Two a penny

.Russia’s Elena Dementieva has won the Paris Indoors WTA tournament for the first time in her ninth attempt, defeating Lucie Safarova of the Czech Republic 6-7 (5-7), 6-1, 6-4 in the final.
The top seed dropped a tightly-contested first set when Safarova, 23, powered a forehand past her to take the tie-break 7-5, but she was in total command in the second as her heavy ground strokes kept Safarova pinned back.
She had been the losing finalist here last year, going down to the now retired Amelie Mauresmo of France
“I have been trying to win this tournament for so many years - it’s been one of the most difficult wins of my career and I am so happy,” she said.
The 28-year-old Russian, who won the Olympic title in Beijing in 2008, grabbed an early break in the third set and held on to win her second WTA title of the year after Sydney. .
“You have to fight to the very end and if you fight for every point anything can happen.
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Dementieva, who has yet to win a grand slam title, was one of the favourites at the Australian Open in January but she was drawn against wildcard Justine Henin in the second round and lost in straight sets to the Belgian

.Russian former world number one Marat Safin has bid farewell to the game of tennis after falling to Juan Martin Del Potro in the second round of the Paris Masters.
The talented but temperamental 29-year-old star had already announced his retirement from the sport and bowed out before an adoring French public that had previously seen him triumph in the tournament on three occasions.
“I’ll go with the flow,” Safin said when asked about his future after his 6-4, 5-7, 6-4 defeat. I belong to myself.
“Now I have no schedule, no practices, no nothing. But at the same time it’s a tough sport.
“What will I miss? Being out on the court and competing. It’s very cruel. The pressure that you are going through continuously throughout all these years.
“I definitely won’t miss the injuries and the pressure. This is what I hated. .
“In tennis you can go from top 10 to 150.
“In soccer or hockey or basketball, you sign a contract and no matter how you play, you make your money. It’s a very tough living. It’s a very tough living.
Safin played his first slam at the 1998 French Open and won his first ATP title at Boston in 1999.
His often-volatile 12-year career peaked with a 6-4, 6-3, 6-3 over Pete Sampras in the 2000 US Open final, taking his first grand slam crown two months before ascending to the top of the rankings throne.
But whether it was smashing more than 700 racquets or the dreams of rivals, Safin was always entertaining - mercurial at times, witty, grumpy and typically a formidable big server who quit the game as he played it, on his own terms.
He added the Australian Open, the last of 15 career crowns, to his haul at the third attempt in 2005, having lost the 2002 and 2004 finals.
His mother Rausa coached him until he was 13 and also helped guide his sister Dinara, who is now the women’s world number two.
He began playing tennis at the age of six with his father Misha, who directed a Moscow racquet club.
Others have labelled him an under-achiever in comparison with Andre Agassi, Roger Federer or Sampras - prodding the lionheart to roar in response.
“Sometimes it’s not easy to understand my brother,” Safina admits.
“Agassi should have been winning 15 grand slams.
“In the history of tennis, every single player is an under-achiever,” Safin said. Federer should be winning 25 already. Federer should be winning 25 already.
“Everybody could do better. I should probably have won a couple of more, but I’m pretty satisfied with what I did.”
Injuries hampered Safin’s hopes at times. Torn left wrist ligaments and a sore right shoulder ruined his 2003 season.
A left knee injury in late 2005 kept him from defending his Australian Open title.
“I was a little bit unlucky with my injuries. That’s the only thing that I regret,” he said.
“I made a couple of great comebacks, but eventually the knee injury was really tough to come back from. It took quite a long time to play without any pain.”
Safin’s year-long good-bye tour has been bittersweet.
He reached the third round at the Australian Open and the second round at the French Open, but lost his openers at the US Open and Wimbledon.
Grass, he often said, would be better used as cattle feed.
“I’d like to be remembered as a decent player,” he said.
“Nobody ever complained about me and I never complained about anybody.
“I’m not writing a book though, no chance.
“My secrets and memories will stay with me.”
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.Mission accomplished was about the best Australian coach Tim Sheens could take from his side’s 42-4 win over France in Paris on Sunday morning (AEDT).
The ugly victory sent the Kangaroos through to a Four Nations final against England next weekend.
Not even a hat-trick to debutant centre Michael Jennings could temper Sheens’ frustrations, though the veteran coach admitted the reality check could end up working in his side’s favour after they lost last year’s World Cup final to New Zealand after waltzing through the preliminary rounds.
A makeshift Australian side made hard work of overcoming a gallant French team, five second half tries including doubles to Morris twins Josh and Brett blowing out the score after the home side and an over-zealous New Zealand referee had done his best to kill the first half action.
“I’m not that happy with where we are but we’re in the final - that’s the first thing.
“We never looked like we were going to get beat, but I wouldn’t say we were in our rhythm or that it was a great game,” he said.
“Running up a hundred up against a French side wouldn’t have done us any good either.
“We had to scrape a bit and maybe that’s good for us.
“I’d rather be trying to improve than playing at the top of our game and being a little worried about not being able to go to that next level. The boys had to work hard and it was a good 80 minutes for some of them. They played so well to get there and then they had a few hiccups and it really caught them off guard.
“I think there was a bit of that last year in the World Cup.”
An Australian side missing the likes of Cameron Smith, Billy Slater and Greg Inglis was never going to be at its best against the French.
“We haven’t played our best, but we’ve seen elements of it here and there.
“I’m getting used to this one,” French coach Bobby Goulding said. .
“You can’t give sides like Australia opportunities.
“It’s been three games and it’s the same old story.”
While man of the match Jennings probably did not do enough to unseat either Inglis or Justin Hodges for a start in the final, the Penrith flyer said he was happy just to make an impact in his first game.
“We showed commitment, effort, guts and we showed French rugby league is back on track.
“Three tries just makes it so much better.
“It’s a great way to remember it - I just wanted to get the win,” he said.”
- AAP

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A Wanganui toddler who died in unexplained circumstances over the weekend is the son of a gang member jailed for the 2007 shooting of another Wanganui toddler, Jhia Te Tua.

Two-year-old Karl Richard Arc Perigo-Check received severe internal injuries over the weekend.

Inspector Duncan MacLeod of Wanganui police confirmed the dead boy was the son of Karl Check, who is serving a 15-year prison sentence for the 2007 murder, which happened after an altercation between the Mongrel Mob and Black Power gangs.

He was taken to Wanganui Hospital on Saturday afternoon, where he died.

While there were gang members associated with the case, police were keeping an open mind as to why and how the child died.

“We’re looking at the moment on behalf of the coroner to see how the death occurred,” he said. We’ve only been investigating since yesterday afternoon,” Mr MacLeod said.

“It’s early days yet.

Check, a father of seven, the drive-by instigator of the 2007 death, was found guilty of Jhia’s murder, along with the shooter Hayden Wallace and Ranji Forbes.

The investigation began after the post mortem “provided information which requires some explanation”, police said earlier today. .

Check had his case against his sentence heard in the Court of Appeal today. Not by disease nor by accident but by the malicious actions of those charged to protect and love him,” he said.

“The real scandal is that another child has likely been killed in this country.

“When are we going to protect these children? When are we going to get tough on derelict whanau, on deadbeat parents? Why do we tolerate this evil in our midst?”

.An 85-year-old West Australian man has died on an Air France flight from Paris to Singapore after the plane’s air-conditioning failed.
Melbourne passenger Ian Dunn told ABC Radio the plane was “insufferably hot” when they boarded in Paris and the pilot had trouble starting the engine.
He said a passenger became ill and the flight was diverted to Romania.
Mr Dunn says passengers were left to sit in the plane in 35 degree Celsius heat, with no food, before they were allowed to leave.
Attempts to revive the man on board the plane failed. .
“We were there on the plane for a further six hours and this heating situation just took over again, the plane just got hotter and hotter,” he said.
“Eventually after six hours, the pilot announced that fuelling had taken place and we would be off.”
Mr Dunn says the air-conditioner began working once the plane had taken off.
“Then he made several attempts to start the plane and eventually came back to us and said ‘I do not have sufficient power to start the engines’; they were his very words.

.The violent eruption of a Patagonian volcano last year has shown the high speed with which magma can burst through the earth’s crust, according to a European study.
The finding has prompted warnings for closer monitoring of potentially active volcanoes around the world.
The unexpected explosive eruption of the Chaiteìn volcano in Chile on 1 May 2008, occurred less than 24 hours after residents in the nearby town of Chaiteìn first began feeling earth tremors.
An examination of the forces behind the eruption published in the journal Nature , shows that the magma travelled at up to one-metre per second.
The force of the eruption resulted in ash being deposited across Chile and large parts of southern Argentina. This compares with the months to years of seismic unrest that precedes most eruptions.
It shot from a depth of more than five kilometres to the surface in about four hours. .
Depending on the nature of the eruption it can form pumice or obsidian on the surface.
Rhyolite is a volcanic material high in silica, which tends to make it very viscous or sticky and prone to explosive eruptions caused by trapped gasses.
Australian geologist, Dr Wally Johnson from Australian National University in Canberra is currently studying a rhyolitic eruption that occurred thousands of years ago at the Rabaul volcano in Papua New Guinea.
- Rare events -
The violent and unexpected nature of the blasts, together with their rarity, means the Chaiteìn eruption is the first rhyolite event to have been scientifically assessed in this way.
Dr Johnson says the last explosive rhyolitic eruption occurred in 1912 when the Novarupta volcano spewed 30 cubic kilometres of magma in 60 hours.
He says the analysis of the Chaiteìn eruption is strong.
“But when they do take place, they’re highly explosive and for anyone living nearby they’re certainly dangerous.
“But when they do take place, they’re highly explosive and for anyone living nearby they’re certainly dangerous.
“They put up a very, very good case for rhyolitic magma ascending very quickly through the crust,” Dr Johnsonsaid.
By documenting the speed with which the magma reached the surface, the researchers have now provided a measure for comparing the activity of other rhyolite volcanoes.”
Dr Johnson says that while rhyolite volcanoes are rare, there should be increased monitoring of potentially active volcanoes, in particular in developing countries, regardless of the magma involved.
“Basically once it starts, it’s on its way and there’s not much chance of getting a reasonably early warning.

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AFP - Somali pirates attempted to storm the flagship commanding French military forces in a night attack in the Indian Ocean after mistaking it for a cargo vessel, the military said here Wednesday.

French sailors saw off the attack and captured five pirates in the incident while no-one was injured, military spokesperson Admiral Christophe Prazuck said.

The pirates had tried to storm the 160-metre (525-foot) 18,000-tonne La Somme, a fuel supply ship used as the command centre for all French forces — ground, sea and air — in the Indian Ocean region.

The pirates, who because of the darkness took the French ship for a commercial vessel, were on board two vessels and opened fire with Kalashnikovs, he said.

On it they found five men but no weapons, the spokesperson said, adding that the pirates had apparently thrown all of the boat’s contents overboard.

The pirates tried to escape when they realised their mistake but were pursued by La Somme, which after an hour-long chase managed to catch one of the skiffs, Prazuck said. .

The world’s naval powers have deployed dozens of warships to the lawless waters off Somalia over the past year to curb attacks by pirates threatening one of the world’s busiest maritime trade routes

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French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Wednesday rejected an Iranian offer to release a French national detained in Tehran in exchange for the release of Iranian prisoners held in France, calling the offer blackmail. .

Sarkozy response was unequivocal. This is blackmail. There will be no exchange, Sarkozy told French television. An extradition request for Kakavand is under review at the French courts.

Although Ahmadinejad did not mention any names with respect to Iranian prisoners in France, officials believe he was referring to Ali Vakili Rad, imprisoned in France for the 1991 Paris murder of Shapour Bakhtiar, who served as Iran prime minister under the deposed Shah, and Majid Kakavand, detained at the behest of the United States for allegedly purchasing sensitive technology on the Internet.

France rejects any comparison between Reiss and the Iranian prisoners held in French jails.

French foreign ministry spokeswoman Christine Fages said there is no comparison between the situation of Clotilde Reiss and these people.

Do you think I would be ready to swap Shapour Bakhtiar assassin for a young student whose only crime was to speak the Iranian language and love Persian civilisation? Sarkozy asked. These are prisoners who also have a family, they also have a father and a mother &hellipUnfortunately, we have seen no action by the French government in favour of these prisoners.

Some Iranians have been in prison in France for years, Ahmadinejad told France 2 television on Tuesday, when asked about Reiss.

How these latest diplomatic salvos will translate into action remains to be seen.

Speaking through a translator, Ahmadinejad told the channel: If we wanted to blackmail anyone, there would be simpler ways than that. It not clear how and if [these] verbal attacks between Tehran and Paris will affect the [Reiss] verdict, says correspondent Aresu Eqbali, reporting for them in Tehran. It not clear how and if [these] verbal attacks between Tehran and Paris will affect the [Reiss] verdict, says correspondent Aresu Eqbali, reporting for them in Tehran.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner has been vocal about his outrage over the affair, telling the French media on July 7 that Reiss sent photos, just like hundreds &ndash thousands &ndash of photos were sent, pictures taken by mobile phone&hellip That is not spying.

She was charged as part of a mass trial of protesters on August 8 and accused of collecting information and provoking rioters, according to Iran state-run media, allegedly for taking photos of the demonstrations with her cell phone.

Clotilde Reiss trial - Iran - Nicolas Sarkozy
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Reiss was released from Tehran Insein prison on August 16 but is required to remain at the French embassy pending a verdict

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Freelance journalist Denis Robert is in the witness box Tuesday at the Paris Criminal Court in a trial that has rocked the French political world to its core.

Robert will be questioned on the Clearstream files that came into his possession in 2001, before they were faked to include names of high-profile figures in French politics, including current French President Nicolas Sarkozy , who were accused of taking illegal kickbacks from the sale of French frigates to Taiwan in 1991.

&raquo Special Report on France&#039s trial of the decade
&raquo Who&#039s who in the trial
&raquo How a finance trial turned into a major political scandal
&raquo A glossary of terms in the Clearstream saga
Robert is accused of having handled stolen information and breach of trust.

Bourges was part of an audit mission looking into the accounts at Clearstream just after Robert had investigated the company for possible money laundering.

Also giving evidence is a former intern at accounting firm Arthur Andersen Florian Bourges , who is accused of stealing the offending list from Clearstream and passing it on to Robert. He was told to keep it to himself.

During the audit Bourget noticed certain anomalies, specifically relating to accounts dated 2016 alongside names of non-existent clients.

At the end of the audit, Bourges kept copies of accounts he had seen, including a list of more than 33,000 accounts which he passed on to Robert.

De Villepin is accused of conspiring to include Sarkozy on the Clearstream list when the two men were vying for their party’s nomination to succeed then-President Jacques Chirac.

The case has exposed bitter acrimony between Dominique de Villepin , a former French prime minister, and current French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

As the trial began on Monday, de Villepin, flanked by his wife and children, insisted that the case was being propelled by Sarkozy’s personal animosity towards him.

Case being ‘propelled by Sarkozy’

De Villepin, who vigorously denies the allegations, faces up to five years in jail and a &euro45,000 fine if convicted. I am here because of the dogged determination of one man, Nicolas Sarkozy.

I am here because of one man’s will, he said upon arriving at court.

I will come out of this a free man and exonerated, he told reporters.

I will come out of this a free man and exonerated, he told reporters.

De Villepin’s lawyer, Henri Leclerc, has asked that the court strip Sarkozy of his status as a civil plaintiff, arguing that his client cannot get a fair trial against a sitting head of state.

President of the Republic as civil plaintiff

Lawyers for both sides are facing off over whether Sarkozy’s involvement in the case is allowed under the French constitution.

But Sarkozy’s lawyer, Thierry Herzog, argues that the president is a civil party like any other.

We want to be tried according to fair procedures, Leclerc said on Monday.

Sarkozy insists he only wants the truth to come out.

Sarkozy registered as a plaintiff in 2006 to gain access to the case files and secure his right to seek damages, as have 39 others including Dominique Strauss-Kahn , now the head of the International Monetary Fund. It is high time that we get rid of all of these political manoeuvrings, once and for all. .

Clearstream trial - Dominique de Villepin - France - Nicolas Sarkozy

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AFP - The race to lead the UN’s culture and education agency UNESCO kicks off Monday amid controversy over charges that anti-Israel comments from Egypt’s Faruq Hosni make him unfit for the top job.

Representatives from 58 nations who make up UNESCO’s executive council begin meeting in Paris on Monday and a first round of voting to elect a successor to Japan’s Koichiro Matsuura is set for September 17.

Egypt’s culture minister for the past 22 years, Hosni is lobbying to cement his status as the frontrunner and become the next director general of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).

Wiesel, Bernard-Henri Levy and Claude Lanzmann wrote in Le Monde newspaper that the international community must spare itself from the shame of appointing Faruq Hosni to the post of UNESCO director general.

In all nine candidates are running for the post, but Hosni’s leading bid ran into trouble in May when Auschwitz survivor and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel joined two French intellectuals to oppose his candidacy.

Hosni has since voiced regret for the comments and sought to explain that they were uttered in the context of an exchange in parliament with hardliners from the Muslim Brotherhood.

The clamour surrounds comments Hosni made in May 2008, vowing to burn Israeli books himself if he found any in Egyptian libraries. .

A former Austrian foreign minister, Ferrero-Waldner has acknowledged that she does not have the full backing of European governments, some of which support rival bids by Lithuania’s UNESCO ambassador Ina Marciulionyte and Bulgarian ambassador to France Irina Bokova.

Hosni’s main rival for the post is European Commissioner for External Relations, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, but the choice of Egypt’s candidate has won much support in Europe as an attempt to reach out to the Muslim world.

In an interview in Cairo, Hosni sought to fend off the accusations leveled against him and said his candidacy was based on a basic philosophy which is reconciliation between peoples.

France must remain neutral on the issue as it is the host country for UNESCO but officials have said privately that Paris favours Hosni for the job.

A recent article in the prestigious American Foreign Policy magazine described Hosni’s bid as scandalous and accused him of echoing the rampant Judeophobia of Egyptian intellectual circles.

As head of UNESCO, he would encourage a rapprochement in the whole region, without exception, Hosni said.

Amid the brouhaha, the United States has refused to publicly back a contender, but a State Department spokesman took pains to point out that the right candidate must have a demonstrated commitment to UNESCO’s core principles.

Amid the brouhaha, the United States has refused to publicly back a contender, but a State Department spokesman took pains to point out that the right candidate must have a demonstrated commitment to UNESCO’s core principles.

UNESCO