Alicia Keys plays a sexy superwoman in stunning new video

ALICIA Keys plays a sexy superwoman in her dazzling new music video Girl On Fire.

The single is the first from her new album, of the same name, and she's set the bar high with a visually stunning promo.

Alicia, 31, flaunts off her curves in a series of figure-hugging outfits as she shows she can be a lover, mother and housekeeper all rolled into one.

Green theme ... she plays a powerful woman in the stunning promo

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The video opens with her reclining on a bed in a tiny top that shows off her bra straps, cleavage and a firm, toned tummy.
She's then shown cleaning up a children's nursery and getting her kids ready for bed - using Mary Poppins magic to send toys flying back into their box.

 

Alicia completes her superwoman act by caring for an elderly woman - before rejecting the overtures of the man in her life when she finally gets the chance to put her feet up and slip on a pair of headphones.
Girl On Fire, the star's fifth album, is due for release next month.

It's her first since she became a mum - to son Egypt in October 2010 - and she warns fans they should expect a very different sound this time around.
In a fiery message on her website to announce the album, she wrote: “Girl on Fire is about new beginnings, new perspectives and fresh starts…
“I felt like a lion locked in a cage. I felt like a girl misunderstood ... I felt like it was time to stop making excuses for any part of my life that I wanted to change.
“Once I made that choice I became a Girl on Fire, the lion broke free!!
“Here’s to finding your power! Your FIRE!!"

Justin Timberlake break-up caused Britney breakdown

Lawyer's claim in court

BRITNEY Spears takes her barefoot boys out shopping as a court hears Justin Timberlake blamed for the singer’s troubles.

The American X Factor judge let Sean Preston, seven, and six-year-old Jayden James go shoeless as they ran errands in LA.
As she enjoyed the day with her sons – from marriage to Kevin Federline – childhood sweetheart Justin was being blamed for her breakdown and past drug addiction.
Family lawyer Leon Gladstone told a court that her 2002 split from the singer – who wed Jessica Biel in Italy yesterday – was the start of her troubles.
Acting for the singer’s father, Jamie Spears, in a case brought be her former manager Sam Lufti, Gladstone said that she spiralled out of control, marrying twice and using drugs to get over her heartbreak.

Lost love ... Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears

He said: “They had a big relationship, and it ended painfully.
“In 2003 her parents noticed that she had changed over the break-up of her and Justin and noticed she was depressed … she went to Vegas and got married to a childhood friend for 55 hours and they saw that she was becoming distant with her parents and become concerned she was using illegal substances.”
Lufti is suing the singer for breach of contract, claiming she agreed to give him 15 percent of her earnings.
He’s also suing her mother Lynne for defaming him in her book Through the Storm – in which she claimed he drugged Britney — and her father Jamie for allegedly punching him.

Family affair ... Britney's parents, Lynne and Jamie Spears, arrive at court

Britney has been under a "guardianship order" controlled by her father since a breakdown in 2008 and the lawyer only ever acted in Britney’s best interest.
He said: “This is a story of a close family, but not a perfect one.
“It’s a story of a man who actually wanted nothing more for his daughter than to live and be well.
“It’s a story of a father who has had to step up and take action that he never thought he would have to take....actions that didn’t perhaps endear his daughter to him.”
Earlier this week, Sam Lufti testified that Britney popped up to 30 ampthetamine pills a day. He said: “She liked to use amphetamines. Mostly everything that went wrong was because of this drug.”

 

French plan to reduce energy bills prompts Big Brother outcry

Heating a French home could soon require an income tax consultation or even a visit to the doctor under legislation to force conservation in the nation's $46 billion household energy market.

A bill adopted by the lower house this month would set prices that homes pay based on wages, age and climate. Utilities Electricite de France and GDF Suez will use the data to reward consumers who cut power and natural gas usage and penalize those whom regulators decide are wasteful.
"It's Orwellian," opposition lawmaker Daniel Fasquelle said by telephone. "The law will create huge inequalities and infringe on people's individual freedoms. It won't work."
Socialist President Francois Hollande is pushing boundaries of privacy and privilege in carrying out a campaign promise to reduce energy costs. France, which built the world's biggest reliance on nuclear power as other nations buckled under public anxiety over atomic energy, is now seeking support to reward homes for "negawatts," or not using a kilowatt of power.
The law would be unique to France and is symbolic to the Socialists, a government official who declined to be identified said Thursday. Households bought 35 billion euros ($46 billion) of energy in 2011, including power, gas and other heating fuels.
The legislation drew criticism from trade unions and industry groups. It will add layers of bureaucracy to a power system already attacked in court and antitrust probes for being oppressive for customers and competitors of EDF and GDF Suez, the former state monopolies that still dominate supply, opponents said.
While the government said the changes won't cut earnings at EDF and GDF Suez, the uncertainty may weigh on their shares that investors have already marked down by 1.2 percent and 2.2 percent, respectively, in the past three months while the Bloomberg European Utilities Index gained 5.2 percent.
The proposed law was adopted by the National Assembly on Oct. 4 and is set for Senate debate later this month. Opposition from Communist members has pushed a Senate commission to postpone its examination until Oct. 23 so some revisions can be made. The draft contravenes the principle of equal access to energy across France and should be completely revised, Communist senators said in a statement late yesterday.
EDF and GDF Suez would be the most exposed because of their dominant positions. EDF supplies power to 28 million household clients in France, while GDF Suez provides gas to 9.4 million customers, giving them respective market shares of 93 percent and 90 percent by volume, according to the regulator.
"It won't be beneficial for the utilities, it will be neutral at best," Emmanuel Retif, analyst at Raymond James Euro Equities in Paris, said by e-mail. "If it were to be beneficial, heating bills would have to rise and that's not what the government is trying to do."
Investor wariness of the planned progressive and social power rates stems from 4.5 billion euros in payment arrears that have accumulated on EDF's books as of June 30, mostly because of renewable energy subsidies.
The draft legislation encourages households to use less energy either by changing their habits or insulating their homes. Thrifty energy consumers will be rewarded with lower rates while wasteful ones will have to pay more. The law is supposed to be financially neutral for utilities, according to the draft.
Power and gas bills in France and elsewhere typically vary according to the size of a dwelling, type of heating and whether it's on a windy Alpine ridge or the warmer Mediterranean coast.
The new French law will add income and the number and age of occupants to the mix. Having a medical condition that requires electricity-powered equipment like respirators or wheelchairs will also enter into the equation.
"The principle is good, but the law raises a whole series of practical problems," Nicolas Mouchnino, head of energy and environmental issues at French consumer group UFC-Que Choisir, said by phone. "It's very difficult to tell the difference with any degree of certainty between energy use that is essential and that which may be superfluous."
The rules could make relations between property owners and renters more antagonistic and open the way for fraudulent claims about energy use, he said.
The law as it stands would create an incentive system for energy use. Households would be granted a base volume of power or gas considered appropriate for the dwelling. This volume would be determined by fiscal and social security authorities from tax returns and other documents such as income statements, studies of local weather and medical records.
Households meeting certain criteria could be among 4 million — a fourfold increase under the planned law — that will be eligible for reduced "social" rates for energy. The rest will have their prices adjusted according to volumes consumed.
The government and regulator will set the reward and penalty incentives under which households using less than their allotted base volume of energy get rebates while those surpassing the limits pay higher rates. The difference could be as much as 60 euros a megawatt-hour, according to the draft.
This could translate into penalties of 600 euros a year for a home "leaking heat" compared to a well-insulated one, according to opposition lawmaker Antoine Herth. Environmental Minister Delphine Batho told senators the government will provide its own simulations of the effects on household bills, which will be "reasonable" so as to act as an incentive.
Renters will be able to deduct from their monthly payments a part of the higher costs of heating a home deemed to have low energy use efficiency, maybe because it's poorly insulated, while the elderly or households with certain yet-to-be specified heating installations will get higher base volumes of energy.
"It's so complicated I don't think it will ever be implemented," said Laurent Langlard, a spokesman on energy issues for the Confederation General du Travail. The biggest union in the energy sector backs lower energy rates for consumers, but this plan is "unworkable," he said.

 

 

"We will deal with it": Fergie reacts angrily after Rio Ferdinand refuses to wear Kick It Out anti-racism T-shirt

The Man United manager says the defender let him down

 

Sir Alex Ferguson has reacted angrily after Rio Ferdinand refused to wear a Kick It Out anti-racism T-shirt at Old Trafford on Saturday.
The Manchester United manager had claimed on Friday that all of his players would wear the shirts in accordance with the country-wide FA initiative - and even criticised Reading striker Jason Roberts for saying he would refuse to .
However, prior to the Red Devils' 4-2 win over Stoke, Ferdinand wore a red United tracksuit top rather than his the black 'one game, one community' T-shirts sported by his team-mates.
Ferdinand eventually took his training top off to reveal he was wearing a United training shirt, with the DHL sponsors logo.
Speaking to MUTV, Ferguson said: "I am disappointed. I said yesterday that the players would be wearing it in support of the PFA and that every player should adhere to it.
"And he goes and lets us down. We will deal with it, don't worry."

On Corsica, the intrigue of crime and politics claims another life

In Napoleon's birthplace, riven by feuds between bandits and nationalists, a brilliant lawyer's murder brings deep pessimism

Corsica has a long history of violence, with many of the murders blamed on disputes and tit-for-tat score-settling by criminal gangs. Photograph: Patrick Frilet/Rex Features

Even by Corsican standards of cold-bloodedness, the assassination of Antoine Sollacaro was shocking.
Not because it was especially brutal on an island where a father was recently gunned down in front of his young children and a woman was shot eight times in the back outside a shopping centre last year. Not even because it was that unusual; Sollacaro's murder was the 16th this year in Corsica. Hours before he was killed, another body had been found in a car up one of the island's many mountains.
Sollacaro's murder was shocking because he was a lawyer, recognised as a brilliant advocate and a man who defended Corsican nationalists, traditionally associated with such violence. "I'd have been more surprised if the priest was shot in his church," one lawyer said after the killing. "To shoot a lawyer, this is very symbolic."
Marc Maroselli, the president of the bar, described the murder as intolerable. "It is cowardly and shows the slide into deadly madness that is covering Corsica in blood," he said.
Islanders living with the daily drip-drip of violence believed Sollacaro's profession was his protection, that it conferred some kind of guarantee in the Corsican underworld's code of conduct. Except that on Wednesday morning it didn't.
Sollacaro, 63, was driving to work in his black convertible Porsche when he decided to pop into a Total petrol station just outside the Corsican capital, Ajaccio, to buy his morning newspaper. His vehicle was still moving when a BMW motorcycle came alongside. The pillion rider drew an automatic pistol and fired at least five shots into the lawyer's head and several more into his body. As the car hit a wall with Sollacaro slumped dead over the wheel, the assassin sped off.
Murderous violence is nothing new in Corsica. The Ile de Beauté, famed for its mountains, pine groves and sandy beaches, has a heart of darkness and a history of collective and individual slaughter. The island has been a battleground since the first century BC with Carthaginians, followed by Greeks, Etruscans, Romans, Vandals, Visigoths, Saracens and other invaders spilling blood over this extraordinarily lush and beautiful rock in the Mediterranean. It was, after all, Corsica that spawned one of the ultimate international braggarts and bullies, Napoleon Bonaparte.
Between 1821 and 1852, the "vendetta" code of honour is believed to have led to 4,300 murders. In the 1950s, the crime and bloodshed was linked to the French Connection, a network of international heroin smugglers. In the 1970s, it was dominated by nationalists and organised criminals and some people who were both.
The nationalists have struggled against Paris's rule since 1768 when Corsica became French – it is one of the country's 27 administrative regions today – but the movement reached its apogee in 1998, when members killed the prefect Claude Erignac, the French government's highest representative on the island. Sollacaro famously defended the man convicted of Erignac's murder, Yvan Colonna, and a number of other leading nationalists.
Since the start of 2007, there have been around 100 killings and at least another 100 attempted murders, most blamed on disputes and tit-for-tat score-settling between mafia-like gangs of what the local people call "bandits".
Few of the killers make it to court. Most are themselves killed in revenge, creating an endless spiral of violence and bloodshed that becomes deeply personal. The French magazine L'Express said this made Corsica, with a population of just over 300,000 but where there are an estimated 30,000 weapons, the "bloodiest" region in western Europe, and more crime-ridden than Sicily.
On Friday, Sollacaro's coffin made the slow and winding 63km journey from Ajaccio south through the mountains and pine forests to his birthplace, the former fishing port of Propriano. As the bells of Notre Dame de la Miséricorde jangled and the luxury motor cruisers and yachts at the port jiggled in their moorings, up to 1,000 friends, relatives, colleagues and residents gathered outside the already packed church to pay their respects.
The lawyers donned their fur-trimmed robes and looked grim. Hard men with red eyes embraced and wept. Elegant, tanned women in stilettos fiddled with gold jewellery.
Given the autumn sun and the occasion, the dress code adopted by most mourners, dark glasses and tailored black suits, was entirely appropriate. Given the setting and circumstances, it became cinematic and vaguely ominous.
Afterwards, the mourners lined up to offer their condoléances according to local tradition: to the women of the family inside the church, the men outside. Some spoke of a "gangrene" or "cancer" on the island, but most said that it was not a time for talk. Jacques, aged 81, a retired sheep farmer, shook his weatherbeaten face but could not find many words to say.
"I don't know what's happened to Corsica, it is terrible to see what has happened to our island. Nothing will ever be the same."
He added: "In the past, murders have been over questions of honour, but now life is cheap. Where is the honour in this killing? Young people use bullets to resolve their differences, but bullets resolve nothing."
Pierre-Louis Maurel, a former president of the bar in the northern city of Bastia, said he was a lifelong personal friend of the dead man.
"Antoine was a lawyer, a defender of men," he said. "We do not know if he was targeted as a man or as a lawyer. If he was targeted for his advocate's robes, then it is very symbolic; it is nothing less than an attack on democracy, liberty and justice. It means the killers respect nobody and nothing. I hope this is not true, but I fear it is. As lawyers, that makes us very afraid."
Many Corsicans blame the French establishment for the island's plight, complaining they have been abandoned to crime, rising unemployment, poverty and economic decline, which they say has left the island's youth disaffected, dangerous and fodder for organised crime.
President François Hollande has described the violence as unacceptable and tomorrow his Socialist government is expected to announce measures to combat it.
If there is stupefaction on Corsica, there is widespread incomprehension elsewhere. "Nobody understands what's going on here and it's impossible to explain," said one French reporter at Sollacaro's funeral on Friday.
"Before, it was the nationalists fighting for independence, then it was nationalists fighting each other, and some were also bandits who started fighting each other for different reasons. Then people started getting killed, not because they were involved in anything but because they knew people who were ..." his voice trailed off. "As I say, impossible to explain."
Veteran Corsican journalist Jacques Renucci described a sense of collective resignation and pessimism. "People here are not in fact particularly shocked by the killing, sadly. What they're shocked about is that someone so high-profile was targeted," he said.
Renucci added: "Every time Corsicans say 'never again', and it happens time and time again. They hark back to a golden age on the island when everyone lived happily together, but it is a myth, a fiction.
"The truth is we have always killed each other, and I am not optimistic that we're about to stop."

US risks drawing Beijing's ire with military cruise in disputed waters

USS George Washington enters South China Sea as display of naval strength and support of smaller Asian nations claims

The nuclear-powered USS George Washington aircraft carrier cruising the disputed South China Sea. Photograph: Brian H. Able/EPA

A US aircraft carrier group cruised through the disputed South China Sea on Saturday in a show of American power in waters that are fast becoming a focal point of Washington's strategic rivalry with Beijing.
Vietnamese security and government officials were flown onto the nuclear-powered USS George Washington ship, underlining the burgeoning military relationship between the former enemies.
A small number of journalists were also invited to witness the display of maritime might in the oil-rich waters, which are home to islands disputed between China and the other smaller Asian nations facing the sea.
The visit will likely reassure Vietnam and the Philippines of American support but could annoy China, whose growing economic and naval strength is leading to a greater assertiveness in pressing its claims there.
The United States is building closer economic and military alliances with Vietnam and other nations in the region as part of a "pivot" away from the Middle East to Asia, a shift in large part meant to counter rising Chinese influence.
The Vietnamese officials took photos of F-16 fighter jets taking off and landing on the ships 1,000-foot-long flight deck, met the captain and toured the hulking ship, which has more than 5,000 sailors on board.
The mission came a day after Beijing staged military exercises near islands in the nearby East China Sea it disputes with US ally Japan. Those tensions have flared in recent days.
China claims nearly all of the South China Sea, where the US says it has a national interest in ensuring freedom of navigation in an area crossed by vital shipping lanes.
Vietnam, the Philippines and several other Asian nations also claim parts of the sea.
The disputes attracted little international interest until the late 1990s, when surveys indicated possible large oil reserves.
American rivalry with China has given the disputes an extra dimension in recent years.
The US navy regularly patrols the Asia-Pacific region, conducting joint exercises with its allies and training in the strategic region.
The trip by the George Washington off the coast of Vietnam is its third in as many years.
A second aircraft carrier, the USS John C Stennis, has also conducting operations in the western Pacific region recently, according to the US Pacific Fleet.
Captain Gregory Fenton said the mission was aimed in part at improving relations with Vietnam and ensuring the US had free passage in the South China Sea.
China's military buildup, including the launch of its own carrier last year and rapid development of ballistic missiles and cyber warfare capabilities, could potentially crimp the US forces' freedom to operate in the waters.
The United States doesn't publicly take sides in the territorial disputes among China and its neighbors.
"It is our goal to see the region's nations figure out these tensions ... on their own, our role of that to date is to conduct freedom of navigation exercises within international waters," Fenton said in an interview on the bridge.
Although claimant countries have pledged to settle the territorial rifts peacefully, the disputes have erupted in violence in the past, including in 1988 when China and Vietnam clashed in the Spratly Islands in a confrontation that killed 64 Vietnamese soldiers.
Many fear the disputes could become Asia's next flash point for armed conflict.
Vietnam is pleased to accept help from its one-time foe America as a hedge against its giant neighbor China, with which it also tries to maintain good relations.
Still, the Hanoi government reacted angrily to recent moves by Beijing to establish a garrison on one of the Paracel islands, which Vietnam claims. The United States also criticized the move by Beijing, earning it a rebuke from the government there.
"China will take this (cruise) as another expression by the United States of its desire to maintain regional domination," said Denny Roy, a senior fellow at the East-West Center in Hawaii.
"The US also wants to send a message to the region that it is here for the long haul ... and that it wants to back up international law."
While most analysts believe military confrontation in the waters is highly unlikely anytime soon, they say tensions are likely to increase as China continues pressing its claims and building its navy.

Romney and Obama stay off campaign trail to prepare for final debate

President goes to Camp David and GOP rival studies in Florida as Ryan and Biden headline rallies in battleground states

Monday night's debate could provide a final chance for the candidates to land a few blows in front of tens of million voters. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

For the second Saturday running, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney went to ground to prep for a televised debate that could prove crucial in a tight White House race now entering its home straight.
President Obama hunkered down in Camp David ahead of the third head-to-head with his Republican rival. He is due to remain their until Monday night's encounter, leaving the donkey work of the campaign to his deputy Joe Biden, who hit the stump in Florida on Saturday.
Likewise, Romney was leaving nothing to chance ahead of the foreign policy debate, having slipped up on the topic in the last match-up between the pair – an occurrence that seemingly arrested his momentum ahead of the November 6 vote.
Romney is due to spend the weekend in Florida boning up on the issues. Meanwhile his vice-presidential pick, Paul Ryan, is due to campaign in the Democratic-leaning battleground of Pennsylvania on Saturday.
Political pundits have by-and-large scored the two presidential debates in this race 1-1, with Obama winning the second after a poor performance in the first initially handed the electoral running to Romney.
Monday's debate, due to be held in Boca Raton, Florida, and moderated Bob Schieffer of CBS News, is dedicated solely to foreign affairs.
It should be a strong area for the president, as he consistently tops polls as to which of the candidates is more trusted on international affair. During his tenure at the White House, Obama has pulled American troops out of Iraq and presided over drawdown in Afghanistan – both popular measures in a country grown weary by more than a decade of war.
Additionally, terror chief Osama bin Laden was assassinated by a US crack team under the president's watch, providing a further boost to his claims of competence in pushing forward US objectives overseas.
But the timing of the debate isn't great for the White House incumbent, coming just weeks after a confused response from the administration over a deadly attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
The assault resulted in the death of four Americans, including ambassador Chris Stevens. It also, so the Republicans claim, raised questions over Obama's foreign policy and leadership after conflicting messages over who was responsible for the assault were initially released.
On Friday, Ryan continued to needle the president over claims that he should have known earlier that militants were responsible for the consulate siege, and not, as some in the administration appeared to initially think, that it was the work of protesters angered by an anti-Islam film produced in the US.
Ryan told Wisconsin radio station WTAQ that the Benghazi attack and its handling by the president represented the "absolute unravelling of the Obama administration's foreign policy".
But some believe that the Republican ticket has already overplayed the attack for political advantage.
An attempt to press the president over the semantic point of whether he actually called it an "act of terror" the day after the siege, backfired on Romney in the second debate.
Meanwhile, the White House has been trying to put some distance between Obama and the initial confusion over who was behind the Benghazi killings, seemingly shifting the blame for the response on the State Department.
On Monday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she took responsibility over the response.
"In the wake of an attack like this, in fog of war, there's always going to be confusion," she explained.
It is likely that any exchange over the Benghazi incident at Monday's debate will be closely watched for inconsistencies. But whether or not the Republicans can make enough of it to overturn a perceived advantage for Obama on foreign policy remains to be seen.
Meanwhile, Obama and Biden have been focusing their attack on Romney's apparent policy shifts on issues such as women's health, dismissively referring to moves by the Republican hopeful to appeal to the centre as "Romnesia".
With the race now bending into the home straight, Monday night's debate could provide a final chance for both White House contenders to land a few blows in front of an audience of tens of million voters.
Perhaps of equal importance, both will be eager to avoid any verbal missteps or gaffes that could provide the 24-news networks with the equivalent of a water-cooler moment to play relentlessly in the days leading up to 6 November.