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LONDON (Alliance News) - The following is a summary of top news stories Monday.
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COMPANIES
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Tesco PLC said Chief Executive Philip Clarke is to leave the retailer on October 1, and that it has recruited Dave Lewis from Unilever PLC as his replacement. The retailer also said that current trading conditions are "more challenging" than it had anticipated in early June, and warned that first-half sales and trading profit are "somewhat below expectations." Clarke's departure comes amid a difficult time for the retail giant, which has been trying to stave off increased competition in the UK by cutting prices. His departure follows the resignation of former Chief Financial Officer Laurie McIlwee, whose replacement, Alan Stewart, was poached from Marks and Spencer Group PLC earlier this month. Clarke has led Tesco since 2011.
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Babcock International Group PLC said it remains confident the company will continue to make strong progress during this year and that its results for the 2014/15 financial year will be in line with its expectations after recording high activity levels since the beginning of the year. In an interim management statement for the period since April 1, the support services company said the financial year has started well across all of its business, as activity levels remain high and that trading is in line with its expectations.
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Anglo American PLC's subsidiary Anglo American Platinum Ltd unveiled plans to sell off major platinum mines in South Africa, as part of its ongoing platinum review, after it provided the group with a loss in the first half of 2014. The company said the decision has been made to exit its Union and Rustenberg mines, along with its Pandora joint venture operation through sales or public market exits. It is also contemplating an exit from its Bokoni joint venture operations. The new divestment programme could cut staff in South Africa by 20,000, only a month after five month long strikes ended in the country, according to The Sunday Times.
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Anglo American also said Anglo American Platinum will contribute an underlying loss of USD1 million for the six months ended June 30, which is adjusted to remove special items and remeasurements, and any related tax and non-controlling interests. In the prior year period, Anglo American Platinum Limited contributed an underlying profit of USD92 million to Anglo American results.
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Tullow Oil PLC said its Lupus exploration well at the production licence PL 507 in the Norwegian North Sea has failed to find hydrocarbons and will now be plugged and abandoned. The FTSE 100 oil and gas exploration company said the well, which is located 35 kilometres from Statoil ASA's major Oseberg Sør Field, had a primary target of finding hydrocarbons in the Aleocene Hermod Formation in a stratigraphic trap and a secondary target of reservoir quality sandstones in the Paleocene Ty Formation. The company said the well was drilled to a total depth of 2,357 metres and found good quality sandstones in the Paleocene Hermod Formation, but no hydrocarbons were encountered, while no sandstones were found in the Paleocene Ty Formation.
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Rupert Murdoch's 2st Century Fox Inc is considering using the proceeds from the sale of its Italian and German pay-television assets to help bolster its takeover bid for Time Warner Inc, Bloomberg reported Monday citing people familiar with the matter. Fox may sell its Sky Italia unit and its 57% interest in Sky Deutschland AG to British Sky Broadcasting Group PLC in the next two weeks, the report said. The proceeds would boost Fox's bid without it having to borrow more.
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Separately, BSkyB said it has acquired a 70% interest in independent production company Love Productions, for an undisclosed amount. Love Productions is known for producing shows such as "The Great British Bake-Off" and "Benefits Street" and was founded in 2004. It has production bases in London, Bristol, New York and Los Angeles.
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Vodafone Group PLC said Vodafone Portugal has inked an agreement with Portugal Telecom SGPS SA to deploy and share fibre networks to 900,000 homes in Portugal. The deal begins in December and will run for five years. It will allow each company to offer services to an additional 450,000 homes and businesses. Vodafone said the agreement it compliments its unified communication strategy and fibre-to-the-home deployment programme in Portugal. The deployment programme aims to reach 1.5 million homes by the middle of 2015 and has already reached 1 million, Vodafone said.
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MARKETS
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The UK's main stock indices are trading lower as all early positivity has given way to concern over the economic impact on the European economy of a possible fresh round of sanctions against Russia, which are likely to be announced this week.
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FTSE 100: down 0.3% at 6732.54
FTSE 250: down 0.6% at 15470.41
AIM ALL-SHARE: down 0.1% at 767.8
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The euro is flat against the dollar after data showed a further decline in Germany producer prices in June.
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GBP-USD: flat at USD1.7089
EUR-USD: flat at USD1.3524

GOLD: up at USD1314.70 per ounce
OIL (Brent): up at USD107.04 a barrel

(changes since end of previous GMT day)
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ECONOMICS AND GENERAL
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The average asking price for a house in the UK was down 0.8% on month in July, property tracking website Rightmove said - coming in at GBP270,159. That follows the 0.1% increase in June, and it marks the first decline in seven months. On a yearly basis, house prices climbed 6.5% - slowing from the 7.7% increase in the previous month. Rightmove now forecasts that house prices will rise 8% for all of 2014.
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German producer prices continued to decline in June, albeit at a slower pace, data from the German statistical office Destatis showed. Producer prices fell 0.7% year-over-year in June, confirming consensus estimates, following the 0.8% drop in May. The latest decline was the smallest since December.
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The Netherlands is set to take the lead into the investigation of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, which crashed in eastern Ukraine last week, as Dutch investigators arrived at the incident site to take over from their Ukrainian counterparts. However, as has been the case since the Thursday crash, the way forward remained unclear, with Ukraine's government and much of the West accusing the separatists who control the region of hampering the investigation. Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said victims would be flown to Amsterdam to be examined at a leading forensics institute. The majority of flight MH17's passengers were Dutch citizens.
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Ukraine has failed to establish a safe corridor for investigators to reach the wreckage of a Malaysia Airlines plane that crashed with 298 people on board, a senior official said. "The Ukrainian government has said it cannot guarantee the safety of the international team in and around the crash site," said Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai, who arrived in Kiev on Sunday. Liow said there are different separatist groups controlling the area "with no clear leader or chain of command." "Malaysia is deeply concerned that the international team is effectively being prevented from entering the crash site," he said.
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The number of Palestinian dead rose to more than 500 in the Israeli attacks on Gaza, a spokesman for the Health Ministry said. Since the beginning of the offensive with coastal attacks around two weeks ago, 501 Palestinians have been killed and 3,150 injured, Ashraf al-Qedra said on Twitter. On the Israeli side, 18 soldiers and two civilians have died. About 80 Israeli solders have been wounded, according to reports on Israel radio.
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Rory McIlroy held his nerve and fought off a brave challenge from Sergio Garcia and Rickie Fowler to win his first Open Championship in a captivating final round at Hoylake on Sunday. Six shots clear overnight, the lead was just two at one point but the 25-year-old stayed strong to finish on 17-under-par after a one-under 71, two better than Garcia (66) and Fowler (67).
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By Arvind Bhunjun; arvindbhunjun@alliancenews.com; @ArvindBhunjun

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