Jo-2024: opening of a ceremony lasting nearly 4 hours

The 2024 Olympic Games open on Friday on the Seine, in the center of Paris, with a ceremony lasting nearly four hours, combining a grandiose parade with the embarked parade of delegations, placed under very high security protection. .
This ceremony is a major image challenge for France, which is taking advantage of the opportunity to welcome a hundred heads of state and government and to conduct intense diplomatic activity as conflicts rage from Ukraine to Gaza, via Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Organized for the first time outside a stadium, this show, which will start at 19:30 and end at night, has raised many questions and other twists and turns, since the idea of leaving a reassuring and closed environment for the banks of the river emerged.

Deadly Strikes: Artillery Shots Target Gaza Strip

Deadly artillery fire and air strikes targeted the Gaza Strip. The Israeli army recovered the bodies of five Israelis killed during the Hamas attack on October 7 and taken to Palestinian territory. The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, met on Thursday in Washington with American President Joe Biden, after being received in Congress where he defended the war in Gaza.

Justice: 228 Duralex employees set their fate on Friday

After analyzing three takeover offers, the Orléans Commercial Court must issue its decision on Friday morning on the fate of the French glass company Duralex, known throughout the world for its renowned unbreakable tableware. The 228 employees and trade union organizations, plunged since the end of April into the greatest uncertainty concerning their future, after the placing of their company in receivership, hope for a positive outcome.

Drug trafficking: arrest of two heads of the powerful Mexican cartel of Sinaloa
The U.S. Department of Justice announced that two leaders of the powerful Mexican Sinaloa cartel have been taken into custody in Texas, speaking of “one of the most violent and powerful drug trafficking networks in the world.” According to the Minister of Justice, Merrick Garland in a statement, “Ismael Zambada Garcia, also called +El Mayo+, co-founder of the cartel, and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, son of the other co-founder, were arrested today in El Paso, Texas

IN SHORT

G20 finance ministers are due to try to reach a common position on the taxation of billionaires on Friday.

The UN humanitarian agency (OCHA) said that the death toll from the landslide that occurred on Monday in a hard-to-reach area in southern Ethiopia is now 257 dead and could reach 500 dead.

The Ministry of Health announced on Thursday that because of a new heat wave that hit Morocco, in the grip of its sixth consecutive year of drought, twenty-one people died in 24 hours in the agglomeration& Ration of Beni Mellal, in the center of the country.

For the first half of 2024, SNCF reported a net profit of 143 million euros, the sixth positive half-year result in a row, which had never happened to the railway group before.

On the eve of the highly anticipated opening ceremony on Thursday, the handball women and soccer players started their Olympic journey with a victory, respectively against Hungary (31-28) and Colombia (3-2).