Two a penny

.The leader of armed Basque separatists ETA was caught on Sunday in northern France, the Spanish Interior Ministry said, in what was the latest blow to a group weakened by hundreds of arrests.
Ibon Gogeascoechea, on the run since 1997, was caught along with two other senior ETA rebels in a joint Spanish-French raid close to the small town of Cahan in Normandy, the ministry said. .
Much of the improvement has been due to better coordination between authorities in Spain and France, which ETA has long used as a hideout.
Security forces believe ETA, which wants independence for the Basque Country and has killed more than 850 people, has been severely weakened by hundreds of arrests in recent years.
But Batasuna has lost influence over the rebels since the collapse of peace talks with the Spanish government following a bomb attack on Madrid airport in 2006 which killed two people.
A leading member of the group’s political wing Batasuna last week called on ETA to continue its struggle by peaceful means.
The 54-year-old Gogeascoechea and his accomplices were caught in a car with false licence plates after arousing suspicion by renting a rural house using fake identities, the Interior Ministry said.
–

.
ETA’s last fatal attack was the killing of two police officers on the island of Majorca in July

.The health ministry in France has issued a warning after eight people died and seven fell sick in two European countries from using heroin contaminated by anthrax.
“Since December 6, there have been 15 confirmed cases of anthrax among heroin users, 14 in Scotland and one in Germany,” the ministry’s General Directorate for Health (DGS) said in a statement. “The likeliest source is heroin contaminated by anthrax spores.
“Eight people died,” it said.
Anthrax is a potentially lethal bacterium that exists naturally in the soil and can also occur among cattle. .
The ministry said the contaminated drug may also be circulating in France and other European countries. It is also, more notoriously, a potential bio-terror weapon.
–

.
“There is no outward sign or colour enabling the user to tell whether the heroin has been contaminated by anthrax, and contaminated heroin dissolves or is used in the same way as uncontaminated heroin,” it said

.The niece of a British government minister has told a court she drunkenly plunged a knife into the naked body of a Frenchman she picked up in a bar, but has no idea why she did it.
Jessica Davies, 30, told her French murder trial she had blacked out and had no recollection of killing Olivier Mugnier except “the sensation of the knife going in”.
“I am horrified by what I have done,” said the niece of Britain’s junior defence minister Quentin Davies. I don’t remember killing Olivier, but I take responsibility for killing him.
“I remember telling the police that I was a monster.
Davies called emergency services after the stabbing.”
Davies says she no longer remembers making a statement the day of the November 2007 that said “I just wanted to cut him a little but the knife went in by itself”.
They arrived around 2:40 am (local time) on Sunday morning but within an hour Mugnier had succumbed to the two knife wounds, one of which went right through his body and touched his spine. .
Police told the court there was no sign of a struggle in the one-bedroom flat and that neighbours had heard nothing.
Earlier the court heard how Davies developed behavioural problems after the acrimonious divorce of her parents when she was 14 and how she was badly affected by her maternal grandmother’s repeated suicide attempts.
The blood-stained kitchen knife that killed 24-year-old Mugnier was passed around for inspection by the three judges and the nine members of the jury at the court in Versailles.
Her mother broke down in tears at one point as she comprehensive her daughter’s difficult adolescent and university years.
She started drinking heavily as a teenager and by the time she was in university, “I was drunk six days out of seven” she said, adding that she had also developed a cocaine habit.
Davies faces a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison if convicted of voluntary homicide without premeditation.
Davies faces a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison if convicted of voluntary homicide without premeditation.
-

.Former French president Jacques Chirac has been placed under formal investigation for misuse of public funds while he was mayor of Paris.
There are now two judicial cases hanging over Mr Chirac.
The first and larger of these cases will go to trial next year.
Both concern his long period as mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995 and both centre on claims he paid senior members of his political party the RPR with funds that belonged to city hall. That means a trial in this case is more likely.
Now Mr Chirac has been told he is under formal investigation in the second. .
Mr Chirac has long protested his innocence in both affairs and he says he will be happy to explain his side of the story before a judge

.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.
– Momentum builds –
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

.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. .

.
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”.
-

.Kangaroos stalwart Petero Civoniceva admits the Australian pack needs to step up if it is to walk away with the silverware from the Four Nations final on November 14.
While the Kangaroos still need to beat winless France in Paris this weekend to confirm a spot in the Elland Road decider, Civoniceva says the tournament favourites have failed to impose themselves up front against either New Zealand or England.
New Zealand intimidated the Australian forwards with some brutal defence in their drawn tournament opener, while the Kangaroos struggled to contain the much bigger English pack when they started to get a bit of ball in the second half of Saturday’s 26-16 win in Wigan.
Those two sides will battle it out on Saturday for the other final berth.
“They had all the momentum and probably if the game went a little bit longer it could have got a bit scary.
“Those latter stages it started to get a bit hairy, but full credit to the boys for hanging in,” he said of the England game, when the hosts came back from 26-0 down at half-time.
“To a man we all knew we probably let ourselves down with what happened against the Kiwis. .”
The match was only the second Civoniceva has played since late June after damaging his toe in Queensland’s Origin II win in Sydney.
“We weren’t too far off the mark, but physically they certainly set the standard and we had to come out and match England up front where they’re very strong.
The France game would normally be one where the elder statesman of the Kangaroos pack would be expected to get the night off.
The 33-year-old admitted to struggling with his fitness late in the game, a factor which will probably see him get another run against France in Toulouse before the final.
“I’ll definitely put my hand up [to play against France] – if the results were a bit more dominant I might have got a rest,” he said.
But the need for match fitness is likely to be the deciding factor – plus the fact the 38-Test veteran needs to play to be able to break Johnny Raper’s record for most appearances in the green and gold by a forward.
“We were on the back foot, we were defending back to back sets but overall I was pretty happy.
“I probably hit the wall a little bit [against England].”
– AAP

.French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been accused of spending $400,000 of taxpayers’ money on a luxury shower that was never used. .
A spokesman for the French government said the $400,000 was spent on renovating more than just the shower.
It was custom-built for Mr Sarkozy, with power and massage jet buttons and surround-sound radio.
The French Court of Accounts put the total cost at $280 million.
The French European Union presidency, which ran from July to December 2008, was one of the most expensive in history.

.

LATEST:
A $50,000 reward has been posted by Lord Ashcroft for information leading to the safe return of Aisling Symes.

Meanwhile a week after two-year-old Aisling Symes’ disappearance, police say they have no leads and have issued another plea for her return.

The award offered by the

The toddler disappeared from Longburn Rd in Henderson where she was last seen with an Asian woman in her 30s walking a dog.

Today the head of the inquiry, Detective Inspector Gary Davey, said there had been no major breakthrough but had been getting a lot of information from the public.

Police poured huge resources into the search but last week said it was most likely she had been kidnapped and the mystery Asian woman may hold the key to her disappearance.

“We are still appealing for anyone who has her to come forward.

Police staff on the inquiry had been increased to 70. We just want her back.

Last week police said after an intensive search of the area around the Longburn Rd home of her deceased grandparents, they were convinced she was not in the area.”

He said today he was still hopeful someone had abducted her and was looking after her but could not rule out other possibilities.

“I believe that.

“My own genuine hope or gut feeling is that somebody does have her and she is still alive,” he told NewstalkZB today.”

The Asian woman was critical to police inquiries, he said. I am optimistic, I believe family are and certainly the investigation team are optimistic that we can find Aisling.

“She doesn’t need to fear the police.

“She doesn’t need to fear the police.

Aisling’s father said the past week has been “one very long bad day”.”

Police had “nothing solid” in the search for Aisling and all they could do was follow the potential leads they had and “make sure we keep an open mind and follow each of those phases down to its conclusion”, he said.He said the family hopes that whoever has their daughter, is looking after her.

Allan Symes told Radio New Zealand today that evenings and mornings have been especially hard for the family, who are exhausted.

.