Many French aghast at Depardieu exit

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Russian President Vladimir Putin has bestowed Russian citizenship on actor Gérard Depardieu


• For Depardieu, a public war of words erupted, with many in France disgusted by his move


• Depardieu more than anyone, represents the Gallic spirit, says Agnes Poirier


• Majority of French people disapprove of his action but can't help loving him, she adds

Agnes Poirier is a French journalist and political analyst who contributes regularly to newspapers, magazines and TV in the UK, U.S., France, Italy. Follow her on Twitter.

Paris (CNN) -- Since the revelation on the front page of daily newspaper Libération, on December 11, with a particularly vicious editorial talking about France's national treasure as a "former genius actor," Gérard Depardieu's departure to Belgium, where he bought a property just a mile from the French border, has deeply divided and saddened France. Even more so since, as we have learnt this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin has bestowed the actor Russian citizenship.

Read more: Depardieu's puzzling love for Russia

Back in mid-December, the French media operated along political lines: the left-wing press such as Libération couldn't find strong enough words to describe Depardieu's "desertion" while right-wing publications such as Le Figaro, slightly uneasy at the news, preferred to focus on President François Hollande's punishing taxes which allegedly drove throngs of millionaires to seek tax asylum in more fiscally lenient countries such as Belgium or Britain. Le Figaro stopped short of passing moral judgement though. Others like satirical weekly Charlie hebdo, preferred irony. Its cover featured a cartoon of the rather rotund-looking Depardieu in front of a Belgian flag with the headline: "Can Belgium take the world's entire load of cholesterol?" Ouch.

Quickly though, it became quite clear that Depardieu was not treated in the same way as other famous French tax exiles. French actor Alain Delon is a Swiss resident as is crooner-rocker Johnny Halliday, and many other French stars and sportsmen ensure they reside for under six months in France in order to escape being taxed here on their income and capital. Their move has hardly ever been commented on. And they certainly never had to suffer the same infamy.

Read more: Actor Depardieu makes Russia trip after accepting citizenship

Agnes Poirier

For Depardieu, a public war of words erupted. It started with the French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, and many members of his government, showing their disdain, and talking of Depardieu's "pathetic move." In response the outraged actor penned an open letter to the French PM in which he threatened to give back his French passport.

The backlash was not over. Fellow thespian Phillipe Torreton fired the first salvo against Depardieu in an open letter published in Libération, insulting both Depardieu's protruding physique and lack of patriotism: "So you're leaving the ship France in the middle of a storm? What did you expect, Gérard? You thought we would approve? You expected a medal, an academy award from the economy ministry? (...)We'll get by without you." French actress Catherine Deneuve felt she had to step in to defend Depardieu. In another open letter published by Libération, she evoked the darkest hours of the French revolution. Before flying to Rome to celebrate the New Year, Depardieu gave an interview to Le Monde in which he seemed to be joking about having asked Putin for Russian citizenship. Except, it wasn't a joke.

Read more: French star Depardieu ditches France for Putin's Russia

In truth, French people have felt touched to their core by Depardieu's gesture. He, more than anyone, represents the Gallic spirit. He has been Cyrano, he has been Danton; he, better than most, on screen and off, stands for what it means to be French: passionate, sensitive, theatrical, and grandiose. Ambiguous too, and weak in front of temptations and pleasures.

In truth, French people have felt touched to their core by Depardieu's gesture. He, more than anyone, represents the Gallic spirit
Hugh Miles

For more than two weeks now, #Depardieu has been trending on French Twitter. Surveys have showed France's dilemma: half the French people understand him but there are as many who think that paying one's taxes is a national duty. In other words, a majority of French people disapprove of his action but can't help loving the man.

Read more: Paris promises flurry of economic reforms

Putin's move in granting the actor Russian citizenship has exacerbated things. And first of all, it is a blow to Hollande who, it was revealed, had a phone conversation with Depardieu on New Year's Day. The Elysées Palace refused to communicate on the men's exchange. A friend of the actor declared that Depardieu complained about being so reviled by the press and that he was leaving, no matter what.

If, in their hearts, the French don't quite believe Depardieu might one day settle in Moscow and abandon them, they feel deeply saddened by the whole saga. However, with France's former sex symbol Brigitte Bardot declaring that she too might ask Putin for Russian citizenship to protest against the fate of zoo elephants in Lyon, it looks as if the French may prefer to laugh the whole thing off. Proof of this: the last trend on French Twitter is #IWantRussianCitizenship.

Read more: Brigitte Bardot threatens to spurn France, embrace Russia if 2 elephants killed

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Agnes Poirier.

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Purse snatcher no match for Good Samaritans

Junior welterweight boxer Peter Heliotes came to Chicago recently to fight and he didn't have long to wait.

Heliotes, 20, won a bout on the streets of Lincoln Park when he took down a parolee who robbed a woman after threatening her with a screwdriver late Saturday night, according to police.

The 150-pound fighter had just stepped off the Brown Line around 11:45 p.m. after finishing his day job as a cook. He was about half a block from the Diversey station when he noticed a man across the street who appeared to be hugging a woman. The man seemed drunk because he was wrapped around her.

"Then I realized he was grabbing her purse, he was kind of wrestling with her," said Heliotes, who recently won his first local fight in Orland Park. "I've never really seen anybody get mugged before, but it was kind of my instincts."

As he crossed Diversey, the robber wrested away the woman's purse and she began screaming, Heliotes said. Without thinking, Heliotes said he ran after the man as he headed for the station. "I didn't know if he had a knife or what, so I tried to knock him to the floor by pushing him into the wall," Heliotes said. "He kept running."

Heliotes spotted people up ahead, and the woman called out for them to stop the robber.  A 24-year-old man who was with his girlfriend blocked the robber's path and forced him onto the street.

"I just heard someone yell out, 'Stop that guy," and he's literally 30 or 40 feet in front of me," said the man, who did not want his named used. "For me it was just a split-second decision that I'm going to do this, I'm protecting the people near me."

He and Heliotes wrestled the robber to the ground and took the purse back. That's when they spotted the screwdriver. "I said, 'Was he sticking you up with the screwdriver? She had a mark on her back," Heliotes said. "He was a pretty strong guy."

The two good Samaritans had the robber face-down on the street, but he continued to struggle as police sirens grew louder, they said. At least one other man stepped up and held the man's head down as officers arrived.

"It's one of those hypothetical situations that I think you're always, 'What would I do?' It doesn't even seem like it's real life," said the 24-year-old man. "I'm not even sure you could chalk it up to instincts."

He said he is protective by nature, and that seemed to kick in because he was with his girlfriend and has a younger sister.

The victim, 29, said she was returning to her home after spending the evening watching a movie at a friend's home nearby. She initially thought the screwdriver the robber pressed against her back was a gun.

"I actually thought it was a joke. . .then I realized, 'He may actually have a gun,' " said the woman, who works for a local non-profit organization. "Then he took my purse."

Not only did the two men help get her purse back, they sat with her for more than four hours at a police station as they were interviewed by police and prosecutors.

"How do you say thank you to just kind guys off the street who don't know you and just provided so much safety and security at that time for you," the woman said. "They not only gave me the security that night. . .they gave me the faith that there is good out there."

Jose Rodriguez, 30, was charged with armed robbery with a dangerous weapon and a parole violation. He was ordered held on $500,000 bail.  He has six felony convictions in his background, prosecutors said.

Contributing: Rosemary Regina Sobol

csadovi@tribune.com

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Five accused in India rape case charged in court

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Five men accused of raping and murdering an Indian student were read the charges in a near-empty courtroom on Monday after the judge cleared out lawyers for bickering over whether the men deserved a defense.

The 23-year-old physiotherapy student died two weeks after being gang-raped and beaten on a moving bus in New Delhi, then thrown bleeding onto the street. Protests followed, along with a fierce public debate over police failure to stem rampant violence against women.

With popular anger simmering against the five men and a teenager accused in the case, most lawyers in the district where the trial will be held refuse to represent them.

Before the men arrived for a pre-trial hearing on Monday, heckling broke out in a chamber packed with jostling lawyers, journalists and members of the public after two of the lawyers, Manohar Lal Sharma and V. K. Anand, offered to defend the men.

"We are living in a modern society," declared Lal Sharma, defending his decision. "We all are educated. Every accused, including those in brutal offences like this, has the legal right ... to defend themselves."

One woman lawyer prodded V. K. Anand in the chest, saying: "I'll see how you can represent the accused."

Unable to restore order, presiding magistrate Namrita Aggarwal ordered everyone to leave except the prosecution, and set police to guard the entrance.

She said the trial would now be held behind closed doors because of the sensitivity of the case.

FACES COVERED

Reuters video images showed the men stepping out of a blue police van that brought them from Tihar jail and walking, their faces covered, through a metal detector into the South Delhi court building.

The court was across the street from the cinema where the victim watched a film before she was attacked on her way home.

Aggarwal gave the men copies of the charges, which include murder, rape and abduction, a prosecutor in the case told Reuters.

Police have conducted extensive interrogations and say they have recorded confessions, even though the men have no lawyers.

If the men, most of them from a slum neighborhood, cannot arrange a defense, the court will offer them legal aid before the trial begins.

Two of them, Vinay Sharma and Pawan Gupta, have offered to give evidence against the others - Mukesh Kumar, Ram Singh and Akshay Thakura - possibly in return for a lighter sentence.

Mohan, describing what he called a heinous crime, said: "The five accused persons deserve not less than the death penalty."

The case has sharpened long-standing anger against the government and police for a perceived failure to protect women.

A male friend who was assaulted with the woman on December 16 said on Friday that passers-by left her unclothed and bleeding in the street for almost an hour and that, when police arrived, they spent a long time arguing about where to take them.

The woman lived for two weeks after her attack, dying in a Singapore hospital where she had been taken for treatment.

FAST-TRACK COURT

Aggarwal said the next hearing would be on January 10. The case is due to move later to another, fast-track court set up since the woman was attacked to help reduce a backlog of sex crime cases in Delhi.

Legal experts say the lack of representation for the five men may give grounds for appeal if they are found guilty. Convictions in similar cases have often been overturned years later.

Some legal experts have also warned that previous attempts to fast-track justice in India in some cases led to imperfect convictions that were later challenged.

The sixth member of the group alleged to have lured the student and a male friend into the private bus is under 18 and will be tried in a separate juvenile court.

The government is aiming to lower the age at which teenagers can be tried as adults, acknowledging public anger that the boy will face a maximum three-year sentence.

The victim was identified by a British newspaper at the weekend but Reuters has opted not to name her.

Indian law generally prohibits the identification of victims of sex crimes. The law is intended to protect victims' privacy and keep them out of the glare of media in a country where the social stigma associated with rape can be devastating.

The dead woman's father repeated on Monday that he wanted her identified and said he would be happy to release a photograph of her.

"We don't want to hide her identity. There is no reason for that. The only condition is it should not be misused," he told Reuters.

He said he was confident the trial would be quick and reiterated a call that the perpetrators be hanged.

(Writing by Frank Jack Daniel; Editing by Robert Birsel and Tom Pfeiffer)

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"Cliff" concerns give way to earnings focus

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors' "fiscal cliff" worries are likely to give way to more fundamental concerns, like earnings, as fourth-quarter reports get under way next week.

Financial results, which begin after the market closes on Tuesday with aluminum company Alcoa , are expected to be only slightly better than the third-quarter's lackluster results. As a warning sign, analyst current estimates are down sharply from what they were in October.

That could set stocks up for more volatility following a week of sharp gains that put the Standard & Poor's 500 index <.spx> on Friday at the highest close since December 31, 2007. The index also registered its biggest weekly percentage gain in more than a year.

Based on a Reuters analysis, Europe ranks among the chief concerns cited by companies that warned on fourth-quarter results. Uncertainty about the region and its weak economic outlook were cited by more than half of the 25 largest S&P 500 companies that issued warnings.

In the most recent earnings conference calls, macroeconomic worries were cited by 10 companies while the U.S. "fiscal cliff" was cited by at least nine as reasons for their earnings warnings.

"The number of things that could go wrong isn't so high, but the magnitude of how wrong they could go is what's worrisome," said Kurt Winters, senior portfolio manager for Whitebox Mutual Funds in Minneapolis.

Negative-to-positive guidance by S&P 500 companies for the fourth quarter was 3.6 to 1, the second worst since the third quarter of 2001, according to Thomson Reuters data.

U.S. lawmakers narrowly averted the "fiscal cliff" by coming to a last-minute agreement on a bill to avoid steep tax hikes this weeks -- driving the rally in stocks -- but the battle over further spending cuts is expected to resume in two months.

Investors also have seen a revival of worries about Europe's sovereign debt problems, with Moody's in November downgrading France's credit rating and debt crises looming for Spain and other countries.

"You have a recession in Europe as a base case. Europe is still the biggest trading partner with a lot of U.S. companies, and it's still a big chunk of global capital spending," said Adam Parker, chief U.S. equity strategist at Morgan Stanley in New York.

Among companies citing worries about Europe was eBay , whose chief financial officer, Bob Swan, spoke of "macro pressures from Europe" in the company's October earnings conference call.

REVENUE WORRIES

One of the biggest worries voiced about earnings has been whether companies will be able to continue to boost profit growth despite relatively weak revenue growth.

S&P 500 revenue fell 0.8 percent in the third quarter for the first decline since the third quarter of 2009, Thomson Reuters data showed. Earnings growth for the quarter was a paltry 0.1 percent after briefly dipping into negative territory.

On top of that, just 40 percent of S&P 500 companies beat revenue expectations in the third quarter, while 64.2 percent beat earnings estimates, the Thomson Reuters data showed.

For the fourth quarter, estimates are slightly better but are well off estimates for the quarter from just a few months earlier. S&P 500 earnings are expected to have risen 2.8 percent while revenue is expected to have gone up 1.9 percent.

Back in October, earnings growth for the fourth quarter was forecast up 9.9 percent.

In spite of the cautious outlooks, some analysts still see a good chance for earnings beats this reporting period.

"The thinking is you need top line growth for earnings to continue to expand, and we've seen the market defy that," said Mike Jackson, founder of Denver-based investment firm T3 Equity Labs.

Based on his analysis, energy, industrials and consumer discretionary are the S&P sectors most likely to beat earnings expectations in the upcoming season, while consumer staples, materials and utilities are the least likely to beat, Jackson said.

Sounding a positive note on Friday, drugmaker Eli Lilly and Co said it expects profit in 2013 to increase by more than Wall Street had been forecasting, primarily due to cost controls and improved productivity.

(Reporting By Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Kenneth Barry)

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Ravens lead Colts 17-9 after 3 quarters

BALTIMORE (AP) — Joe Flacco's 20-yard TD pass to Dennis Pitta and two long completions to Anquan Boldin lifted the Baltimore Ravens to a 17-9 lead over the Indianapolis Colts through three quarter of Sunday's AFC wild-card game.

Flacco connected with Boldin on receptions of 50 and 46 yards in the third period. The first didn't lead to a score, but the second got Baltimore to the Indy 15. After a penalty, Pitta slipped free in the flat to take a short pass and score.

The Colts came back with a 15-play, 72-yard drive. But as in the first half, they sputtered and Adam Vinatieri kicked a field goal, this one from 26 yards.

After a scoreless first quarter marked by sloppiness on both sides, Baltimore took a 10-6 halftime lead.

Ray Rice broke free for a 47-yard gain on a screen pass, setting up Vonta Leach's 2-yard TD run. The Pro Bowl backfield was bolstered by the kick returns of another Pro Bowl player, Jacoby Jones.

Vinatieri's 47-yard field goal late in the second quarter and his 52-yarder as the half ended gave Indianapolis its points at halftime.

In between, Rice, who earlier lost a fumble, broke free over the middle on a short pass, got a superb block from wide receiver Torrey Smith and got to the Indy 2.

Leach surged in on the next play.

Vinatieri, who knows something about postseason kicks — he made two Super Bowl-winning field goals with New England — matched rookie Justin Tucker's 23-yarder with his first kick with 2:25 to go in the half.

After a scoreless first quarter that included one turnover by each team, Baltimore moved 66 yards in 10 plays, including 37 yards rushing by backup halfback Bernard Pierce. Tucker made it 3-0.

Early in the second quarter, Ravens star linebacker Ray Lewis dropped a potential interception, which drew a huge groan from the crowd. Lewis has announced he will retire when Baltimore's playoff run ends.

Jones, who had 94 yards on kick returns in the half, got the Ravens going early with a 34-yard punt runback down the left sideline. A 24-yard pass to Ed Dickson brought Baltimore close, but Rice fumbled at the Colts 11.

Indianapolis then put together an impressive drive to the Baltimore 30 before rookie quarterback Andrew Luck was stripped of the ball by Paul Kruger, the Ravens' leader in sacks. Pernell McPhee recovered, but Flacco nearly threw an interception three plays later and the Ravens had to punt.

The visitors were introduced before the game as Chuck Pagano and the Indianapolis Colts, and the former Ravens defensive coordinator received warm applause from the fans. Pagano left before this season for Indianapolis, and missed 12 games while undergoing treatment for leukemia.

When a helmetless Lewis emerged from the tunnel during introductions, nearly everyone in M&T Bank Stadium stood and cheered his dance, cameras and cellphones taking photos of Baltimore's most popular player.

Colts offensive coordinator Bruce Arians was hospitalized with an undisclosed illness Sunday morning, and was not at the game. The team said he was doing well, and quarterbacks coach Clyde Christensen was calling the plays in Arians' absence.

Arians went 9-3 while taking over for Pagano.

___

Online: http://pro32.ap.org/poll and http://twitter.com/AP_NFL

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Double-Star Systems Can Be Dangerous for Exoplanets

Alien planets born in widely separated two-star systems face a grave danger of being booted into interstellar space, a new study suggests.

Exoplanets circling a star with a far-flung stellar companion — worlds that are part of “wide binary” systems — are susceptible to violent and dramatic orbital disruptions, including outright ejection, the study found.

Such effects are generally limited to sprawling planetary systems with at least one distantly orbiting world, while more compact systems are relatively immune. This finding, which observational evidence supports, should help astronomers better understand the structure and evolution of alien solar systems across the galaxy, researchers said.

“The fact that planets observed within wide binaries tend to have more eccentric (or ‘excited’) orbits than those around isolated stars tells us that wide binaries do often disrupt planetary systems,” lead author Nathan Kaib, of Northwestern University and the University of Toronto, told SPACE.com via email. [The Strangest Alien Planets (Gallery)]

“Thus, we believe most planetary systems are extended, with outer planets orbiting at tens of AU from their host stars,” Kaib added. (One AU, or astronomical unit, equals the distance from Earth to the sun — about 93 million miles, or 150 million kilometers.)

The study was published today (Jan. 6) in the journal Nature and will be presented by Kaib at the 221st meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Long Beach, Calif., on Monday (Jan. 7).

Shifting stellar orbits 

Two-star systems occur commonly throughout our galaxy; indeed, astronomers think the Milky Way harbors about as many binary systems as single stars. Recently, astronomers have begun discovering planets in binary systems, some of them “Tatooine” worlds with two suns in their skies, like Luke Skywalker’s home planent in the “Star Wars” films.

Many double-star systems throughout the galaxy are wide binaries, in which 1,000 AU or more separate the stellar companions on average.

The distance between stars in a wide binary often changes dramatically over time, however, since their orbits around a common center of mass can be far from circular.

“The stellar orbits of wide binaries are very sensitive to disturbances from other passing stars as well as the tidal field of the Milky Way,” Kaib said in a statement. “This causes their stellar orbits to constantly change their eccentricity, their degree of circularity. If a wide binary lasts long enough, it eventually will find itself with a very high orbital eccentricity at some point in its life.”

Eccentric orbits bring the two stars quite close together from time to time, even if the wide binary has a large average separation distance. And these close encounters can wreak havoc on planetary systems, the researchers found after performing about 3,000 computer simulations. 

In one set of runs, for example, the team added a wide-binary companion to our own solar system. In nearly half of the simulations, at least one giant planet — Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus or Neptune — got booted out into space.

Signficant orbital disruption generally takes hundreds of millions or billions of years to manifest, Kaib and his colleagues calculated.

“Consequently, planets in these systems initially form and evolve as if they orbited an isolated star,” Kaib said. “It is only much later that they begin to feel the effects of their companion star, which often times leads to disruption of the planetary system.”

Shedding light on extrasolar systems

Such destabilization, which is more dramatic in wide binaries than in more tightly orbiting two-star systems, does not always take the form of planetary ejection. Often, exoplanets just get tugged from their orginal, near-circular orbits into more eccentric ones, the simulations showed.

The researchers also looked at orbital eccentricities of actual exoplanets. The team found that planets in wide binaries have more eccentric orbits than worlds that circle single stars, suggesting the computer models are on the money.

“The eccentric planetary orbits seen in these systems are essentially scars from past disruptions caused by the companion star,” co-author Sean Raymond, of the University of Bordeaux and the National Center for Scientific Research in France, said in a statement.

The team’s computer simulations further suggest that these disruptions generally happen only in planetary systems that extend at least 10 AU or so from the host star.

Taken together, the observational and modeling results imply that many extrasolar systems harbor distantly orbiting worlds, though such planets are tough for astronomers to detect at the moment, researchers said.

“Given that most planet-detection campaigns cannot detect planets beyond 5-10 AU from their host stars, our results provide new clues about the characteristics of planetary systems in a regime that is poorly constrained by current observations,” Kaib told SPACE.com. “We believe that planets orbiting at distances of 10 AU or further from their host stars are common.”

Follow SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall or SPACE.com @Spacedotcom. We’re also on Facebook and Google+.

Copyright 2013 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Storm over Depardieu's 'pathetic' move

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Russian President Vladimir Putin has bestowed Russian citizenship on actor Gérard Depardieu


• For Depardieu, a public war of words erupted, with many in France disgusted by his move


• Depardieu more than anyone, represents the Gallic spirit, says Agnes Poirier


• Majority of French people disapprove of his action but can't help loving him, she adds

Agnes Poirier is a French journalist and political analyst who contributes regularly to newspapers, magazines and TV in the UK, U.S., France, Italy. Follow her on Twitter.

Paris (CNN) -- Since the revelation on the front page of daily newspaper Libération, on December 11, with a particularly vicious editorial talking about France's national treasure as a "former genius actor," Gérard Depardieu's departure to Belgium, where he bought a property just a mile from the French border, has deeply divided and saddened France. Even more so since, as we have learnt this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin has bestowed the actor Russian citizenship.

Back in mid-December, the French media operated along political lines: the left-wing press such as Libération couldn't find strong enough words to describe Depardieu's "desertion" while right-wing publications such as Le Figaro, slightly uneasy at the news, preferred to focus on President François Hollande's punishing taxes which allegedly drove throngs of millionaires to seek tax asylum in more fiscally lenient countries such as Belgium or Britain. Le Figaro stopped short of passing moral judgement though. Others like satirical weekly Charlie hebdo, preferred irony. Its cover featured a cartoon of the rather rotund-looking Depardieu in front of a Belgian flag with the headline: "Can Belgium take the world's entire load of cholesterol?" Ouch.

Quickly though, it became quite clear that Depardieu was not treated in the same way as other famous French tax exiles. French actor Alain Delon is a Swiss resident as is crooner-rocker Johnny Halliday, and many other French stars and sportsmen ensure they reside for under six months in France in order to escape being taxed here on their income and capital. Their move has hardly ever been commented on. And they certainly never had to suffer the same infamy.

Agnes Poirier

For Depardieu, a public war of words erupted. It started with the French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, and many members of his government, showing their disdain, and talking of Depardieu's "pathetic move." In response the outraged actor penned an open letter to the French PM in which he threatened to give back his French passport.

The backlash was not over. Fellow thespian Phillipe Torreton fired the first salvo against Depardieu in an open letter published in Libération, insulting both Depardieu's protruding physique and lack of patriotism: "So you're leaving the ship France in the middle of a storm? What did you expect, Gérard? You thought we would approve? You expected a medal, an academy award from the economy ministry? (...)We'll get by without you." French actress Catherine Deneuve felt she had to step in to defend Depardieu. In another open letter published by Libération, she evoked the darkest hours of the French revolution. Before flying to Rome to celebrate the New Year, Depardieu gave an interview to Le Monde in which he seemed to be joking about having asked Putin for Russian citizenship. Except, it wasn't a joke.

In truth, French people have felt touched to their core by Depardieu's gesture. He, more than anyone, represents the Gallic spirit. He has been Cyrano, he has been Danton; he, better than most, on screen and off, stands for what it means to be French: passionate, sensitive, theatrical, and grandiose. Ambiguous too, and weak in front of temptations and pleasures.

In truth, French people have felt touched to their core by Depardieu's gesture. He, more than anyone, represents the Gallic spirit
Hugh Miles

For more than two weeks now, #Depardieu has been trending on French Twitter. Surveys have showed France's dilemma: half the French people understand him but there are as many who think that paying one's taxes is a national duty. In other words, a majority of French people disapprove of his action but can't help loving the man.

Putin's move in granting the actor Russian citizenship has exacerbated things. And first of all, it is a blow to Hollande who, it was revealed, had a phone conversation with Depardieu on New Year's Day. The Elysées Palace refused to communicate on the men's exchange. A friend of the actor declared that Depardieu complained about being so reviled by the press and that he was leaving, no matter what.

If, in their hearts, the French don't quite believe Depardieu might one day settle in Moscow and abandon them, they feel deeply saddened by the whole saga. However, with France's former sex symbol Brigitte Bardot declaring that she too might ask Putin for Russian citizenship to protest against the fate of zoo elephants in Lyon, it looks as if the French may prefer to laugh the whole thing off. Proof of this: the last trend on French Twitter is #IWantRussianCitizenship.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Agnes Poirier.

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Man killed in expressway shooting

There is one person dead and another injured after a fatal shooting on the Dan Ryan.

Staff report

2:13 p.m. CST, January 6, 2013

An early morning shooting on the Dan Ryan Expressway near Canalport Avenue left a 22-year-old man dead and another man injured, authorities said.

Both men were traveling northbound in a Nissan Sentra when shots rang out about 2:35 a.m., Trooper Ivan Bukaczyk of the Illinois State Police said.

Following the shooting, the damaged car pulled up to Rush University Medical Center, with two of its occupants bleeding from gunshot wounds.

The driver was not hurt in the shooting, according to a police spokeswoman. A fourth person, who was sitting next to the driver at the time of the shooting, fled from the vehicle at some point, according to the spokeswoman.

Police said they believe the shots came from another vehicle but they have been unable to come up with a description of the other vehicle.

The two men who had been shot were rear-seat passengers. The deceased man was sitting directly behind the driver as bullets hit the body and shattered the windows of the vehicle, the spokeswoman said.

Lavonshay Cooper, of the 4200 block of West Cortez Street. was pronounced dead at 3:05 a.m., according to the Cook County medical examiner's office.

The other man who was shot was transferred to John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County, where he was treated and later released, police said. Reports had earlier listed him in critical condition, the spokeswoman said.

State Police officers located the scene of the shooting and were able to collect evidence, Bukaczyk said.

chicagobreaking@tribune.com

Twitter: @ChicagoBreaking

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Assad "peace plan" greeted with scorn by foes

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad rejected peace talks with his enemies on Sunday in a defiant speech that his opponents described as a renewed declaration of war.

Although the speech was billed as the unveiling of a new peace plan, Assad offered no concessions and even appeared to harden many of his positions. He rallied Syrians for "a war to defend the nation" and disparaged the prospect of negotiations.

"We do not reject political dialogue ... but with whom should we hold a dialogue? With extremists who don't believe in any language but killing and terrorism?" Assad asked supporters who packed Damascus Opera House for his first speech since June.

"Should we speak to gangs recruited abroad that follow the orders of foreigners? Should we have official dialogue with a puppet made by the West, which has scripted its lines?"

It was his first public speech to an audience in six months. Since the last, rebels have reached the capital's outskirts.

George Sabra, vice president of the opposition National Coalition, told Reuters the peace plan Assad put at the heart of his speech did "not even deserve to be called an initiative":

"We should see it rather as a declaration that he will continue his war against the Syrian people," he said.

"The appropriate response is to continue to resist this unacceptable regime and for the Free Syrian Army to continue its work in liberating Syria until every inch of land is free."

The speech was seen by many as a response to U.N. mediator Lakhdar Brahimi, who has been meeting U.S. and Russian officials to try to narrow differences between Washington and Moscow over a peace plan. Brahimi also met Assad in Syria late last month.

"Lakhdar Brahimi must feel foolish after that Assad speech, where his diplomacy is dismissed as intolerable intervention," said Rana Kabbani, a Syrian analyst who supports the opposition.

The United States, European Union, Turkey and most Arab states have called on Assad to quit. Russia, which sells arms to and leases a naval base from Syria, says it backs a transition of power but that Assad's departure should not be a precondition for any talks.

REPETITIONS

Assad's foreign foes were scornful and dismissive of the speech: "His remarks are just repetitions of what he's said all along," said Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.

"It seems he's locked himself up in a room and only reads the intelligence reports presented to him."

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said "empty promises of reform fool no one". In a Twitter message, he added: "Death, violence and oppression engulfing Syria are of his own making."

EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton said Brussels would "look carefully if there is anything new in the speech, but we maintain our position that Assad has to step aside and allow for a political transition".

The 47-year-old Assad, tall and mustachioed, in a business suit and tie, spoke confidently for about an hour before a crowd of cheering loyalists, who occasionally interrupted him to shout and applaud, at one point raising their fists and chanting: "With blood and soul we sacrifice for you, oh Bashar!"

At the end of the speech, supporters rushed to the stage, mobbing him and shouting: "God, Syria and Bashar is enough!" as a smiling president waved and was escorted from the hall past a backdrop showing a Syrian flag made of pictures of people whom state television described as "martyrs" of the conflict so far.

"We are now in a state of war in every sense of the word," Assad said in the speech, broadcast on Syrian state television. "This war targets Syria using a handful of Syrians and many foreigners. Thus, this is a war to defend the nation."

Independent media are largely barred from Damascus.

Giving the speech in the opera house, in a part of central Damascus that has been hit by rebel attacks, could be intended as a show of strength by a leader whose public appearances have grown rarer as the rebellion has gathered force.

Critics saw irony in the venue: "Assad speech appropriately made in Opera House!" tweeted Rami Khouri, a commentator for Lebanon's Daily Star newspaper. "It was operatic in its other-worldly fantasy, unrelated to realities outside the building."

DEATHS

The United Nations says 60,000 people have been killed in the civil war, the longest and bloodiest of the conflicts to emerge in two years of revolts in Arab states.

Rebels now control much of the north and east of the country, a crescent of suburbs on the outskirts of the capital and the main border crossings with Turkey in the north.

But Assad's forces are still firmly in control of most of the densely populated southwest, the main north-south highway and the Mediterranean coast. The army also holds military bases throughout the country from which its helicopters and jets can strike rebel-held areas with impunity, making it impossible for the insurgents to consolidate their grip on territory they hold.

Assad, an eye doctor, has ruled since 2000, succeeding his late father Hafez, who had seized power in a 1970 coup.

The rebels are drawn mainly from Syria's Sunni Muslim majority, while Assad, a member of the Alawite sect related to Shi'ite Islam, is supported by some members of religious minorities who fear retribution if he falls.

The conflict has heightened confrontation in the Middle East between Shi'ite Iran and Sunni Arab rulers, particularly those in the Gulf who are allied with the West against Tehran.

The plan unveiled in Sunday's speech could hardly have been better designed to ensure its rejection by the opposition. Among its proposals: rebels would first be expected to halt operations before the army would cease fire, a certain non-starter.

Assad also repeatedly emphasized rebel links to al Qaeda and other Sunni Islamist radicals. Washington has also labeled one of the main rebel groups a terrorist organization and says it is linked to the network founded by Osama bin Laden.

Diplomacy has been largely irrelevant so far in the conflict, with Moscow vetoing U.N. resolutions against Assad.

U.N. mediator Brahimi has been trying to bridge the gap, meeting senior U.S. and Russian officials to discuss his own peace proposal, which does not explicitly mention Assad's fate.

National Coalition spokesman Walid Bunni said Assad's speech appeared timed to prevent a breakthrough in those talks, by taking a position that could not be reconciled with diplomacy.

"The talk by Brahimi and others that there could be a type of political solution being worked out has prompted him to come out and tell the others 'I won't accept a solution'," Bunni said, adding that Assad feared any deal would mean his downfall.

(Additional reporting by Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman, Gulsen Solaker in Ankara and Tim Castle in London; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Alastair Macdonald)

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"Cliff" concerns give way to earnings focus

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors' "fiscal cliff" worries are likely to give way to more fundamental concerns, like earnings, as fourth-quarter reports get under way next week.

Financial results, which begin after the market closes on Tuesday with aluminum company Alcoa , are expected to be only slightly better than the third-quarter's lackluster results. As a warning sign, analyst current estimates are down sharply from what they were in October.

That could set stocks up for more volatility following a week of sharp gains that put the Standard & Poor's 500 index <.spx> on Friday at the highest close since December 31, 2007. The index also registered its biggest weekly percentage gain in more than a year.

Based on a Reuters analysis, Europe ranks among the chief concerns cited by companies that warned on fourth-quarter results. Uncertainty about the region and its weak economic outlook were cited by more than half of the 25 largest S&P 500 companies that issued warnings.

In the most recent earnings conference calls, macroeconomic worries were cited by 10 companies while the U.S. "fiscal cliff" was cited by at least nine as reasons for their earnings warnings.

"The number of things that could go wrong isn't so high, but the magnitude of how wrong they could go is what's worrisome," said Kurt Winters, senior portfolio manager for Whitebox Mutual Funds in Minneapolis.

Negative-to-positive guidance by S&P 500 companies for the fourth quarter was 3.6 to 1, the second worst since the third quarter of 2001, according to Thomson Reuters data.

U.S. lawmakers narrowly averted the "fiscal cliff" by coming to a last-minute agreement on a bill to avoid steep tax hikes this weeks -- driving the rally in stocks -- but the battle over further spending cuts is expected to resume in two months.

Investors also have seen a revival of worries about Europe's sovereign debt problems, with Moody's in November downgrading France's credit rating and debt crises looming for Spain and other countries.

"You have a recession in Europe as a base case. Europe is still the biggest trading partner with a lot of U.S. companies, and it's still a big chunk of global capital spending," said Adam Parker, chief U.S. equity strategist at Morgan Stanley in New York.

Among companies citing worries about Europe was eBay , whose chief financial officer, Bob Swan, spoke of "macro pressures from Europe" in the company's October earnings conference call.

REVENUE WORRIES

One of the biggest worries voiced about earnings has been whether companies will be able to continue to boost profit growth despite relatively weak revenue growth.

S&P 500 revenue fell 0.8 percent in the third quarter for the first decline since the third quarter of 2009, Thomson Reuters data showed. Earnings growth for the quarter was a paltry 0.1 percent after briefly dipping into negative territory.

On top of that, just 40 percent of S&P 500 companies beat revenue expectations in the third quarter, while 64.2 percent beat earnings estimates, the Thomson Reuters data showed.

For the fourth quarter, estimates are slightly better but are well off estimates for the quarter from just a few months earlier. S&P 500 earnings are expected to have risen 2.8 percent while revenue is expected to have gone up 1.9 percent.

Back in October, earnings growth for the fourth quarter was forecast up 9.9 percent.

In spite of the cautious outlooks, some analysts still see a good chance for earnings beats this reporting period.

"The thinking is you need top line growth for earnings to continue to expand, and we've seen the market defy that," said Mike Jackson, founder of Denver-based investment firm T3 Equity Labs.

Based on his analysis, energy, industrials and consumer discretionary are the S&P sectors most likely to beat earnings expectations in the upcoming season, while consumer staples, materials and utilities are the least likely to beat, Jackson said.

Sounding a positive note on Friday, drugmaker Eli Lilly and Co said it expects profit in 2013 to increase by more than Wall Street had been forecasting, primarily due to cost controls and improved productivity.

(Reporting By Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Kenneth Barry)

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