Two a penny

.Frenchman Julien Benneteau will seek to win the first tournament of his career after beating second seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the semi-finals of the Open 13 tournament in Marseille.
Eighth-seeded Benneteau beat his compatriot Tsonga 7-6 (13-11), 5-7, 7-6 (7-3) in a fiercely contested match over two hours and 57 minutes.
Benneteau, who defeated world number one Roger Federer at the Paris Masters in November, will contest the fourth final of his career at the age of 28.
He will now face compatriot Michael Llodra, who prevailed 6-1, 7-6 (7-3) over German Mischa Zverev.
Tsonga levelled things up by winning the second set, battling back from 5-3 down to cancel out Benneteau’s advantage, but the world number 39 refused to be cowed and sewed up victory in a tense deciding tie-break.
Defending champion Tsonga broke first in the opening set but Benneteau fought back to take it to a tie-break that he eventually won after a titanic tussle.
“He makes fewer errors with his forehand.
“Julien has really improved,” said Tsonga, the world number nine.”
Benneteau enthused: “It was a great match, an intense battle. .
“But I’m proud to have held on until the end. I was afraid because I was leading 5-3 in the second set and I couldn’t see it out.
“I have to build on what I did here, where’ve I’ve gone after matches against players ranked higher than me. I’m not going to put crazy pressure on myself to win my first tournament though.”
-

.Unseeded Frenchman Michael Llodra has pulled off an upset at the ATP Open 13 tournament in Marseille, beating top seed and world number eight Robin Soderling of Sweden 7-6 (7-2), 6-4.
“Against this kind of player you have to seize every opportunity, which I think I managed to do,” the 29-year-old said after the quarter-final match. After winning the first set, I knew he would be nervous.
“I made a lot of effort to come back and win the tie-break.”
Llodra, who beat Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis in the previous round, will play Germany’s unseeded Mischa Zverev in the last four after he beat 19-year-old Frenchman Guillaume Rufin 7-5, 6-7 (4-/7), 6-3. So I took this opportunity to break in the second set.
That means a repeat of last year’s Tsonga-Llodra final remains very much a possibility.
World number 10 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga also came through his quarter-final against Ukraine’s Illya Marchenko, winning 6-3, 6-4.
The 24-year-old’s powerful serve was in full working order and after taking the first set 6-3 he sewed up victory in one hour and 34 minutes.
Current title-holder Tsonga broke Marchenko’s serve in the fourth game of the first set to lead 3-1.
“Even if I didn’t play well, I’m glad I won.
“Against him (Marchenko), you have to be focused all the time because as soon as you drop your game, he immediately takes advantage,” Tsonga said.”
In the other all-French quarter-final, eighth seed Julien Benneteau beat third-seeded world number 13 Gael Monfils 6-3, 7-5.
-

.

The partial defence of provocation should be abolished, a parliamentary committee recommended today.

The justice select committee said the opportunity for a defendant to get a murder charge reduced to manslaughter because they were provoked should be removed from statute and common law.

The committee’s report said that the law change would still allow judges to consider provocation as a mitigating factor in sentencing.

The MPs recommended the Crimes (Provocation Repeal) Amendment Bill should be passed into law.

The MPs said they did not agree with arguments that provocation should remain as a defence for a battered defendant.

This would mean in extreme cases someone found guilty of murder could get less than life imprisonment if the judge believed that sentence was “manifestly unjust”.

They also rejected submissions calling for a defence of diminished responsibility saying limited intellectual capacity was best dealt with by judges when considering sentencing.

“It would be more appropriate for them to rely on self-defence, which could result in an acquittal rather than a manslaughter conviction,” the report said.

Weatherston pleaded guilty to manslaughter but the jury found him guilty of murder.

The partial defence of provocation came under intense debate after Otago University tutor Clayton Weatherston argued he was provoked into stabbing girlfriend Sophie Elliott 216 times.

Mr Brown was beaten with a banjo before the instrument’s neck was rammed down his throat.

In July, Ferdinand Ambach was found guilty of manslaughter rather murder after killing 69-year-old gay man Ronald Brown.

Some supporters of law change said the defence of provocation had generally been used to justify attacks on gay people. It was alleged he made sexual advances to Mr Brown.

.

.
French philosopher Francis Jeanson, an intellectual known for his often controversial political engagement, died at 87 on Saturday close to Bordeaux, his family has said.

Jeanson was the author of around twenty works — some on Jean-Paul Sartre, with whom he was very close &ndash and contributed to the French political, literary and philosophical journal Les Temps modernes (French for Modern Times).

But it was the Algerian War of Independence that seemed to awaken the political conscience that would become a driving force of Jeanson career as a writer and thinker.

In his 1960 work Notre guerre (Our War), Jeanson defended this initiative against those who accused him of supporting his country enemies, saying he was only upholding the French values that France itself was betraying. After the start of the war, Jeanson created a network called Porteurs de valises (Suitcase Carriers) that collected funds and obtained false identity papers for National Liberation Front militants.

Born on July 7, 1922, in Bordeaux, Jeanson did graduate studies in Philosophy and in 1943 joined the French forces in North Africa. . Two years later, while in Algiers, he met Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre.

In 1955, Jeanson published L’Algerie hors la loi (French for Outlaw Algeria), in which he defended the legitimacy of the National Liberation Front outlawed militants.

It was Sartre who would hand Jeanson the prestigious responsibility of overseeing the journal Les Temps modernes from 1951 to 1956.

After being granted amnesty, Jeanson stepped back into the spotlight, this time to direct the cultural centre in the Saone-et-Loire region of France from 1967 to 1971. His intellectual engagement gave way to a more concrete political involvement two years later, when Jeanson created the National Liberation Front support network that brought him both notoriety and a prison sentence that forced him underground for a few years.

But the fervent political passion that was a catalyst for some of his most well-known writing, as well as his life more dramatic turns, remained aflame until the end of his career.

Jeanson later became active in issues of mental health, participating in psychiatric experiments and urging open discussion of mental illness outside of psychiatric hospitals. In 1992, he became president of France Sarajevo Association, a position he would hold until his death. In 1992, he became president of France Sarajevo Association, a position he would hold until his death

.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy was hospitalised after suffering a mild nerve attack while jogging at his weekend retreat La Lanterne, near the Palace of Versailles.

Normal
0

false
false
false

MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

st1:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) }

/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:”Tableau Normal”
mso-style-parent:”"
font-size:10.

Normal
0

false
false
false

MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

/* Style Definitions */
table.0pt”Times New Roman”}

According to his chief of staff, the French head of state is is doing well and talking normally with medical staff.0pt”Times New Roman”}

The latest press release from the presidency reported that Sarkozy ‘is resting’ and will undergo heart-pressure tests at the hospital until tomorrow morning.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:”Tableau Normal”
mso-style-parent:”"
font-size:10.

A witness, speaking on condition of anonymity, told she had seen a jogger surrounded by bodyguards suddenly stumble and collapse in the wooded grounds of La Lanterne.

After collapsing, Sarkozy was seen immediately by a doctor and underwent medical tests, a statement from the Elys&eacutee Palace said.

Shortly afterwards, French First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy rushed to the scene on a motor scooter, the witness said. Close presidential aides say the attack was related to his vagus nerve, which helps the body regulate its heart rate, and doctors consider it minor.

The 54-year-old French leader was admitted to the Val de Grace military hospital in southern Paris. .

Speedy Sarkozy

Sarkozy won the 2007 presidential election on a promise to kick-start the county sluggish economy.

He is not just president he is also Prime Minister, de-facto leader of the ruling UMP party and, depending on the issue, Finance minister, Education minister, etc.

He is not just president he is also Prime Minister, de-facto leader of the ruling UMP party and, depending on the issue, Finance minister, Education minister, etc. But the hectic schedule he keeps up is inevitably going to take a toll, he added, citing the president nickname, Speedy Sarkozy.

A fitness enthusiast, Sarkozy is, on the face of it at least, the healthiest president France has ever had, French politics specialist David Crossan told them. During his campaign, Sarkozy had promised to publish regular and transparent health bulletins, in contrast with former socialist president Fran&ccedilois Mitterrand who had hidden his prostate cancer condition from the public.

Just over three weeks ago, the Elysee released the results of Sarkozy’s latest annual health check-up, describing the results of recent blood and heart tests as normal.

According to David Crossan, People will begin to ask if it time for Speedy Sarkozy to slow down.

Critics were therefore angered when it was revealed in January 2008 that Sarkozy was briefly hospitalised in 2007 for minor throat surgery without publicizing the fact.

French politics – Nicolas Sarkozy

.Brazilian and French authorities are scaling back the search for bodies from Air France flight 447 which crashed in the mid-Atlantic ocean three weeks ago.
The Brazilian Air Force has withdrawn a sophisticated radar search plane from the operation, saying there is little more to be gained.
Fifty bodies have been recovered along with some debris from the plane itself, but there is little hope of recovering anything further.
Meanwhile, a French nuclear submarine is still searching for the two black boxes from the flight.
There are still some smaller Brazilian and French Navy vessels scouring the area, but little has been recovered in the past week.
The Air France Airbus A330 carrying 228 people from Rio de Janeiro to Paris came down in the Atlantic on June 1.
The batteries which power the underwater beacons which would allow the sub to locate the boxes are expected to expire within the week.

.
Under bright skies, leaders paid tribute to the US, British and Canadian veterans who fought against all odds to liberate Europe on the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings on Normandy.

It was unknowable then, but so much of the progress that would define the 20th century, on both sides of the Atlantic, came down to the battle for a slice of beach only six miles long and two miles wide, the US president said. The US president told his listeners that if the allies failed here, Hitler hold on Europe could have continued indefinitely.

The sheer improbability is part of what makes D-Day so memorable, said Obama speaking to fellow heads of state and veterans. The cemetery is located next to one of the D-Day landing sites, codenamed Omaha beach, where thousands of white tombstones mark the graves of the US war dead.

&raquo Obama&#039s D-Day landing and the missing Queen
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, British PM Gordon Brown and Canadian PM Stephen Harper attended the anniversary event at the American cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer. I want to pay homage, in the name of France, to your children who spilt their blood here and who are sleeping here, said Sarkozy, we will never forget them.

Speaking to 200 aging, white-haired veterans who had travelled to France, Sarkozy said his country would always remember the soldiers who were buried in the US military cemetery in Colleville.

In a sermon during the service, Reverend Patrick Irwin paid tribute to the chapter of bravery written by the fallen.

After praising Europe for its ability to reunify, Brown insisted that dreams of liberation still needed to be realised around the world, citing agony in Zimbabwe and detention in Burma.

Repairing ties

Residents in Normandy towns decked their streets in US and French flags in preparation for Obama’s visit. The least we can do is to work for a future they will never see, he said.

US President Barack Obama addresses fellow leaders and war veterans on June 6, 2009. Posters welcoming Obama read: Yes, we ca(e)n, a cross between Obama’s election campaign slogan and the city of Caen, which British and Canadian troops captured in 1944 after two months of bitter fighting.

The US president has been seeking to repair ties with France and other European states who were alienated by his predecessor George W.

Before the ceremony, Obama held talks with Nicolas Sarkozy in Caen, touching on subjects such as the Middle-East peace process, Turkey EU bid and Iran nuclear programme.

Obama’s presence at the D-Day ceremony has almost overshadowed the event, to the point that Sarkozy’s failure to invite Britain’s Queen Elizabeth &ndash who served with the armed forces during World War II &ndash prompted accusations that he was trying to make space for himself next to Obama. Bush’s go-it-alone diplomacy, the US-led invasion of Iraq and his policies on climate change.

Colonel Ernest J. .
Omaha beach

It is a tradition for American presidents to visit the landing beaches at Normandy where the June 6, 1944, invasion by British, US, Canadian and other Allied troops began a rollback of the Nazi war machine entrenched in Western Europe and helped end World War II the following year. Harold, former armements attach&eacute at the US embassy in Paris, speaks to them. Bush was there in 2002, and in 2004 for the 60th anniversary.

Ronald Reagan went to the D-Day beaches for the 40th anniversary in 1984, Bill Clinton was there in 1994 for the 50th and George W.

Obama’s great uncle Charles Payne, who was involved in the liberation of Buchenwald as a US soldier but did not visit the camp with Obama, was among the war veterans at the commemoration.

Obama’s great uncle Charles Payne, who was involved in the liberation of Buchenwald as a US soldier but did not visit the camp with Obama, was among the war veterans at the commemoration.

Barack Obama – D-Day commemorations – France

.The Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) says its not aware of any speed monitor replacement program for A330 planes in Australia in the wake of the Air France accident.
Air France has announced it will expedite the replacement of speed monitors on its Airbus A330 planes after fears that a faulty reading may have been a factor in the crash of flight AF-447 six days ago.
French investigators say the plane ident.
Air France has announced it will expedite the replacement of speed monitors on its Airbus A330 planes after fears that a faulty reading may have been a factor in the crash of flight AF-447 six days ago.
French investigators say the plane sent out 24 automatic error messages in its final moments as its systems, including the autopilot, shut down. .

.
A spokesperson for CASA says new speed monitors for A330 planes in Australia would be a matter between the manufacturer and aircraft operators

.Search and rescue divers are still at the scene of Friday’s Air New Zealand plane crash off the south-east coast of France. .
Four of the men who died were Air New Zealand staff.
“The aircraft wreckage is in about 40 metres of water and the sea bed is about 30 centimetres of mud so it’s quite difficult to work in,” he said.
The airline’s chief executive Rob Fyfe says investigators are working in difficult conditions.
He says this sort of speculation is harmful to the investigation.
Mr Fyfe has dismissed a report by an eyewitness that the pilots steered the plane into the sea to avoid a French village.
The plane’s cockpit voice recorder is being analysed in Paris.

.
The head of the French military, General Jean-Louis Georgelin, met Thursday with his troops in Afghanistan less than three weeks after 10 French soldiers were killed in a Taliban ambush.

Georgelin arrived in the country Wednesday and spent the night at the Tora base in the Sarobi district about 65 kilometres (40 miles) east of Kabul, a French military official said on condition of anonymity.

It was the deadliest ground fighting for international troops since they arrived in 2001 to oust the Taliban regime and the heaviest toll for the French military in 25 years.

An ambush followed by intense fighting in Sarobi on August 18 and 19 left 10 French soldiers dead and 21 wounded.

On Thursday he travelled to French bases in Kapisa province, adjoining Kabul.

Georgelin met Wednesday with US General David McKiernan, commander of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in which about 3,000 French soldiers serve, the official said.

The man, identified as Commander Faruki, said he headed a group of 28 men and threatened to kill all French troops unless they left Afghanistan.

French news weekly Paris Match published on Thursday an interview with a Taliban commander who claimed to have led the August 18 ambush.

The attack shocked France, with French President Nicolas Sarkozy travelling to Afghanistan immediately afterwards, and prompted calls for more reconnaissance and intelligence gathering in operations.

The weekly published photographs of the fighters, their faces masked, one of whom wore a French army uniform, another a French bullet-proof vest and helmet, while two others carried assault rifles used by the French forces.