Board plans to meet to discuss a sale of the bulk of the french builder of power plants and trains to ge. Matt campbell joins us now with the very latest. We heard about the deal yesterday. It was a great bloomberg exclusive which you helped to break. Give us a sense of where the different parties are standing. What seems to be taking shape is a significant transaction that would leave a small part of alstom behind. The transport business which makes Rolling Stock would actually be separated from Everything Else alstom does. Transport is about 20 to 25 of sales. Alstom ismajority of being taken over by General Electric according to people familiar with the situation. But of this is official yet we expect an announcement could come soon. Even in the next few hours. The fact that the unit is being left to one side may allow a political way out for the french government. This is a trophy asset for the french government. They are not tacking over the trains. There was some hint the french
I do not see American Travel as some kind of a reward for Good Behavior have the cuban government. We are unlikely to see that. It is finally a gettough policy with the cuban government. If i may say, the fy 2014 languages clear about the purpose and authorizations of these programs as well as which agency should be in the lead for their implementation. We intend to follow the law and that case and transition some of those issues to the National Endowment for democracy. The larger policy debate here, but i want to come back to assuring you that we believe our implementation and passed with this program has been consistent, that these are not covert, these have been publicly notified a number of times. Thank you, senator. Administrator, do you conduct Internet Access programs in other countries in the world . We do. At the direction of specific language in the congressional do you have an idea how many of those are . Part of what we do everywhere around the world, and Internet Access is
And this week on the communicatorsa look at some of the telecommunications and the tech issues that the congress and the fcc may face in 2014. Joining us are three working reporters on telecommunications, Matthew Schwartz is with communications daily, Kate Tummarello is with the hill, and Paul Barbagallo is the managing editor of bloomberg bna, mr. Barbagallo, lets start with you. What do you think on the fcc and the congressional agenda this year . Guest well, i think to start off spectrum. The fcc in 2014 and beyond will be intently focused on spectrum. Congress as well. We will have this month the first spectrum auction at the fcc in nearly half a decade, and well have another spectrum auction later this year, and the biggest spectrum auction, which everybody has been eagerly anticipating, the incentive auction of spectrum in 2015 as new fcc chairman tom wheeler has stated. So that is, as i see it, one of the bigger issues in congress and fcc on the tech front. The wireless carriers
Strategy, the strategy of cutting back on purchases collapses. Argument, which is that comcast might be able to strike a Better Bargain thanks to its increased size. That is far from clear. The stakes are higher for espn compared to today because espn ises more revenue, but that true for comcast. The stakes are higher for comcast as well as more customers complained to cancel their service. Such a musthave with programmers that again special power. The third analogy is that comcast is just like microsoft. The idea here is that netflix and other online video providers will be undermined. This deserves careful attention because i think we can all agree that preserving innovation and competition is very important. This third analogy seems wrong to me as well. For one thing, the cost of strategies is quite high. There are existing protections under the earlier nbc merger conditions for online video that would be extended to time warner, which could be thought of as a benefit to the deal. W
Waking up in the United States. This is the pulse. We are here in london and we have got plenty coming up for you. Minirobots that assemble your table or transform themselves into chairs that you can sit on. Meet the roombots. We begin with our top story. Sterling under pressure this morning after an opinion poll showing that Scottish Independence has gained a lead for the first time this year. Next week, scotland votes on whether to break up the 307yearold union. For more, anna edwards joins me now. This poll is interesting. There are a number of statistical a lot malaise anomalies that we need to think about. It is significant. He described the results of the poll over the weekend as remarkable. Regardless of whether you look at the detail about whether you should or shouldnt include the undecided, if you exclude them, if you look at just who has they willor said vote yes, a 22 point lead for the no campaign has been lost over just one month. That has been replaced by a twopoint defi