AVG AntiVirus Free 10.0.1391a3789

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Please note that any previous version of AVG Free will be un-installed automatically during the installation of the new AVG Free.

A 64-Bit version is also available: AVG AntiVirus Free 10.0.1321a3540 (64-Bit)

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Bologna Motor Show concludes with Dovizioso second in Memorial Bettega rally

The 36th edition of the Bologna Motor Show concluded on Sunday after two weeks of activities related to the four wheeled world. Apart from manufacturer’s new editions on display, the show hosts various competitions and exhibitions every year that are pure adrenaline on the Mobil 1 Arena circuit. Yesterday the Memorial Bettega rally took place, a rally wherein professional Rally car face off with guests from other racing disciplines.

The winner of this edition was Norwegian WRC driver Petter Solberg, with MotoGP rider Andrea Dovizioso claiming second in the final.

The Italian was the main protagonist at the 27th edition of the Memorial Bettega, the highlight of the second week of the Bologna Motor Show. With impeccable driving at the wheel of his Ford Fiesta RS, Dovizioso won the semifinal against Jari-Matti Latvala before the thrilling final against Solberg.

“Today went well and I beat all of the challengers, including the best, and only the final didn’t go perfectly and I made a few mistakes. I didn’t win, but in front of people like Petter,” added Dovizioso, who remains open to future forays competing on four wheels. “I could participate every day in races like this, though I don’t know if I could be as competitive in a “real” rally.”

The 2011 edition of the Motor Show featured various tributes to Marco Simoncelli. One of the first events of the Bologna Motor Show featured a tribute video to the late Italian star, with an additional homage video played this past Saturday at the Bettega Memorial Rally - a competition that ‘Super Sic’ would not have missed.

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Pirro: "I want to make a statement in MotoGP"

Michele Pirro shared his expectations and goals ahead of his upcoming season aboard the Gresini team’s CRT. "It's definitely an important milestone," began the 25 year-old. "I’ll be joining the best riders in the world in the highest category of racing on board a great team.”

Pirro recently extended his partnership with the Italian team, about which he said: “I am happy I’m staying with them, they are like family and after everything that happened at the end of the season, I really wanted to stay. My first place at Valencia gave Fausto (Gresini) and the team the strength to take the next step they needed to continue. After what happened in Sepang, the motivation to continue racing was at risk, but that victory helped us want to try to build something positive.”

After a competitive season in the Moto2 Championship, the Italian is ready to make the lead into the premier class where he will confront the challenge of the new CRT category, which will commence in 2012. “People are saying that it is the future,” said Pirro. "Of course in the beginning it will be criticized, just like the Moto2 class was. But after the first year, it should be possible to develop the performance of the CRT bikes even further.”

Following his win at the final round in Valencia, most expected that he would run a second term in the 600cc Moto2 class. But the two-time 1000cc Italian Superstock champion surprised everyone by opting instead for the jump to MotoGP. "I admit I waited until the last second to decide whether to continue with Moto2, especially after learning about the circuits and the category in general. With a few improvements to the bike, most likely we could have had a successful season. But I spoke with Fausto several times and he has always had the utmost confidence in me and encouraged me, and has never stopped believing in my abilities, so I'm really happy and proud to represent the Gresini team in MotoGP.”

“Staying in Moto2 surely would have allowed me to develop further in the class as a rider, and taking on this new opportunity will be a lot of hard work. But I'm happy, we will work hard to do our best to have a good season, although, given the newness of the class it’s difficult to predict too much. I am prepared and excited to invest in this new project."

The San Carlo Honda Gresini Team will run a prototype Italian FTR chassis with a Honda CBR 1000 engine, which he went on to describe: "The bike is promising, FTR has always made good chassis and of course the Honda engine and will strong. Although Aprilia and BMW are further ahead in development, I will still try to focus and prepare myself to start from where we are to move the project forward. Hopefully we can adapt the chassis to the tires, but for my part I will have to learn everything about the bike, from the electronics to the best suitable riding position. But most important will be the first test, which is expected to be in February.”

Pirro isn’t new to 1000cc bikes, having won the Italian 1000cc Superstock Championship in 2007 and 2008, riding a Yamaha YZF-R1 for the Yamaha Lorenzini by Leoni team. The next season he won the Italian Supersport Championship, and in 2010 rode as a replacement for the injured Vladimir Ivanov of the Gresini Racing Moto2 team, with which he remained for the next season as a regular rider.

The Italian’s career path saw him jump to the highest category in just a few years’ time. “For every rider, the ultimate goal is to race in MotoGP, but I’ll admit that this step in my plans was expected to happen in a couple of years. The important thing now is to work well with the team and have fun at the same time, because when everything goes your way and you can ride without problems, the results gradually come. In a few years I’ve done what many of my colleagues take much longer to achieve, but I believe I've earned each step along the way to the higher categories."

"I don’t want to just 'participate' in the MotoGP class, I’d also like make a statement. Even if the level is high, and I’m racing with the best riders in the world, I want to try to be competitive with them. I realize that in the beginning this won’t be easy, it will be difficult to achieve much because of the different technical circumstances, but hopefully the first year with CRT is an investment for the future, to grow and be competitive in the coming seasons.”

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Tintin Goes Native, Belgium Red Carpet for Spielberg Film

Brussels. Belgium rolled out a royal red carpet on Saturday for Tintin, its most celebrated son, as Steven Spielberg premiered his blockbuster movie in the comic book hero’s home capital.

Posters of the intrepid boy reporter with the quiff and funny pants were plastered across town, and a parade of vintage cars, as portrayed by author Herge in albums set in the 1940s, was organized to coincide with the event.

Spielberg flies in for the first public screening of “The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn,” an Avatar-style movie that will bring the boy hero and his trusty sidekick Snowy to cinemas elsewhere from Wednesday.

Co-produced by “Lord of the Rings” director Peter Jackson, Spielberg’s “Tintin,” in the director’s own words, is billed as a kind of “Indiana Jones for kids.”

Loosely based on several of the 24 Tintin comic albums, the story kicks off in a well-known Brussels antiques market, and city authorities are looking to a tourist bonanza for “the most celebrated of Belgians” — as the posters say.

Tintin and Spielberg, whose project dates back 30 years, headlined papers and TV broadcasts in anticipation of the movie, which gets its red-carpet premiere early afternoon before Spielberg leaps onto a high-speed train to Paris for a second premiere later on Saturday.

“There’s a lot of excitement over the movie,” said Dominique Maricq, an oldtimer at Herge Studios. “We’re curious to see how Hollywood portrays him.”

Welcoming Spielberg’s decision to unveil the 3-D animation in Belgium, Maricq said that from the start Belgian specialists had been “impressed by Spielberg and Jackson’s determination to respect the spirit of Tintin’s world, to not turn him into an American super-hero.”

Even one of the King Albert II’s daughters will be attending the red carpet event.

But among the most avid spectators will be a Belgian retiree who has the distinction of being the sole person ever to have played Tintin on screen — 50 years ago in a French production.

Jean-Pierre Talbot, a round-faced 68-year-old retired schoolteacher with a Tintinesque quiff, became an actor by fluke after being spotted on a beach by a film director as resembling the comic book hero.

“I’m upset and a little emotional,” he said before seeing the Hollywood rendition. “I never acted again but for people here I’ve remained Tintin.”

Created in 1929 by Herge, whose real name was Georges Remi and who was then in his early 20s, Tintin and his colorful and sometimes foul-mouthed companions have achieved cult status for millions worldwide.

Shot using motion capture technology, the Spielberg movie uses real-life actors — Jamie Bell of “Billy Elliot” fame as the fresh-faced hero, Daniel Craig as the villain Red Rackham — to breathe life into its characters.

Jackson is to direct two sequels.
Claire Rosemberg
Agence France-Presse

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Spielberg 'Honored' by War Horse's Royal Premiere

London. Prince William and his wife Catherine on Sunday attended the British premiere of Steven Spielberg's new film War Horse along with 600 serving and ex-serving military personnel and their families.

Spielberg said it was "an honor" to be attending his first royal premiere with the Duke and Duchess as he made his way in the rain down the red carpet at London's Leicester Square.

The US director also praised the couple's "wonderful" gesture to invite soldiers to the event.

"It's a great honour that they've (William and Kate) given up their time and also given up their charity and it's wonderful because it was their idea to bring the veterans here, so they could share this evening," he said.

The movie tells the story of Joey, a horse raised on the English countryside who is torn away from his home -- and stable lad Albert -- and sent to France to the battlefields of World War I.

The story follows Albert on his mission to find his equine partner amid the blood, mud and misery of the Great War.

Spielberg used celluloid film to record the movie, which received a Golden Globe nomination this month ahead of its Christmas Day release in the United States, to give it an old-fashioned feel.

The Hollywood heavyweight said filming the movie was "a beautiful, beautiful experience."

"All these actors, every single one in this movie bonded with Joey," he added. "If I could do it all over again, I would only do it again so I could repeat the experience."

Joey was played by around a dozen horses from all from around the world, notably Spain. Stable boy Albert is played by 21-year-old British actor Jeremy Irvine, who had previously only worked in TV.

The movie, which follows on a hugely successful Broadway and West End show, also features Sherlock actor Benedict Cumberbatch, Emily Watson and David Thewlis.

Most critics so far have been broadly positive, although some have questioned Spielberg's approach, like the Guardian's newspaper critic Andrew Pulver, who said the director "can't seem to snap out of a now-habitual mode of vitality-erasing, dewy-eyed affectation."

The Duke and Duchess attended in aid of the Foundation of Prince William and Prince Harry, the charity set up by the royal brothers in 2009.

The servicemen and women invited to the premiere came from the Duke's regiments.

Agence France-Presse

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Can Lionel Messi Become the Greatest Football Player of All Time?

Paris. Lionel Messi became only the second man to win three consecutive Ballon d’Or awards on Monday and the question now begging to be asked is: could he become the greatest player of all time?

The 24-year-old from Rosario, Santa Fe is not short of silverware but what really sets him apart is the effervescence of his dribbling, the inventiveness of his team play and the extraordinary regularity of his goalscoring.

In 2011, Messi scored 59 goals in 70 club games for Barcelona. It was a figure bettered only by Cristiano Ronaldo (60), but Messi also contributed 37 assists to the Portuguese’s 21.

Only Michel Platini had previously won the Ballon d’Or for three years running and Messi now belongs to an elite group also featuring Dutch legends Johan Cruyff and Marco van Basten to have been honoured with the award on three occasions.

“Messi will be the player to win the most Ballons d’Or in history,” Cruyff predicts.

“He will win five, six, seven. He is incomparable. He’s in a different league.”

Messi has also proven himself capable of rising to the occasion when the sport’s biggest prizes are on the line.

His influence echoed long and loud over the closing stages of last season’s Champions League, after he netted twice in Barca’s semi-final defeat of Ronaldo’s Real Madrid and found the target against Manchester United in the final at Wembley.

Barcelona’s trophy haul in 2011 meant that Messi now has three Champions League winners’ medals and five La Liga crowns to his name.

He has also won the FIFA Club World Cup twice and it is a matter of time until he surpasses Cesar Rodriguez’ record of 235 goals for his club.

In terms of pure ability with a football, Messi bears comparison with any player who has ever played the game, but his one Achilles heel is his inability to reproduce his Barcelona form in the light blue and white stripes of his country.

Messi’s goalscoring record with Argentina is a disappointing 19 goals in 66 games, and he was unable to prevent his country from crashing out in the quarter-finals at both the 2010 World Cup and last year’s Copa America in his homeland.

Traditionalists contend that, for all his astonishing exploits at club level, he cannot be compared to Pele or his feted countryman Diego Maradona until he has left his imprint on a major international tournament.

His next opportunity will arrive at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, when -- at the age of 26 -- he should be in prime position to showcase his gifts on the game’s most prestigious stage.

“I still have this dream and that is to be a world champion and lift the Copa America with the national side,” said Messi recently.

“And I know I’ll do it, I’m convinced I will.”

Away from the sport, Messi cuts a far more bashful figure than his great rival Ronaldo, but that has not prevented him from amassing a huge personal fortune through several lucrative endorsements, notably with Adidas.

He was named one of Time magazine’s people of 2011 and is also a UNICEF goodwill ambassador, but it is through his dazzling dribbling, his carefully weighted passing and his artful finishing that he has earned his global fame.

Typically deployed by Barca coach Pep Guardiola in a roving forward role, he roams the pitch with seemingly boyish abandon and few things hush a stadium more quickly than the sight of Messi embarking on one of his gambolling runs towards goal.

“There are no words left to describe him -- he is interplanetary,” said Real Zaragoza coach Jose Aurelio Gay in March 2010.

“We could have beaten Barcelona but we could never have beaten Leo Messi. If we had scored four, he would have scored 12.”

The terrifying thought for Barcelona’s rivals is that he is still getting better.

Agence France-Presse

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Tom Cruise: I always dreamt of making movies

Tom Cruise made a mark for himself as an actor and filmmaker in Hollywood and the star confesses that he dreamt of making films ever since he was four years old.

His next production venture, Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol, in which he plays the lead role, is ready to hit screens worldwide on December 21.

"I think it's about the 20th film I have produced. I love cinema, I love movies and my whole life. Since when I was four years old, I remember I dreamt of making movies, so I started producing," said the 49-year-old actor.

Cruise turned producer with Mission: Impossible and continued with movies like Vanilla Sky, The Last Samurai and Mission Impossible III.

"Mission: Impossible was the film I produced and I came up with the idea of making the series into movies because, as a child, I saw the series and I thought it would make a great film because there wasn't anything like that. And you know it's fun hiring directors, writers and being involved in casting and story," he added.

Ghost Protocol also features Paula Patton, Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, Michael Nyqvist and Bollywood actor Anil Kapoor.

Meanwhile, Cruise is very clear about continuing with the franchise.

"There are lots of stories and lots of places to go," said the actor, who has enjoyed 30 years in the industry.

Cruise made his acting debut with the 1981 movie Endless Love and he has appeared in 30-odd films. His next release will be Rock of Ages directed by Adam Shankman.

Don't miss it
Tom Cruise makes his first official appearance at a press conference for Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol at the Burj Khalifa at 11am this morning. tabloid! will be live tweeting from the conference. catch the full story — with interviews with all the film’s stars, plus a review, in tomorrow ’s tabloid!

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