World's largest Nutella factory reopens after 'quality defect'

The world's largest Nutella factory restarted production on Monday after it stopped work for five days as a precautionary measure over a "quality defect", owner Ferrero's French branch said. 

The factory in Normandy, France stopped making the chocolate-and-hazelnut spread due to a "suspected quality defect strictly limited to the production stage," Ferrero France's communications service told AFP.

It added that the problem was "very early in the process, at the stage of grinding and roasting hazelnuts."

"The factory started up again this morning at 6:00 am (0500 GMT). We are at 100 percent production capacity."

The Villers-Ecalles site in Normandy produces around 600,000 jars a day, or about a quarter of all the Nutella made worldwide.

Nutella's Italian owner Ferrero, whose products also include Ferrero Rocher chocolates, first announced production had been suspended on Wednesday.

"All concerns have been fully lifted," Ferrero France said on Friday. 

"We can say that no products currently on the market are impacted by the situation and that the supply to our customers continues without interruption."

The Ferrero group, with 30,000 employees and 22 production sites around the globe, also makes Kinder surprise eggs and chocolate bars as well as Tic Tac mints. 

source: news.abs-cbn.com

'The Artist' big winner at Oscars; Meryl Streep wins Best Actress trophy - again

The French-directed black-and-white movie beat eight rivals for the top Oscars prize, including Martin Scorsese's "Hugo," Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris" and hit civil rights drama "The Help." Earlier, the movie’s lead, Jean Dujardin won the Oscar for best actor, becoming the first Frenchman to win an acting Oscar.

The Gallic actor beat four fellow nominees including Hollywood A-listers George Clooney and Brad Pitt, who had been nominated for "The Descendants" and "Moneyball," respectively.

"I love your country," Dujardin told the Oscars audience as he took the stage for his acceptance speech, the latest of many awards shows at which he has triumphed over the last few months.

After thanking the film's cast and crew, adding "my wife, I love you," he broke into French, using an expletive and then saying, "Great, thank you."

Dujardin, who has won a string of awards in the United States and elsewhere over the last few months, also beat Britain's Gary Oldman in "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" and Mexico's Demian Bichir in "A Better Life."

"The Artist" started the evening with nominations in 10 categories at the Oscars, second only to veteran director Martin Scorsese's "Hugo," which had 11.

Meryl Streep won the Oscar for best actress for her scintillating portrayal of former British premier Margaret Thatcher in "The Iron Lady."

It was the third Oscar for the 62-year-old Streep and her first in three decades, underscoring her status as the pre-eminent actress of her generation.

"Oh, come on!" she said as she was given a standing ovation by the star-studded Hollywood audience.

When her name was called out, she said, "I had this feeling I could hear half of America going, 'Oh no ... her, again'," she added.

Streep defeated a deep field including Viola Davis, who was widely praised for her work in "The Help," and a cross-dressing Glenn Close in "Albert Nobbs."

Rooney Mara, who plays damaged hacker Lisbeth Salander in "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" was also in the running for the best actress prize, as was Michelle Williams for her turn as Marilyn Monroe in "My Week with Marilyn."

source: interaksyon.com

France works with Microsoft to cultivate startups

SAN FRANCISCO — French minister Frederic Lefebvre and Microsoft on Saturday announced a partnership to cultivate promising Internet startups in France.

The US technology titan will work with the agency for the creation of enterprises (l’APCE) headed by Alain Belais to identify young French companies to join a Microsoft BizSpark program, Lefebvre said in a release.

The program will provide selected startups with Windows Azure storage capacity and free access to software offered by Microsoft as services in the Internet “cloud,” according to Lefebvre.

French Internet startups with “high growth potential” will be eligible to get two years worth of online services from Microsoft.

The development of small and medium enterprises in vital “to support innovation, value creation and employment in France,” according to Lefebvre.

Microsoft vice president for emerging business development Dan’l Lewin said in the release that the partnership fits with the Redmond, Washington-based company’s strategy of cultivating technology startups around the world.

source: interaksyon.com

French director of 'The Artist' nervous ahead of Oscars

SANTA MONICA - Silent movie "The Artist" won another pre-Oscars boost barely 24 hours before the big show Sunday, but its French director admitted he was "nervous" as the moment of truth neared.

The black-and-white movie took three main prizes at the independent Spirit film awards on Saturday: best feature, best director for Michel Hazanavicius and best actor for Jean Dujardin.

"The Artist," a tribute to the silent movie era which is nominated in 10 categories for the Oscars, also won the best cinematography Spirit prize, handed out in a huge beach-front tent in Santa Monica. "I'm a little bit nervous. I'm realizing that I'm a bit tense because the outside pressure is rising considerably," Hazanavicius told AFP at the Spirit Awards, shortly after arriving in California following the French Cesars.

"As a general rule, I'm pretty relaxed, and rather calm, but I'm starting to feel nervous."

The film has scooped a string of prizes during the annual awards season, including a Golden Globe for best musical/comedy, a Screen Actors Guild best actor for Dujardin and a Directors Guild of America prize for Hazanavicius.

It has also triumphed around the world, including at Britain's BAFTAs, Spain's Goyas, and won best film, director and actor at the Australian Film Institute awards.

The French film also shone at home two days ahead of the 84th Academy Awards, netting best film and a string of other awards at France's annual Cesars.

Hazanavicius won both best film and best director at the 37th Cesars ceremony at the Chatelet Theatre in Paris. "The Artist" also picked up best score for the 1920s and 1930s-inspired soundtrack by composer Ludovic Bource, as well as best set design and best cinematography.

At the Spirit awards, Michelle Williams won best actress for playing screen icon Marilyn Monroe in "My Week with Marilyn," while Alexander Payne scooped best screenplay for Hawaii-based "The Descendants," starring George Clooney.

Best supporting actor honors went to Christopher Plummer for "Beginners," while the best supporting actress award was won by Shailene Woodley, who plays the older daughter of Clooney's character in "The Descendants."

Best foreign film went to Iran's "A Separation" by director Asghar Farhadi, which is heavily tipped to win that category at the Academy Awards on Sunday, over films from Poland, Canada, Belgium and Israel.

Hazanavicius said the Spirits triumph for "The Artist" was of particular significance. "It's a prize given out by people who take risks, who make non-formulaic films, people who make movies with complete independence and freedom," the French director said.

"To receive a prize from these people, that means that the soul of the film has not been completely lost in the perception which certain people have of it, with the race for the Oscars, et cetera," he added.

At the Oscars, the climax of Hollywood's annual awards season, "The Artist" has one fewer nomination than veteran director Martin Scorsese's 3D adventure "Hugo," with 11 nods.

source: interaksyon

French preschoolers post messages to Twitter

French preschoolers near Bordeaux are posting daily updates to the micro-blogging website Twitter, despite not yet knowing how to read or write.

Since the start of the school year, the 29 schoolchildren have posted short messages of 140 characters or less about a daily activity to their joint Twitter feed, which has 89 followers, most of them parents.

“We gathered snow to see how it turns into water,” reads one tweet from the five-year-old students of the Albert-Camus kindergarten in Talence, a commune in southwestern France.

Another tweet references the cake they baked — the “galette des rois,” or king’s cake, which is traditionally made around the January Epiphany holiday in France.

The children’s teacher came up with the idea as a way to teach them to recognize the alphabet in different formats — cursive, keyboard, screen — and to learn to move from the oral to written word.

Each day the process is the same: the children propose topics, discuss them under the teacher’s guidance and vote on a winner.

All pupils then try their hand at writing a tweet, before the teacher combines them into a final post that two students type into the computer.

“We love writing on the computer like grown-ups,” said five-year-old Emma.

The teacher said that the goal was not just to teach the children but to educate the parents as well.

Around 80 percent of the parents have agreed to follow the class Twitter account, where at the start of the year only one had subscribed to the service and only a handful had Facebook profiles.

source: interaksyon.com

PayPal makes buyer destroy $2500 antique violin

PayPal reportedly made a buyer of an antique French violin destroy the instrument instead of shipping it back to the seller, due to a dispute over the instrument's providence.

The seller —identified only as "Erica"— wrote of her "heartbreaking" experience, which was posted on the Regretsy.com website.

"Rather than have the violin returned to me, PayPal made the buyer DESTROY the violin in order to get his money back. They somehow deemed the violin as 'counterfeit' even though there is no such thing in the violin world," she said.

"The buyer was proud of himself, so he sent me a photo of the destroyed violin," she added.




She said she sold the old French violin to the buyer in Canada, and the buyer disputed the label.

But she said that such disputes are "not uncommon", as labels found inside violins are not permanent and are therefore not a major factor when evaluating the providence and value of an instrument.

Erica noted that some of the most expensive violins in the world have disputed labels, "but they are works of art nonetheless."

"I am now out a violin that made it through World War II as well as $2500. This is of course, upsetting. But my main goal in writing to you is to prevent PayPal from ordering the destruction of violins and other antiquities that they know nothing about," she said.

"It is beyond me why PayPal simply didn’t have the violin returned to me," she added.

Erica said she spoke on the phone to numerous reps from PayPal who "100% defended their action and gave me the party line."

She also noted the violin was examined and authenticated by a top luthier prior to its sale.

Presently, PayPal's terms say it "may also require you to destroy the item and to provide evidence of its destruction." — TJD, GMA News

source:gmanetwork.com

FOREX-ASIA: Euro steady but debt crisis overshadows sentiment

TOKYO — The euro steadied against the dollar in Asia on Friday but sentiment remained sour after Spain and France faced a sharp spike in borrowing costs as eurozone sovereign debt fears deepened.

The euro traded at $1.3468 and 103.66 yen in Tokyo against $1.3457 and 103.60 yen in New York late Thursday.

The dollar was flat at 76.96 yen compared with 76.98 yen.

Aggressive euro selling took a pause in Asian trade. The current sell-off feels like "it may just be a little bit over done in the near term," BNZ FX Strategist Mike Burrowes told Dow Jones Newswires.

Everyone is "bearish euro and talking about European breakups and bailouts and it feels like the news is all very negative," Burrowes said.

Investor concerns over the debt crisis gained momentum overnight in the wake of troubled new Spanish and French bond issues and rising borrowing costs for under-pressure countries such as Italy to dangerously high levels.

In a poorly received auction, Spain's treasury had to pay a record 6.975 percent when it raised 3.6 billion euros in a sale of 10-year bonds.

'Little reason for euro optimism'

France, the eurozone's second-largest economy, also was forced to pay sharply higher rates to raise 7.0 billion euros in new bond sales.

"Spanish and French government bond auctions Thursday provided little reason for euro optimism," Credit Agricole strategist Adam Myers said in a note to clients, adding that "they indicated a growing level of market stress".

Despite new governments taking over in Italy and Greece to push through key reforms, Italian benchmark 10-year bond yields once again topped 7.0 percent, a level considered as unsustainable.

In Italy, Prime Minister Mario Monti laid out radical economic reforms on Thursday aimed at cutting Rome's huge debt mountain, boosting growth and preventing Italy from dragging down the eurozone.

Fears of that the debt crisis may engulf bigger economies in the continent sent global stocks sliding.

The euro may remain downwardly biased against the dollar given ongoing worries about the eurozone sovereign debt crisis, said Osao Iizuka, head of FX trading at Sumitomo Trust and Banking. — Agence France-Presse

source: gmanews.tv