Air France-KLM's stand unclear for Alitalia capital increase

By Agnieszka Flak and Cyril Altmeyer

MILAN/PARIS (Reuters) - Shareholders of Alitalia will vote on Monday on a 300 million euro ($407 million) capital increase to keep the near-bankrupt Italian airline flying, but the participation of top investor Air France-KLM is far from certain.

The loss-making carrier was thrown a lifeline on Friday when its board members - including Air France-KLM - approved a government-led 500-million-euro bailout. The emergency plan includes the capital increase and loans worth 200 million euros.

Italian media reports over the weekend said Air France-KLM Chief Executive Alexandre de Juniac had told Alitalia's chairman that his group would not participate in a cash call.

But when contacted by Reuters on Sunday, de Juniac denied having made any statements on the capital increase and called the reports "fanciful". He declined to make any further comment on his position.

Air France-KLM, which owns a 25 percent stake, said on Friday it would make a decision on whether to take part in the cash call only after Monday's shareholder meeting.

"The decision by the Air France-KLM board members to support the emergency plan does not in any way presuppose our decision on whether to subscribe to the capital increase," it said.

All shareholders will have 30 days to decide what portion to subscribe.

On Friday, the Franco-Dutch airline said it would set "very strict" conditions before giving any help. A source close to the situation said then that it objected to a lack of clarity on Alitalia's valuation and insisted on much tougher restructuring, believing the emergency plan was not enough.

Any of Air France-KLM's conditions could clash with Alitalia's long-haul ambitions, analysts said.

Alitalia's new CEO Gabriele Del Torchio wants the company to focus on the higher-margin long-haul market after its plans to become a strong regional player came unstuck due to tough competition from low cost players and high-speed trains.

De Juniac has said he could see Alitalia boosting its intercontinental routes where Air France-KLM's own network might be weak, but his group may want to see some serious restructuring of the Italian company first.

STRATEGIC PARTNER

Analysts said Air France-KLM remained the natural strategic partner for Alitalia, but the group's appetite was limited as it pushes through its own unpopular restructuring at home.

"I am sure they would strategically want to have Alitalia in their camp, but the last thing they want at the moment is to consolidate a rotting company," said airlines expert James Halstead, managing partner at UK-based Aviation Strategy Ltd.

Le Monde newspaper said on Sunday that Air France-KLM's conditions included a new strategy, a halt to route expansion and no new aircraft purchases as Alitalia addresses its debts.

If it does not participate in the capital increase, Air France-KLM risks being overtaken by Italy's state-owned post office as the top shareholder. The postal group was brought in by the government last week to help save Alitalia by offering to put in 75 million euros for any unsubscribed shares in the capital increase.

A cash call without Air France-KLM would also increase the uncertainty over Alitalia's future as it was supposed to be only a stop-gap solution before talks on a possible combination of the two airlines.

Alitalia, which last turned a profit in 2002, has operating costs of about 10 million euros a day, according to analysts' estimates. Revenue falls far short of this so the cash injection will not last long and it needs a partner such as Air France-KLM to improve its long-term prospects.

Prime Minister Enrico Letta urged Alitalia to find a foreign partner quickly and change its business strategy radically, Il Sole 24 Ore newspaper said on Saturday.

De Juniac has said in the past he was open to taking over Air France-KLM's Skyteam alliance partner to bolster its access to the Italian travel market, Europe's fourth largest. But support from his board, including representatives of the French state and Dutch shareholders was far from guaranteed.

In the absence of other bidders, Alitalia's options for a partner are limited, especially after Etihad Airways has distanced itself from the struggling carrier for now.

The support of Alitalia's domestic investors for the capital increase is also in the balance. Its second biggest shareholder, the Riva family, has had its assets seized in a judicial investigation, including its Alitalia's 11 percent stake.

The airline is currently owned by a disparate group of 21 investors including bank Intesa Sanpaolo and highway operator Atlantia, a consortium pulled together in 2008 by then prime minister Silvio Berlusconi after he rejected a takeover by Air France-KLM.

($1 = 0.7373 euros)

(Additional reporting by Francesca Landini and Silvia Aloisi in Milan and Tim Hepher in Paris; editing by David Stamp)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/air-france-klms-stand-unclear-alitalia-capital-increase-220444810--sector.html
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Watch: Sandra Bullock Performs ‘Rapper’s Delight’ On ‘The Jonathan Ross Show’

Phresh

Posted by: Trent on October 14, 2013|

Sandra Bullock was in London, England over the weekend to do a bit of promo for her #1 movie Gravity and she made an appearance on The Jonathan Ross Show. It was revealed that Sandra knows all of the lyrics to the classic rap song Rapper’s Delight and Ross insisted that Bullock give an impromptu performance of the song for his viewers. She agreed and, well, watch the video embed above to see how it turned out. Sandra‘s rap performance begins at the 1:23 mark of the video but it’s worth watching from the beginning for a little contextual information. Enjoy!

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Moscow seeks to calm tensions after anti-migrant riot

Moscow (AFP) - Russian authorities on Monday took steps to calm ethnic tensions after Moscow was rocked by some of its worst rioting in years, sparked by the killing of a Russian youth allegedly by a Muslim migrant from the Caucasus.

Seeking to show a firm hand against illegal migrants, police detained 1,200 people in a raid on a vegetable wholesale market, one of several dotted around the city perimeter that are notorious for employing undocumented workers.

The initially peaceful protest in the Biryulyovo district of southern Moscow to protest the killing of Yegor Shcherbakov, 25, rapidly descended into bloody clashes with the police that left the glass doors of a shopping centre smashed and cars upturned.

Police said late Sunday that 394 people, reportedly aged mainly between 14 and 25, had been arrested at the site of the riots and during a later raid nearby where rioters had attacked a stopped cargo train.

The RIA Novosti news agency said all would be released with the exception of 72 whose cases would be sent to court.

Police said calm had returned to the district after they brought in hundreds of reinforcements in a bid to deal with the crisis and enforced their "Vulkan" operation plan, which is used in case of a terror attack.

After a largely peaceful protest on Saturday, the rioting on Sunday began when protestors attacked a wholesale vegetable market where they thought Shcherbakov's suspected killer was hiding.

In a move aimed at showing they took locals' grievances seriously, Moscow police Monday raided the produce market and detained 1,200 people for identity checks.

"About 1,200 people have been taken to the police in the course of a raid on a produce market in Biryulyovo to check their criminal connections," a representative of the Moscow police told AFP.

Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev said more had to be done to deal with the situation with wholesale vegetable complexes in Moscow, which often employ large numbers of migrants in shadowy circumstances.

"Otherwise all provocateurs and extremists will use any possibility to get young people onto the barricades," he said at a televised meeting.

'A massive search operation'

Shcherbakov was murdered overnight Thursday in front of his girlfriend as they walked out of a billiards club in the area.

Media said security footage showed his killer was a man of "non-Slavic appearance" from the Northern Caucasus, leading nationalists to conclude that the murderer was a Muslim labour migrant.

The fuzzy image of the alleged killer published in Russian media however allows few conclusions to be drawn about the man's identity. One million rubles (22,000 euros, $30,000) has been offered for information leading to his arrest.

Tensions have ratcheted up in recent years in big cities like Moscow between ethnic Russians and migrants from Russia's largely Muslim Northern Caucasus as well as the Muslim states of ex-Soviet Central Asia.

The protestors in Biryulyovo accused the police of failing to investigate the murder swiftly enough and also called on the authorities to toughen up migration legislation.

"The investigation has a video image of the suspected criminal, and is conducting a massive search operation," Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin said in a statement, insisting that everything was being done to find the killer.

Police are likely to be out in force around Moscow's major mosques on Tuesday as Russian Muslims celebrate Kurban Bayram, the annual feast of the sacrifice.

Immigration was the single biggest issue in September's elections for Moscow mayor, won by the pro-Kremlin incumbent Sobyanin despite a challenge from protest leader Alexei Navalny.

Navalny, who has taken a tough line on immigration, wrote on Monday that the Biryulyovo market had been a crime-plagued powder keg for years which authorities had ignored.

"You have to understand that the more horror a place densely populated by migrants brings to the lives of locals, the more money it brings to the security services and local authorities," he wrote on his popular blog.

The clashes were the worst such ethnically fuelled unrest since Russian football fans and ultra-nationalists went on the rampage on Manezhnaya Square outside the Kremlin walls in December 2010.

In a similar scenario, they were demonstrating against the killing of a Russian football fan in a fight with a group from the Northern Caucasus.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/russia-police-detain-1-200-moscow-anti-migrant-101223127.html
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'Scandal' Case Study: Guillermo Diaz Talks Huck's Big Revelation -- 'What the Hell Have I Done?!'

ABC/Eric McCandless

"Scandal's" Guillermo Diaz

[Warning: This story contains spoilers from Thursday's "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" episode of ABC's Scandal.]

ABC's Scandal continued its effective use of flashbacks Thursday to explore Olivia (Kerry Washington) and her father Rowan's (Joe Morton) tumultuous relationship.

The episode further explained the history between Olivia and Huck, and how Olivia first discovered the truth about her father heading B613, the black ops division that cost Huck everything. 

The fireworks, however, come in the present day after Huck (Guillermo Diaz), Olivia's most dedicated and loyal Gladiator, learns the hard truth: the woman who plucked him from obscurity and helped to give him a fresh start is the daughter of the B613 baddie.

The Hollywood Reporter caught up with Diaz to break down the episode.

PHOTOS: On-Set With the Gladiators: Inside the Fast-Paced World of ABC's 'Scandal'

The Hollywood Reporter: After Huck attacks Olivia, how is this going to change their relationship?
Guillermo Diaz: It's a moment that we've never seen on the show before, and the last two people you expect to be in this type of situation are Huck and Olivia. He's her protector, her guard dog; he looks out for her physically and makes sure she's protected. The moment when he attacks her and throws her up against the car, I don't think he knew what he was doing until a couple of seconds after it happened. I think there is some embarrassment now, and he's thinking, "What the hell have I done?!" But at the same time, part of him feels like she deserves it a bit because that was a pretty big secret to keep from Huck -- that her father was the one that put him in this hole that kept him from seeing his wife and child again. As shocking as it is to see him become physical with Olivia, it's a bit justifiable.

Do you think that Olivia can ever regain Huck's trust again?
I hope she can. She knows that she messed up keeping that secret. At the same time, can you blame Olivia for keeping that secret? That's a hard thing to tell your friend -- that your father is the one that is responsible for all these terrible things. I think they're both going to be able to come back from this, heal, and have each other's trust again.

We can't imagine that Huck attacking Olivia, even though it may have been justified, will go over well with the rest of the Gladiators. How will they respond when and if they find out?
I don't know if they are going to find out. I don't think either Huck or Olivia are going to say anything about it. It's that type of thing with family members or friends when you have an altercation and it's just so heated and serious that you keep it between you. I think that's the way it's going to be with the Gladiators. It's information that they don't really need to know. I think they're going to keep that part of it private.

PHOTOS: Nudity, Slapping, Pranks! 'Scandal' Cast Share Their Most Scandalous Moments

What was it like for you getting to flush out Huck and Olivia's history?
It's always nice to do the flashbacks. That's what's so great about Scandal is that we get to do flashbacks and then keep figuring out and discovering more things about our characters that make them fuller. That moment when Huck attacks Olivia was the toughest acting I've had to do on Scandal because I'm attacking Olivia and I'm attacking Kerry. It was really difficult for me to really get into it because I was worried and I was scared. It was awkward, I felt nervous. All that was going through Huck's head worked for the scene. He was feeling all those things, too.

What was your biggest WTF moment from the episode?
I don't know if it was the biggest one, but the one that stands out is when he's homeless and he starts rattling off about B613, Wonderland, Command, and these things that have happened to him, and Olivia is squatting down there listening to him just like a deer in headlights. I thought that was the most powerful moment in the script for me because it's very subtle. It's not loud, it's not a big fight, it's not anything like that. It's Huck just going back into all these things streaming out of his mouth. He's just remembering these things, and he doesn't know if they are real or not. Obviously we know they are real, but it was really emotional and really powerful.

Let's talk about the end of the episode when Jake comes back. Could we potentially see Huck and Jake team up?
Personally, I'm team Jake, and fans have actually gotten really mad at me for saying that before. (Laughs.) I would love to see Huck team up with Jake. They're both B613. They both know what Command is capable of doing. They've both been trained to be killer spies. I think they would be a force to be reckoned with if they teamed up.

'Scandal': Everything to Know About ABC's Buzzy Drama From A-Z

Do you think bringing down B613 is a step in the right direction for Huck to get his family back?
I don't know. You never know with B613 people; they are unpredictable. I would love to see it. I really hope that Shonda -- and we don't know anything yet -- brings his family back. I think that is certainly in the back of Huck's head since the beginning of this season. You can see it in his eyes that he's always thinking about that and hoping that that's going to happen. I'm sure he's plotting somewhere in the back of his head how to find his family and get them back.

Quinn is embracing her dark side. How do you think that's going to change Huck's relationship with her?
It's tricky. I think Huck is feeling a little bit of envious of Quinn taking a liking to torturing. I feel like he thinks that Quinn emotionally is more capable of doing the things that he taught her than he is. Huck has been going to recovery meetings to try to change his addiction to torturing and the things that he does. To see Quinn pick up that drill and drill that information out of Billy Chambers so easily, that's scary for him. He feels a little bit of envy, and it's embarrassing that she was able to do it so easily. It's like all addictions, she's on a high right now, and he's trying to snap her out of that. But I don't think she's going to snap out of that so easily. That's definitely going to put a strain on their relationship.

Looking ahead, what can you say about what Huck and Rowan's next interaction will look like?
It's not going to be good. It's going to be a scary, scary confrontation between Huck and Rowan. I think that's saying a lot right there.

Do you think the fact that Huck now knows that Rowan is Olivia's father changes his relationship with Olivia moving forward?
Yes and no. They're all caught up in this messed-up world of lies and betrayals. It's going to change their relationship, but hopefully they're going to have each others' back.

What did you think of Huck and Olivia's confrontation? Hit the comments below with your thoughts. Scandal airs Thursdays at 10 p.m. on ABC. 

E-mail: Lesley.Goldberg@THR.com
Twitter: @Snoodit

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Tornado hits Ohio's Ursuline College; no one hurt

PEPPER PIKE, Ohio (AP) ? A tornado of 110 mph winds hit Ursuline College in northeast Ohio early Saturday morning, collapsing a wall of the school's athletic center and damaging other buildings but causing no injuries, officials said.

The EF1 twister hit about 3:35 a.m. northwest of the college and continued across part of the campus, meteorologist William Comeaux of the National Weather Service in Cleveland said. It reached 100-200 yards wide and traveled 1.3 miles.

Only a few students were on campus at the time and they were close to the athletic center that was hardest hit, a college spokeswoman said.

"The blessing is that there was no loss of life or injury," Sister Diana Stano, president of the 1,500-student school about 13 miles east of Cleveland, said on its website.

No one answered the main number for the college Saturday evening but a recorded message said the campus was closed Saturday and Sunday to assess the damage.

The website said the storm caused an external wall of the school's O'Brien Athletic Center to collapse and destroyed part of the roof. It also damaged several other buildings, including the Dauby Science Center and the Ralph M. Besse Library. Many trees were uprooted or destroyed and other campus facilities had minor damage.

College spokeswoman Angela DelPrete said only about five students were on campus at the time and they were about 1,000 feet from the gymnasium. She described debris scattered around the campus and broken windows. Weather service photos showed roof tiles torn away on the gymnasium exposing splintered wood and support beams.

Stano told The Plain Dealer that Ursuline was accepted as an NCAA Division II school only last week.

"Now we don't have a place to play," she said.

Ursuline was founded by Roman Catholic nuns as the first women's college in Ohio. Men now also attend the school.

Despite the damage Saturday, Comeaux said, "It's a beautiful area with lots of trees."

He said it's been about two years since a tornado has touched down in the region; the state averages 17-19 tornadoes per year. A disaster relief fund will be established to help rebuild the campus, the website said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/tornado-hits-ohios-ursuline-college-no-one-hurt-000200962.html

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Man linked to former University of Tulsa athletic director Jay Parmley admits gambling allegations

By NOLAN CLAY on Jul 9, 2013, at 2:28 AM??Updated on 7/09/13 at 5:31 AM

Source: http://www.tulsaworld.com/article.aspx/Man_linked_to_former_University_of_Tulsa_athletic_director/20130709_11_A12_OKLAHO835554?rss_lnk=1

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Pope urges renewal of ?flimsy? Church structures

Agence France-Presse

Pope Francis. AP file photo

VATICAN CITY?Pope Francis on Saturday said Catholics should not be afraid of renewing ?old and flimsy structures? in the Church, as he plans a major overhaul of the scandal-ridden Vatican bureaucracy and bank.

?In Christian life and in Church life too there are old and flimsy structures. We need to renew them,? the pope said in his homily at a private mass for Swiss Guards, Vatican radio reported on its website.

?We should not be afraid of allowing the flimsy structures that imprison us to fall down,? he said.

?The Church has always allowed itself to be renewed? That is how the Church has developed, leaving it to the Holy Spirit to renew these structures. We should not be afraid of this,? the pope was quoted as saying.

Francis, a moderate conservative elected by a conclave of cardinals in March, has launched an investigation into the Vatican bank and has ordered a group of top cardinals to propose ways of reforming the Vatican administration at a meeting planned for October.

The Vatican bank, the Institute for Works of Religion, is at the center of an Italian money-laundering probe but the Vatican has made efforts in recent years to bring it into line with international rules.

A series of leaks of confidential Vatican documents by then pope Benedict XVI?s butler last year exposed allegations of corruption and mismanagement in the Roman Curia, the central administration of the Church.

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Source: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/439621/pope-urges-renewal-of-flimsy-church-structures

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