Two a penny

.The niece of a British government minister is set to face court accused of the murder of a young Frenchman whose throat was slit after she brought him to her home.
Jessica Davies contacted police in the early hours of a Sunday morning in November 2007 to say she had stabbed 24-year-old Olivier Mugnier at her apartment, in the Saint-Germain-en-Laye suburb west of Paris.
Police found stab wounds on the young man’s body, some of them on his throat.
Police said the now 30-year-old niece of Britain’s junior defence minister Quentin Davies was four times over the drink-drive alcohol limit and could barely stand or speak when they arrested her.
Legal sources said psychiatrists who had examined Davies found she suffered from psychological problems and had a “borderline” personality and that responsibility at the time of the crime was “altered”. His death was caused by a knife blow to the chest, police said.
The trial by jury in a court in Versailles is expected to last two days, with a verdict on Tuesday.
Davies, who is being held in Versailles women’s prison, claimed to remember nothing of the stabbing except that she had met Mr Mugnier in an Irish pub near her flat a few hours before his death.
The British press speculated after her arrest that Mr Mugnier’s death was the result of a sex game that turned to violence.
Davies faces a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison if convicted of voluntary homicide without premeditation.
The papers said French police have probed whether Davies was inspired by that murder, for which US student Amanda Knox was handed a 26-year prison term last month and for which her Italian boyfriend also got 26 years in jail.
British papers drew parallels with a high-profile sex game murder in Italy, just a few days earlier.
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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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.A man jailed in France for plotting to bomb an Australian nuclear power reactor could come up for early release next year, his lawyer said.
Convicted in 2007, Willie Brigitte received a nine-year jail sentence, of which six years was a fixed term. . With three years served before his conviction, the fixed part expires in November 2010.
Mr Durimel said that for early release, Brigitte would have to have a record of good behaviour and a guarantee of work in France, where he would have to remain for a probationary period.
But he stressed that “nothing was decided”, playing down Australian media reports that Brigitte, 41, could be freed next year for good behaviour.
Brigitte, a Muslim convert from the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, was jailed in France for plotting to blow up a nuclear power plant in Australia and other possible targets.
During his jail term so far, “to my knowledge he has had no disciplinary incidents, so he is behaving quite correctly”, the lawyer said.
Mr Durimel argued at the time that there was a lack of proof to convict Brigitte, who was jailed on charges of “criminal conspiracy in relation with a terrorist enterprise”.
He was accused of setting up a terrorist cell in Australia on the orders of a Pakistani extremist group.
This catch-all offence, used in almost all terrorism cases in France, gives judges wide-ranging powers of arrest and detention without the need to prove that an attack was imminent.
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.Hopes for a new global climate pact have risen after rich nations at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Trinidad and Tobago offered to help poorer countries bear the costs of implementing any deal.
Commonwealth countries are home to two billion people, or a third of the planet’s population - including major global players like Britain and India, and smaller island states like Nauru and the Maldives.
The United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Danish Prime Minister Loekke Rasmussen joined 53 Commonwealth leaders to work on the issue of climate change ahead of next month’s conference in Copenhagen.
He and Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen praised a move by Britain and France to launch a multi-billion-dollar fund for developing nations.
“Success in Copenhagen is in sight,” UN chief Ban Ki-moon told the summit.
But he stressed the deal to be hammered out by some 87 leaders including US President Barack Obama must include “commitments, numbers and precise language”.
Mr Rasmussen said it was now “realistic” to expect Copenhagen to result in the framework for a treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol which expires in 2012.
Mr Ban, who has led the push towards Copenhagen, agreed it must not become just another talking shop, saying, “We will come out with a very concrete foundation for a legally binding treaty.
“The Commonwealth can be proud of the fact that in each of its six decades it has shaped the international response to emerging global challenges,” she told the gathered leaders.”
The need to address a changing climate was a point reinforced by Queen Elizabeth at this morning’s opening ceremony. .
“And on this, the eve of the UN Copenhagen summit on climate change, the Commonwealth has an opportunity to lead once more.
- Canada singled out -
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper faced growing international pressure to take action, with some activists even calling for Canada to be suspended from the Commonwealth.
“The threat to our environment is not a new concern but it is now a global challenge which will continue to affect the security and stability of millions for years to come,” she said.
Mr Ban singled out Canada at the Commonwealth summit, saying Ottawa should act as soon as possible to create an ambitious target to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Mr Ban singled out Canada at the Commonwealth summit, saying Ottawa should act as soon as possible to create an ambitious target to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Mr Harper has now reversed his earlier position and says he will attend the climate talks in Copenhagen.
The International Energy Agency ranks Canada alongside Australia in the world’s top 5 per cent of polluters, per capita, yet Ottawa still has no policy to combat climate change.
The two European leaders proposed to compensate developing countries for the economic disadvantages they would face in cutting carbon emissions.
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Much of the new momentum for a climate deal stemmed from a joint overture by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Mr Sarkozy.
For the first time, India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said he was willing to commit his country to ambitious global carbon emission cuts, provided others shared the burden.
“Poorer countries must have an understanding that the richer countries will help them adapt to climate change and make the necessary adjustments in their economies,” Mr Brown said on his website.
“Australia is of the view that such a fast-start fund can assist in bringing about a good outcome at Copenhagen, but most critically, assist those most vulnerable states dealing with adaptation challenges now,” he said.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd also welcomed what he called “a fast-start fund”.
Reporting by Hayden Cooper in Trinidad and Tobago, Dan Karpenchuk in Toronto and wires

.France’s first lady, ex-supermodel Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, has agreed to star in Woody Allen’s next movie.
“He suggested I appear in his next film. I don’t know what the role would be, but I said yes,” the 41-year-old Italian-born singer-songwriter told the main evening entertainment show on the Canal+ network.
“I’m not an actress at all.
“I go into everything blindly or I’d never do anything at all,” she added, apparently referring to her showbiz career rather than to her sudden marriage last year to President Nicolas Sarkozy. When I’m a grandmother I’d like to be able to say I made a film with Woody Allen. Perhaps I’ll be completely hopeless, but I can’t miss an opportunity like this one.
“Woody Allen kindly asked me not to do a film with anyone else before him.”
New York filmmaker Allen visited the French first couple in June this year during a trip to Paris to promote his last movie, Whatever Works.
“If anything concrete ever comes of it, it’ll be a great experience for me. She has charisma and she performs, so she’s not a stranger to an audience. .”
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.French star Thierry Henry considered ending his international career following the furore that surrounded his handball against Ireland in the World Cup play-off in Paris last Wednesday.
Speaking to the L’Equipe newspaper, the Barcelona striker says that he felt abandoned and alone in the days after the match, which saw the French qualify for South Africa on the back of a goal set up by Henry’s sleight of hand.
Asked if he had considered calling time on his international career Henry replied: “Oh yes.
“I was really upset, and not for the first time. On Friday when everything had gone too far.
“After Euro 2008 also but it was not the right moment. After the World Cup in 2006, I considered that but it was too early. There was a new generation who needed me.
“Despite everything that happened last week, the way I felt abandoned, I will never let my country down. It just wasn’t possible.
That led to calls from Ireland and from some sectors in France for the fixture to be replayed, but world governing body FIFA ruled out any such eventuality ahead of the World Cup draw, which takes place in Cape Town on December 4.”
Henry freely admitted at the end of the Ireland clash that he had used his hand in setting up the French equaliser for William Gallas, which was enough to send the Irish crashing out of the tournament in extra-time.
He did regret having celebrated the goal but says that he had been taken up by the emotion of the moment in what had been a tense encounter.
Henry, who himself stated it would be best to replay the match, says he feels great sympathy for the Irish having suffered a similar fate when playing for Arsenal against Liverpool in 2001 FA Cup final.
“I shouldn’t have done that, but quite honestly it was just out of my control,” he said. .”
Asked if he thought the incident would leave a lasting stain on his career, Henry said. After that we did not celebrate, not even in the dressing rooms. I don’t think that all I have achieved in my career up until now will be be spoiled by this. “Quite honestly no.”
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.The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) has ruled out any connection between an incident on a Qantas jet last year, which left over 100 passengers injured, and the crash of an Air France Airbus into the Atlantic Ocean.
The ATSB has released its second interim report into what may have caused the Qantas jet to nosedive twice on its way from Singapore to Perth.
Investigators say they are yet to determine what caused sensors on the plane to fail, but they say interference from cosmic rays is among the issues being investigated.
“We verified .
The ATSB’s Martin Dolan says the cause of the incident has not been found, although the plane was tested in a flight over a radio transmitting station in Western Australia to see if cosmic waves were to blame… that the station was transmitting and there were no anomalous effects, so it was an interesting idea but not relevant to what happened here,” he said.
The bureau says international aviation authorities have worked out a protocol to override the problem, which is now part of general procedure. .

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The bureau says although the Qantas plane and an Air France jet were similar aircraft, the sequence of events leading up to each failure was different, and the sensors involved were different models from different manufacturers

.President Nicolas Sarkozy awarded US actor and director Clint Eastwood one of France’s top honours, hailing him as a cinema legend and a symbol of the type of America that the French adored.
It is unusual for a foreigner to be elevated to the rank of commander of the French Legion of Honour but Eastwood, who went from playing tough guy roles like Dirty Harry to directing highly praised films, said he saw France as his second home.
“My wife chastised me saying if that was true, why don’t I speak French,” he told friends and officials gathered at the Elysee Palace for the ceremony, promising to take lessons.
“As a commander of the arts and letters, I think I will go out on the streets of France today and throw my weight around,” said Eastwood, 79, who recently finished making supernatural thriller Hereafter in France. .
“When one loves the cinema of a people, one loves the people,” the president said.
Mr Sarkozy said French admiration for US cinema helped transcend any problems the two countries might have had in the past - a veiled reference to France’s fierce opposition to the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
He called Eastwood - whose line “Come on, make my day” from Dirty Harry became a global catchphrase - “a myth, a giant, an example of the admiration we have for American culture”.
“You, you have never let us down,” he added.
He added that problems between the two countries had only arisen “when America was not as big as we would have liked in our dreams”.
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.Rafael Nadal has silenced a partisan crowd by knocking out local favourite and Paris Masters title holder Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 7-5, 7-5 with an impressive performance to reach the semi-finals.
World number two Nadal, who has won the French Open on the other side of town four times but never this event at the Bercy hall, will meet Novak Djokovic for a place in Sunday’s final.
Gael Monfils, seeded 15th, later made sure there would be a French presence in the last four by recovering from a set down to oust 12th seed Marin Cilic of Croatia with a 3-6, 6-4, 6-4 win.
The Serbian world number three earlier ruined Robin Soderling’s hopes of making the World Tour Finals in London by beating the Swede 6-4, 1-6, 6-3.
Czech Stepanek, the 13th seed, qualified the easy way when US Open champion Juan Martin del Potro, who was hampered by an abdominal strain and was trailing 4-0, retired.
The gifted but erratic Monfils worried his fans at first with clumsy errors, but then stepped up a gear and thrilled a raucous 14,000 crowd with astonishing winners to set up a semi-final against Radek Stepanek.
Spaniard Nadal, who still has an outside chance of finishing the year as number one, had the crowd against him and faced a strong challenge from the powerful Tsonga, who loves fast indoor courts.
Argentine Del Potro, the world number five who had survived seven match points before Chilean Fernando Gonzalez retired in their third-round match, clearly struggled to move around the court before quitting.
“I played a lot better today,” said Nadal, who struggled in his previous two matches, saving five match points in the first. But he showed more composure when it mattered. This is positive and gives me a lot of confidence.
“I was really focused all the time and played well at important moments.
The energetic Spaniard underlined his determination by winning his last game to love and finishing with a service winner, putting Tsonga out of the race for the Nov.”
Nadal made very few unforced errors and seized his chances, managing breaks with perfect timing in the 11th game of each set.
World number 10 Soderling’s defeat by Djokovic means the French Open runner-up, like Tsonga, will not go to London and Spaniard Fernando Verdasco grabs the last ticket to the finals. 22-29 season finale featuring the world’s top eight players.
“It looked tense because physically I didn’t really feel 100 per cent there,” Djokovic said.
Djokovic, who beat world number one Roger Federer in the Basel final last week, looked tired at times, notably in the second set, which Soderling took in just 28 minutes.”
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.Battling Rafael Nadal has moved into the Paris Masters quarter-finals with a 6-3, 3-6, 7-5 win over Tommy Robredo, underlining his threat to unseat Roger Federer as world number one by the end of the season.
With Federer a shock loser to Frenchman Julien Benneteau, a win for Nadal in the final would leave him just 305 points adrift of his arch rival with the season-ending ATP World Tour Finals to come in London later this month.
Nadal ended Federer’s long reign as world number one after winning the Beijing Olympics last year, but Federer bounced back to regain the top spot in July after winning both the French Open and Wimbledon titles.
Robredo even served for the match at 5-4 in the deciding set, but once again Nadal produced his best with his back to the wall to pull through by winning the final three games of the match.
Nadal needed to save five match points to get past Spanish compatriot Nicolas Almagro in a second round marathon of over three hours, and he wobbled again against Robredo, another countryman and a player he had beaten in straight sets in all five of their previous encounters.
The Scot, who won a season-best sixth title in Valencia last weekend, was taken to 1:45am (local time) the night before in defeating James Blake 6-3, 6-7 (5-7), 7-6 (7-4).
Joining Federer on the sidelines though was fourth seed Andy Murray, who found two matches in one day too much to handle as he lost 1-6, 6-3, 6-4 to Radek Stepanek of the Czech Republic.
“I said last night it was going to be difficult to come back and feel 100 per cent.
“But you still come out and you try to give it your best shot. It’s obviously limited recovery after a long match,” he said.”
Nikolay Davydenko meanwhile became the seventh player to qualify for the eight-man London Tour Finals, despite losing 6-3, 3-6, 6-4 to Sweden’s Robin Soderling in another third round match. [I] wasn’t good enough.
But then Spain’s Fernando Verdasco, who was holding on to the eighth and final slot, lost 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 to Marin Cilic of Croatia.
Placed seventh in the standings coming into Paris, the loss briefly left the Russian at the mercy of the four other players in with a chance of playing in London from November 22-29.
His defeat meant that Davydenko was assured of finishing the week no lower than eighth, which stamped his ticket for London.
His defeat meant that Davydenko was assured of finishing the week no lower than eighth, which stamped his ticket for London.
The match was evenly poised, with Gonzalez having taken the first set 7-6 (8-6), before Del Potro hit back with an identical scoreline in the second set.
Chilean Fernando Gonzalez dropped out of the race when he pulled out injured in his third-round match against Argentine Juan Martin Del Potro.
Next up for him, with a place in the semi-finals at stake, will be third seed Novak Djokovic, who cruised past French qualifier Arnaud Clement 6-2, 6-2 in 75 minutes.
Soderling, who reached the French Open final the last time he was in Paris in June, will still have to at least reach the final at Bercy to have any chance of making it through to London.
He is also eager to win his first Masters Series title of the year, having lost in four finals.
The 2008 Australian Open champion from Serbia, last year’s Tour Finals winner, is seeking to lift back-to-back titles following his win in Basel last week, where he beat Federer in the final.
“He is a big server and is having the best year of his career.
“Robin has a chance to qualify for the Masters Cup so he will give his best in the quarter-finals,” Djokovic said.”
Benneteau, who said his win over the world number one Federer was the best moment of his career, failed to carry his form through, losing 6-4, 6-3 to compatriot Gael Monfils. .
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