Headquarters in london. I am mark barton. And i am Olivia Sterns. We begin in ukraine. Lets get straight to ryan chilcote. Ighting continues to rage both sides stepping up their attack. Ryan is in kiev with the latest read it looks like the country is seeing some of the deadliest violence and the crisis began. What is the latest you are hearing on the ground . Good morning. The Ukrainian Government says they are going to push on with the fighting in the east of the country. The death toll from yesterdays battles stands at 40. All of those on the rebel side. It includes russian nationals. You will remember that several dozen russian fighters came from russia itself into eastern and identified themselves as chess champ chechaners volunteers. If they were, they were there on their own private business. Clearly, this is becoming a very messy affair. Lots of collateral damage. An additional 31 people injured. , which the Ukrainian Government did capture, was also damaged, so it remains closed. The osce, which has a Monitoring Mission for foreigners in the region, still has not been able to contact them in the last couple of days. Forhe optimism that we had the first 12, 20 four hours after ukraine got it president elect 24 hours after ukraine got its president elect, has evaporated. Just yesterday, we were talking about how this potential might be rough, but things have gotten worse on the ground. Exclusives ontwo crimea and an interview with ukraines foreign minister. I think we have just lost the signal to ryan. As i just reminded you, you can look forward to our exclusive interview with the ukrainian prime minister. Aboutof questions for him the potential Government Strategy to try to combat this growing insurgency in the south and the east. A french official says that ges offer for alstom has been approved. Caroline joins us with the details. Good morning. That is right. That just came in. With thef ge just met french president this morning. He told the french president that he would improve the offer and protect more french jobs. There has been concern of the french government using losing french jobs. G already employs more than 10,000 people in france. He came to defend his proposal last night. Besaid alstom would not absorbed by ge. Have a listen. We come to build. We do not leave when times are tough. That we canonfident compete and win with our french businesses. To reassure the french government and the lawmakers last night, he also said that ge could sell its rail business to alstom and that the Nuclear Operations of alstom would remain based in france, something that was a big concern of the government because they want to preserve frances Nuclear Energy independence. French government has explicitly voiced their preference for siemens to make a bid. They also had a word at the hearing. What did they have to say . That is right. Important because the French Finance Ministry has been very impatient about the siemens bid. He said last night that the bid from siemens would become would come by june 16. That would include a swap where siemens would get the real unit in exchange for energy assets. That would create some combination between the german highspeed trains. That offer has the favor of the french government, who has been supporting siemens bid. Back to you. Thank you so much. We will continue the conversation on alstom later in later on the pulse. Europes clinical leaders are clashing over top jobs. Juncker as the next European Commission president. Bonds nichols joins us. Is this in response to the surge of protest parties in the parliamentu elections . It is a little bit of that read we are talking about a delay of potentially a month to pick a new Eu Commission president. For folks like yourself, who are waiting with bated breath, we will have to wait just a little bit longer. Here is the issue. According to these new treaty rules, they have candidatewide heads of party candidates. These are supposed to be based on the party showing in the polls. It is supposed to be based on the top candidates and you have more relevance for the Eu Commission president. It looks like we are leaning towards a backroom deal. Remember, the center right party of juncker got 34 . He appears to be in the pole position for the job. However, he has challenges. Namely, lukewarm support of Angela Merkel, perhaps the most important figure in discussions. David cameron, while not name, isg juncker by opposed to his candidacy. The hungarian minister is openly opposed. Martin schultz, who ran against juncker in the parliamentary elections, said he would support him. What we have is a mess. We have a month to sort it out, maybe longer. Mark that mark, that means you can book your suite in brussels and report live. Where does german chancellor Angela Merkel stand . Going into the meeting, she said that juncker was her candidate. Coming out, she said they have a broader tableau of suitable persons. That sounds like an Angela Merkel who is ready to trade horses. She wants to have a say on who the president is, but it does not look to me as though juncker is 100 her candidate. Hans nichols in berlin. Is pushing further into skin with its latest acquisition. Here with more is Caroline Hyde. Nestle once again splashing the cash. Is howbillion dollars much they are spending. Katscompany that makes kit wants to refine your wrinkles. That is the area they are going into. They want the right to sell value products valiant products. Filler and toxin is what they have bought, but it is all about revitalizing your skin. It is an interesting tactic. They are getting further into beauty and skincare. Just back in february, they spent free . 6 billion adding their hands on control of their joint venture with loreal. That is a dermatology business. Psoriasis,d on acne, really overthecounter, but sometimes prescription, drugs. Management wants to get out the wrinkles, we think. It is a dominant player in food and beverage and also in baby formula, water. Competition, worldwide. We are seeing a rate of growth for nestle using up a little bit. But beauty is surging. We have emerging markets, middle classes, china, japan. In india, these sorts of areas are very focused on buying into beauty and health care. You can get that little bit more bang for your buck in terms of profitability. Gamble arerocter and doing exactly this, selling off some food rents and getting into expanding their personal health care. That is where the money and the growth is. There is also a huge amount of money in the u. S. They make a product that is a big rival to botox, owned by allergan. They have about 10 of the overall market. But this is huge. It sort of solves Plastic Surgery in the u. S. I think nestle is trying to get more into the asthmatic procedures space, you could say. So nestle is very inquisitive here. It is. Look at the specifics when you look at nestle. In the past three years, they have done more than 20 deals. They splashed 18 billion. Potentially, we should be looking at some of the u. S. Rivals, the likes of valiant. They are taking some commercial rights to sell from that product in this deal. It, 50 billion on the maker of botox . We have seen valiants debt load soar. It is trying to make such inroads via acquisitions. Just putting off the bid when it comes to valiant. So far, investors seem to like what nestle is doing. Grow what itaid to can do organically. It will take bits and pieces from around the world. It is not getting the rights to do in the United States as well. What is the difference between frown lines, facial wrinkles, and folds . I think you probably know more than anyone, mark. I have done several stories on allergan. Botox is a 2 billion drug globally. It is a filler. The frown lines are called your 11s. ,hese are called crows feet your socalled smile lines. This because the fda recently approved botox for this new indication. Botox is also used for migraine headaches. And the folds . We are not so sure. You are so useful, we cannot find any on your skin. Not something for you to worry about, clearly. But big business if you want to stay young. Which i do. Improves its ability to win the battle for alstom. We are back with that breaking news. Welcome back to the pulse. Ges ceo has made an improved offer for alstom. That is according to french officials. He and french officials met earlier today to discuss the deal. A saxon banke from analyst. Thank you for coming to speak to us. The news is just raking. Ges offer is more precise and strengthened. Offers jobs and decisionmaking in france. How close do you think immelt is to winning over the french government and getting alstom . Good morning. Actually, i believe that immelt made a very good offer. We can expect that, regarding jobs, it is a work in process and we can expect more concessions regarding the offer from General Electric. It was a very swift move on the government to put pressure on the ge offer. Isdo you think that immelt inching closer to attaining control of these units of alstom . Is he winning the battle to win over the french political system or not . I truly believe, i am very confident that ge will win this battle. The only issue right now is that wants somegovernment guarantees regarding jobs on the nuclear independence. Ge will winnt that this battle, but we have some time left and it will take probably a few weeks before we get a negotiation outcome. It was the french government who asked siemens to make this offer for alstom to compete with the bid from General Electric. Does that mean that you think siemens offer will not be credible . The head of siemens has said that they will make that bit before june 16. Bid before june 16. Lets not forget that General Electric shareholders excuse me, alstom board of administration has supported strongly the General Electric bid. Siemens, i believe that this please oust him. Alstom. Siemens is pushed by the french government to make an offer. Is there anything that siemens could do to appease oust him to appease alstom . The only thing that siemens can do is to improve its offer. We understand that siemens might make an offer in cash of 7 billion euro. This is compared with General Electrics bid. Needs is to get a lot of cash. The only thing that siemens can do is to improve on the offer. I do not think there will be a bid from siemens which will board ofstoms oard administration. Is there not a concern that siemens and alstom could raise some regulatory concerns . If you combine the trains and the energy units, arent there going to be concerns for the competition authorities . Exactly. The swap posed by siemens is not good. I think there is some issue regarding the competition in the european union. Lets not forget, there are many bidrlaps if there is a between siemens and alstom. On only thing we can focus and we understand in france is that the french government is pushing siemens to make an offer in order to get a better offer from General Electric. Move from is a sweet the government. Have the results of the european elections over the weekend, where, of course, hollande and his party did so badly, has that changed the dynamics, the political dynamics of this deal or not . It has a Strong Influence on this deal. The government is looking for a broader electorate after the failure of the organic collection. The goal of a government is to get the best offer from General Electric. Adversely, what we are seeing now is the move to make this offer much better. Rex thank you. Thank you. Lets get to todays pulse nu mber. Iphones, ipads and mac users in australia are being held their ransom for as much as 100. The customers have been remotely locked out of their devices. The message appeared on their phones demanding they pay a ransom in order to regain access. The hacker goes by the name of oleg pliss, who seems to have gotten access to a database that contains account information of the apple customers. Who haveing that those reset their passwords are able to regain asked regain access because you cannot add or change a lock on a device that already has one in place. Those without security measures are not so lucky. If you have the security measures in place, it is not as bad as it seems. Just a reminder to put a password on your phone. Change your password. It also raises concerns when you talk about the internet of things, having your whole home connected via a wifi device. You are going to want to put a password. Apple is saying that this is not a breach of their cloud servers. It was discovered by breaches to other sites. It goes back to the old axiom, keep changing your password. It is pretty funny though. Ransom at 2 00 a. M. , when we wake up. I am sorry, my iphone was held ransom. X we are back in two minutes. Welcome back to the pulse, live on bloomberg tv, also on radio and streaming on your tablet, your phone, and bloomberg. Com. Jonathan ferro has your asset check. Into trading, lets check out some of these equity markets for you. Footie 100 does nothing, the cac 40 does nothing, the dax does nothing. It looks boring. The stoxx 600 clinging onto a sixyear high. Data out of europe, not exactly contracting for 24th straight month. Out of germany, that was the big surprise. German unemployment rises for the first time in six months. We were expecting a drop. Look at the unemployment rate. Compare and contrast that to everybody else. You will get a good picture of those divergent economies. Expectations just keep doing this ahead of next week at the ecb meeting. A rate cut looks nailed on. Can they do more . What is the risk of them underdelivering. Some saying they will surprise. Back to you. Thomas ato come bloomberg exclusive. We are live in kiev with ukraines foreign minister as the government unleashes an unprecedented offensive. And the first look inside crimea. We get rare access to the region to see what life is like inside the occupied territory. You can follow me on twitter. Tweet us and tell us what you think of the show, what you would like us to ask the guest, and whether or not you think mark has frown lines. Welcome back to the pulse live from bloombergs European Headquarters in london. Im mark barton. German unemployment has increased for the first time in six months. The number of people out of work rose to 24,000. Economists forecast a decline of 15,000 jobs. German Business Confidence decreased on word that Business Growth is slow. Juncker won the most votes in European Parliament but his call for a more centralized e. Sumbings drawing more distractors. Will push government on against russian forces. They killed dozens of rebels at donetsk. Crimea is starting to feel very russian. Ryan chilcote visited the region to find out about life after annexation. The trouble with crimea starts with getting there. At its narrowest point a twomile body of water separates it from russia. Roads that go to ukraine are all but because closed. The only way to get there is to strait s boat across is until russia builds a bridge that spans the distance. There is no need for a passport. As far as they are concerned, this is a domestic crossing. Ever since russia an exed this area, crimeans have been somewhat stuck. The ukrainians are not allowing men between the ages of 1860 into you crane, even with ukrainian passports. They call us terrorists. Cash machines and credit ards dont work. Even in the cradle of russian ukrainian irst money and hen rubles. Golden arches and much more stand deserted. Tourists also face obstacles. To visit the place where the allies met in 1945, world war i buffs must travel to russia. A couple of months ago you could come here without a visa. Not anymore. There wasnt any unrest while we were in crimea, but russia is clearly concerned there could be. Gathering of the regions uslim minority was banned. Russias newest Tourist Destination is breath taking. Just beneath the surface, there are problems. Ukraine cut the water supply and further inland, they are expecting drought. But most crimeans say, even with all the trouble, it is a price worth paying. Lets head out to kiev now where ryan chill coat has an exclusive interview with the Ukrainian Foreign minister. Thank you very much for joining us. I want to start by asking, you now, what you can do about the annexation . Your government said they will never recognize the annexation. When i was there, it looked complete. Recognized ever the annexation of crime cra. Crimea. E are trying to with russia against the annexation. You said youre going to sue in international court. Where do you stand in that process. Is there any precedent for doing Something Like that . Has a country ever sued over annexation and how much do you think the russians owe you . We can go for different ourts in the case of crimea. And the arbitration business and i think that it is very difficult now to amount of money. Sure. It is a lot of money. It is much more than is that part of it . Do you think this will become a negotiating look. On the development of our relations and talks with ussia. It is very tough to get an agreement on this. Most likely we will with gazprom. But in case of crimea, we think we have to start with the issue of human rights with the European Court on human rights. Where do you stand with investors . I know that the government obviously has banned banks that were operating there. Are you not happy for you cranians to invest in crimea post annexation and what do you think about the likes of shell and other Oil Companies that had deals with your government to explore for oil and gas off the crimean shore that i guess now will have to go to the russians, wont they . If they want to have business in crimea, it is considered part of ukraine. Find out if they want to have business or continue their business if they have their business in crimea. We do not think that it is right decision to go through russia to th