Word: french
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Once the Wall fell, those chemical factories were among the first casualties of reunification. Investors such as Dow, Dell, French oil giant Total and Belgian chemical and pharmaceutical firm Solvay moved in, enticed in large part by the subsidies Germany was offering to companies willing to take the obsolete mammoths off its hands. But welcome as the newcomers were, they quickly shuttered the old plants and hired only a fraction of the workers - about 20% of those who had previously toiled at Buna and Leuna. Unemployment soared as high as 30%. People started to leave Halle to find work elsewhere...
...cork or not to cork: that is the question in the French winemaking region of Champagne, ever since the unveiling earlier this month of a gutsy new Champagne stopper prototype. The Maestro opening system, developed by Alcan Packaging Capsules, is composed of a concealed crown bottle cap fitted with an aluminum lever. It's far easier to use than a conventional stopper - no struggling to hold the heavy bottle as you twist, no worrying that you'll take someone's eye out with the cork - but it still delivers that satisfying pop upon opening. It's a minirevolution...
While some teams have cheered the idea, others have blown a gasket. Ferrari, the sport's oldest and most illustrious team, this week threatened to quit Formula One unless the plans were parked. On Friday, Team Ferrari filed an injunction in a French court to block the cap. Rivals Renault, Toyota, Red Bull and Torro Rosso all issued similar warnings. "If the regulations for 2010 will not change," read a Ferrari statement, "then Ferrari does not intend to enter cars in the next Formula One world championship." (See the 50 worst cars of all time...
There is no shortage of ambition packed into the rocket that lifted off from French Guiana at lunchtime on Thursday. The celestial mission carries two space telescopes that aim to unravel the universe's biggest mysteries: the life and death of stars...
...This is the London debut of Bel Canto, www.lebelcanto.co.uk, an established Paris eatery which harmoniously pairs understated French cuisine with theatrical entertainment of the highest order - the front-of-house ensemble are all trained opera singers specializing in bel canto (meaning beautiful singing), the melodic Italian vocal style of the 18th and early 19th centuries, which impresses with all manner of embellishments, fast scales and long trills. The playlist judiciously balances pieces that appeal to the aesthete yet remain accessible to the opera-ignorant: most of the extracts - performed for a couple of minutes at approximately 15-minute intervals...