Wednesday, JUNE 16
When Cristiano Ronaldo speaks, football fans around the world listen.
Unfortunately, that’s bad news for Coke after a cheeky moment during a press conference ahead of Portugal’s Euro 2020 opener against Hungary cost the company big time, reports then ABC.
Ronaldo looked at two glass bottles of Coca-Cola — an official sponsor of the tournament — and decided they didn’t belong on the table in front of him.
Meanwhile, Portugal coach Fernando Santos sat next to his captain and elected for his two bottles to remain where they were.
After taking the Coke bottles off the table and placing them out of sight, Ronaldo produced a bottle of water, holding it up and proclaiming to the assembled journalists people should “drink water”.
The move isn’t what Coca-Cola had in mind when sponsoring the European Championships, and the company saw $AUD 5.2 billion wiped off its market value after Ronaldo’s stunt.
At the start of the press conference, The Athletic reports Coca-Cola’s shares were worth $73.02 each but by the end, they’d dropped to $71.85 — a 1.6 per cent dip in value that was worth a total of $5.2 billion.
Coca-Cola issued a statement in response to Ronaldo’s antics, saying “everyone is entitled to their drink preferences” and everyone has different “tastes and needs”.
A spokesperson added: “Players are offered water, alongside Coca-Cola and Coca-Cola Zero Sugar, on arrival at our press conferences.”
The move worked out well for Ronaldo, who became the all-time top scorer in the history of the European Championship with a late penalty in Portugal’s opening Euro 2020 game against Hungary in Budapest.
Ronaldo’s strike, which put the titleholders 2-0 up with three minutes left, was his 10th in the European Championship finals, spread across five tournaments going back to 2004.
Ronaldo then added another goal in stoppage time, his 11th Euro strike securing a 3-0 win in the Group F match.
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A new farm work visa will be offered to residents from 10 South-East Asian countries to help Australian farmers harvest their crops, but the nation’s peak farm lobby insists it will only believe it when it sees it.
The deal has been brokered alongside the UK free trade agreement (FTA), which will end a requirement for British backpackers to work on Australian farms for 88 days.
As part of the FTA announcement, prime ministers Scott Morrison and Boris Johnson said a new two-way visa would be established between the UK and Australia for farm workers.
The ABC on Monday revealed the new visa was the result of negotiations between the Nationals and Prime Minister, which was conditional on the junior Coalition partner agreeing to the FTA.
Nationals deputy leader David Littleproud confirmed the visa would be available to Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), which includes Indonesia, Myanmar, Vietnam, Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, Brunei and Cambodia.
“I have an undertaking from the Prime Minister as a condition of my support, and the National Party’s support for this [free trade] agreement, to have it up and going before the end of the year,” Mr Littleproud said.
“We have a strong commitment from the Prime Minister, we made it clear when I negotiated this … this is a line we couldn’t cross if we were to try and trade away seasonal workers at a time of shortage, it just didn’t make sense.
“The Prime Minister himself has made a promise to the [National Farmers Federation] in 2019, that said we would work to an ag visa, so we are living up to our commitment.”
National Farmers Federation president Fiona Simson said the government had long promised an ag visa but was yet to deliver it.
“We’ve had these promises for years now. It’s time to deliver,” she told the ABC.
Mr Littleproud said once his Coalition partners “saw … the National Party’s point of view, it was common sense”.
But he said participating nations would need to opt in to the visa program, and it was unclear how many workers the program could attract.
British backpackers make up about a quarter of the backpacker farm workforce, with about 10,000 Brits working on Australian farms each year.
Mr Littleproud said the new visa must recruit more than 10,000 workers a year.
“It will be for three years, and they will have six to nine months worth of work,” he said.
“[They] must go back [to their home country] for three months of the year, each year over the three years.
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Actor Lisa Banes, who appeared in the movie Gone Girl, died on Monday due to injuries sustained after getting struck by a hit-and-run scooter driver on the Upper West Side in New York, a source said. She was 65.
Banes, a Los Angeles resident visiting the Big Apple for the first time since the pandemic began, was on her way to meet her wife Kathryn Kranhold for a dinner party when she was mowed down by a red and black scooter on June 4, friends and police have said.
A witness told the Daily News: “He just wiped her out.”
She suffered a traumatic brain injury and was unable to recover. The scooter driver fled the scene.
Her representative told ET: “We’re heartsick over Lisa’s tragic and senseless passing.
“She was a woman of great spirit, kindness, and generosity and dedicated to her work, whether on stage or in front of a camera and even more so to her wife, family and friends.
“We were blessed to have had her in our lives.”
An NYPD spokesperson said on Monday night that no arrests have been made in the case. The scooter was last seen going northbound on Amsterdam Avenue.
Born in Ohio and raised in Colorado, Banes attended Julliard before launching a long career in New York and Hollywood, appearing in dozens of TV shows and movies.
Banes married Kranhold, a former Wall Street Journal writer, at an intimate ceremony around four years ago at City Hall.
On the small screen, the actor had roles on One Life to Live, China Beach, The Royal Pains, and Nashville.
On the big screen, she was Tom Cruise’s older love interest in 1988’s Cocktail. In Gone Girl, she was the mother of the missing woman, played by Rosamund Pike.
After reading the script for Gone Girl, Banes thought, “‘Oh, I’m right for this,’” she said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times at the 2014 Hollywood Film Awards.
Banes said her character in the film seemed to be a natural fit for her.
“I just have an affinity for her,” she told the newspaper from the red carpet. “It seeped in right away.”
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The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has been broken after less than four weeks, reports Reuters.
Israel said its aircraft struck Hamas military compounds in Gaza, after incendiary balloons launched from Gaza caused at least 10 fires in fields in southern Israel.
In a statement, the Israeli military said that it was “ready for all scenarios, including renewed fighting in the face of continued terrorist acts emanating from Gaza”.
A Hamas spokesman, confirming the Israeli attacks, said Palestinians would continue to pursue their “brave resistance and defend their rights and sacred sites” in Jerusalem.
The violence flared after thousands of far-right Israeli protesters paraded in East Jerusalem.
Hamas had warned that if the event went ahead, it would be seen as a provocation.
A ceasefire ended 11 days of cross-border fighting last month.
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