Local
Restrictions in Nice this weekend - Following the decision to ban demonstrations in Nice this weekend the Prefecture has announced that the areas concerned are the city centre, the Promenade des Anglais and the Plaine du Var. The ban co-insides with the arrival of the Chinese President and will be in place until Xi Jinping’s departure on Monday.
The Presidential visit will see several security measures in place from Saturday at 10pm until Monday 8pm. The Promenade will be closed to the regions bus network, motorists and cyclists however pedestrians will be able to walk on the promenade with restrictions in place in front of and around the Negresco hotel. The trains will also be affected with Nice Riquier, Villefranche, Beaulieu, Eze and Cap d’Ail remaining closed with the no trains running between Nice Riquier and Menton on Sunday between 6pm and 10.30pm.
A man has appeared in court in Uxbridge near London charged with the murder of a 34 year old woman from Aix-en-Provence. Laureline Garcia-Bertaux had been working in the UK and her body was discovered buried in the garden of her house in Richmond, Surrey.
Chinese - As Monaco prepares to welcome the Chinese President this weekend for a historic visit to the Principality, the Clean Technology Development Conference last week included announcements of the Chinese government's major investments for the planet with China announcing that it will invest one billion euros over five years for the environment.
The twelth edition of the Monaco CleanEquity conference was the scene of two major investments in terms of environmental protection. Monaco CleanEquity brings together clean policy makers, and investment from professionals with the goal to accelerate the development of clean technologies and industries.
Tramway – It’s been reported that line 2 of the tramway in Nice is carrying out final safety tests and will be up and running by June. Meanwhile line 1 on the Port will be inaugurated in September. Its completion will make it possible to travel from the airport to the port in 26 minutes. The last stage of works to the tram network is line 3 in the Plaine du Var which will allow access to Allianz Riviera and is scheduled to be completed by the end of the year.
Accident on building site in Saint Tropez - Two workmen on a building site have been seriously injured. The accident occurred on Thursday morning on a construction site on the Route des Plages in Saint Tropez in the Var. Both men were taken to hospital suffering from head and chest injuries after equipment fell on them.
Mother leaves children unsupervised - A 40 year old mother has been handed a one year suspended prison sentence by the Criminal Court in Draguignan. She was accused of repeatedly leaving her under aged children unsupervised at her home. The incident came to light last July after the three children aged five, fourteen and fifteen, at the time, contacted police. It later transpired that the mother regularly left her children alone for long weekends and sometimes several days.
Brigitte Bardot - In a letter published on Thursday three French MPs have denounced the insulting remarks recently made by former French actress Brigitte Bardot. Last Tuesday, in a letter dated March 18, Bardot had described the people of the Reunion as a "degenerate population" with "barbaric traditions" for the way they treated animals. Two days later, a torrent of critics condemned the former actress for her comments.
Nice Cote d’Azur airport has once again been listed as offering one of the world’s best views on the approach to landing. It took the number 3 spot on the poll by a private jet website and the number one in France. The airport was beaten in the worldwide rankings though by Barra in Scotland and Donegal in Ireland.
National
The French Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire has given details of the cost of the yellow vest protests so far, up to and including Act 18. The government has calculated the damage at 200 million euros. He said that the direct and short-term impact on French economic growth could be up to 0.2 percentage points of GDP for 2018 and 2019, amounting to more than 4.5 billion euros. He also said that what he called partial unemployment due to the movement has affected 73,500 people working in 5,100 companies.
Car thieves - Two car thieves have been arrested outside a police station north west of Paris after being lured there by the officer they were chasing. The incident occurred as the officer was driving home after finishing work when he noticed his police car was being followed. The two suspects, aged 24 and 29, told police they did not know the officer but wanted to steal his car, a Renault Megane. Appearing in court on Wednesday, they were convicted of attempted robbery and endangering the lives of others.
Business
A report on the BBC’s Newsnight programme has said that business lobby groups have written to the European Commission to warn that its own plans for a no-deal Brexit “fall short of what is needed to avoid major disruptions”.
The letter was penned by Business Europe-an umbrella body for lobby groups across the EU which includes the UK’s CBI.
It warns of possible disruption to flights,drug supply shortages and data-sharing interruptions.
The document suggests that firms on mainland Europe as well as British businesses are extremely nervous about the economic repercussions of a no-deal Brexit on the 29th of March.
A late night agreement in Brussels last night gave the British Prime Minister an extension until the 22nd of May if she can get her Brexit deal through Parliament next week.If she can’t then the delay will be shortened to the 12th of April at which time the UK government will have to indicate which way it wishes to proceed.
Reports emerging in the last few hours say that Uber will list on the New York Stock Exchange instead of the tech-heavy Nasdaq.
Both the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg say that Uber is expected to launch its initial public offering next month and could be valued at as much as 120 billion dollars.
Uber has yet to respond to the reports.
Other major tech firms such as Google,Apple and Facebook trade on the Nasdaq but the New York Stock Exchange has secured some of the world’s biggest IPO’s including Alibaba and General Motors.
And-The passwords of millions of Facebook subscribers were made accessible to some 20,000 staff at the social network dating back to 2012.
The security researcher Brian Krebs has published the news about data protection failures at Facebook which saw up to 600 million passwords stored in plain text.
Facebook says that it has now resolved the “glitch” that had stored the password on its internal network.
Mr Krebs said that a source at Facebook had told him about security failures that had led to developers creating applications that had logged and stored passwords without encrypting them.
The news is the latest in a series of failures at Facebook over the way that it handles and protects user data.
Sport
Football-The Scotland manager Alex McLeish has refused to discuss his future after his side went down to an embarrassing 3-0 defeat in Kazakhstan in their opening Euro 2020 qualifier on Thursday.
It was only Kazakhstan’s second win in 21 qualifying games and McLeish said afterwards that he wouldn’t be drawn into discussions about his future.
Scotland play San Marino on Sunday.They lost their opener against Cyprus 5-0.
Northern Ireland won their opening qualifier 2-0 against Estonia while the other group game ended the Netherlands 4 Belarus 0.
There are a stack of qualifiers tonight.England start their campaign with a home game against the Czech Republic at Wembley while France are away in Moldova
Rugby Union-The England pair of Ben Te’o and Billy Vunipola have apologised for returning late from a drinking session following the team’s final 6 Nations game.
The pair broke team rules by staying out until the early hours of Sunday following the unexpected 38-38 draw with Scotland at Twickenham when the rest of the squad had returned to their hotel in West London.
England management said that the matter had been “dealt with” and neither player is expected to receive any further disciplinary measures.
There’s one game in the Gallagher Premiership tonight.Leicester play Northampton while in the Guinness Pro 14 Cardiff Blues play Scarlets,Connacht host Benetton and Edinburgh play Leicester.
Golf-Russell Knox of Scotland produced only the second albatross of his life to put him into contention at the Vaspar tournament in Florida at the end of round 1.
Knox was two over par when he holed out with his second shot-a three wood from 275 yards on the par-5 11th.
Last week,the American Harris English got an albatross at the Players Championship in Sawgrass.
There were only 3 made in the entire PGA Tour last season.
Weather
Clear skies with light variable winds.
Top temperature 18-22 degrees Celsius.
Overnight lows of 11 degrees on the coast and 6 degrees inland with clear skies.
The weekend-Clear skies with highs of 18-22 degrees.
Gabriel Attal announced new measures In response to recent acts of violence among young people during a visit to Viry-Châtillon. Attal highlighted the...
Read More
The owners of a vast floating artificial island that had been planned for last summer off the coast of Mandelieu have won a legal battle to be allowed...
Read More
The Monegasque State has successfully conducted its first national voluntary surrender operation, with 123 firearms being handed over by private indiv...
Read More
A hospital in Cannes has had to postpone all non-urgent consultations and operations after falling victim to a cyberattack....
Read More
Potential presence of broken glass in pizzas. A recall has been issued for several pizzas distributed by Auchan Avallon in France due to the potential...
Read More
