Two a penny

.A French parliament report called for a ban on the full Islamic veil in all schools, hospitals, public transport and government offices, saying the burqa was an affront to French values.
“The wearing of the full veil is a challenge to our republic. “We must condemn this excess. .
The commission called on parliament to adopt a formal resolution stating that the burqa was “contrary to the values of the republic” and proclaiming that “all of France is saying ‘no’ to the full veil.”
After six months of hearings, the panel of 32 lawmakers recommended a ban on the face-covering veil in all state-run institutions and offices, the broadest move yet to restrict Muslim dress in France.
The panel however stopped short of proposing broad legislation to outlaw the burqa on the streets or in shopping centres after cautioning that such a move would have to be reviewed by the courts to establish its legality.”
Women who turn up at government offices wearing the full veil should be denied services such as a work visa, residency papers or French citizenship, the report recommended.
“There are scandalous practices hidden behind this veil,” said Mr Gerin who vowed to fight the “gurus” seeking to export a racial brand of fundamentalism and sectarianism to France.
“The wearing of the full veil is the tip of the iceberg,” said communist lawmaker Andre Gerin, the chair of the commission.
President Nicolas Sarkozy set the tone for the debate in June when he declared the burqa “not welcome” in France and described it as a symbol of women’s “subservience” that cannot be tolerated in a country that considers itself a human rights leader.
Home to Europe’s biggest Muslim minority, estimated at about six million, France is being closely watched at a time of particular unease over Islam, three months after Swiss voters approved a ban on minarets.
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.Stade Francais prop David Attoub has appealed against his 70-week ban for gouging in a Heineken Cup match against Ulster the previous month, competition organisers said overnight.
“David Attoub has today lodged an appeal against both the finding of foul play and level of sanction imposed by an independent disciplinary hearing last Tuesday,” said a statement posted on the ERC website.”
The 28-year-old, who played for France in 2006, was suspended for gouging flanker Stephen Ferris’s eyes in an ill-tempered game won 23-13 by Ulster in Belfast.
“The independent appeal committee will be appointed as soon as practicable.
“This is the worst act of contact with the eyes I have had to deal with,” judge Jeff Blackett said in a statement posted on the ERC website at the time. .
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.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

.Extremely cold weather across northern Europe has left scores of people dead and caused widespread transport chaos.
Temperatures as low as minus 22 degrees Celsius have led to the deaths of 122 people in Poland, with the main river, the Vistula, now frozen over and resulting in fears of flooding.
In the Swiss Alps, avalanches have killed at least seven people, while in western France, 14 regions have been hit by heavy snow.
In the past two days Britain’s national grid issued only its second warning in history about supplies.
Severe weather warnings are still in place across the UK, which is in the grip of its longest cold snap in 30 years.
The military was called in after around 1,000 vehicles were stranded when more than 40 centimetres of snow blocked the A3 highway in southern England.
More snow was expected in London and the forecast for Scotland was for an overnight low of minus 20 degrees Celsius.
Authorities in southern Britain have warned motorists to only use their vehicles if absolutely necessary.
“If you do have to go out take some warm clothes etc,” he said.
Richard Westman, from the special response team at the roads authority, says people need to listen more carefully to the warnings. .
“But people don’t.
Around 5,000 homes in Sussex are still without power as the country suffers through the cold snap, which is expected to last at least another week.”
Thousands of schools have been closed and around half the UK workforce stayed home, which is said to have cost the economy $1 billion in lost output.

.Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has taken a break from the rough and tumble of Italian politics, shopping for nudes on the French riviera. .
Art gallery spokesman Loic Deltour described the works as “sensual nudes” worth “several tens of thousands of euros”.
Witnesses said security was visibly tight around Mr Berlusconi during his shopping trip.
The billionaire media magnate, 73, has been mostly out of the public eye since December 13, when a man, said to have a long history of psychiatric troubles, hit him in the face with a miniature model of Milan cathedral.
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.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.

.France has warmed up for their clash against New Zealand by crushing Samoa 43-5 in a one-sided rugby international at Stade de France.
Coach Marc Lievremont largely revamped the side that upset world champion South Africa 20-13 last week in Toulouse, but that did not stop France from running in seven tries, four of which were converted by scrum half Morgan Parra. I’am also happy to be spoilt for choice before naming the 23-man squad that will face the All Blacks,” he said.
“I’m very happy with our performance tonight.
“This France team will become a great team when it reaches the status of favourite against the best teams in the world and vindicates it by a series of wins. .”
Samoa, which came close to upsetting Wales last week, losing 17-13 at the Millennium Stadium, was never in contention this time, although it resisted bravely in the second half.
“I hope it will come very quickly, but we are not there yet and we know the All Blacks will put forward a very strong challenge next Saturday in Marseille.
France: 43 (F Trinh-Duc 2, D Szarzewski, V Clerc, Y Jauzion, T Dusautoir, B Fall tries; M Parra 4 conversions.
France, which was far too fast, powerful and clever for the visitors, will face a tougher task against the All Blacks next weekend in Marseille.
Samoa: 5 (I Tekori try)
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.Football’s world ruling body FIFA has officially turned down a request from the Irish football authorities to stage a replay of their controversial World Cup play-off defeat to France.
Backed by Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen, the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) had lodged the request with FIFA.
However a statement on FIFA’s website said: “FIFA has today, 20 November 2009, replied to the request made by the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) to replay the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa play-off match held on 18 November 2009 between France and the Republic of Ireland in Paris.”
France qualified for the 2010 World Cup by winning the two-leg tie 2-1 on aggregate, although there has been outrage and claims of cheating after a blatant Thierry Henry handball led to France’s decisive equaliser.
“In the reply, FIFA states that the result of the match cannot be changed and the match cannot be replayed. .
The French Football Federation (FFF) said it had “taken note” of FIFA’s decision but said it would make “no further comment”.
“A previously scheduled meeting of the FAI board of management will take place this afternoon where the matter will be considered,” an FAI statement said.”
Despite no likelihood of a replay, there have been calls for FIFA president Sepp Blatter to personally comment on the controversy, which many commentators claim has further tarnished the sport.
“No further comment will be made until this meeting has concluded.
“Where is Sepp Blatter? Why hasn’t he come out and stood up and told everyone how it is?
“He’s very good at telling other countries how to run their game.
Former Republic of Ireland midfielder Ray Houghton admitted he did not expect FIFA to order a replay as it is governed by the rules, but he called on Blatter to make a public statement on the decision.”
Henry admitted he handled the ball just before crossing for William Gallas, who headed home the equaliser that broke Irish hearts at the Stade de France. It really needed the top man to come out and tell the footballing public why they have made this decision.
But while Henry was widely condemned, and his integrity questioned, the French football authorities maintain that the referee, Swede Martin Hansson, and not Henry is to blame.
But while Henry was widely condemned, and his integrity questioned, the French football authorities maintain that the referee, Swede Martin Hansson, and not Henry is to blame.
FIFA’s statement added: “As is clearly mentioned in the Laws of the Game, during matches, decisions are taken by the referee and these decisions are final. I don’t understand why we are expected to say sorry,” France coach Raymond Domenech said.”
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.France has closed in on the World Cup finals, while fellow star-studded giant Portugal struggled for a 1-0 home victory over Bosnia-Herzegovina on a night of tense, first-leg play-off ties. .
Chelsea striker Anelka struck the vital away goal with 18 minutes left at Croke Park, with his shot taking a wicked deflection off Sean St Ledger and past Ireland goalkeeper Shay Given.
In Lisbon, Portugal, the 2006 semi-finalist but playing without the injured Cristiano Ronaldo, struggled to a win over Bosnia Herzegovina.
Ireland had wasted a golden opportunity in the first half when Liam Lawrence missed the target from just eight yards.
Porto defender Bruno Alves was on target with a powerful backpost header after 31 minutes for the game’s only goal.
It could have been a black night for the Portuguese, who were saved by the woodwork on three occasions, including twice in the last minute.
But Senijad Ibricic crashed a header against the crossbar, before a dramatic final minute which saw Bosnian striker Edin Dzeko’s far-post header come off the crossbar while Zlatan Muslimovic’s follow-up volley came off the post.
Despite losing 2-1 to Russia in Moscow, Nejc Pecnik’s goal two minutes from time gave Slovenia hope it they can make sure of a second World Cup appearance in the return leg.
Meanwhile, unheralded Slovenia and Ukraine took tentative steps closer to finals.
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Ukraine, a quarter-finalist in 2006, will also be confident of achieving back-to-back World Cup spots, after holding 2004 European champions Greece to a scoreless draw in Athens