Ferrari fans from France, Italy and Germany attended a silent 45th birthday tribute to Michael Schumacher on January 3. (Reuters)
Michael Schumacher's fans gathered at a hospital in the French Alps on Friday to honour the Formula One great on his 45th birthday.
A few dozen fans assembled outside the medical facility in Grenoble where Schumacher has been undergoing treatment since falling and hitting his head on a rock on Sunday while skiing off piste in the resort town of Meribel.​
Busloads of fans from Italy, where he anchored the Ferrari racing team, France and Germany headed to the hospital in Grenoble where he is being treated.
Gulio Carissimo drove for four hours to reach Grenoble. Wearing a Formula One Ferrari jacket and hat, he said he felt compelled to come. "With all the joy he has given us with his victories, we had to be there," he said.
"For us Ferrari fans, we are just like brothers, we are just one," said fan Carlo Buschini, who raised his cap and blew kisses in the direction of Schumacher's hospital room. "We are here to celebrate and to celebrate his battle for life," he said.
Supporters of the Scuderia Ferrari Club wore red and carried a banner reading "Schumi, all our thoughts for you and your family."
Ferrari wrote in a blog post on its website that Schumacher was "tackling the most important fight of his life" and sent him "double wishes" for his birthday.
"Happy birthday my brother Michael! Be strong!! Be strong!! Don't give up!! We are praying for you," wrote Brazilian Ferrari driver Felipe Massa.
Another former team mate, Brazilian Rubens Barrichello, wrote "Keep it up, man ... I know ur [sic] fighting."
The doctors treating him are keeping him in a medically induced coma and his body at an artificially low temperature to help healing.
The physicians have refused to give a prognosis for Schumacher, saying they are focused on his immediate care.
Schumacher, known affectionately as Schumi by his fans, is the most successful F1 driver in history, racking up a record 91 race wins in a career spanning more than two decades.
The German racer won five successive titles with Ferrari before retiring from the team at the end of 2006. He retired from the sport in 2012.
Schumacher's family thanked fans for their support late on Thursday. "We all know he is a fighter and will not give up," they posted on the racing car driver's website. – Sapa-AP, Reuters
A get-well message is placed on a fence outside Schumacher's cart racing track in the western city of Kerpen, in Germany. (Reuters)
There has been a "slight improvement" in Michael Schumacher's condition, a source close to the Formula One legend said on Monday, eight days after a skiing accident left him with life-threatening injuries.
Schumacher remains in a critical condition in hospital where he has been in a medically induced coma since the accident on December 29 in the French ski resort of Meribel, where he owns a chalet.
But there are small signs of improvement and his loved-ones hope that he will pull through, the source told the German sports news agency SID, an Agence France-Presse (AFP) subsidiary, on condition of anonymity.
"The clinical state of Michael Schumacher is considered as stable and is being constantly monitored as he receives medical treatment," a statement from Grenoble's University Hospital said.
"However, the medical team in charge of his care underlines that they continue to consider Michael's condition as critical."
The team treating Schumacher said they would be giving no details of the treatment the 45-year-old is receiving in order to protect his right to privacy.
"The privacy of the patient demands that we are not going into details of his treatment, and this is why we do not envisage any press conferences or statements in the near future."
French prosecutors meanwhile said they would this week brief journalists on their investigation into Schumacher's accident.
A press conference will be held on Wednesday at 11am (10am GMT) in the Alpine town of Albertville, local prosecutor Patrick Quincy told AFP.
Investigators are focusing on the retired racer's speed when he fell and slammed his head on a rock on a small off-piste section, prompting his evacuation by helicopter to Grenoble.
Prosecutors are also looking at whether the limits of the ski runs next to the accident site were correctly marked and whether the rock in question was lying close enough to the piste to require some kind of protection or signage.
They are also examining whether the safety releases on Schumacher's skis operated properly in a probe aimed at determining responsibility for the accident.
The investigators are hoping that a helmet-mounted camera Schumacher was wearing will provide some clues, as will footage by a 35-year-old German steward who says he was filming his girlfriend on the slopes when by chance he captured the moment when the retired driver fell.
In the background, a skier is seen descending an unmarked run between two groomed pistes before falling, the German news magazine Der Spiegel reported.
According to the witness, who spoke to the magazine, the seven-time world champion was descending the slope at a "leisurely" pace – "a maximum speed of 20 kilometres an hour". He plans to hand over the footage to French investigators.
This would corroborate claims by Schumacher's spokesperson Sabine Kehm, who has said he could not have been going fast "because it appears he helped a friend who had just fallen".
But in a press conference last week, doctors who treated Schumacher said he had been skiing at great speed when he fell.
Schumacher won more Formula One titles than any other driver and enjoyed 91 Grand Prix victories between 1994 and 2004. – Sapa-AFP
But I've still got a furious appetite, which is a big thing for me on a stage race. Usually when we are this deep in, I quiver in a corner and fight off the nausea come dinner time. On Wednesday, my tastes swung away from vegetarian. Biltong, chicken mayonnaise, cold meats on a sarmie, rare steak off of a braai, two boerie rolls – all in less than 24 hours.
And just in case any of those quasi-biblical Tim Noakes fans get excited, I've also slammed down massive pieces of rye bread, door-stopper slabs of cheddar, onion jam, several portions of cannelloni, numerous chocolate milkshakes, several delicious glasses of red wine and draft beer, and a few slices of Greyton-baked apple pie.
I've said this before about bike races: one of my favourite parts are the classes of schoolchildren screaming as we wheel through far-flung villages, the farm workers who lean on their fences and root for us with slow claps and shouts, families on picnic blankets on the bank of a lonely river drinking wine, while their children squeal in delight. It's all so encouraging and hugely appreciated.
Thursday's ride was awesome. Looping around the hills and dales of Greyton and Genadendal, it felt like the kind of mountain biking that got me hooked on this sport. – Craig McKune
What a day of riding. Finally a super-fun stage full of single track. Blocked single track but single track nonetheless. I have always had a beef with stage racing when it comes to riding single track and Thursday was no different. If the riders could just practice riding up and down switchbacks, the race would be more fun for all.
On Thursday, we were also cut off by the same team roughly six times. They would race to get in front of us and then pretty much stop on the single tracks. I wish these guys would realise they are not going to win the race and stop taking themselves so seriously. (We ended up beating them anyway. Idiots.)
It is great to be sitting here in the media centre, munching on some yummy food and not feeling like absolute death. Its happy days within the M&G-Crank team camp. We are finally riding about where we should be in the race.
In the past two days, Craig and I have climbed almost 100 places in the general classification – a pity about our disastrous first stage. It shows that our slow and steady approach to riding this Epic seems to work.
This stage took its toll on many of the front teams, including Team Bulls rider Karl Platt, who had to abandon the race due to a sore knee after his crash on Wednesday. This led to the highlight of my day when his partner Urs Huber flew past us at the 50km mark, a frightening display of power and bike handling skills.
Stage five is the toughest stage of this year's epic. We transition from Greyton to Oak Valley in Grabouw, covering 110km and a grueling 2 900m of climbing, Known as this year’s Queen stage, it will be "downhill" from there to Lourensford on Sunday. – Rory van Zyl
The police have received over 5 000 cases of illicit financial flows since August as President Jacob Zuma's attempts to curb tax evasion. (Gallo)
South Africa has signed a number of multilateral agreements to combat illicit financial flows, including information exchange controls to make it more difficult for taxpayers to hide their assets abroad, President Jacob Zuma said in a written reply to Parliament.
Nqabayomzi Kwankwa from the United Democratic Movement (UDM) had asked Zuma what measures South Africa has undertaken to counter illicit financial flows, following a high-level panel report from former president Thabo Mbeki on the matter submitted in 2015.
Mbeki said in his report that illicit financial outflows from South Africa were far outstripping official development aid.
As much as $70-billion (R965-billion) is estimated to leave Africa annually in illicit financial flows each year.
Zuma said South Africa had taken several measures to combat this “scourge” at both domestic and international levels.
One measure was a new a multilateral agreement called the ‘automatic exchange of financial accounts information’, which allows authorities to exchange information on offshore accounts.
“South Africa is among the first 60 countries that has started the first automatic exchange on September 1 2017 and has already activated bilateral exchange relationships with 48 of the 60 countries,” Zuma said.
Other agreements that South Africa has signed include providing tax administrations with the necessary information to do high-risk assessments, and decide if they should conduct tax audits of specific individuals.
Zuma said that, to date, South Africa has signed 79 tax treaties, one of which is a multilateral instrument of which 71 countries are signatories. Nigeria, Mauritius and Cameroon have been the latest countries to sign this treaty.
In accordance with the treaty, base erosion and profit shifting measures will be included to reduce opportunities for tax avoidance by multinational companies.
The signing of the Financial Intelligence Centre Act, meanwhile, which aims to develop better risk management relating to prominent individuals and enable institutions to freeze assets if identified by the United Nations Security Council, will also play an important role in combating illicit financial flows.
Zuma signed the legislation into law on April 29, and Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba has since gazetted the act and initiated steps to implement the various provisions associated with the law.
Parliament has also conducted extensive hearings on illicit financial flows. Yunus Carrim, chairperson of the standing committee on finance, has convened several joint portfolio committee meetings among the police, finance, trade and industry and mineral resources oversight committees to discuss the matter.
In August Carrim said it had been “suggested to Parliament” that some 5 000 cases of illicit financial flows have been referred to the police, of which a “visible few have been pursued”.