Two a penny

.Hurricane-force winds, surging seas and driving rain have lashed western Europe, leaving at least 13 people dead and more than a million households without power.
Dubbed “Xynthia”, the Atlantic storm crashed against the western coasts of France and Spain, bringing with it a band of foul weather stretching from Portugal to the Netherlands.
Britain, already suffering localised flooding from a previous weather system, braced for more weather misery.
“We have confirmed five deaths in the area of La-Faute-sue-Mer and l’Aiguillon-sur-Mer,” Herve Rose, a government spokesperson in the low-lying Vendee region, where flood waters in some coastal towns reached 1.
Gusts of up to 150 kilometres per hour and eight metre waves battered the northern and western coasts of France, flooding inland and sending residents scurrying onto rooftops.
Separately, an 88-year-old woman was found drowned in her home on the island of Oleron in Charentes-Maritime further south, police said.5 metres, said.
Two more bodies, that of a 10-year-old boy and of a pensioner, were found in Charentes-Maritime, a regional official said.
In Spain, regional authorities said that two men aged 51 and 41 died when the car they were travelling in was hit by a falling tree.
French authorities had said on Saturday that a man was killed by a falling tree in the Pyrenees mountains.
Portugal said on Saturday that a 10-year-old boy was killed by a falling branch in the north-west of the country. An 82-year-old woman was killed on Saturday when a wall collapsed in the Galicia region.
– Flights cancelled –
Air France announced that 70 flights out of 700 were cancelled from its hub at Paris Charles de Gaulle, as chaos gripped transport networks across western Europe at the end of French school’s half-term break.
In France, fallen powerlines caused blackouts for around a million homes across a 500 kilometre swathe of the country from the Brittany peninsula to the highlands of the Massif Central.
A major road crossing between France and Spain was closed to heavy goods vehicles, causing a 1,200-vehicle tail back of seven-tonne trucks on the French side of the Pyrenees.
A major road crossing between France and Spain was closed to heavy goods vehicles, causing a 1,200-vehicle tail back of seven-tonne trucks on the French side of the Pyrenees.
The storm developed in the Atlantic off the Portuguese island of Madeira, still reeling from the flash floods sparked by heavy rains that wrecked the centre of the capital Funchal and killed 42 people a week ago.
A hurricane is defined as a storm with winds consistently above 118 kilometres per hour.
The storm swept north-east into north-western Spain late on Saturday afternoon, where wind gusts reached 147 kph and some 27,000 households were without electricity, regional authorities said.
Powerful winds and heavy rain hit Spain’s Canary Islands archipelago late on Friday, with gusts of up to 128 kilometres per hour reported. .
Rail services were cancelled in Galicia as well as in the northern regions of Asturias, Cantabria, the Basque Country and parts of Castilla y Leon, where the storm left some 63,000 households without power.
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“This is a very deep, very intense and very fast-moving storm,” Spanish Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said, warning people to avoid using their cars and taking mountain or sea walks

.An Imam in Paris has given his support for a law against full-face veils and burqas in France. .
The report will be handed to the national assembly on Tuesday after which the French Government is likely to pass a law banning clothing that covers the face while they are in public.
Hassen Chalghoumi, who heads a mosque in a northern suburb of Paris, said women who wanted to cover their faces should move to Saudi Arabia or other Muslim countries where that was a tradition.

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President Nicolas Sarkozy supports a ban calling the veils an affront to women’s dignity

.French captain Thierry Henry has escaped being punished for his infamous handball in the 2010 World Cup finals play-off against Ireland, FIFA announced.
France was losing 1-0 to Ireland at the Stade de France on November 18, having won the first leg 1-0, when Henry teed up William Gallas in extra-time for what proved to be the decisive goal after illegally controlling the ball with his hand.
“On December 2, 2009, the FIFA executive committee asked the FIFA disciplinary committee to analyse the handling offence committed by Thierry Henry during the France v Republic of Ireland match on November 18, 2009, and to consider the possible disciplinary consequences,” read the statement from the committee.
FIFA’s disciplinary committee said, however, that they were powerless to punish the 1998 World Cup-winning striker because their rules forbade them to do so if the original misdemeanour had not been seen by the match officials.
“There is no other legal text that would allow the committee to impose sanctions for any incidents missed by match officials.
“At its meeting on January 18, 2010 , the disciplinary committee reached the conclusion that there was no legal foundation for the committee to consider the case because handling the ball cannot be regarded as a serious infringement as stipulated in article 77(a) of the FIFA disciplinary code.
“Thierry Henry not being punished is not astonishing, it is logical,” he said.”
Bernard Escalettes, president of the French Football Federation (FFF), said he hoped this finally drew a line under the episode.
“I hope that this is the end of the story, I hope so with all my heart.
“There is nothing in the FIFA rules permitting a punishment, and FIFA are bound by their rules.
“I had a phone conversation with Thierry Henry,” said Blatter at the time.”
The meeting of the 21-man disciplinary panel, an independent body chaired by the Swiss Marcel Mathier, was announced by FIFA president Sepp Blatter in Cape Town on December 2 following an extraordinary executive committee meeting. It was a conversation between sportsmen.
“We didn’t talk about guilty or not guilty.”
Blatter’s diplomacy can be explained by the lack of precedent regarding retrospective punishments meted out to players. I didn’t say that he would be punished, I said he’d be the subject of an investigation.
Blatter, meanwhile, has raised the possibility of awarding “moral compensation” to the Irish team.
Any punishment meted out would have been purely a symbolic one as FIFA’s rules do not explicitly address incidents of such a nature and a heavy punishment would have created an unwelcome precedent for world football’s governing body. .
“That could be a special trophy or a prize, we’ll have to see,” he said

.New York has become the latest of the world’s major cities to ring in the New Year with spectacular fireworks displays and massive parties against a backdrop of tightened security.
Snow, freezing temperatures and a terrorism threat did not stop more than a million people gathering in New York’s Times Square to celebrate the arrival of 2010 with the traditional dropping of the crystal ball at midnight.
Security in the city had been ramped up since last week’s attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound passenger jet. .
Revellers were checked with metal detectors and were not allowed to carry backpacks into Times Square.
Earlier, more than 120,000 Russians crowded into Moscow’s Red Square to toast 2010 as President Dmitry Medvedev thanked his nation for bearing with the economic crisis.
Up to 80,000 people also turned out in Edinburgh for the annual Hogmanay outdoor street party, some sporting furry horned tartan helmets against the bitter cold as they gathered to watch fireworks by Edinburgh Castle.
“The past year was not a very easy one for our country, and I want to thank you all for bearing up together,” he said in his traditional New Year address.
In Australia, about 1.
Party-goers in the South Pacific were the first to raise their glasses to 2010, leading the world into a new decade after one scarred by war, terror attacks, natural disaster and financial turmoil.
Thousands of people also crammed into Hong Kong’s harbour, where 9,000 fireworks were unleashed from the city’s tallest skyscraper as well as other buildings in a display that lasted nearly five minutes.5 million people crowded the Sydney Harbour foreshore to watch a vast array of fireworks burst into the night sky at midnight, launched from the iconic Sydney Harbour Bridge and four barges on the water.
In Paris, about 70,000 people gathered near the Eiffel Tower for a multicoloured light show, while more than 8,000 police were deployed across the city and suburbs where 1,100 cars were burned last New Year’s Eve.
Such spectacles were banned in Thailand after fireworks caused a New Year’s Eve blaze at a Bangkok nightclub a year ago, killing 65 people.
The filling of portable containers at petrol pumps was banned, as were glass bottles and fireworks on the Champs Elysees, the Parisian avenue where another 200,000 people gathered to see in the New Year.
The filling of portable containers at petrol pumps was banned, as were glass bottles and fireworks on the Champs Elysees, the Parisian avenue where another 200,000 people gathered to see in the New Year.
In Spain, which took over the rotating presidency of the EU at midnight, thousands of people attended a light and sound show at the central Puerta del Sol square where a giant image of the EU flag was projected onto a building.
In Berlin, more than 1 million revellers gathered on the boulevard leading to the Brandenburg Gate, the symbol of German unity, with live bands and DJs cranking up the party. Now I am going to work on my first hangover of 2010,” said Gerry Shalloe, a 32-year-old English teacher from Ireland who lives in Madrid and who attended the countdown with friends.
“This is the best street party in the world.
Ukraine’s President Viktor Yushchenko, seeking re-election on January 17, assured his countrymen in a New Year’s message that they would become part of the European Union and NATO.
In Poland, around 90,000 people brought in the New Year at a concert in Warsaw in memory of Michael Jackson attended by the late singer’s sister La Toya.
– Increased security –
In New York, a downpour of confetti at midnight marked the traditional mass celebration in Times Square in the heart of Manhattan.
But the fiercely pro-Western leader looked unlikely to be in charge for much longer with opinion polls putting him far behind pro-Russian opposition leader Viktor Yanukovich and Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko.
“It will be a full-fledged deployment of resources,” city police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.
But after security jitters rekindled by the Christmas Day bomb plot, undercover police, surveillance cameras and radiation and biological detection equipment monitored the crowds.”
The US embassy in Indonesia, meanwhile, said it had received a warning of a possible attack on the resort island of Bali, the scene of multiple bombings targeting Westerners, but local authorities denied knowledge of any alert.”
The US embassy in Indonesia, meanwhile, said it had received a warning of a possible attack on the resort island of Bali, the scene of multiple bombings targeting Westerners, but local authorities denied knowledge of any alert.
In Pakistan, where the Taliban’s bloody campaign rebounded in 2009, spirits were dampened in the city of Karachi by a deadly suicide attack during a holy Shiite Muslim ceremony on Monday that killed 43 people.
In neighbouring Afghanistan, soldiers maintained their alert after two deadly militant attacks claimed the lives of eight Americans and five Canadians, while two French journalists were reported kidnapped by Taliban.
For Cyprus, New Year’s Eve was the last chance to smoke in pubs, clubs and cafes with a new anti-smoking law in force from January 1.
And in South Africa, President Jacob Zuma used his New Year message to rally for unity for the 2010 football World Cup– the first to be held in Africa.
New Year’s Eve also presented the world with a Blue Moon, the name for a second full moon in one single month, for only the second time in nearly 20 years.
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.The Eiffel Tower was transformed into a glittering jewel and fireworks lit up the London sky as millions of revellers welcomed the New Year across Europe.
A spectacular light show and fireworks display lit up the Paris sky as revellers partied in the streets below.
In the Scottish capital Edinburgh up to 80,000 people turned out in Edinburgh for the annual Hogmanay outdoor street party, some sporting furry horned tartan helmets against the bitter cold as they gathered to watch fireworks by Edinburgh Castle. .
In Russia, more than 120,000 crowded onto Moscow’s Red Square to toast 2010 as President Dmitry Medvedev thanked his nation for bearing with the economic crisis and evoked family values.
In Berlin more than 1 million revellers were expected to have thronged onto the boulevard leading to the Brandenburg Gate, the symbol of German unity, with live bands and DJs cranking up the party.
“Our success in the new year depends on what each of us will do for his family and his country,” he said.
“The past year was not a very easy one for our country, and I want to thank you all for bearing up together,” a smiling Mr Medvedev said in a traditional New Year address.
But after security jitters rekindled by a Christmas Day bomb plot against a passenger jet claimed by Al Qaeda, undercover police, surveillance cameras and radiation and biological detection equipment were to monitor the crowds.
In New York, a downpour of confetti was to mark midnight at a traditional mass celebration in Times Square in the heart of Manhattan.

.Former Gold Coast Titans back Chris Walker has signed a two-year contract with French Super League side Catalans Dragons, the club said.
“This is good news for the club,” Dragons sporting director Sebastien Munoz said. .
“He will bring speed to the back line, which we have been lacking on occasion.”
Walker arrives from the Titans, having also played for Brisbane Broncos, Melbourne Storm, South Sydney Rabbitohs and Sydney Roosters.
“A new player coming in will provide great competition at the back and that can only be positive for the team.
They have also recruited Storm lock Dallas Johnson and the Roosters’ New Zealand international Setaimata Sa for the club’s fifth Super League campaign.
The Dragons are coached by Walker’s former Broncos team-mate Kevin Walters.
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.France captain Thierry Henry, the central figure of this week’s handball controversy, has agreed a replay against Ireland would be the fairest solution to the controversy surrounding the teams’ World Cup play-off.
But the French Football Federation has thrown out that suggestion, after the Football Association of Ireland again lobbied FIFA after its initial replay request was rejected.
The striker handled the ball in the build-up to William Gallas’s goal in the 1-1 second-leg draw in Paris, earning France a 2-1 aggregate win and sending it through to next year’s finals in South Africa.
“Of course, the fairest solution would be to replay the game but it is not in my control.
“Naturally I feel embarrassed at the way we won and feel extremely sorry for the Irish who definitely deserve to be in South Africa,” Henry said in a statement.
The FAI reacted to Henry’s statement by reiterating its request for FIFA to sanction a replay.”
Henry’s statement was issued after world football’s governing body FIFA rejected an FAI appeal to replay the match.
But the French Football Federation was quick to scotch any such talk, while expressing its sympathy with Ireland. The federation never sought to deny the refereeing error which saw the equalising French goal allowed,” it said in a statement.
“The FFF understands the disappointment and bitterness of the Irish players, management and supporters.”
Henry said while he admitted the ball struck his hand, he was not a cheat.
“At the end of the match and because French football itself has suffered in the past by events of a similar nature, the FFF management expressed their regrets and sympathy to their Irish counterparts.
“I am not a cheat and never have been,” said Henry.
“There is little more I can do apart from admit the ball had contact with my hand leading up to our equalising goal and I feel very sorry for the Irish,” he said. “It was an instinctive reaction to a ball that was coming extremely fast in a crowded penalty area. “It was an instinctive reaction to a ball that was coming extremely fast in a crowded penalty area.”
Best interests
Irish captain Robbie Keane, who scored his team’s goal in Paris, responded by issuing his own statement. I told the Irish players, the referee and the media this after the game.
“As captain of the French team, to make such a statement took courage and honour, and all of us recognise that.
“On behalf of the Republic of Ireland players, I would like to thank Thierry Henry for his statement,” he said.
“We can only hope that the French Football Federation might accept the wishes of both captains in the best interests of the game.
“As captain of the Republic of Ireland team, I would also be happy for a replay to happen in the interest of fair play so that whichever team qualifies, can do so with their heads held high..”
The FAI board met on Friday and issued a statement saying said it had called on the French federation to “join with it and the captains of the French and Irish teams. to request a replay from FIFA that would protect the integrity of the game worldwide and the pride of the French national team”..
Win properly
Arsene Wenger, Henry’s former manager at Arsenal, agreed that a replay would be the fairest solution.
Win properly
Arsene Wenger, Henry’s former manager at Arsenal, agreed that a replay would be the fairest solution.
“France has to say ‘yes it was a handball and we offer a replay’,” he said. “It is embarrassing to qualify the way we qualified. We want to beat Ireland properly and that didn’t happen.”
Wenger, who agreed to replay an FA Cup tie against Sheffield United in 1999 over an issue of fair play added:
“Thierry Henry is not the problem. He played here for 10 years and has always been super fair. .
“Football and sport in general is full of heroes who have cheated 10 times more than Thierry.
“A player of his stature has a massive pressure on his shoulders and if somebody has to do something for Thierry, it is French football and France as a country, not to leave him out there alone against the whole world.”
Wenger, echoing the comments of many managers on Friday, maintained that the use of technology was the way forward.
“The biggest anger for me is that we are still in 2009, sitting here where millions of people see what happened, one guy doesn’t see it and we can’t help him,” he said.
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.World number one Roger Federer has sunk to an embarrassing 3-6, 7-6 (7-4), 6-4 second-round defeat against unseeded Frenchman Julien Benneteau in the ATP Paris Masters.
The Swiss ace looked on course for the third round after cruising through the first set, but came unstuck in the second as uncharacteristic errors begin to creep into his game.
Benneteau, the world number 49, was roared on by his home crowd and secured the result of his life with an ace after bringing up match point by rattling a crosscourt backhand past the 15-time major-winner.
“Even in the second set, I don’t think I had a break point.
“He was very strong at the end,” said Federer of his 27-year-old opponent, who has never won an ATP title. It wasn’t a bad performance.
“I can definitely play better but I can also play much worse.
“Julien went out and got the victory.”
Second seed Rafael Nadal, meanwhile, admitted that he was “very lucky” after edging a titanic struggle with Spanish compatriot Nicolas Almagro 3-6, 7-6 (7-2), 7-5 in three hours and 14 minutes. I had chances and missed them.
“I played great tennis in only one moment, but in the rest of the match I didn’t play well,” Nadal said in reference to his comeback from 5-6 and 0-40 down in the second set.
Nadal was a set and 5-6 down against Almagro, who had not taken a set from him in four previous meetings, and survived five match points before battling back to set up a third-round tie with 14th-seeded countryman Tommy Robredo. That’s the truth.
“I am very lucky to be in the (next) round. I played bad but I won, which is the one positive thing. I played bad but I won, which is the one positive thing. .
British fourth seed Murray saw off America’s James Blake 6-3, 6-7 (5-7), 7-6 (7-4) in a match that finished at 1:46am local time to set up a match with Czech 13th seed Radek Stepanek.
“This day will be where all the memories of my career will stay, all in one box.
“This day will stand out for a long time, until I pass into a different world,” Safin, a three-time winner here, told the crowd at the Bercy arena during a special post-match ceremony.
“I didn’t feel that great on the court,” Djokovic said.”
Third seed Djokovic, who beat Federer in the Basel final last weekend, overcame Argentina’s Juan Monaco 6-3, 7-5. But I got a victory and that’s what matters most.
“It was probably a long week in Basel that affected that.”
Djokovic will now face French qualifier Arnaud Clement, a 5-7, 6-3, 7-6 (10-8) winner over German 16th seed Tommy Haas, with Del Potro to play Chilean 10th seed Fernando Gonzalez.
“Generally speaking, I’ve picked up great form in the last two months.
Soderling is one place outside the eight qualifying berths for the year-end event but needs to at least reach the final to stand any chance of securing one of the last two available spots.
Soderling is one place outside the eight qualifying berths for the year-end event but needs to at least reach the final to stand any chance of securing one of the last two available spots.
He will meet Russian Nikolay Davydenko, currently seventh in the race to London, in the next round.
Gael Monfils, the 15th seed, set up an encounter with Benneteau by beating fellow Frenchman David Guez 6-4, 7-5, with 12th seed Marin Cilic set to face Spain’s Fernando Verdasco after coming from behind to beat Polish qualifier Lukasz Kubot 6-7 (3-7), 6-4, 6-2.
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BREAKING NEWS:
A man who shot his friend dead at a dinner party has been found not guilty of murder or manslaughter.

Sobbing and screaming was heard in theHigh Court at Aucklandwhen the jury found Alan Christopher Paul Gundry, 30,not guilty of the murder or manslaughter of Gene Patrick Atkins, 28.

Earlier, the jury heardthat Gundry,terrified for his young family, had only seconds to decide whether to shoot his friend with a pig-hunting rifle.

The jury had acceptedGundry’s defence that he killed Atkins in self-defence.

Both men had been friends for years and had spent January 12 this year eating and drinking at Gundry’s home.

Atkinshad goneberserk atGundry’s home after a fight with his girlfriend, Sarah Jane Dean, the court heard. They had gone home and he had thrown her belongings out of his house.

But during the evening Mr Atkins had become upset with his girlfriend.

Gundry’s lawyer, Graeme Newell, told the High Court at Auckland his client had been forced to shoot Mr Atkins in an act of self-defence. She then fled to Gundry’s, and Mr Atkins followed, intending to confront her.

One partygoer had been left semi-conscious in a pool of blood after being assaulted by Mr Atkins, while Gundry’s partner, Nicole MacDonald, was held over the top of a set of stairs.

Mr Newell said five people, including Gundry’s partner, had been attacked in the accused’s house that night, all in a short space of time.

“Should a person who has been attacked or seen others attacked wait until they too are the victim of a serious assault?

“If he wasn’t acting defensively, why would he let off two rounds in his own home when his nine-month-old, his five-year-old and his partner were upstairs?

“He didn’t want to do that, he didn’t want to fire shots into his own house.

Gundry was confronted by a dire threat and had to take “instant and decisive” action to protect himself and his family, Mr Newell said.

The court was told Mr Atkins had a history of violence, including several assaults on his girlfriend and a road-rage incident.”

Gundry was a peaceful man with no history of violence and no reason to kill his friend, Mr Newell said. The charge came after Mr Atkins allegedly glassed a man in the face at an Auckland nightclub.

Mr Newell told the court that at the time of his death Mr Atkins had also been awaiting trial on a charge of grievous bodily harm.

But Crown prosecutor Kevin Glubb said Gundry’s decision to shoot Mr Atkins was unacceptable and completely excessive. The injuries were so severe the man lost sight in one eye.

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.French culture minister Frederic Mitterrand has won the backing of fellow politicians amid calls for his resignation for having written about having sex with young male prostitutes in Thailand.
Government spokesperson Luc Chatel, immigration minister Eric Besson and Left Party founder Jean-Luc Melenchon spoke out in support of the nephew of former president Francois Mitterrand, who has threatened legal action to protect his reputation..
“Enough of this man-hunt. The private life of Frederic Mitterrand is none of my business,” Mr Chatel told BFM TV..
Mr Mitterrand was compelled to defend himself on television last week, saying he had only been with consenting adults and had committed no crime.
Revelations that Mr Mitterrand made in a 2005 book re-surfaced when he strongly defended Roman Polanski, who was arrested in Switzerland the previous month and faces extradition to the United States for having had sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977.
The row was further stoked on Friday when the Quotidien de la Reunion newspaper published a letter sent by Mr Mitterrand, when he was director of the French Academy in Rome, in support of the family of two boys accused, and later convicted, of rape. He added that he condemned both sex tourism and paedophilia. It’s vile.
“I no longer tolerate these attacks.
“I bore witness to the morality of a family, that of my former make-up artist on France 2 [TV]. It’s a simple thing that I can very easily explain,” Mr Mitterrand told Le Journal du Dimanche newspaper in response.”
Mr Melenchon told Europe 1 that the continuing attacks on Mr Mitterrand were “unacceptable” and criticised those who would “cast stones” at the minister. .
“In no way is it an apology of sex tourism.
In the television interview, Mr Mitterrand described the book as “not totally autobiographical” and was evasive about the precise nature of his experiences in Thailand…
Throughout the TF1 interview, he referred to his partners as ‘boys’. even if one of the chapters is a journey through that hell, with the fascination that hell can provoke,” said Mr Mitterrand.
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The affair appears to have provoked a split in the government, with Labour Minister Xavier Darcos saying Mr Mitterrand needed to explain his behaviour, and Mr Sarkozy’s adviser Henri Guaino defending him