Two a penny

.France coach Marc Lievremont has forgiven Mathieu Bastareaud for lying about being attacked after a loss to New Zealand last year and named him in a 30-man squad for the Six Nations championship.
The 21-year-old centre had said he was attacked by up to five people as he returned to the team hotel following a 14-10 defeat by the All Blacks in Wellington last June. .
Back in France, after being told CCTV footage showed him entering the hotel uninjured, he admitted lying and said he had fallen in his bedroom because he was drunk.
“Bastareaud deserves to be back because he is performing well with his Stade Francais club and because he has started to do the community service he has been sentenced to.
“The unhappy episode of this summer is forgotten,” Lievremont said.
Half-back Frederic Michalak, winger Cedric Heymans, centre Florian Fritz and full-back Maxime Medard were left out of a squad already without suspended scrum-half Julien Dupuy plus prop Fabien Barcella and centre Damien Traille, who are both injured.”
The France coach also recalled 32-year-old scrum-half Jean-Baptiste Elissalde, fly half Benjamin Boyet, wings Aurelien Rougerie and Julien Malzieu and full-back Clement Poitrenaud. It doesn’t mean they are too old or forgotten or rejected,” Lievremont said.
“There are some players we rely on, we appreciate but who have not performed as well in recent weeks.
France will start its Six Nations campaign against Scotland at Murrayfield on February 7.
Another surprise was the call-up of newcomer Fabrice Estebanez, a 29-year-old former rugby league international, who plays either at centre or fly half with Brive.
Backs: Jean-Baptiste Elissalde, Morgan Parra, Benjamin Boyet, Francois Trinh-Duc, Mathieu Bastareaud, Fabrice Estebanez, David Marty, Yannick Jauzion, Vincent Clerc, Benjamin Fall, Julien Malzieu, Aurelien Rougerie, Alexis Palisson, Clement Poitrenaud.
Forwards: Thomas Domingo, Luc Ducalcon, Sylvain Marconnet, Nicolas Mas, William Servat, Dimitri Szarzewski, Sebastien Chabal, Romain Millo-Chluski, Lionel Nallet, Pascal Pape, Julien Bonnaire, Thierry Dusautoir (c), Imanol Harinordoquy, Alexandre Lapandry, Fulgence Ouedraogo, Louis Picamoles.
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.The International Automobile Federation (FIA) is to appeal a French court’s decision to overturn the lifetime ban on former Renault boss Flavio Briatore.
Briatore was let off the hook last week by the Tribunal de Grande Instance in Paris which found that the FIA sanction, imposed in September for allegedly ordering Nelson Piquet junior to crash at the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix, was illegal.
New FIA president Jean Todt, however, believes the world governing body has a case against the 59-year-old Italian and that an appeal is in order.
The scandal centred on driver Piquet junior’s claims that the team had ordered him to crash deliberately at Singapore to enable team-mate Fernando Alonso to go on and win.
The decision to appeal means the suspension against Briatore, and the five-year ban handed to the team’s former director of engineering Pat Symonds, remain in force.
He said that the French court’s decision “gives me back my dignity and the freedom which they arbitrarily tried to take away from me.
Briatore has denied all the accusations levelled against him and vowed to fight to clear his name.”
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.Veteran French rocker Johnny Hallyday has cancelled his farewell tour in order to recover after emergency surgery in the United States.
The 160,000 fans who bought tickets for the 24 concerts across France, which had been due to start January 8, will be reimbursed.
Doctors woke him on Tuesday after several days in a drug-induced coma.
The 66-year-old was hospitalised last week in Los Angeles after complications from a back operation performed in Paris last month.
Though little known abroad, Hallyday has sold more than 100 million albums and played 45 major tours in a career that began in the 1960s.
Hallyday’s son David said at the weekend that his father’s life was “out of danger”.

.New Zealand has filed an official complaint with the International Rugby Board after prop Tony Woodcock suffered abrasions around his eyes during Saturday’s 39-12 win over France in Marseille.
All Blacks assistant coach Steve Hansen says the team had asked the citing commissioner to investigate an incident late in the match.
“We asked the citing commissioner to have a look at it and we’ll leave it in his hands.
“There’s no doubt Tony got a facial, that’s how he described it,” he said.
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The officer has 48 hours to decide whether any player has a case to answer, but Woodcock says television footage of the incident was inconclusive and is happy to let the matter rest

.Sudanese journalist Lubna Ahmed Hussein says she has donned a full Islamic veil to sneak out of Sudan and travel to France, two months after she was freed from jail for wearing trousers.
On a visit to Paris to promote her new book, Ms Hussein accused Khartoum of trying to block her departure and said she was determined to exercise her right to travel freely.
“They wanted to prevent me from leaving; I resorted to the niqab and managed to leave,” said Ms Hussein, who was jailed for a day in September for violating Sudan’s clothing decency laws by wearing trousers.
“I did not flee Sudan.
“I requested documents to be able to leave, to be able to travel, and this is the only means I found to be able to leave Sudan,” she said. . I am a Sudanese citizen.
Ms Hussein faced a punishment of 40 lashes when she was convicted in July for wearing her green trousers in public.
After she refused to pay the fine, Ms Hussein served a one-day jail sentence.
But a Sudanese court in September ordered her to pay a fine instead, while 10 of the 12 other women arrested with her at a Khartoum restaurant on July 3 were lashed.
The Paris welcome for Ms Hussein came as France was debating measures to prohibit women from wearing the full Islamic veil, which President Nicolas Sarkozy has said is a symbol of women’s subservience.
More than 43,000 women were arrested last year in the Khartoum region by police tasked with enforcing Sudan’s laws on indecent clothing for women.
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.The world’s largest airliner, an Air France A380, touched down in New York after completing the superjumbo jet’s first Atlantic crossing from Europe to the United States.
The Airbus plane, carrying 538 passengers, left Paris earlier in the day and landed on Friday at 1:07pm (local time) at JF Kennedy Airport, several minutes ahead of schedule, under crisp blue skies.
Air France is the first European airline to put the giant aircraft into service, but the fourth worldwide after Singapore Airlines, Gulf-based Emirates and Qantas.
Two fire engines met the plane with a watery salute from their hosepipes as it taxied to its gate.
Air France will launch regular A380 flights across the Atlantic on November 23.
Passengers included 380 people who bought their tickets in an Air France auction to benefit disadvantaged children.
But major production and delivery delays mean the commercial success of the A380, the pride of Airbus and parent company EADS, has yet to be secured. The fleet of 12 huge planes will also serve Johannesburg, starting in February, and then Tokyo.
“A fantastic flight,” said one passenger, Bernard Boluvi. . You hardly feel the take-off and landing. “It’s a very quiet and stable plane.
“It doesn’t feel like one big cinema, because the plane is well divided into different sectors,” he said.”
Michel Schmitt, 45, also praised the lack of noise aboard and said the double-decker felt more roomy than other jumbos.
“Air France chose the most dense configuration,” he said.
But Gerard Jouany, 64, a journalist specialising in aviation, said he found the plane rather cramped and emphasising the bus aspect of Airbus.
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.The European Union has chosen Belgian Prime Minister Herman van Rompuy to be its first president.
The leaders of all 27 EU countries agreed to the choice at a meeting in Brussels.
The new job was made possible because of the recent ratification of the Lisbon Treaty.
Speaking in French and English at a news conference after his appointment, Mr Van Rompuy cited employment and the environment as urgent concerns for Europe.
Mr van Rompuy is known as a consensus builder but has a very low profile outside Belgium.
“Every country has its own history, its own culture, its own way of doing things.
He says he is confident EU member countries will be able to work together successfully. . Without respect for our diversity, we will never build on our unity.
“Denying this would be counter-productive.”
For weeks there had been intense lobbying and speculation about who may end up representing the EU to the world. I will always bear this principle in mind.
The post of the EU’s foreign affairs chief, however, has gone to a Briton, Baroness Catherine Ashton.
Former British prime minister Tony Blair was a frontrunner for the job, but he was eliminated early in proceedings after it was clear neither the French nor German leaders would support his appointment.
Emerging from the meeting, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Baroness Ashton’s appointment proved Britain was still at the heart of the future of Europe despite Mr Blair failing to garner enough support.
Emerging from the meeting, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Baroness Ashton’s appointment proved Britain was still at the heart of the future of Europe despite Mr Blair failing to garner enough support.

.New evidence has emerged that shows faulty equipment may have caused the Air France crash off the Brazilian coast this year.
The plane took off from Rio de Janeiro bound for Paris, but flew into a thunderstorm three hours later and then plunged into the Atlantic - 228 passengers and crew died.
Three months after Air France flight 447 went down in the Atlantic, relatives of the 228 victims are still searching for answers.
The plane’s manufacturer Airbus has now told the ABC’s Foreign Correspondent program that the onboard weather radar could not detect ice at high altitudes.
“The French families are waiting for explanations about why this tragedy happened, technical explanations and acknowledgements of responsibility from all the companies involved in this crash,” he said.
Christopher Guillot-Noel lost his brother.
Safety expert Captain John Mahon has been independently investigating the crash for a British law firm representing the families.
He is among a group of French families who hope to sue the airline and the plane’s manufacturer Airbus.
“Some of the messages that were transmitted by the aircraft would seem to suggest that faulty pitot tubes or speed sensors were instrumental in this accident,” he said.
He says the disaster could have been prevented.
It is believed they iced-over at high altitudes, sending the wrong information about the flight speed to the pilots.
Before the plane crashed, a routine maintenance message from the plane sent back to France reported the pitots or sensors were not working.
After the crash, Air France pilots threatened to go on strike if the faulty pitots or air speed sensors were not replaced.
Both Air France and Airbus manuals offered advice on how to deal with the faulty sensors, but the pilots union says the advice was contradictory. Now the planes manufacturer Airbus says the onboard weather radar was also not working.
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Air France replaced the sensors after the crash.
The vice-president of the flight test division at Airbus, Fernando Alonso, said the Airbus onboard radar could not see ice particles.
This contributed to the series of confusing or false data sent to the pilot..
“You have weather radar which is a very. it’s an equipment which is fitted on every single aeroplane,” he said..”
Rhe black boxes and voice recorders still have not been recovered, making it hard to get an accurate picture of what went wrong.
“I believe the ice could not be detected.
“It’s highly desirable that data is streamed live from the aircraft to the maintenance base,” he said.
“It’s highly desirable that data is streamed live from the aircraft to the maintenance base,” he said.
“It is absurd that air safety depends on black boxes which sometimes cannot be recovered, or if they are recovered then the data cannot be properly transcribed because the boxes are damaged.”
The official investigation into the crash of Air France flight 447 continues.

Watch Foreign Correspondent tonight at 8:00pm (AEDT) on ABC 1.

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An Afghan refugee, who failed in his appeal to have a police search of his home declared unlawful, is likely to take his case to the country’s highest court.

The man, who cannot be named, went to the Court of Appeal, claiming police had no right to search his home in 2000 or to give documents they seized to the Immigration Service which was now reviewing his refugee status. He had 20 days to take his case to the Supreme Court after the Court of Appeal judgment released yesterday.

The man had no removal or deportation order issued against him, said his lawyer Rodney Hooker.

“It would certainly get serious consideration,” he said.

He said the “odds are”‘ that the man’s case would go to the Supreme Court to challenge the Court of Appeal ruling. He also said his wife and children had been killed.

The man arrived in New Zealand in 1995 and was granted refugee status when he claimed he would be killed by the Mujahideen, the Afghan resistance army.

Police seized several documents, including a map of Sydney’s nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights.

An inquiry involving the Immigration Service, Security Intelligence Service and foreign agencies including Australian police, led to a search of his home in 2000.

The man was charged with fraud over his refugee application but the Court of Appeal said in its judgment released yesterday the Crown elected to offer no evidence because of “difficulties of proof and concern at public disquiet about the case” after the terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre in New York on September 11, 2001.

The reactor was a planned target of terrorists but several terrorists were arrested and the attack was thwarted.

Mr Hooker said the man was a family man who had made New Zealand his adopted home and did not want to leave. The fraud case was dropped. .

“We are only in the very first part of the sequence of events,” Mr Hooker said.”

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An inquiry has been opened by Acting Chief Coroner Garry Evans into the death of Aisling Symes.

Two-year-old Aisling’s body was recovered from a storm drain early yesterday, a week after she went missing from a house in the Auckland suburb of Henderson.

Mr Evans said an inquest into the cause and circumstances of her death would be held later.

Inspector Gary Davey said police found the woman yesterday and had spoken with her overnight.

Meanwhile, police have spoken to the mysterious Asian woman they sought during the investigation.

Mr Davey refused to reveal what the woman told police, only saying “she is no longer part of our inquiries relating to Aisling’s disappearance”.

He was “satisfied” she was unable to help police with the case and had officially ruled her out of the investigation.

He conceded the police search had caused some concern amongst the community but had been “a necessary part” of trying to find Aisling.

“We sincerely thank all the many members of the public who have delivered messages, beautiful cards prepared by children, flowers and other tributes,” he said. .

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Many of the messages had been brought to the Henderson police station and police and the Symes family appreciated the gestures, Mr Davey said