Never-before-seen snowfall hit Madrid and Castile.
-
BENJAMIN CREMEL / AFP
No respite for the pandemic this weekend.
Nor for the cold snap.
If you haven't had time to follow the news, here's a little five-point summary of the news you shouldn't miss.
1. Curfew at 6 p.m. in eight additional departments
Jean Castex in Bazet in the southwest, January 9, 2021. - Lionel BONAVENTURE / AFP
To avoid a rebound in the epidemic, the Cher, Allier, Côte-d'Or, Haut-Rhin and Bas-Rhin, as well as Vaucluse, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence and Bouches- du-Rhône have decided to advance their curfew to 6 p.m. from this Sunday.
They thus join fifteen other departments, mainly in the east of France.
The Var and Drôme will do the same on Tuesday.
The prefectures of Haute-Savoie and Yonne, which also have worrying indicators, have however maintained the curfew at 8 p.m. as in the rest of the territory.
Prime Minister Jean Castex defended this Saturday "difficult but necessary measures in the face of an epidemic [which] is not weakening", and "is strengthening in certain areas".
The progress of the curfew is contested by local elected officials, doubting its effectiveness in terms of health and for fear of economic repercussions.
The more info:
The government is strongly opposed for the moment to a school closure.
So in a France already under curfew and closed public places, what other levers exist in the face of a potential epidemic resumption?
You can read it
here.
2. Crash of a Boeing in Indonesia
The two black boxes of the Boeing which crashed at sea on Saturday off Jakarta with 62 people on board were located on Sunday, Indonesian authorities announced.
Indonesian divers recovered human remains, debris and clothing from the Java Sea where the Indonesian company Sriwijaya Air's Boeing 737-500 dived at around 2:40 p.m. local time on Saturday, just minutes after taking off from Jakarta.
3. Flight of the British variant to Marseille
People masked because of the Covid-19 epidemic walk under the shade of the Old Port of Marseille - LOUAI-BARAKAT / SIPA
The alert was given to the mayor of Marseille by the Ministry of Health this Saturday at the end of the afternoon.
An "extended family cluster" linked to the variant of Covid-19 said to be of British strain, particularly contagious, was detected in the second largest city in France This Sunday, out of the 45 contact cases, eight cases of people with this variant had been detected, and 23 positive cases for Covid-19.
"From now on, every minute counts to stem the spread of the English strain", alarmed the mayor of Marseille Benoît Payan during a press conference in the afternoon.
More info
: Express PCR tests, wastewater tracing, decontamination teams… Our correspondent in Marseille details the authorities' race against time to track down the British variant in the city
here.
4. Twitter suspends Donald Trump's account
Donald Trump is still President of the United States until January 20.
- Dennis Van Tine / STAR MAX / IPx / AP / SIPA
Three days after the riots on Capitol Hill, orchestrated by pro-Trump activists, Twitter decided on Saturday to permanently suspend the US president's account.
"After careful consideration of recent @ realDonaldTrump tweets and the current context - including how they are interpreted (...) - we have suspended the account indefinitely due to the risk of further incitement to violence" from the outgoing US President, explained the company in a press release.
A decision that aroused the anger of supporters of the outgoing president but also the concern of many defenders of freedom of expression.
"We understand the desire to suspend (the president), but everyone should be concerned when these companies have the power to remove people from their platforms who have become indispensable for the expression of billions of people," commented Kate Ruane from the powerful civil rights association ACLU.
Thursday, Facebook and other services like Snapchat or Twitch also suspended the profile of the tenant of the White House for an indefinite period.
More info
: How is the US president doing now
address its supporters?
Our social media specialist explains everything
here.
5. Historic snowstorm wreaks havoc in Madrid
Never-before-seen snowfall hit Madrid and Castile.
- BENJAMIN CREMEL / AFP
In the aftermath of a historic snowstorm, Spain embarked on Sunday in a race against time to clear snow in Madrid and part of Spain before the arrival of an unprecedented cold snap.
This storm called "Filomena" killed three people and also caused heavy rains in several other regions.
In Madrid, the army had to be deployed to clear snow from the runways of the airport which should reopen "during the afternoon, but very gradually", announced this Sunday the Minister of Transport, José Luis Abalos .
The soldiers but also volunteers have cleared access to hospitals in the capital, still under pressure in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic.
More info:
François Jobard, forecaster at Météo-France, explains the phenomena that caused the exceptional snowfall in Madrid and Castile
here.
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