) nuclear deterrence will be bolstered up along the orbit of self-defense and the more remote the prospect for the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula will be become," the commission statement said.
The U.S.-South Korean military drills are to set to run through Wednesday, with about 8,000 U.S. and South Korean troops on some 20 ships and submarines carrying out exercises in the East Sea.
The drills also involve some 200 aircraft, headlined by four U.S. Air Force's F-22 "Raptor" stealth fighters.
New sanctions
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced Wednesday, after visiting the Demilitarized Zone dividing the two Koreas, that the U.S. would slap new sanctions on the North to stifle its nuclear ambitions and punish it for the Cheonan sinking.
On Friday, the European Union said it, too, would consider new sanctions on North Korea.
Story: Clinton urges Asia to enforce sanctions on N. Korea
The North's Foreign Ministry also said Saturday that Pyongyang will further strengthen its nuclear deterrent and again mentioned "powerful physical measures" in response to the U.S. military provocations and sanctions.
"We are ready for both dialogue and war," KCNA quoted an unidentified Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying.
In Hanoi, Clinton and a North Korean official traded barbs Friday over the sinking, the military drills and the imposition of the new U.S. sanctions. North Korean spokesman Ri Tong Il said the tensions showed the need to negotiate a peace treaty to replace the armistice signed at the end of the Korean War.
Clinton said the U.S. is willing to meet and negotiate with the North, but this type of threat only heightens tensions. She added progress in the short term seems unlikely.
"It is distressing when North Korea continues its threats and causes so much anxiety among its neighbors and the larger region," she told reporters. "But we will demonstrate once again with our military exercises ... that the United States stands in firm support of the defense of South Korea and we will continue to do so."
