Evening Update Thursday 16 May

There’s a strike on the Italian train network tomorrow.  Trains from France towards Italy are expected to terminate at Menton for much of the day.  It’s expected that there will be some disruption along the line from Les Arcs to Ventimiglia with a few partial cancellations possible. You can get more information about specific trains at the SNCF’s website https://www.ter.sncf.com/paca 

The Disciplinary Committee of the Alpes-Maritimes Footbal District has announced severe sanctions against several individuals as a result of violence during a school match at the the Mearelli stadium in Nice.  At the match, on the 10th of March a teacher who was in charge of one of the teams, attacked the referee, who was then also attcked by several players. The committee banned the teacher from involvement in any sporting function for a period of 20 years. Four of the teenage players were suspended for nine years and three others for six years.

A car caught fire on the boulevard du Midi this morning in Cannes. The incident occurred shortly after 6am. The driver reportedly lost control of his vehicle while driving on the  Boulevard du Midi towards Mandelieu-la-Napoule. Police have launched an investigation and the driver was taken to hospital by emergency services. 

A flight from Sicily to the Netherlands has had to make an emergency landing at Nice International airport. The Boeing 737 landed in Nice yesterday morning due to a fuel leak. 129 passengers and 5 crew members were on board at the time. The incident led to the northern runway being closed. 

There have been further developments today in the implementation of the 80 km per hour speed limit on secondary roads in France. French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe has said that he is willing to leave it to the presidents of the departmental councils to decide whether to implement the speed limit.  The law enforcing the 80 limit, which has been in force since July last year, has been highly contentious, particularly in rural communities. 

Firefighters in Miramas near Salon-de-Provence have been protesting against attacks made against them when they are on duty. They say that firefighters are regularly subjected to verbal and physical assaults, including having stones thrown at them, as happened recently. The firefighters were protesting in front of their fire station.

 

BUSINESS

President Trump has signed an executive order which effectively bars US companies from using foreign telecommunications equipment believed to pose national security risks. The order is believed to be intended to target Huawei. 

Five banks have been fined a total of €1.07bn by the European Commission for rigging the foreign exchange market between 2007 and 2013. The banks fined were RBS, Citigroup, Barclays, JP Morgan and Japanese bank MUFG.   UBS, was excused financial penalties for revealing the cartels' existence.

Thomas Cook has warned of what it called "further headwinds" for the rest of the year after reporting a £1.5bn loss for the first half of the year. About £1.1bn of the loss was caused by the decision to write-down the value of My Travel, the business it merged with in 2007. The travel companysaid there was "now little doubt" that Brexit had caused customers to delay their summer holiday plans. 

Tesla has said it is updating the battery software in some of its models following two recent incidents where cars caught fire. The electric carmaker said it would soon begin rolling out the software update on Model S and Model X vehicles. It follows reports that a parked car caught fire in Hong Kong, following a similar incident in Shanghai. Tesla said that it is taking the action "out of an abundance of caution".

 

SPORT

Football...Manchester City say they are "disappointed, but regrettably not surprised" after being referred to Uefa's financial control body. Uefa's independent financial control board, the CFCB, have looked at evidence first uncovered in a series of leaks published by German newspaper Der Spiegel last year. The reports alleged that City broke FFP regulations by inflating the value of a multimillion-pound sponsorship deal. City have said that "the accusation of financial irregularities remains entirely false".

Olympique Marseille fans have been banned from their team’s match against Toulouse on Saturday. The prefect of the Haute-Garonne made the order prohibiting Marseille fans travelling to the stadium in Toulouse because of the risk of disturbances to public order.  It follows clashes at the Lyon-Marseille match last Sunday.

Tennis...Johanna Konta has defeated American world number eight Sloane Stephens to reach the Italian Open third round. The final score was 6-4 6-1. Roger Federer marked his Italian Open return with a victory against Portugal's Joao Sousa. Rafael Nadal is also through to the next round. Australia's Nick Kyrgios forfeited his second-round match after walking off court against Norway's Casper Ruud. The 24-year-old was in the deciding set when he was given a game penalty. He then kicked at a bottle, threw down his racquet, hurled a chair on to the court, picked up his bag and left.

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