Cycling-Giro d'Italia provisional standings

Reuters: [2008-05-17 17:21:00]

    May 17 (Reuters) - Provisional standings after the 208km 
eighth stage of the Giro d'Italia race from Rivisondoli to 
Tivoli on Saturday 
    Overall 
  1. Giovanni Visconti (Italy / Quick-Step ) 36hrs 44mins 06secs 
  2. Matthias Russ (Germany / Gerolsteiner )   +34 
  3. Gabriele Bosisio (Italy / Team LPR )    +5:53 
  4. Danilo Di Luca (Italy / Team LPR )      +7:27 
 
    Points standings 
  1. Riccardo Ricco (Italy / Saunier Duval )   69 
  2. Daniele Bennati (Italy / Liquigas )       51 
  3. Danilo Di Luca (Italy / Team LPR )        42 
  4. Franco Pellizotti (Italy / Liquigas )     42 
  5. Davide Rebellin (Italy / Gerolsteiner )   39 
  6. Paolo Bettini (Italy / Quick-Step )       39 
  7. Gabriele Bosisio (Italy / Team LPR )      33 
  8. Pavel Brutt (Russia / Tinkoff )           33 
  9. Mark Cavendish (Britain / High Road )     32 
 10. Erik Zabel (Germany / Milram )            30 
 
    King of the mountains 
  1. Emanuele Sella (Italy / CSF Group )         36points 
  2. Gabriele Bosisio (Italy / Team LPR )        19 
  3. Felix Cardenas (Colombia / Barloworld )     16 
  4. Vasil Kiryienka (Belarus / Tinkoff )        12 
  5. Fortunato Baliani (Italy / CSF Group )       9 
  6. Alessandro Spezialetti (Italy / Team LPR )   5 
  7. Daniele Pietropolli (Italy / Team LPR )      5 
  8. Luis Felipe Laverde (Colombia / CSF Group )  3 
  9. David Loosli (Switzerland / Lampre )         3 
 10. Rik Verbrugghe (Belgium / Cofidis )          3 
     (Compiled by Infostrada Sports; Edited by Neil Maidment and 
Tom Pilcher) 
 ((neil.maidment@reuters.com; +44207 542 0856; Reuters 
Messaging: neil.maidment.reuters.com@reuters.net; For the 
latest Reuters Premier League and international football news 
see: http://football.uk.reuters.com/))

Brothers seek path out of poverty in Brazil film

Reuters: [2008-05-17 13:06:00]

By Mike Collett-White

CANNES, France, May 17 (Reuters) - A tough yet touching Brazilian drama follows four brothers in Sao Paulo who turn to football, religion and crime as they try to escape the poverty and monotony of life in the slums.

Unlike other acclaimed Brazilian dramas set in impoverished ghettos of the big cities, directors Walter Salles and Daniela Thomas did not want to make violence and crime central themes, although they linger just beneath the surface.

"Linha De Passe" (Line of Passage) is one of 22 films in the main competition at the Cannes film festival and one of four from South America.

"We didn't want to make a film on drug traffickers or police in down-and-out areas," Salles told reporters after a press screening of the movie.

"We wanted to make a film that clearly showed that violence was being turned down as an option," he added.

"A lot of Brazilian films depict characters who opt for violence, yet 99 percent of young people in Brazil are trying to make it in life, like what you see in the film."

Salles, best known for his 2004 hit "The Motorcycle Diaries", based the brothers' experiences on true stories and used first-time feature film actors in most of the roles in a bid to make the picture feel as youthful as possible.

NO FATHER FIGURE

The absence of a father in the family means the mother of Denis, Dinho, Dario and Reginaldo takes on the burden of household chores, made more difficult by the fact that she is pregnant with a fifth child.

Denis, the eldest sibling, is a motorcycle courier barely making a living speeding through the streets. Reginaldo, the youngest, is obsessed with buses, and finds brief liberation when he steals a bus and takes to the road.

Dinho seeks solace in religion, attending an evangelical church where he suffers a crisis of faith, while Dario turns to that "other" religion, soccer, although he is deemed too old to succeed despite being just 18.

Their interweaving tales are set in a soulless, urban world of run-down slums, traffic jams, dark courtyards, and endless vistas of skyscrapers.

"Sao Paulo is a huge city," said Thomas, who likened it to "the city at the end of the world".

"It has no escape like in Rio. Rio is an incredibly big and dramatic city also, but you have the sea, you have the landscape, you have the sense of redemption in the city."

"Linha de Passe" is the second Brazilian film to screen in the main competition after "Blindness", by Fernando Meirelles, opened the 2008 Cannes film festival on Wednesday. (Editing by Philippa Fletcher) (To read more about our entertainment news, visit our blog "Fan Fare" online at http://blogs.reuters.com/fanfare)

((mike.collett-white@reuters.com; tel +44 20 7542 4015))

Keywords: FILM CANNES/BRAZIL

Soccer-Argentine championship results and standings

Reuters: [2008-05-17 06:08:00]

    May 16 (Reuters) - Argentine championship results and 
standings on Friday 
 Banfield              5  San Martin (San Juan)     1 
 Colon (Santa Fe)      1  Newell's Old Boys         1 
   Standings              P  W  D L  F   A   Pts 
 1  River Plate           14  9 3 2  21  9   30 
 2  Estudiantes           14  9 3 2  23  12  30 
 3  Velez Sarsfield       14  8 3 3  20  11  27 
 4  San Lorenzo           14  9 0 5  21  13  27 
 5  Independiente         14  8 2 4  23  13  26 
 6  Boca Juniors          14  7 5 2  18   9  26 
 7  Newell's Old Boys     15  6 4 5  17  16  22 
 8  Banfield              15  6 3 6  31  28  21 
 9  Arsenal               14  6 3 5  19  17  21 
 10 Huracan               14  5 5 4  13  12  20 
 11 Colon (Santa Fe)      15  5 4 6  22  23  19 
 12 Rosario Central       14  5 4 5  18  19  19 
 13 Argentinos Juniors    14  5 3 6  15  22  18 
 14 San Martin (San Juan) 15  5 1 9  18  24  16 
 15 Tigre                 14  4 4 6  16  22  16 
 16 Gimnasia-La Plata     14  3 4 7  14  19  13 
 17 Lanus                 14  3 2 9  19  31  11 
 18 Olimpo                14  3 2 9  13  26  11 
 19 Racing Club           14  1 7 6  11  18  10 
 20 Gimnasia (Jujuy)      14 1  6 7  12  20   9 
    (Compiled by Infostrada Sports; Editing by Greg Stutchbury) 
   ((greg stutchbury@thomsonreuters.com; + 61 3 9286-1435; 
Reuters messaging: greg.stutchbury.reuters.com@reuters.net; For 
the latest Reuters Premier League and international football news 
see: http://football.uk.reuters.com/)) 
Keywords: SOCCER LATAM/ARGENTINA RESULTS

UPDATE 3-Biofuels, trade dominate EU-Latin American summit

Reuters: [2008-05-17 04:23:00]

(Updates with new quotes, details; changes byline)

By Terry Wade

LIMA, May 16 (Reuters) - European and Latin American leaders called for action to tackle surging food prices and global warming at a summit in Peru on Friday, despite differences over biofuels and free trade.

Leftist Bolivian President Evo Morales said he feared the poor could suffer as his regional counterparts rush to sign free-trade deals with Europe, and others warned of a looming world food emergency, which some attribute in part to greater use of biofuels.

"If the crisis deepens, hundreds of millions of people will be threatened by hunger," Peruvian President Alan Garcia told the fifth gathering of heads of state from Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean.

The European Union and Brazil, the world's top ethanol exporter, back biofuels, but many Latin American countries blame them for pushing up food prices and causing hunger in a region where a third of the population lives in poverty.

Critics say the EU should scrap its target of having renewable fuels make up 10 percent of road transport fuels by 2020, saying the goal will contribute to hunger and environmental damage around the word.

European leaders played down the risks.

"The impact of biofuels (on food prices) should not provoke such alarm, because from my point of view the relationship isn't that clear," Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero told reporters.

Even as many poor nations in Latin America criticize the use of food crops such as corn and soybeans to make fuels, they are increasingly worried about climate change and say rich states must cut carbon emissions.

Peru created an environment ministry this week to help cope with the impact of rising global temperatures, which studies show could melt its Andean glaciers within 25 years.

While there was broad support for initiatives to combat global warming, including carbon trading programs and reforestation, leaders struggled to agree about trade.

DIVIDED ON TRADE

Proponents say opening up borders would lower food prices by removing tariffs, but skeptics say trade pacts could hurt food production by slashing subsidies.

The issue has exposed ideological disagreements between Peru and Colombia, both free-trade enthusiasts, and leftist leaders like Bolivia's Morales, a former coca grower who says trade deals could hurt peasant farmers.

Peru and Colombia called on Friday for their countries to be put on a "fast track" in trade talks between the EU and Andean countries.

Europe is keen to boost trade with resource-rich Latin America and pushed talks with three trade blocs in the region.

Michelle Bachelet, president of staunch free-trader Chile, called for a global trade agreement.

"I'm making an urgent plea for us to successfully wrap up the Doha round," she said. "If we have freer and fairer agricultural trade, we'll have more food."

Although the summit's final statement included few concrete measures, some leaders used the occasion to patch over differences.

Chavez, who often insults conservative leaders, apologized to German Chancellor Angela Merkel only days after calling her a political descendant of Adolf Hitler.

"I haven't come here to fight," Chavez said after they shook hands. "I told her that I was sorry if I'd been harsh."

Chavez irritated some leaders at a summit in Chile last year, prompting the king of Spain to tell him to "shut up."

(Additional reporting by Maria Luisa Palomino, Helen Popper, Marco Aquino, Dana Ford, Silene Ramirez and Ricardo Serra; Editing by Eric Walsh)

((terry.wade@reuters.com; +5411 4318-0655; Reuters Messaging: terry.wade.reuters.com@reuters.net))

Keywords: EU LATINAMERICA/