Two a penny

.Veteran French rocker Johnny Hallyday has been released from a Los Angeles hospital where he underwent a back operation earlier this month, his publicists said.
“The doctors judged that Johnny Hallyday’s current state of health has improved and justifies a return home to his family while he continues to receive the medical treatment he needs,” they said.
He will spend Christmas at his home in Los Angeles with his wife Laeticia and two daughters.
He has begun legal action to determine whether the surgeon who performed the operation in Paris was at fault and earlier this week submitted a letter to French judges declaring that he had “come close to death”.
Hallyday, 66, who had been due to resume a concert tour in January, was admitted to the Cedars-Sinai hospital on December 7 suffering complications after an earlier operation in Paris.
His health problems have forced the cancellation of the remainder of his concert tour, prompting widespread speculation about the likely financial impact for insurers and promoters.
Hallyday, one of France’s most popular entertainers in a career spanning almost 50 years, is particularly famous for his energetic live performances.
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.Two women have died and 47 others were hurt in a bus crash in the south of England as ice and snow continues to throw the UK’s transport systems into chaos.
Snow and ice on the runways caused many flights to be cancelled.
All 129 passengers were taken off the plane and no injuries were reported.
A Ryanair plane overshot the runway as it landed at Prestwick Airport in the west of Scotland.
Thousands of people left stranded by a three-day Eurostar service cancellation formed long queues at London’s Saint Pancras International Station in the hope of finally getting to the continent.
As snow turns to ice, traffic conditions have become treacherous.
All Eurostar’s trains for Wednesday filled up by lunchtime.
Tempers frayed amid confusion over who would get priority on the reduced number of trains that began running on Tuesday.
Passengers were urged to turn up an hour early. The operator said it would continue to run a modified timetable on Thursday.
Meanwhile, floodwaters drenched most of Venice, as a combination of wind, rain and the lagoon city’s periodic tidal phenomenon saw water levels rise by 143 centimetres, a record for the year, officials said.
Many online shoppers shoppers in the UK have been told not to expect their goods by Christmas after snow stalled deliveries.
Heavy rains closed motorways in southern Spain and Portugal, where power lines were also cut by heavy winds overnight. .
In northern Germany, a seven-year-old boy was stopped by police, driving back to a parking lot having ploughed the snow off the street with his parents’ front loader.
Snowfall also forced school closures in northern Spain.
- ABC/AFP

.Services have returned almost to normal after three days of chaos on the Eurostar rail link between the UK and France.
But many parts of Europe continue to face severe transport disruptions and there have been more deaths as a severe cold snap sweeps the continent.
More than 80 people have died across Europe, including 42 in Poland and another 27 in Ukraine who have frozen to death.
Air, rail and road transport has been severely disrupted across northern Europe where as much as 50 centimetres of snow has fallen with more expected in the coming days.
Another 13 people died in car accidents in Austria, Finland and Germany, where temperatures dropped well below zero.
More freezing fog was expected at Stansted, north of London, and forecasters from Britain’s Met Office also issued severe weather warnings across the country, warning of icy roads and thick snow in eastern Scotland.
But after three days of cancelled services, Eurostar trains began running again between Brussels, Paris and London: an investigation has been launched into the disruption of services.
Britain’s Automobile Association said Monday was their busiest night for 25 years, with about 700 calls received every hour.
“There was no way that I was going to throw customers out into that,” said store managing director Deborah Strazza.
In Buckinghamshire, west of London, about 100 people, including 20 children, spent the night in the John Lewis department store after being snowed in.”

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.Former French midfielder Zinedine Zidane is glad he was sent-off for his head-butt in the 2006 World Cup final because he has not had to live with regret over escaping punishment.
Zidane received a red card for head-butting Italy defender Marco Materazzi in the 2006 final, the last match of his career, which Italy won 5-3 on penalties after a 1-1 draw.
“It [the sending off] was a very good thing,” the former Real Madrid and Juventus playmaker told France Football magazine. I don’t know how I could have lived with it had France become world champions and I had stayed on the pitch.
“It’s good that [Italian keeper Gianluigi] Buffon signalled what I had done to the referee because it was not pretty.
“Many people outside football got involved, people who love you when you lift trophies and let you down when things go wrong.”
Zidane, who helped France lift the World Cup in 1998, thought there had been an over-reaction to Thierry Henry’s handball that led to France beating Ireland in November and securing a 2010 World Cup place. .”
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.Eurostar is suspending train services for a third day to look into a weekend break-down of trains that trapped about 2,500 passengers in the Anglo-French Channel Tunnel, while France will order a public investigation.
Eurostar, owned by the French and Belgian state railway firms and the UK, blamed bad weather for the problem that disrupted Christmas travel for thousands more passengers. .
Eurostar announced in a statement that it was launching “an independent review into the problems it has experienced over recent days”.
“We can’t believe that Eurostar trains can’t run for three days because of snow, so there must be a technical problem,” French Transport Minister Dominique Bussereau said during a visit to China with Prime Minister Francois Fillon.
Christopher Garnett, who has served as chief executive of GNER railways and commercial director of Channel Tunnel operator Eurotunnel, will lead the review.
It has said that moving from the cold into the warmer tunnel caused condensation that affected electrical systems.
Shares in Eurotunnel at one stage dropped 3 per cent early on Monday, making the stock among the top losers on France’s SBF120 index.
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“These events might bring one-time charges, but more importantly, the real problem here is Eurotunnel’s image,” one Paris-based trader said

.Eurostar passenger train services linking Britain to continental Europe will be suspended for a third day on Monday, the company said, after a series of trains broke down due to the freezing weather.
Eurostar says it will not restart services until the source of the breakdowns - which left at least five trains stranded in the tunnel between England and France - has been identified and fixed.
Eurostar is offering passengers replacement tickets and compensation after 2,000 people spent hours trapped in the tunnel with limited food, water or fresh air. .
Eurostar’s commercial director Nick Mercer said test trains had been running on Sunday with engineers trying to work out what was making them break down.
An investigation is underway into employees’ handling of the crisis after many complaints from passengers they did not appear to know what to do.
Mercer said screens and shields meant to stop snow getting into the electrics had failed and needed to be improved.
They had made modifications to the trains, which will be tested on Monday to ensure they are effective, he said. The engineers believe they’ve found the cause,” he told BBC television.
“The test trains did run satisfactorily.
The big temperature change between the open air and the warm tunnels has also been blamed for the breakdowns.
The weather conditions in northern France “caused snow to be ingested into the trains in a way that’s never happened before,” he said.

.Tens of thousands of European travellers have been stranded in rail stations, traffic jams and airports as heavy snow and ice continues to cause massive disruptions at the start of the Christmas holiday season.
A deadly blizzard has also blanketed much of the eastern United States, cutting power to tens of thousands of homes, paralysing air traffic and stranding many motorists amid the worst storms to hit the region in decades.
Another homeless Pole froze to death while sheltering in a doorway in the French Mediterranean port of Marseille, and a Frenchman was found dead in his ice-cold caravan close to the northern town of Arras.
In Poland, at least 15 people have died of exposure, mainly the homeless or careless drunks caught outside in temperatures that plunged to minus 20 degrees Celsius, according to police.6C. .
Forecasters across the continent are expecting more snow and freezing rain over the next couple of days, but with temperatures rising slightly and the outlook gradually improving.
Two more Germans died in road accidents caused by the icy conditions.
The most crippling problems hit cross-Channel transport between Britain and France, amid chaotic scenes after the Eurostar passenger service from London to Paris was shut down for a second day after at least five breakdowns.
Roads and railways have been closed or disrupted by snow drifts, black ice or floods across northern and western Europe, from Portugal to the Netherlands, and flights from London, Brussels and Paris airports were delayed.
The company said it would send test trains along the route to see if they could withstand the sub-zero temperatures in northern France which are believed to have caused trains to break down in the tunnel on Friday (local time).
Eurostar, the operator of the Channel Tunnel passenger trains, admitted it could not say when services would resume, with more than 24,000 passengers attempting to travel ahead of Christmas already affected. They all got through the tunnel OK, but one or two of them showed symptoms of the problem that happened on Friday night,” Eurostar director Richard Brown said.
“We did run two or three trains yesterday.”
More than 2,000 passengers spent Friday night trapped in the undersea tunnel, some without anything to eat or drink.
“We will not start services again until we’re sure that we can get them through safely.
Approach roads to the ports of Dover and Calais were snarled by tail-backs as a result of heavy snow and queues of trucks waiting for delayed shuttle trains through the Channel Tunnel. There were reports of heated rows and some passengers bitterly criticised the company.
- Deadly blizzards -
In the United States, the governors of Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia and Delaware have declared states of emergency following the snowstorms.
At Paris Charles de Gaulle, 40 per cent of flights have been cancelled and the remaining services were leaving an average of one hour late, while the city’s second airport, Orly, was the scene of a strike by security staff.
Officials reported many drivers and passengers had been stranded in their vehicles, some for more than 12 hours.
Three people have died on Virginia roads, with around 3,000 accidents forcing the closure of Virginia interstates for several hours.
In the bull’s eye of the weather, Washington shattered a 1932 December snowfall record, with 40 centimetres covering streets and homes.
Emergency services delivered heated meals and 400 bottles of water for stranded motorists, while others were moved to shelters.
The massive storm at one point stretched 800 kilometres across a dozen states, affecting around a quarter of the US population.
The massive storm at one point stretched 800 kilometres across a dozen states, affecting around a quarter of the US population.
President Barack Obama, after attending the climate change summit in Copenhagen, raced home to avoid the worst of the storm that hammered the East Coast with more than 61cm of snow in some places.
He got back before dawn on Saturday, two days before winter’s official arrival. By Saturday afternoon, the capital region’s three main airports - Reagan National, Washington Dulles International and Baltimore Washington International - had cancelled all incoming and outgoing flights, stranding thousands of passengers.
It was bleak news for millions hoping to drive or fly ahead of Christmas on one of the busiest travel weekends of the year.
With close to white-out conditions forcing many residents to stay home and shopping malls shuttered or closing early, the extreme conditions also looked likely to take a bite out of retail sales.
The major shopping day usually accounts for some $US15 billion of all nationwide sales on the last weekend before Christmas.
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.More than 2,000 passengers have been rescued after spending hours trapped in the undersea Channel Tunnel linking France and Britain after four trains broke down due to poor weather conditions.
Angry travellers said they had been left with no power, air conditioning, food or water.
Rail operator Eurostar said the breakdowns had resulted from technical problems caused by the temperature difference inside the tunnel and freezing conditions outside.
“Everyone is suffering from the bad weather.
“It is snowing in northern France, it’s very cold, conditions are very bad,” a spokesperson for Eurostar, operated by French rail operator SNCF, its Belgian counterpart SNCB and British government-owned LCR, said.”
He said a rescue locomotive and a shuttle train were used to move passengers out of the 51-kilometre tunnel, the longest undersea subway in the world which conveys about 40,000 people a day between Britain and continental Europe. The airports are suffering, people on the roads are suffering, and so are our Eurostar trains.
Passengers accused Eurostar of doing little to help them, with some finally reaching their destination more than 12 hours after leaving Paris.
He said passengers had been forced to get off the broken-down train themselves, had moved through the service tunnel in the dark, and then got onto a “filthy” car transport train.
“There was very, very poor communication from the staff,” said Lee Godfree, who was returning to Britain with his family from Disneyland Paris. They’ve been sick.
“We’ve had children asleep on the floor. . We had one loo (toilet). “We had people fainting on the train. “We had people fainting on the train.
Last year, the tunnel, which opened in 1994, was shut for two days after a large fire broke out on a freight train, while a blaze in 1996 fire halted freight traffic for seven months.”
Eurostar said it had cancelled all its trains on Saturday before noon (local time) because of the severe weather and said services over the weekend would be severely disrupted.
London’s Gatwick and Luton Airports were closed for many hours, while flights were cancelled at Heathrow and Stansted, the capital’s two other major airports.
Heavy snowfalls across southeastern England in recent days had already brought chaos to road, rail and air passengers.
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Budget airline EasyJet said it had cancelled more flights on Saturday because of the bad weather, with forecasters at Britain’s Met Office predicting further snow showers on Saturday with temperatures falling as low as minus 10 degrees Celsius

.Four Eurostar trains with hundreds of people on board have broken down in the Channel Tunnel between Britain and France.
The trains were on their way from Paris to London when they suffered serious technical failures and rescue locomotives are being sent down the tunnel to get the passengers out.
A Eurostar spokesman says the breakdowns happened when the trains entered the tunnel where temperatures were higher compared to the sub-zero conditions in northern France.
A total of around 1,200 to 1,300 passengers from two of the trains in one tunnel are being evacuated on an empty vehicle shuttle being sent to collect them from the other tunnel, the spokesman said.
“Currently the tunnels are closed,” the spokesman said, calling the situation “unprecedented”.
“At the moment we’re not giving timescales.
The third train, in the other tunnel, is scheduled to be pushed out later. We hope to get this done as quickly as possible,” the spokesman said.
The spokesman said the passengers are safe and well as the heating and electricity systems in the carriages are functioning.
A fourth passenger train had earlier broken down and was pulled to its London terminus. They have been stranded for several hours and its not yet clear when they’ll reach London.
But for the hundreds on board each train it could be a long night.
“Subsequent to that, as the snow stopped falling, we were preparing to run shuttles through with passengers from the UK, and we had a succession of Eurostar breakdowns in the tunnel.
“The weather in France was absolutely appalling and we were cooperating with the French authorities to limit the amount of traffic getting through to the French motorways,” the spokesman said. .
“There are currently three Eurostars broken down blocking both tunnels.
“That’s an awful lot of people to move safely from one train into a service tunnel and then from that service tunnel through on to a shuttle.
“We’re talking about 600 to 700 people on each train.”
- AFP/BBC

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“Nobody’s been transferred, we’re working it through as safely and as smoothly as we can

.Former French president Jacques Chirac has been placed under formal investigation for misuse of public funds while he was mayor of Paris.
There are now two judicial cases hanging over Mr Chirac.
The first and larger of these cases will go to trial next year.
Both concern his long period as mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995 and both centre on claims he paid senior members of his political party the RPR with funds that belonged to city hall. That means a trial in this case is more likely.
Now Mr Chirac has been told he is under formal investigation in the second. .
Mr Chirac has long protested his innocence in both affairs and he says he will be happy to explain his side of the story before a judge