French hold up weapons deal

Let the French bashing begin!

President Jacques Chirac, who exchanged a curt handshake with Mr Bush when the two men met for the first time since their fallout over Iraq, was resisting the White House's call for sweeping powers to allow ships to be intercepted on the high seas on suspicion that they were carrying weapons destined for terrorism.

Is "high seas" an actual technical (or semi-technical, at least) term? Sounds goofy either way.

Appears Bush wants to extend the PATRIOT Act out to the seas. We do what we want, if we have a "suspicion" kind of thing. I'm sure the mainstream media will catch on to this story and get some more French bashing going. All the while missing the fact that France appears to have been right about WMD. I'm getting a headache.