www.DiamondNe.ws

“How about slowing down? What if we reclaim the city? What if we free up public space for the benefit of those who really need it? What if we put well-being in the center of Paris?” These are the questions that the Paris City Council has sent to the residents to promote their ‘ Central Paris ‘, a restricted traffic area in the center of Paris that includes the Saint-Germain neighborhood.

The City Council led by the socialist Anne Hidalgo aims to improve the quality of life in the historic center with “peaceful areas” in which traffic is limited , a project that could become a reality in 2022, according to Le Parisienne .

The first areas to be affected by traffic restrictions are those corresponding to the center of Paris and the part of the left bank located north of Boulevard Saint-Germain.

The City Council wants Parisians to make their own “an essential project in the evolution of their living environment,” reads the municipal website . To do this, it asks residents to define the limitations to road traffic, the categories of authorized vehicles and identify streets to which special attention should be paid.

The example of ‘Madrid Central’
The Gallic City Council describes its Limited Traffic Zone (ZTL) making mention of Central Madrid , which however has been disabled by the Supreme Court by default in its approval. “It is a tool used by several large European cities such as Madrid, Milan or Rome to reduce the flow of vehicles in the city center,” says Paris.

“This system allows the road to be reserved for pedestrians, bicycles, public transport and certain categories of users (residents, delivery men, artisans.” And it will not allow crossing the area without stopping there.

It is a movement thought “to recover the urban space dedicated to the automobile in favor of new, friendlier and less polluting uses “, describe its promoters. It seeks to rebalance public space for the benefit of pedestrians, cyclists and users of public transport, when almost 50% of public space is used by the car.

By reducing the volume of road traffic and the speed of vehicles, it will be “easier and safer to travel on foot and by bicycle.” This will make the city a friendlier and easier transit space for residents and merchants.

It also seeks to “offer more welcoming streets where residents of all ages can meet, chat and play safely for the little ones .”

The perimeter of the proposal
The proposed perimeter for the implementation of the Limited Traffic Zone includes the Center of Paris sector (districts 1 to 4), as well as the streets located north of Boulevard Saint-Germain in districts 5, 6 and 7. This amounts to about 14 square kilometers, or what is the same, is almost three times as large as Madrid Central (4.7 square km).

They influence from the City Council that adjustments can still be made to the perimeter after conversations with the Police Department , whose opinions are mandatory on the axes of the area.

The City Council has estimated that only 30% of drivers in Paris need to use the car for their trips (freight transport, complex journeys, lack of public transport solutions). For the remaining 70%, the car is above all a comfort, as they defend.

The proposal was launched on May 12, 24 hours later there are already some two hundred contributions and 194 participants on the project website. Parisians are asking for more parking spaces on the periphery of the affected area or even expanding the designated area, as read in the proposals.

Recently, a study on the effects of air pollution placed the French capital in fourth place among European cities where mortality from exposure to nitrogen dioxide (NO2) is the most important.

The system that the world had to face pandemics was useless and must be reformed to face the next one that arrives, but countries have also been responsible for the current situation when they preferred to “wait and see what happened” in the first months, without taking the measures that would have stopped the coronavirus .

This is the overwhelming conclusion of the Independent Pandemic Preparedness and Response Panel, made up of experts and personalities who examined for eight months the failures in the management of the pandemic , both nationally and internationally, and which released its conclusions on Wednesday. .

This mission was entrusted to him by the World Health Organization (WHO), which in turn received instructions to do so from its member states, alarmed in the middle of last year by the speed at which the pandemic was worsening and the suspicions that this entity had not acted correctly in its initial phase.

His main conclusion is that globally the world showed that it had not learned anything from past crises and that the health, economic and social tragedy caused by COVID-19 could have been avoided. “And if we do not act to change it now, it will not protect us from the next pandemic threat that could occur at any time,” explained Helen Clark, co-chair of the panel and former Prime Minister of New Zealand.

Shared responsibility
The panel, co-chaired by former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, found that there was a shared responsibility and that preventing such dire situations from recurring will require major international reform in which countries they must commit resources and political will.

“There were countries that underestimated the value of science, denied the seriousness of the disease and were slow to respond, which had dire consequences”
“The time elapsed from the notification of a group of cases of pneumonia of unknown origin in mid-December to the declaration of an International Public Health Emergency (January 30, 2020) was too long,” the panel maintains in the report that introduced today.

Clark argued that the global emergency could have been declared as early as January 22 , after the first meeting of the WHO Emergency Committee, which assesses the seriousness of a health threat and recommends whether it should be considered an international emergency, and not wait for for this same group to meet a second time.

However, if the WHO did not act as it should at certain times, it was because it does not have the powers required in such a serious situation, the Panel concluded.

” Sensitivities about sovereignty should not cause delays in alerting the world to the threat of a new pathogen with pandemic potential,” he added.

National responsibilities
Countries also bore a large share of responsibility for the uncontrolled spread of the coronavirus, according to the Panel’s findings.

“February was a lost month in which many more countries could have taken serious measures to contain the spread of SARS-CoV-2 and prevent a health, social and economic catastrophe,” the experts concluded.

Clark recalled that most governments chose to “wait and see what would happen and it was not until they began to see that the intensive care units were filled that they began to act, but it was too late.”

“There were countries that underestimated the value of science, denied the seriousness of the disease and were slow to respond , which had dire consequences,” added the co-chair of the Panel, whose creation came amid the suspicion that the United States had instigated against the WHO.

Trump accusations
The Donald Trump Administration accused the Organization of having covered up the delay with which China reported the first cases of coronavirus, as well as of having mismanaged the crisis, while in his country it denied the seriousness of the new virus and despised the use of masks.

The United States has registered 576,000 deaths from covid-19 and 32.3 million cases, the highest figures in the world in both categories.

Clark considered that the reforms and new rules that are adopted to face future pandemics should address in a particular way the respiratory infections easily transmitted from person to person.

Regarding prevention measures, he acknowledged that if travel restrictions had been imposed faster and more extensively, the spread of the virus would have been reduced.

Maori Party co-leader Rawiri Waititi was expelled from the New Zealand Parliament on Wednesday for performing a “haka”, a traditional Maori dance of defiance, in protest at “the racist rhetoric and propaganda” of the opposition National Party .

For about two weeks, the leader of the National Party, Judith Collins, has lashed out at New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern for seeking ways for indigenous people to better exercise their rights . Collins claims, without evidence, that these attempts are part of “a separatist agenda.”

Tension rose on Wednesday when Maori Party co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer asked Ardern if he considers “the continuing attacks on Maori to be racist,” alluding to Collins.

Ngarewa-Packer’s question was blocked by the Speaker of the Lower House, Trevor Mallard, who clarified that this comment was outside the responsibility of the prime minister , which allowed Collins to continue with the debate.

It was then that Waititi stood up to denounce that in recent weeks “racist propaganda” against indigenous people has been heard, and question Parliament for allowing “the constant bombardment” of insults against the tangata whenua (a Maori expression to refer to the traditional owners of the land) “.

The speaker of the Lower House, uncomfortable, asked him to sit down, but the Maori legislator performed a ceremonial dance of defiance “haka”.

After being expelled by Mallard from the session, Waititi said, accompanied by Ngarewa-Packer, that ” it is not correct that the Speaker of the House does not have the courage to stop racism in the House and it is not correct that we support it,” he collects. Radio New Zealand.

It is not the first time that Waititi is expelled from the Chamber, since in February he also had to leave the legislature by refusing to wear a tie, arguing that it is not part of the formal clothes of the Maori and is a colonial dress.

Some 850,000 of New Zealand’s 5 million people are Maori , although a large part of the population lives in poverty or suffers from financial insecurity, in addition to social problems.

Beers, tickets, a million dollars a week … the incentives for the population to be vaccinated against the covid.

Ohio (United States) will carry out the first millionaire draw on May 28 and for four weeks. People who want to participate must be of legal age. It is not the only proposal: giving away tickets or beers also stand out in the United States.

The state of Ohio , in the Midwest of the United States, will raffle a million dollars a week among people who have been vaccinated against covid-19 , its governor, Republican Mike DeWine, announced on Wednesday.

The first draw will be held on May 28 and will be repeated for the next four weeks until 5 million have been distributed among five winners.

“I know some will say, ‘DeWine, you’re crazy! This million dollar raffle idea of ​​yours is a waste of money.’ But the truth, the real waste at this point in the pandemic – when the vaccine is available for everything the world-, it is a life lost by covid-19, ” said the governor.

To qualify for the drawing, individuals must be of legal age, Ohio resident, and have received at least the first dose of the vaccine.

The funds to finance the program will come from the provisions for the states and municipalities of the economic rescue of 1.9 trillion dollars approved in March by Congress.

Ohio has 42.3% of its population vaccinated with at least one dose, a percentage somewhat below the national average, which as of this Wednesday is 46.4%.

Other provaccine proposals
DeWine’s initiative to encourage vaccination is perhaps the most generous and ambitious of those being offered across the United States, now that the pace of people willing to receive the preparation has plummeted and it is still a long way off. of meeting immunization goals.

In the city of Washington , for example, a beer is offered in exchange for a vaccine, in New York tickets are given away to sporting events such as baseball or venues such as the zoo and in Memphis vehicles are raffled to choose between several models of Chevrolet and Nissan.

Florida suspect arrested in Times Square shooting with three people.

The suspect in the shooting due to a dispute in broad daylight this Saturday in Times Square ( New York ), which left three people injured , was arrested today in the southern US state of Florida , according to local media.

Farrakhan Muhammad, 31, was detained by federal marshals and agents from the New York and New Jersey fugitive unit in the town of Starke, near Jacksonville , after several days of searching, according to local channel ABC 7.

Muhammad apparently tried to shoot his brother , who would later identify him to the local police, and instead wounded three passers-by – two women and a four-year-old girl – who had to be transferred to a hospital and are progressing favorably.

Authorities had been trying to locate the suspect since Saturday afternoon after the violent incident, which has caused a commotion in one of the Big Apple’s most touristic spots and has focused on the growing number of local shootings.

Corps sources told the NBC channel today that Muhammad went to a nearby hotel after the shooting, changed his clothes and left the place with a woman to drive to the south of the country in a vehicle, according to surveillance cameras and sightings. .

The charges against the detainee, who has a criminal record , are not yet known , and the authorities are questioning the woman who accompanied him, whom they consider his partner, to find out if she had knowledge of helping a fugitive.

On the other hand, the Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, Mohamed Shtayyeh, has criticized that the United Nations Security Council has not issued a statement condemning Israel for the escalation of violence, a statement that would have been again blocked by the United States this Wednesday, pick up Haaretz.

Precisely, the United States has reiterated on Wednesday its support for the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu , as well as its right to defend itself during a telephone conversation with the Secretary of State of the United States, Antony Blinken.

According to a statement from the State Department, Blinken has expressed its “concern about the barrage of rocket attacks against Israel” and wanted to share “its condolences for the lives lost.” In this call, Blinken has called on all parties to reduce tensions and end violence.

On the other hand, in a meeting between the UN Secretary, António Guterres, and the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, in Moscow, both have shown their support for a meeting of the Quartet for the Middle East, made up of the United Nations, the European Union (EU), United States and Russia. “We have come to the conclusion that the most urgent task is to convene the Quartet of international mediators,” Lavrov said, according to the Sputnik agency.

On the other hand, the Egyptian Foreign Minister, Samé Shukri, has indicated in a telephone conversation with his Israeli counterpart, Gabi Ashkenazi, the need to stop attacks against the Palestinian territories and has highlighted.

The importance of work to save the peoples from the region of further escalation and the use of military force, “according to a statement from the Ministry, which indicates that Egypt seeks to stabilize the situation in the region through the solution of problems through diplomatic means.

The new clashes have erupted after the increase in tensions in Jerusalem , due to the increase in orders for the evictions of Palestinian families in the Sheikh Kharra neighborhood, in East Jerusalem, and that in recent days have left protests against the repression by from the Israeli security forces.