Trieste, Italy  - Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said Tuesday he and German Chancellor Angela Merkel favour a possible partnership between German airline Lufthansa and ailing Italian carrier Alitalia.

"We both view very favourably a collaboration between Alitalia and Lufthansa. In fact we hope it will occur," Berlusconi said during a joint news conference with Merkel in Trieste.

Earlier Tuesday Italy's top financial newspaper, Il Sole 24 Ore, reported that a private Italian consortium, CAI, which is in the process of purchasing the state's controlling stake in Alitalia, was on the verge of clinching a deal with French-Dutch airline Air France-KLM.

Rome - Serie A strugglers Bologna Tuesday announced the signing of Brazilian midfielder Cesar, who was without a contract after winning the 2008 scudetto with Inter Milan.

Milan - A pair of lowered shorts and their coach's altercation with a journalist have partly obscured a hat-trick from Catania's flag bearing striker and the good performance of the team in the Italian Serie A.

The Sicily side at the weekend rose to a comfortable seventh place as Giuseppe Mascara scored all their goals in a 3-2 win over Torino.

But the striker's feats and the team's good position seemed to take the back-seat in the Italian media, which on Tuesday devoted space to the explanation provided by Gianvito Plasmati about the lowering of his shorts at a crucial moment of the game.

Trieste, Italy - Germany's Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Tuesday joined his Italian counterpart Franco Frattini in laying a commemorative wreath for the victims of a former World War II Nazi death camp near the north-eastern Italian port of Trieste.

Steinmeier was in Trieste Tuesday as part of a summit including talks between Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Trieste, Italy - Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi began hosting German Chancellor Angela Merkel for a day of talks Tuesday, with the current global economic crisis expected to feature high on the agenda.

The discussions, taking place in the north eastern Italian Adriatic Sea port of Trieste, were to be followed by a joint news conference scheduled for around 1430 GMT.

Milan  - Marcello Lippi hasn't said much about it but he certainly won't be pulling any punches when he takes his world champion squad to the Confederations Cup that Italy play for the first time next June.

The event organized by football's ruling body FIFA has gradually evolved into a prestigious warm-up tournament taking place one year before the World Cup in the country that will host it.

From June 14 to 28 in 2009, South Africa will thus test its stadiums and infrastructure in a tournament reserved for eight teams from six continents.