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Spanish officials on Tuesday were seeking the winner of a 4.7 million-euro ($6.3-million) lottery jackpot after the lucky ticket was found unclaimed.

The slip of paper turned up in La Coruna, northwestern Spain, the city's mayor said. Media reports said the vendor who sold it found it on his counter.

"It is a very unusual item. It is not a necklace or a wallet that has been lost, but a lottery ticket worth nearly five million euros," said mayor Carlos Negreira in a statement.

"I am going to be the only mayor in Spain who is looking for a millionaire not so as to ask for money but to give it."

The vendor handed the ticket, issued for a lottery draw in June 2012, back to the state lottery company.

 

 

 

The German Günter Wamser crossed with horses from South to North America, from Tierra del Fuego to Alaska. Soon he will reach the goal of his journey Marathon, which started in 1994 – and gave him a new view of their home.
If Günter Wamser tells of his adventures in America, it is about a journey, but really it’s about much more than the movement from A to B: the freedom to do what you really want, without leaving to well-meaning advice outside to take care of. 19 years ago traveled the trained aircraft engine mechanic to Tierra del Fuego at the southernmost tip of South America, two Criollo horses, hardy animals of the Gauchos bought a ranch, one for the riders, one for luggage. He rode off, still further north. “This trip has become my way of life, with all its ups and downs. My life has gained in intensity,” says the now 54-year-old. In the very first days of his tour, he experienced two encounters that made him doubt the joys of a long journey. It was not until he met a cyclist from Berlin, who was kicking in one and a half years from California to Patagonia. He was sitting by the roadside, cursing the headwinds and wanted to give up, even though he was only a hundred kilometers away from the target.

At present, the history of Eastern European Jewry in particular is a popular field of scientific studies. Our correspondent has had an interview with an expert in this field Oleg Kozerod, Doctor

 

Former Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi has been convicted for the illegal publication of transcripts of wire-tapped conversations in a newspaper owned by his media empire.

A Milan court on Thursday sentenced him to one year in jail, although he is unlikely to be put behind bars during a possible appeal.

The verdict carries no impact on Mr Berlusconi's eligibility to participate in a new government.

 

Sickness benefit will be stripped from claimants who refuse to get treatment for their problems under a crackdown to be tested in a £25 million Government trial.

Ministers want to extend the concept of "conditionality" used to force the jobless to seek work to welfare payments for those with health complaints as well.

A series of pilots around the country for what is being touted as a "tough love" approach by Downing Street sources will be announced before Christmas.

Chancellor George Osborne is seeking ways to slash a further £10 billion from the welfare budget by 2016/17 on top of £18 billion of cuts already announced.

Under the proposals claimants would be expected to attend regular sessions with a health care professional who could require them to attend therapy and other treatments to help them recover.

It is unclear exactly what conditions would be caught but No10 suggested drug and alcohol addicts who failed to attend rehab courses would be among them in the initial trials.

Funding for the pilots has been agreed, they said.

 

Venerable US magazine Newsweek announced Thursday its last print edition would be December 31, saying it would turn all-digital to cut costs in an increasingly challenging media environment.

"We are transitioning Newsweek, not saying goodbye to it," wrote Tina Brown, editor-in-chief and founder of the online Newsweek Daily Beast Company, in a statement posted on the Daily Beast website.

"This decision is not about the quality of the brand or the journalism -- that is as powerful as ever. It is about the challenging economics of print publishing and distribution."

Brown acknowledged the merger of the print edition and the online Daily Beast operations, called "Newsweek Global," would require layoffs.

She said the all-digital publication "will be a single, worldwide edition targeted for a highly mobile, opinion-leading audience who want to learn about world events in a sophisticated context.

It will be available on the web and on tablets via a paid subscription, with "select content" available on The Daily Beast website.

 

Dame Marjorie Scardino - the first woman to head a FTSE 100 company - is to step down as chief executive of Penguin books and Financial Times owner Pearson.

Dame Marjorie's departure at the end of the year will leave just three female chief executives among London's top 100 public companies as she will be replaced by John Fallon, head of Pearson's international education arm.

The 65-year-old transformed Pearson when she joined as chief executive in 1997 from a diverse conglomerate, owning a range of unconnected businesses from Alton Towers to Thames Television, to a more focused "learning" company.

Announcing her departure, the American-born British citizen said: "It has been a privilege to be part of such a great company for a small part of its history."

Angela Ahrendts at fashion group Burberry, Cynthia Carroll at miner Anglo American and Alison Cooper of Imperial Tobacco will be the remaining female chief executives on the FTSE 100 Index.

The Government-commissioned Lord Davies review, published in February 2011, recommended that firms listed on the FTSE 100 Index should aim for a minimum of one in four female board members by 2015.

A voluntary code, developed in response to the Lord Davies review, was implemented in July 2011 to set out key principles of best practice for executive firms.

The number of women in the boardroom's of the UK's top companies increased in the past year, according to a progress update from the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills in July this year. Women now make up 16.7% of FTSE 100 Index, up from 12.5% at the time of the Lord Davies report, and 10.9% of FTSE 250 boards, up from 7.8%.

French magazine Closer said its editor Laurence Pieau had received death threats for publishing pictures of Prince William's wife Catherine sunbathing topless.

"We have received more than 300 insulting emails of which several contain death threats," Closer said, adding that it had notified the police.

Fourteen of the most violent messages addressed to Pieau were handed over to the police. One vowed to "never let her stay in peace."

After their debut in the French weekly, the photos of the British Duchess of Cambridge have appeared in magazines in Denmark and Sweden, Ireland's Daily Star and Italy's Chi, which like Closer is owned by former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi's Mondari media group.

The pictures were taken when the royals were vacationing in southern France at a chateau owned by Viscount Linley, the son of Princess Margaret, the deceased sister of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II.

After publication, Pieau defended them saying they were not in the "least shocking".

"They show a young woman sunbathing topless, like the millions of women you see on beaches," she told AFP.

 

News Corporation has reported a loss in its quarterly results, with the company facing ongoing legal charges over the phone-hacking scandal.

The firm's net loss was 1.6 billion dollars (£1 billion) for the three months to the end of June, compared with a net income of 683 million dollars (£436.2 million) in the same period last year.

Publishing profits fell to 139 million dollars (£88.8 million), from 270 million dollars (£172 million).

The company's full year results included a 224 million dollar (£143 million) charge related to "the costs of the ongoing investigations initiated upon the closure of The News of the World". This included a 57 million dollar (£36.4 million) charge in the last quarter.

Commenting on the results, News Corp boss Rupert Murdoch said the company was in a "strong" position which would be enhanced by plans to split the company into two parts - separating its entertainment businesses from publishing assets including The Sun and The Times.

 

Weakened security laws allowed a suspected terrorist to get close to the venue for the Olympic Games five times in recent months, Labour has said.

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper demanded to know whether the incidents posed a threat to London 2012 safety and pointed the finger at watered-down Government anti-terror measures.

Court papers show that the 24-year-old, known as CF, was arrested and faces criminal proceedings after the authorities found he took trains through the Olympic Park despite being banned from the area.

His movements were picked up because he has to wear an electronic tag as part of restrictions imposed on him by an order under the Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Act - referred to as a "Tpim".

CF's lawyers insist that he only used the route to visit a solicitor dealing with his legal challenge against the order - due to be heard by the High Court on Monday - and had been wrongly advised that was OK.

But Labour said the fact that he was able to be in the capital at all - after being ordered under the previous anti-terror regime to stay out of the capital altogether - highlighted a serious problem.

Tpims replaced the control orders system previously used to restrict the movements and contacts of individuals thought to pose a risk to the public but who cannot be tried for reasons of national security.