French and Riviera News Tuesday 24th September 2019

Local

Strike – Today’s national strike action is expected to cause severe disruption to the regions transport network. No trams will operate in Nice and bus services will be badly disrupted, with many bus services cancelled. Authorities in Nice have announced that all on-street parking will be free. On the trains, there’s expected to be a very reduced service on local TER trains, but TGV services will be less disrupted. Travelers can check www.sncf.com for further details. There is a risk that some schools and public services will also be closed.

Two teenagers appear in court - Two 17-year old youths  have appeared in court after being placed in police custody at the weekend following the death of a 15-year-old in Marseille. On Saturday, September 21, around 3:45 pm, a 15-year-old boy was fatally wounded in a knife attack. According to reports the attack took place on a council estate in the 10th district of Marseille. The reason for the fight remains unknown.

Man hit by a car on the A8 motorway - A man in his 60s has been taken to hospital in a critical condition after he was hit by a car on the A8 motorway. The incident occurred around 8pm on Monday just after the Antibes exit westbound. Police have appealed for any witnesses to come forward to determine the exact cause of the accident.

Jet ski rider - A jet ski rider has been rescued from drowning by the Cross Med in Porquerolles in the Var. The incident happened on Monday afternoon after the jet ski drifted dangerously out to sea it was members of the public which raised the alarm just before 2pm.

Pablo Picasso’s electrician - The former electrician of Pablo Picasso and his wife, who were previously sentenced twice for concealing 271 works of the artist stored for 40 years in their garage, will today appear before court. The couple had previously had their sentence reversed on appeal. It was first claimed that the 271 works, dated from 1900 to 1932, were a gift offered in 1971 or 1972 by Pablo Picasso for whom the electrician had worked between 1970 and 1973, as a thank you.

National

Climate change - French President Emmanuel Macron has called on his counterparts to include climate change in their trade and finance policies. Speaking in New York at a UN climate summit on Monday which is aimed at rebooting the 2015 Paris Agreement against global warming, Macron said countries should not import goods that increase carbon pollution nor fund polluting plants in other countries. He also asked other nations to increase their pledges to the Green Climate Fund, which helps poorer nation with climate issues. France, Britain, Germany, Norway, Denmark and Sweden have recently doubled their pledges.

Meanwhile France has said it intends to mobilise resources to save the Amazon rainforest, while development banks have committed over one trillion US dollars to fight climate emergency in developing countries. The 24 development banks also announced on Monday that they will provide more than 1 trillion US dollars of climate finance by 2025.

Intermarché - The French supermarket chain Intermarché had said it will remove 140 food additives by the end of 2020, changing 900 food recipes in the process. They will use a popular phone application used by 11 million people in France to scan products and find out what additives are present in them. The phone app they're working with to help analyse their products is Yuka—an application that scans and rates products based on the ingredients and additives. Though they do not have an official partnership with the app, they are in contact with the independent company.

Streaming charity event - A French streaming charity event, "Z Event", has held a marathon video gaming session at the week end, helping to raise over 3.5 million euros to fund research at the Pasteur Institute. The gamers also earned heartfelt congratulations from French President Emmanuel Macron for their contribution to the Pasteur Institute. The event was held in Montpellier and a consisted of over 54 hours of live-streaming and video games with 54 gamers playing on their respective Twitch channels. Z Event 2019 was the fourth edition – and broke all records for the French charity event.

Landmark trial - A landmark French trial is due to begin to decide whether a diabetes pill prescribed for weight loss was behind the deaths of up to 2,000 people. Servier, the drug's manufacturer, is accused of deceiving users over the killer side effects of a drug later used to treat overweight diabetics. Believed to be one of France's biggest healthcare scandals, the firm is on trial for manslaughter and deceit. Servier has denied the charges, saying it did not lie about the side effects.

Business

Boeing is to pay some 144,500 dollars to each of the families who lost relatives in fatal 737 Max air crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia.

The money will come from a 50 million dollar financial assistance fund which the company announced in July.

Claims will have to be made before the end of the year but lawyers representing the victims’ families say that its just a publicity stunt.

Many claims are being pursued through the courts already  and one lawyer who’s representing 15 families said on Monday that 144,000 dollars doesn’t come close to compensating those who have lost loved ones.

The 737 Max has been grounded since March as investigators continue to evaluate the aircraft’s safety following the crashes which claimed the lives of 340 people.

Boeing said that the financial assistance fund is an “important step” in the firm’s efforts to help relatives of those who died in the crashes.

 

The eurozone economy came close to stalling in September according to the latest official data.

Germany was the main driver of the slump after a business survey found that the growing threat to international trade from the dispute between China and the US  had left the country in its worst position since 2009.

Additional factors such as the threat of a no-deal Brexit have triggered the fastest decline in manufacturing output in nearly 7 years.

The euro fell sharply against the dollar on the news but climbed against sterling.

Analysts say that the latest data justified the European Central Bank’s move earlier this month to cut interest rates and increase stimulus measures in a bid to boost growth.

 

And-Honda has said that it will phase out all diesel car models by 2021 in favour of electric vehicles.

The Japanese manufacturer said that it would electrify all of its European cars by 2025 in a bid to meet stringent global emissions regulations.

Honda said that it wanted to make electric cars account for two thirds of its vehicle range by 2030.At the moment only 10 percent of the firm’s models are fully electric.

Sport

MA NOLANS RUGBY WORLD CUP REPORT.

Wales have won their opening fixture ,picking up a bonus point along the way with a 43-14 win over Georgia in Toyota City.

Warren Gatland’s side ran in 6 tries although they went off the boil in the second half allowing Georgia to score two tries of their own.

Wales will be pleased to have got the win under their belts and will hope that it draws a line under the fact that assistant coach Rob Howley was sent home for allegedly infringing betting rules last week.

There are some injury concerns for Warren Gatland though with lock Cory Hill possibly ruled out of the rest of the tournament as he struggles to recover from a stress fracture and Adam Beard also unlikely to be fit.

Next up is what could be a crucial match against Australia in five days time.

There’s one match today.Russia play Samoa in Pool A.

Tomorrow Fiji play Uruguay in Pool D and on Thursday Italy play Canada in Pool B while England face the United States in Pool C.

The World Anti-Doping Agency has warned that Russia could face a ban from all major sporting events as a result over “discrepancies” in a lab data base.

Russia has been given three weeks to explain “inconsistencies” or risk being excluded from the Olympic Games and the World Athletics Championships.

The country could also be banned from staging major sporting events.

WADA said that there was evidence that lab data had been deleted and was seeking an urgent explanation from Russia.

Cricket-Jonny Bairstow has been left out of England’s Test squad to play New Zealand.

Bairstow has passed 50 only twice since the Sri Lanka Test in November last year and is averaging only 20.25 in Tests this year.

Jos Buttler will assume wicket keeping duties for the two Test series in New Zealand which starts on November the 20th following a five match Twenty20 series.

Bairstow has been included in the Twenty20 squad.

South Africa have levelled the Twenty20 series against India with a 9 wicket win in the third match at Bengalaru.

India won the toss and decided to bat but were restricted to 134-9 from their 20 overs.

In reply South Africa made 140-1 from just 16.5 overs to win the match by 9 wickets.

Formula 1-Lewis Hamilton has said that Ferrari will be tough to beat over the rest of the season.

Ferrari have won the last three Grand Prix and Hamilton thinks that they’ll have the advantage in Russia this weekend.

The 5 time world champion is still 65 points ahead of Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas heading into the race but said that the team “needs to pull its socks up”.

Weather

Clear skies with light south westerly winds.

Top temperature 26 degrees.

Overnight lows of 18 degrees with partially cloudy skies.

Wednesday and Thursday-Mainly fine with highs of 25-27 degrees.

Finally 

The supermarket Morrisons in the UK has had to put a cap on the amount of Marathon bar mulitpacks customers can purchase after a shopper bought more than 3,388 bars in one visit.

The nougat, peanut and chocolate treat has been called Snickers since 1990, but parent company Mars has brought back its original name, Marathon, for 12 weeks.

But one eager customer at Morrisons West Denton store in Newcastle stocked up on the limited edition snack, spending £847 on 847 packs of four bars, 3,388 bars in total. 

Another customer in Weybridge spent £101 for 101 packs, 404 bars in total.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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