Novel tractor protest by French farmers to highlight burning issues

French farmers have been hit hard by falling prices of livestock and dairy products and, they have resorted to a novel tractor protest to highlight the burning issues. Accordingly, hundreds of farmers with more than 1,300 tractors have converged on central Paris. The protest is against collapsing incomes. The protesters did block major arteries into the capital, but that has not caused any significant disruption in traffic.
This has been reported in bbc.com dated 3 September 2015.

Livestock and dairy farmers have been hit by tough competition between supermarkets as well as a Russian embargo on EU food imports. The protest was a noisy, eye-catching, disruptive protest of farmers in the center of the capital.
The protesters want to pressurize President Francois Hollande's Socialist government because, in the opinion of the farmers, French agriculture is on the verge of collapse. The tractors were spray-painted with "Anger" or "Enough Bureaucracy" and they had come from all parts of the country to participate in the demonstration.
Dairy farmers have seen incomes collapse because of over-production on the world market coupled with changing dietary habits apart from slowing Chinese demand.
As far as pork farmers go, they face competition from the vast piggeries of Denmark and Germany, where production costs are much lower.
(Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org)

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Vallauris beach closed to tourists because Saudi King Salman will holiday there in private

In view of the arrival of Saudi King Salman to the French Rivera to holiday in private, the beach of Vallauris has been closed to the tourist and, for this, more than 100,000 people have signed a petition insisting that the public beach should be "available for the benefit of all".
This has been reported in bbc.com dated 26 July 2015.

Authorities have already sealed off the beach to ensure that protesters do not occupy it.
King Salman, the Saudi monarch, is expected to stay at his villa for three weeks and, he and his entourage of about 1,000 people have arrived at Nice airport on board two Saudi Arabian Airlines Boeing 747s.
While the king's inner circle would put up at the villa - between Antibes and Marseille – the remaining about 700 others will stay at hotels in Cannes.
The hotels in Cannes are happy at the prospect of doing good business because these are people with great purchasing power. But, the closure of a section of La Mirandole beach beneath the king's villa has outraged many local residents. The mayor of Vallauris has also written to President Francois Hollande to protest at some unauthorized work that has been carried out at the property. This is a cement platform created on the beach to provide a lift up to the king's villa – the Saudis have assured to remove the slab when they leave.
(Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org)

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2015 Paris Air Show to focus on green issues

#ParisAirShow #ElectricPlane #Boeing #Airbus President Francois Hollande will inaugurate the week-long Paris Air Show and the focus this year would be on green issues. European company Airbus has a whole range of new products to show off. One of these is its prototype all-electric plane, the E-Fan, along with a cleaner, quieter civilian helicopter, the H160.
The show is expected to attract around 315,000 visitors and 2,260 exhibitors from 47 countries.
This has been reported in zeenews.com dated 15 June 2015.

The focus on green innovations is because of the global climate conference which would be hosted in the same venue later this year – the aviation industry has already committed to being carbon-neutral by 2020.
Among the products would be fuel saving devices - rising fuel prices are a big motivator towards this objective.
Boeing has promised that its next mid-range carrier, the 737 MAX, will offer 20-percent fuel savings. It has already managed to bag more than 2,700 orders, even though it has yet to make an appearance.
Similarly, Airbus A320neo, with a 15 percent cut in fuel consumption, has also picked up a record 3,800 pre-orders before the first one has even left the production line.
Obviously, the stress on going green is of paramount importance to not only reduce the global warming but also to increase profits because no airline would want the cost of fuel to erode its profits.
(Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org)

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Obama did not attend historic Paris rally - American attitude towards Paris terror attack raises questions

#ParisRally #CharlieHebdo The attitude of the USA towards the Paris terror attack has raised many questions. There was no sign of Barack Obama, John Kerry or Joe Biden in the historic Paris rally to express solidarity with more than 40 world leaders from Europe, Africa, the Middle East and even Russia who had gathered in Paris to condemn the attack on Charlie Hebdo.
'France is our oldest ally,' Obama had said during a speech Friday in Tennessee. 'I want the people of France to know that the United States stands with you today, stands with you tomorrow.' However, he gave Paris a miss and had, reportedly, spent part of his Sunday afternoon watching a National Football League game on television.
It seems US Attorney General Eric Holder was in Paris on the day for a security summit, but he did not appear alongside world leaders when they joined an anti-terrorism march in the afternoon - he went to appear on a number of US morning shows.
Why Obama was not in Paris is a mystery but, the fact remains that he was not there even as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas put aside their differences and linked arms.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergei Lavrov made the same unifying gesture in the march down the Place de la Concorde in defiance of the Islamist terror attacks that rocked the city last week. Heads of state from every major European power, including British Prime Minister David Cameron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, joined French President Francois Hollande.