Valditrento, Italy - Justyna Kowalczyk of Poland on Saturday won the last women's cross-country World Cup race before the world championships.

Kowalczyk won the 10-kilometres classic style race in 29 minutes 37.4 seconds, her second straight win in the discipline, third overall in the season and fifth in her career.

Marianna Longa of Italy trailed by 12.4 seconds in second place and Slovenian sprint queen Petra Majdic was third, 30.3 seconds off the pace.

Aino Kaisa Saarinen of Finland came seventh to retain the World Cup lead with 1,276 points from Majdic (1,250) and Kowalczyk (1,167).

Rome  - Demonstrations and strikes organized by Italy's largest labour union confederation on Friday attracted tens of thousands of workers and jobless people protesting the conservative government's handling of the economic crisis.

Three separate marches staged in Rome snarled traffic in the capital city's centre, where security measures for a meeting of representatives of the Group of Seven industrialized nations had already restricted mobility.

Some 700,000 people took part, organizers said.

Rome - Protectionism and financial regulation were the expected hot topics at a dinner later Friday bringing together economy ministers and central bankers from the Group of Seven (G7) most-industrialized nations.

The gathering in Rome comes amid the backdrop of the global economic downturn and is set to mark the first international appearance of new US Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner.

Talks were scheduled to resume Saturday and conclude with a joint statement issued by delegates in the afternoon.

Valditrento, Italy - Petra Majdic of Slovenia and Norway's Ola Vigen Hattestad were unbeatable again on Friday as they each posted a fifth season sprint win in the cross-country skiing World Cup.

Majdic won the women's freestyle race in 2 minutes 45.6 seconds from former sprint world champion Pirjo Muranen of Finland and Italy's Magda Genuin.

Majdic closed in on World Cup leader Aino Kaisa Saarinen of Finland, who placed 13th on the day to lead with 1,240 points. Majdic is close behind on 1,190 and holder Virpi Kuitunen has 1,069.

London, Feb 13 : Italian actress Monica Bellucci sure knows how to titillate her male fans - she has bared all in a sizzling shower scene for the movie L''Uomo Che Ama, which translates to The Man Who Loves.

The film tells the tale of a fortysomething fella who suffers at the hands of his complex relationships, reports the Sun.

Pierfrancesco Favino, who has struck mainstream success alongside Ben Stiller in `Night at the Museum' and Tom Hanks in `Angels & Demons', also stars in the movie.

Bellucci once vowed that as long as people want so see her naked she'll carry on peeling off.

Indian public sector undertaking Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) and Italian defence company Selex Galileo and Astra Microwave Products, a Hyderabad based company, have signed memorandum of understandings (MoU) for cooperation and sharing their expertise in the fields of electronic warfare and microwave components.