Month: April 2017

An agreement was signed on Monday, April 3, at the Residence of the Minister of State recognising the legal status of the Permanent Secretariat of Pelagos in the Principality.

The signing ceremony took place on the sidelines of Monaco Ocean Week, and took place in the presence of Prince Albert and the French and Italian Ministers of the Environment, Ségolène Royal and Gian Luca Galletti.

The Pelagos Agreement signed by France, Italy and Monaco in Rome on November 25, 1999, involved the setting up of a Sanctuary to protect marine mammals and their habitats from all man-made threats. The Sanctuary is a pilot area of the Agreement on the Conservation of Cetaceans of the Black Sea, the Mediterranean and the adjacent Atlantic Area (ACCOBAMS).

To date, the Pelagos Sanctuary is the only international marine protected area dedicated to the protection of marine mammals in the Mediterranean. This maritime area of 87,500 square kilometres represents great biological diversity and hosts many species of cetaceans.

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As part of a teaching project, the students of the Industrial Section of Monaco’s Hotel and Technical School (LTHM) have designed and built two electrically-assisted bicycles. One of these will be presented in the Monaco Pavilion during the International Exhibition in Astana, which 12 students from the LTHM and their accompanying staff will visit between July 7 and 15, 2017.

HE Mrs Evelyne Genta, Ambassador of Monaco in Kazakhstan, was keen to join this initiative by providing financial support for the project. This generous contribution will meet the travel costs of the students to Astana, the capital city of Kazakhstan.

On Friday, March 24, 2017, at the LTHM, numerous personalities attended a cheque presentation ceremony, followed by a convivial time at the restaurant Le Cordon d’Or. Alongside Mrs Genta were Patrice Cellario, Minister of the Interior, Isabelle Bonnal, Director of National Education, Youth and Sports, and Jean-Marc Deoriti, Head of the Technical and Hotel Lycée in Monaco.

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Reflecting the Future in Astana

The Monaco-based International Association of Athletic Federation (IAAF) has been hacked and information concerning individual athlete’s drug-use exemptions has been stolen.

The IAAF said that a Russian hacking group known as Fancy Bears was most likely behind the attack, which took place in February. IAAF President Lord Sebastian Coe has apologised for the attack. Athletes who had applied for Therapeutic Use Exemptions (TUE) from 2012 have been contacted by the international athletics association.

“Our first priority is to the athletes who have provided the IAAF with information that they believed would be secure and confidential,” Coe said. “They have our sincerest apologies and our total commitment to continue to do everything in our power to remedy the situation.”

TUEs are issued by sports federations and national anti-doping organisations so that athletes are allowed to take banned substances for verifiable medical needs.

“The attack by Fancy Bears, also known as APT28, was detected during a proactive investigation carried out by cyber incident response firm Context Information Security,” the IAAF said.

This is not the first time that Fancy Bears have struck. Last year they hacked the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) database and published the confidential medical records of several dozen athletes.

The IAAF banned Russia after a WADA report published evidence of state-sponsored doping. As a result, Russia was not allowed to take part in the track and field events at last year’s Rio Olympics.

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Monaco’s high hopes of a win in the French League Cup were dashed when arch-rivals Paris Saint Germain won for the fourth time in a row with a startling 4-1 victory on Saturday, April 1.

PSG’s win cast to one side a number of disastrous outings early in the season when it looked as if French football’s dominant force had lost its way. This was the third meeting this season between Monaco and PSG.

“We’ve had some difficult times, but we haven’t given up. We’ve proved we’re a great side. I think it’s a deserved win and we can celebrate a bit,” midfielder Marco Verratti told Canal+.

However, Monaco coach Leonardo Jardim was philosophical after his team’s defeat on its home turf: “For several of our young players this was their first final. Just because we lost doesn’t mean we will play less well in the competitions still open to us,” he said.

Monaco have not won the coveted title since 2003, but the home team remains top of France’s Ligue 1, three points ahead of PSG and seven ahead of Nice.

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AS Monaco invest in future talent

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A total of eleven initiatives in the fight against plastic pollution at sea were awarded prizes at an event held in the presence of HSH Prince Albert on Thursday, March 30, during Monaco Ocean Week. Described by experts as one of the major environmental challenges of our time, plastic waste threatens sea life and human health.

The Prince Albert II Foundation has been working together with the Surfrider Foundation Europe the Tara Expeditions Foundation the Mava Foundation and others to create a task force called Beyond Plastic Med (BeMed), to develop working projects to demonstrate what can be done on a regional and local level to fight this environmental menace.

Schemes from Greece, Italy, Turkey, Cyprus, Albania, Lebanon, Tunisia and Montenegro were among the winners. The Albanian project, Zero Waste Montenegro, underlines the problems facing environmentalists; logistical difficulties; a lack of resources; and obsolete technology. However, a nationwide educational campaign, training for local officials, and the organisation of a nationwide initiative to ban the use of plastic bags were the key points of the Zero Waste’s contribution to the Mediterranean effort.

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On March 28 the Permanent Mission of Monaco to the United Nations in New York celebrated, in collaboration with Peace and Sport, the Fourth International Sports Day for Development and Peace. Several Olympic tennis and Taekwondo champions demonstrated a number of sports at the United Nations Headquarters. Among them: the gold medalist at the Olympic Games (London 2012 and Rio 2016) and Vice-World Champion, Jade Jones of Great Britain and Northern Ireland; Talh Lebovitz, Paralympic Table Tennis Champion, and Maria ToorpakaI, Pakistan Squash Champion in 2012 and Peace and Sport Peace Champion, and Skylar Park, Junior World Champion of Canada.

Fun workshops were held with children from New York clubs. The Permanent Mission of Monaco offered a luncheon with representatives from Slovenia, Canada, Tunisia, Morocco, the United States, Russia, China, France and representatives of various sports federations.

This event provided an opportunity to raise awareness of sport in the diplomatic world and the UN, which has a positive impact on people from different backgrounds and cultures. Emphasis was also placed on the importance of appropriate strategies for people living In post-conflict and developing countries.

This day ended with a photo of all the participants holding the #WhiteCard #IDSDP2017.

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