Virus: entry into force of the European health pass, hope for tourism

The EU hopes to relaunch tourism frozen by the coronavirus pandemic with a health pass for travelers starting Thursday, despite uneven vaccination campaigns and the threat of the Delta variant. Vaccinated, recovered or tested negative for Covid-19, starting on Thursday, it will be necessary to show white paper to cross European borders, using the new “health pass”, which is now essential to travel to 33 countries in the Old Continent, even if the rules vary according to destinations and countries of origin. This precious sesame should give a breath of fresh air to the tourism industry, brought to its knees by the pandemic: according to the UN, the collapse of international tourism could cause a loss of more than 4 trillion dollars in global GDP over the years 2020 and 2021, or one and a half times the French GDP. With vaccination rates uneven, with less than 1% of the population vaccinated in some countries and more than 60% elsewhere, the report of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad) published on Wednesday notes that tourism losses are greater in developing countries

Discussions in Paris on the consequences of nuclear testing

To assume the impact of nuclear tests in French Polynesia and better compensate the victims, the government is organizing a round table in Paris on Thursday and Friday where the ministries of Defense, Health and the Overseas will be represented, facing a Polynesian delegation. At the origin of this meeting, a request from Polynesian President Edouard Fritch, who asked France to answer the various questions left by these 193 nuclear tests conducted over thirty years in French Polynesia, after the publication in March of an investigation by the online investigative media Disclose entitled “Toxic”, according to which France underestimated the consequences, sometimes voluntarily. tests. President Emmanuel Macron is expected to speak at the end of the day on Thursday, according to Matignon who is overseeing this meeting. Previously, the Minister Delegate to the Minister of the Armed Forces Geneviève Darrieussecq will lead the first round table,

The pope receives ten Christian religious leaders from Lebanon at the Vatican

Vatican City - Pope Francis - very sensitive to the suffering in Lebanon, where he wants to go quickly - will spend Thursday alongside ten Lebanese Christian religious leaders, to reflect on the future of a country in full collapse. All staying at the Sainte-Marthe hotel residence, where the pope resides in Vatican City, they will go to Saint Peter's Basilica, before rolling up their sleeves for three closed-door working sessions around a round table. At the end of the afternoon, after an ecumenical prayer “for peace” punctuated by texts in Arabic, Syriac, Armenian and Chaldean, he will deliver a much-awaited final speech, in the presence of diplomats. Faced with an “extreme danger” that threatens its very existence, Lebanon cannot be “abandoned to its solitude”, Pope Francis pleaded in September in a vibrant message to the country, a month after the tragedy of the explosions in the port of Beirut. “Lebanon represents more than a state, Lebanon is a message of freedom and an example of pluralism, both for the East and for the West,” he said

AT A GLANCE

The Trump Organization, Donald Trump's family group, and its chief financial officer will be indicted for tax offenses by New York prosecutors on Thursday, several American newspapers said Wednesday, citing sources familiar with the matter.

Tadej Pogacar hit hard: the Slovenian, the outgoing winner, dominated the time trial of the 5th stage of the Tour de France on Wednesday in Laval, where the Dutchman Mathieu van der Poel narrowly preserved the yellow jersey.