Cap d’Ail is holding a major beach clean-up, with teams taking part in the sea, using professional divers and sailors, and on land with the city’s seaside services.
Plage Mala is considered a jewel in the regions crown. The unspoilt, relatively unknown and somewhat difficult to access beach attracts locals and those in the know as a little cove away from the huge summer crowds. To keep Mala the gem it is, the city of Cap d’Ail has designated Saturday 11th June as a day of waste collection on the beach, along the paths and in the coastal waters.
The clean-up will include 18 professional divers, some from Monaco, as well as seven land crew members, three sailors, a surface safety officer and the city’s seaside services.
Mayor Xavier Beck wanted to organise a major waste collection operation after attending a Bleu Gorgone operation in December 2021 in Villefranche-sur-Mer. That day, the association recovered pieces of scaffolding used in repairing the Citadel that had been ripped down during Storm Alex.
“We must preserve biodiversity, even if in Cap d’Ail the situation is not dramatic,” the Mayor said, whilst noting that the last intervention of this type has not been held for several years.
The teams will work to rid the beaches of surface rubbish but will also be going after some bigger items such as large construction site bags and defence grids sunk into the sea. The land-based teams will tidy up the rocky areas and pathways, led by Cap d’Ail Municipal Counsellor in Charge of the Environment Virginie Guasco.
The clean-up efforts will take place from 9am to 12pm, and will not affect those who wish to use the beach as normal.
The Oceanographic Museum has unveiled its major new exhibit for the next two years, an immersive experience to the polar regions where visitors are able to discover the beauty, the fragility, and the hope that lies within.
For the next two years, visitors to the Oceanographic Museum can discover the sometimes forbidding, but incredibly fragile, polar regions of our planet. With the inauguration of Polar Mission on Thursday 2nd June, the public can now delve into this crystalline world and learn all about the Arctic and Antarctic from a new perspective.
Through this new major exhibition, the Oceanographic Museum first offers a “one-on-one” journey with polar explorers Jean Malaurie, Frederik Paulsen, Jean-Baptiste Charcot and Matthew Henson, retracing their discoveries, reproducing a polar environment, and showing what a traditional igloo is like.
The objective is to allow visitors to learn more about the way of life of the Inuits and their traditions.
The exhibition then moves through four more spaces to create a real immersion in these remote regions of the globe.
“It is my hope that the emotion aroused by the beauty of the polar regions, together with the awareness of the vital role they play on a global scale, will lead mankind to regard them with respect and caution,” said Prince Albert, “because one thing of which we are now certain is that the future of the poles foreshadows our own.”
In space number three, the challenge is to unlock the secrets of the North and South Poles; not only to understand how they function, but also to realise what tremendous upheavals are taking place there because of climate change. It offers visitors an opportunity to become fully aware of the differences between these two extremes and the crucial role played by them in the planet’s climate balance.
In space number four, visitors physically feel as if they are at the Poles. The wild, grandiose beauty of those icy lands comes to life in a never-before-seen immersive, interactive projection featuring bears, seals, beluga whales, whales, sea elephants, killer whales and penguins. It is a wonderland which culminates in the dreamlike polar aurora, while an audio projection relays the fragility of this ecosystem, and the dangers which threaten these species.
Finally, space number five reveals how far the knowledge of global warming and its consequences have come, how it is impacting biodiversity, and how it is impacting humans.
With the help of an entrance ticket in the form of a press card, the “visitor-reporter” can activate extra content and, at the end of their visit, hand over their report using an interactive terminal. They are also invited, if they so wish, to pledge their support to the Oceanographic Institute and the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation by actively backing measures in favour of the poles, most notably the creation of new Marine Protected Areas in the polar oceans.
“Ecology is a subject that concerns all of humanity,” Mélanie Laurent, who is ambassador of the new exhibition, said.
Explorer Jean-Louis Etienne, who was also on hand, added, “The poles are the lungs of the Earth, their role is essential. They are the main carbon sinks on the planet. They regulate the climate.”
Mathieu Ferragut, CEO of CFM-Indosuez, the main sponsor of the exhibit, concluded by saying that finance is necessary for sustainable development. The bank has been a partner with the museum since January 2020 and has also offered its clients sustainable project inclusion in support of the institution in lieu of fees, which last year contributed €171,000 to the museum.
New figures from IMSEE show that restaurants and hotels made a slow but steady comeback in 2021 after the previous dismal pandemic year, pulling in €579 million in revenue.
According to a new focus report by statistics group IMSEE, there were a total of 308 active restaurants and hotels in Monaco in 2021 which took in sales figures of €579 million. It is a considerable gain of 36.8% on 2020. Restaurants made up the vast majority in numbers, 237, but hotels, numbering only 15, drove the sector financially, bringing in €409 million, up 42% on 2020, and employing over 70% of the sector’s workers.
Monaco saw 17 new entities created in this sector in 2021, representing 2% of the total of new businesses in the Principality. Conversely, 11 businesses closed in the same time period, a marked improvement on 2020, when 18 shuttered their doors permanently. Restaurants have long life spans in Monaco, faring better than the average compared to other types of businesses, lasting 14.7 years compared to the global 12.3 years.
The Condamine has the highest concentration of hotels and restaurants with 90, followed by Monte-Carlo with 85, and Fontvieille with 45.
The €579 million brought in by this sector equals 3.6% of Monaco’s total sales, not including the financial and insurance sectors. Whilst a big improvement on the previous year, figures are down compared to 2019, which saw the same sector bring in €809 million.
Hospitality employs 7,148 active workers in Monaco, with hotels the bigger employers by far with 5,063 employees. But the sector took on 7.9% fewer workers in 2021 than the previous year. On the other hand, restaurants, with 2,065 workers, gained 21.2% on 2020.
Men outnumber women in this sector considerably, but for both genders, the vast majority of workers range from 24 to 54 years of age, with the average age being 41.2 years.
In 2021, 5,384 workers in this sector were from France, representing 75.3% of the total. Monaco residents account for 13% of workers in the sector, and Italians for 9.5%.
Finally, occupation rates in hotels were up massively over 2020 at 41.6%. Whilst considerably lower than 2019’s 65.9%, it was a vast improvement over 2020’s miserable 28.5%. Not surprisingly, the months of July, August, September and October saw the greatest comebacks in 2021.
ROKiT Venturi Racing secured third place in the inaugural Jakarta E-Prix on Saturday. Less than a second separated the top-three drivers as Mitch Evans took the chequered flag with Edoardo Mortara third.
New Zealander Evans is now within just five-points of Venturi’s Mortara, who dropped below Jean-Eric Vergne in the standings. It could have all been very different, however, as fine margins decided the race.
For much of the race, it looked like it would be a two-horse race between Evans and Vergne, but as the latter failed to pass the former towards the end of the race, Mortara closed in, sensitive to the opportunity to better his third place.
Going into the final lap, the predator had turned prey as Vergne was forced to defend from the Venturi, taking the inside line into corners and hindering his attack on Evans. Vergne, and Evans, were grateful for the chequered flag. Less than a second separated the top-three, whilst there was only just over two-tenths of a second between Mortara and Vergne. Had there been another lap, Mortara likely would have picked off his prey.
Instead, he had to settle for the bottom step of the podium, which keeps him truly in the hunt for the championship, although for now, he has lost his second place. With only seven-points separating the top-three, Stoffel Vandoorne’s championship lead is anything but comfortable, and Mortara will fancy his chances of once again hitting the front when Formula E visits Morocco next month.
Lucas di Grassi meanwhile helped the side with a handful of points as he finished in seventh. However, in the Teams’ standings, Venturi lost their second place to DS Cheetah, who now lead the Monaco-based manufacturer by just one point, whilst the Mercedes EQ team are a further 16 points ahead.
Post-race, Venturi team principal Jérôme D’Ambrosio said, “A great race for us and Formula E in Jakarta today. With Edo on the podium in third and Lucas battling forward to seventh, we were able to take home a good haul of points.”
He continued, “The battle in both the Drivers’ and Teams’ World Championships is extremely close at the moment and with only four race weekends remaining this season, we need to maintain our current momentum. We’ll still be taking it on a race-by-race basis and as always, the goal is to do our best.”
With only a handful of points between the top-three in both the Teams’ and Drivers’ Championships, it is still all to play for as we enter the business end of the season.
Four innovators in the blockchain world have been recognised as the best of the year at the 4th CoinAgenda Europe Blockchain Start-Up Competition held at the Meridien Beach Plaza Hotel.
CoinAgenda is a conference series that has been connecting blockchain and cryptocurrency investors with start-up companies since 2014.
During a recent conference in Monaco, the winners of the CoinAgenda Europe Blockchain Start-up Competition were announced.
In first place was Fly Air, which combines voice-activated artificial intelligence with the security and convenience of blockchain technology to provide access to more than 10,000 private jets. This means that anyone can fly on-demand with no membership or hidden fees.
Icecap, a company that offers investment-grade diamonds via NFT technology, came in second. Icecap solves difficulties in the traditional diamond investment world associated with large buy/sell spreads, illiquidity, inaccessible marketplaces, and a lack of fungibility.
Third place was a tie between RAIRtech, which attaches digital goods to an NFT using encrypted streaming, and Untold, a web3 platform and digital community that connects award-winning filmmakers, investors, and major distributors to curate content.
All the winners will be given an exhibitor’s booth at a future CoinAgenda conference of their choice. Top spot winner Fly App will also receive a VIP pass to the conference and have their own press release credit sponsored by Blockchain Wire.
Past CoinAgenda BitAngels Competition winners include Aeternity, Bancor, Cashbet, Omega One, SALT Lending, and Qtum which have gone on to raise millions in funding.
Photo CoinAgenda Europe 2022 BitAngels Winners with the judges. From left to right: Brian Santos, COO at Fly Air, Ed Prado, CEO at RAIRTech, Hervé Larren, Founder at Airvey Metaverse LLC, Garrett Minks, CTO at RAIRTech, CoinAgenda Organizer Michael Terpin, Natalia Sokolova, Managing Partner at SGG World, Jacques Voorhees, Founder & CEO Icecap, and David Orban, Managing Advisor at Beyond Enterprizes.
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