Two a penny

.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.

.A protester who presented himself as an Iraqi journalist in exile has hurled a shoe at the colleague who a year ago found fame by throwing his own footwear at then-US president George W Bush.
Television reporter Muntazer al-Zaidi was in Paris to promote his campaign for the “victims of the US occupation in Iraq” when a fellow Iraqi critic turned the tables on him, shouting: “Here’s another shoe for you.
The shoe was thrown hard at Mr Zaidi’s head, but he managed to dodge it and it bounced harmlessly off a curtain erected behind the speakers by the event’s hosts, the Foreign Press Welcome Centre in Paris.”
The thickset man with an Iraqi accent made a brief speech in Arabic during the question-and-answer session, defending US policy and accusing Mr Zaidi of “working for dictatorship in Iraq”, before throwing his shoe.
“When I used this method, it was against the occupation.
Mr Zaidi’s brother grappled with and slapped the man, whom witnesses later described as an asylum-seeker they know only as Khayat, before venue staff and bystanders separated them and the aggressor was hustled away.
“I always knew the occupier and his lackeys would stop at nothing to get to me. I did not use it against a compatriot,” Mr Zaidi said.
Mr Zaidi, a journalist for Iraq’s Al-Baghdadia television, threw his shoes at Mr Bush during the US leader’s final visit to Iraq, protesting the six-year-old occupation with a cry of: “This is the farewell kiss, you dog.”
Following the commotion, the news conference continued with Mr Zaidi taking questions about his famous assault on Mr Bush on December 14 last year, which was shown around the world and made him a hero in the Arab world.
Asked about the huge sums and even offers of marriage made by admirers during his jail term, Mr Zaidi said he had asked his family to refuse all gifts “until I find a way that they can be passed on to the people of Iraq”. .
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.Any slim hopes Ireland still harboured of competing at the 2010 World Cup were finally snuffed out overnight with FIFA saying there was no way they would take part as a 33rd team.
In a desperate last ditch bid to salvage a place in this week’s draw, the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) approached FIFA several days ago and asked to be admitted as a 33rd team with another side, possibly Costa Rica, being added as a 34th.
FIFA president Sepp Blatter revealed this week that it would be put to an extraordinary meeting of world’s football’s governing body in Cape Town on Wednesday.
“We have to be clear that Ireland will not be invited to play at the 2010 World Cup,” he said at a press conference here ahead of the draw on Friday.
But FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke made clear there was no way that Ireland would be playing.
“They asked the question but the FIFA president was very clear in saying it was impossible because if we did so then why not Costa Rica and others?
“We told them that because they were making a special request that we would bring it to the attention of the FIFA executive committee members and it is what we will do tomorrow.
“There was a request made by the FAI when we met them in Zurich a few days ago.
“But you can imagine what it would mean, I would not say it’s a nonsense, but it is impossible.”
Irish players launched furious protests when they were eliminated in a play-off with France, after a controversial handball by French captain Thierry Henry led to the decisive French goal. There is no hope at all that there will be more than 32 teams at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
Blatter an embarrassment
The way Blatter revealed the Irish request to be a 33rd team to the world’s media was attacked by Ireland assistant manager Liam Brady, who described the FIFA boss as “an embarrassment”.
The play-off was poised at 1-1 on aggregate in the second leg in Paris when Henry controlled the ball with his hand before teeing up William Gallas for the winner.
“He’s a bit of a loose cannon.
Brady said the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) had expected FIFA to consider the matter in private. He’s an embarrassment to FIFA,” he told Britain’s Sky Sports News. He’s an embarrassment to FIFA,” he told Britain’s Sky Sports News.”
The manner of France’s qualification provoked an international outcry with even Henry, who has been pilloried as a cheat around the globe, joining calls for a replay as “the fairest solution. I think my country deserves more recognition from Blatter.
One direct consequence of Henry’s handball could be that matches at the World Cup finals next year are played with two extra officials positioned on goal-lines, a system being tried out in this season’s Europa League. .
The draw takes place on Saturday at 5 am AEST, with the 90-minute ceremony determining not just who plays who, but where they play in a crime-ridden country entrusted with hosting Africa’s first World Cup.
It is expected to be a key issue at FIFA’s meeting on Wednesday.
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.Former champion France has secured its World Cup spot in controversial fashion after a dramatic 1-1 draw with the Republic of Ireland at the Stade de France.
In other qualifiers, Slovenia advanced to only its second World Cup with a 1-0 win over nine-man Russia in their European zone, second-leg play-off tie.
In the African zone, a superb Antar Yahia goal gave Algeria a 1-0 victory over Egypt to secure its own finals berth.
A second-half strike by Raul Meireles was enough to break Bosnian hearts and send 2006 semi-finalists Portugal through to the finals in South Africa, and Greece ground out a 1-0 win over Ukraine in the return leg of their European zone play-off to qualify.
The South American nation won the two-legged playoff tie against North and Central America’s Costa Rica 2-1 on aggregate.
Uruguay qualified for the final spot in the tournament with a 1-1 draw with Costa Rica. Walter Centeno got the equaliser in the 74th.
Sebastian Abreu opened the scoring for Uruguay in the 70th minute.
In the first additional 15-minute spell France had an appeal for a penalty turned down after striker Nicolas Anelka tumbled to the turf under pressure in the eighth minute.
– Contentious victory –
Giovanni Trapattoni’s visitors, beaten 1-0 in Dublin last Saturday in the first leg of their play-off, had taken a shock lead in the 32nd minute through Robbie Keane and the Irish were unlucky not to score more before forcing the match to extra-time.
Henry’s pass, however, came after the ball came off his hand prompting a rash of immediate protests by the Irish players to the match referee, Martin Hansson.
Five minutes later France skipper Thierry Henry, who had moments earlier been denied a free kick after falling to the ground 25 yards out, won the match for the hosts when his angled pass amid a goalmouth scramble was met by the head of William Gallas.
Ireland, especially captain Robbie Keane, had the lion’s share of the chances in regulation time, and it will be kicking itself having last qualified for the 2002 World Cup where it made it to the second round.
Hansson waved away appeals allowing France to qualify and avoid a repeat of its humiliating failure, at the hands of Bulgaria, to qualify for the 1994 World Cup finals. .
– Slovenians ‘immortal’ –
Striker Zlatko Dedic, who plays his club football for Bochum in Germany, scored the only goal just before the break against Russia.
“They are men of merit for continuing the Slovenian football fairy tale,” said Slovenia coach Matjaz Kek.
Russia had won the first leg 2-1 in Moscow on Saturday, but Slovenia’s win this morning meant they qualified on the away goals rule. We were better from the first minute of the game and we earned the right to go to South Africa.
“They have become immortal. We all deserving the success, from the first to the last fan.”
“Our dreams came true.
– Portuguese grind it out –
Portugal, once again without the injured Cristiano Ronaldo, had won a hard-fought first leg 1-0 courtesy of a close-range header by Bruno Alves on Saturday and again had to be on its mettle before Meireles’ effort ensured their place at next summer’s showpiece in South Africa.”
Everton midfielder Diniyar Bilyaletdinov had scored twice in the first match before Nejc Pecnik’s goal two minutes from time gave Slovenia hope for Wednesday’s return leg.
Portuguese coach Carlos Queiroz, whose team limped through the first half of their qualifying program prior to a late rally, had insisted his team plays better away than at home.
Portuguese coach Carlos Queiroz, whose team limped through the first half of their qualifying program prior to a late rally, had insisted his team plays better away than at home.
And 10 minutes after the restart Meireles ensured there would be no shredded nerves for the visitors as he took a pass from Manchester United star Nani and slipped a low, precise shot past Kenan Hasagic in the Bosnian goal.
– Greek break drought –
Panathinaikos striker Dimitris Salpingidis netted the only goal of the match sending Greece, the 2004 European champion, into its second World Cup finals after a 16-year absence.
Greece and Ukraine, which were deadlocked at 0-0 after the first leg in Athens on Saturday, struggled to impose themselves early on in a match played on a rain-soaked pitch of the half-empty, 50,000-seater Donbass Arena.
Ukraine skipper Andrei Shevchenko missed a chance to put his team into the lead in the eighth minute, when he failed to send home a rebound after Greece ‘keeper Alexandros Tzorvas deflected Alexander Aliev’s shot.
Greece replied with a seven-metre header by Celtic forward Giorgos Samaras, which went just inches above the crossbar from a well-struck Giorgos Karagounis free kick.
Just after the half-hour mark Salpingidis gave Greece the lead, beating Ukraine’s defenders on a breakaway and receiving a razor-sharp pass from Samaras to score past goalkeeper Andrei Pyatov.
After the break, the hosts continued to press under the watchful gaze of Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko.
But Greece defended well, stifling the hosts’ attacks into fruitless long-range shots.
– African rivalry –
France-born defender Yahia, who plays for German club VfL Bochum, struck on 40 minutes to settle a play-off necessitated by the bitter North African rivals finishing level on points and goal difference in one of five African groups.
As a lofted through ball landed in the Egyptian penalty area, veteran Abdelzaher al-Saqqa allowed it to drop behind him and Yahia volleyed an unstoppable shot into the net off the underside of the crossbar.
African champions Egypt dominated the second half territorially only to come up against a watertight defence backed by brilliant stand-in goalkeeper Faouzi Chaouchi.
The match at a packed 45,000-seat Al-Merreikh Stadium passed without incident amid tight security after the Algerian team bus was attacked in Cairo last Thursday, leaving three players injured and triggering reprisal attacks.
On Saturday, Emad Moteab scored five minutes into stoppage time to give Egypt a 2-0 win which forced the play-off and raised hopes of a first appearance at the World Cup in 20 years.
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.Sting and Indigenous singer Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu got together in Paris this week to sing Every Breath You Take for French television.
“There’s always something to learn from other musicians,” Sting said in an interview..
“There’s always an exchange . They will surprise you with what they can do or what they can add to your own music..
Gurrumul – the 39-year-old award-winning Aboriginal singer praised for his “voice of an angel” – won a standing ovation at a Paris concert on Wednesday night (local time). Or you can teach them”.
In Britain, The Times said the blind singer’s voice was “as sumptuously soothing as a log fire on a freezing night”.
He is on a maiden European tour taking in Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Britain and Ireland.”
Sting was in Paris for the promotion of his new album, If On A Winter’s Night – celebrating the winter season through traditional music and instruments, as well as his own songs.
Former Midnight Oil frontman and Australian Environment Minister Peter Garrett has said the Arnhem Land musician – whose lyrics are mostly delivered in his people’s language – “sings so deeply and sweetly about his connection to family and country, the effect is transcendental.
The broadcast will also feature Gurrumul singing Wiyathul from his first self-titled solo album, which has sold more than 100,000 copies in Australia. .
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.The pulse behind Melbourne’s NRL success finally gets to show his wares for Australia, with Saturday’s Four Nations clash with France ending Cooper Cronk’s two-year stint in the representative wilderness.
Despite driving the Storm to four consecutive grand final appearances that yielded two premierships, Cronk’s only senior representative game was a start in Australia’s record 58-0 thumping of New Zealand in Wellington in 2007.
But not Cronk.
Since then the likes of Darren Lockyer, Johnathan Thurston, Scott Prince and even Karmichael Hunt have blocked his path to both Queensland and Test jumpers, a predicament which would exasperate the most patient of men.
“Some things don’t fall in your place and others get things the way they want sometimes.
“Everyone wants to be part of the bigger games and if you’re not a part of it you’re obviously disappointed,” Cronk said.”
It’s a case of back to the future for Cronk, who will reprise a role he once feared he would never shake when he comes off the bench against France.
“The problem is when you start sulking and dropping the bottom lip, that’s when people really start noticing, and you’re probably not going to get picked ever again.
Since then he has blossomed into one of the game’s premier playmakers – with Melbourne making the grand final every year since.
Cronk was the man in the number 14 jumper for the best part of two years at Melbourne, when understudy to starting halves Matt Orford and Scott Hill.
“It was really frustrating,” Cronk said of his bench role at the Storm.
Ironically, Cronk’s utility value now has him in a three-way race with Kurt Gidley and Robbie Farah for a berth on the Australian bench in the Four Nations final in Leeds.
“When you’re a young fella on the scene and someone says you’re playing first grade, you automatically think the world should stop for you .
“The first year I played 12 or 14 games all off the bench, the next year I played 22 and half those were starting at five-eighth…
Kangaroos coach Tim Sheens can not speak highly enough of Cronk’s attitude in camp. you soon find out that’s not how it works.
“That nine, seven, six thing about him – I’m not going to say it’s going to put him in any stronger position than the other utility boys, but it just comes down to who’s going to be fit after this next game,” Sheens said. And his skill and that attitude which have him contending to play a bigger role in the tournament than that of occasional fill-in..
“I’m going to experiment with Cooper . he’s got a chance to impress for the final in the role.. With Hunt having left rugby league to pursue a career in other codes, Cronk knows a Queensland jumper is also up for grabs. With Hunt having left rugby league to pursue a career in other codes, Cronk knows a Queensland jumper is also up for grabs. .
“It probably is a little bit (of an opportunity).
“I’ll be going out there to run hard and tackle hard and two, to play my role in the side.
“If that makes someone stand up and take notice, that’s for them to do that.”
– AAP

.Cadel Evans abandoned Silence Lotto to join BMC Racing Team in a bid to strengthen his claim for a maiden Tour de France victory, but the wheels could fall off the twice runner-up’s challenge before the race even starts.
Although the Australian world road race champion joined a group of experienced and talented riders, the American team’s participation in the 2010 Tour de France remains uncertain.
BMC is a Continental team (second division) while elite ProTour outfits are race organiser ASO’s top priorities when they draw their list of invitees for the Tour.
“We have a plan to go to the biggest races, including the Grand Tours,” BMC manager John Lelangue said.
However, BMC hopes the signing of Evans to a three-year contract, former world champion Alessandro Ballan and former Lance Armstrong lieutenant George Hincapie will be enough to prompt ASO to invite them. This will be possible since our sporting level has greatly improved in standard.
“That includes the Tour de France.”
Sixteen teams are already contracted to participate in next year’s tour, while 20 usually start with a further two allowed if the maximum number is reached.
Cervelo, former champion Carlos Sastre and green jersey winner Thor Hushovd’s team is almost certain to take part, leaving one guaranteed spot up for grabs with three teams vying for it.
Four teams – Sky, Armstrong’s RadioShack, Garmin and Katusha – will be at the prologue in Rotterdam next July thanks to their ProTour status and because they have already proven they can compete in a three-week event.
Belgian Lelangue was Phonak team manager when Floyd Landis won the Tour in 2006, only for the American to test positive for testosterone and lose his title.
BMC are candidates, along with French outfit Saur Sojasun and Dutch team Vacansoleil and although the American team boast two world champions in their ranks, manager John Lelangue’s patchy history with Tour organisers could play against them.
Evans, however, is unconcerned by the past events and insists he is examining forward rather than back.
Phonak was disbanded before resurfacing in 2007 as BMC, with the same owner, Andy Rihs, and Lelangue back at the helm. .
“Rihs comes back with another team and another project with the same goal after that experience shows his enthusiasm and passion for the sport,” Evans told the Cycling News website.
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ASO is expected to announce the list of teams taking part in March

.The Church of Scientology has been fined 600,000 euros ($972,000) by a French court for preying financially on its followers in the 1990s.
Officials have voiced regret however that a recent change in French law prevented the court from banning the religion outright. .
A lawyer for Scientology’s French operations, Patrick Maisonneuve, says he will appeal, but “the most important thing is that this association can continue to exercise its activities.
“Religious freedom is in danger in this country,” said Eric Roux, the spokesman for Scientology’s French Celebrity Centre.
But last month the French courts were alerted to a little-noticed legal change voted in by Parliament in May – the month the trial opened – which bars judges from dissolving an organisation convicted of fraud.”
Paris prosecutors originally asked the court to order the Celebrity Centre and Scientology’s Paris bookshop be dismantled.
The change has since been dropped, but this was not retrospective, hence Scientology’s protection from an outright ban.
Founded in 1954 by US science-fiction writer L Ron Hubbard, the Church of Scientology is recognised as a religion in the United States and claims a worldwide membership of 12 million.
Officials in Germany, Greece, Russia and elsewhere have accused the movement of tricking its members out of large sums, and in 1995 it was classified as a cult in France, where it claims 45,000 followers.
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The movement is best known for its Hollywood followers including Tom Cruise and John Travolta

.Australian rugby league star turned AFL recruit Karmichael Hunt has arrived at the French rugby union club Biarritz Olympique.
The Brisbane Broncos star shocked NRL fans earlier this year when he announced he was switching codes to play Australian Rules for the new Gold Coast club in 2011.
The star-studded Biarritz Olympique side is currently third on the Top 14 competition table after nine rounds.
Hunt has signed a six-month contract to play rugby union before he returns to start his AFL career in May next year.
His six-month contract with BOPB, based in the luxurious sea-side town of Biarritz near the Spanish border, is reportedly worth $300,000. .

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The short-term arrangement was reportedly nearly foiled after Hunt was ineligible to play as an emerging nation player from Cook Islands rather than an “import”

.French magistrates have charged a nuclear scientist suspected of Al Qaeda links with “membership of a terrorist group” judicial officials said.
The 32-year-old engineer, who was studying the universe’s birth, at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN), was arrested on Thursday last week by police intelligence.
He has appeared in front of an anti-terrorist magistrate in Paris to be placed under formal judicial investigation and was to hear later in the day whether he will remain in custody pending trial.
He had expressed a desire to carry out attacks but had “not got to the stage of carrying out material acts of preparation”.
Officials said last week that investigators monitoring the internet had intercepted contacts between him and Al Qaeda’s North African offshoot.
The European Organisation for Nuclear Research operates one of the world’s leading nuclear research laboratories attached to a 27-kilometre tunnel running under the Franco-Swiss border just outside Geneva.
The suspect’s 25-year-old brother, who does not work at CERN, was also arrested last week but has since been released without charge.
In the tunnel, a particle accelerator attempts to recreate the sub-atomic conditions present at the time of the Big Bang.
It added, however, that “he was not a CERN employee and performed his research under a contract with an outside institute.
The lab confirmed on Friday that a physicist working on the Large Hadron Collider had been arrested on “suspicion of links to terrorist organisations”.”
According to CERN’s website, the suspect’s experiment was “set up to explore what happened after the Big Bang that allowed matter to survive and build the universe we inhabit today”. His work did not bring him into contact with anything that could be used for terrorism.
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Nevertheless, reports have suggested the arrest of a scientist with alleged Al Qaeda ties will increase fears that the Islamist militant group is seeking weapons technology or planning to attack nuclear targets