Cairo - Five Italian tourists kidnapped on a desert safari in Egypt arrived home early Tuesday after being freed soldiers, news reports said.

The tourists, part of a group of 19 kidnapped in Egypt's Western Desert by masked men on September 19, landed in Turin at 1.45 am (2345 GMT), Italian media said.

The three men and two women aged between 48 and 72 left Cairo by military plane after a medical checkup.

Rome - The last two unions- both representing Alitalia flight attendants - on Monday finally joined other representatives of the financially troubled airline's workers in agreeing to a private consortium's takeover offer.

The decision by the SDL and AVIA unions to adhere to the CAI consortium's buyout plan ended more than two weeks of tortious talks.

Their failure would have seen the demise of Alitalia and would have represented a serious embarrassment to Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's conservative government.

Rome, Sept. 27 : Active efforts are on to revive and rehabilitate Benito Mussolini, Italy’s wartime dictator.

On Friday, urban planners and architectural historians from across Italy gathered in Rome to honour the “glories” of Fascist architecture.

The conference, at Latina, a model “new town” created in reclaimed marshland south of Rome by Mussolini in 1932, is the brainchild of Giorgio Frasinetti, the head of urban planning at Predappio, the town in Emilia-Romagna where Il Duce was born and is buried, reports The Times.

Rome - Pilots at Alitalia SpA gave their green light to a rescue plan for the Italian airline after nearly 15 hours of nonstop negotiations, Italy's ANSA news agency reported Saturday.

The pilots agreed to a takeover by a consortium of private investors after negotiating a reduction in sackings and manager contracts for captains.

The agreement meant only Alitalia's flight attendants union had yet to approve the deal designed to keep Italy's flagship carrier from collapse. Talks were scheduled with that union Monday.

Frankfurt - Amid a struggle in Rome to avert the collapse of Italian airline Alitalia, Lufthansa has resumed talks with Italy's government, the German airline said Friday.

Lufthansa chief executive Wolfgang Mayrhuber had travelled to Italy at the government's invitation and would also meet trade union leaders, a spokeswoman for Lufthansa said in Frankfurt.

She said she could not disclose what was discussed or who else Mayrhuber would meet.

Auto component maker Autoline Industries has informed that its Cyprus unit, Koderat has acquired 49% stake in two Italian firms named, SZ Design Srl and Zagato S.r.l for 9 million Euro.