TORONTO – Signs of a return to some semblance of normalcy are popping up around the city. For the first time the Metro Toronto Convention Centre held a three-day Art Show at full capacity. These days, exhibits like this are done differently, by lines. First line checks your electronic tickets. Second line, your proof of vaccination and identifications. Last line, security check. Then, you’re on your own but with self-discipline, maintaining physical distance while strolling in a fashionable manner, looking at one art work after another, perhaps lingering at some, trying to decipher what the artist was trying to convey. (more…)
TORONTO – Less than 400 new cases of Covid-19 and 1 death: these are the data recorded today in Ontario, quite reassuring given that the reported infections are 370, down from 373 on Saturday and 443 a week ago. (more…)
TORONTO – Cases in Ontario returned to increase within twenty-four hours but the daily average drops thanks to the good numbers of the last few days: today, provincial health officials recorded 677, up from 463 on Wednesday but significantly lower than to 864 on last Thursday. The seven-day moving average of new infections therefore still drops to 665, down from a week ago (732). (more…)
TORONTO – Back to school amid gatherings, worries and unfulfilled promises. As many parents feared, the first day of school – today for Toronto students – was not one of those days to remember with pleasure. In front of the institutes, gatherings. It was largely predictable, as the boys hadn’t seen each other for months. But evidently the “plan” elaborated by the provincial government and by the various administrations (both the public one, the TDSB, and the Catholic one, the TCDSB) had not thought about it. Thus, it fell to the teachers and principals to try, desperately (and blatantly without a “guide from above”), to impose distancing at least at the entrance. (more…)
KABUL – Italy and Afghanistan: faraway, so close. After the “Taliban” opening in recent days, with the invitation of the spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid to reopen the tricolor embassy in Kabul, today the Italian Foreign Minister, Luigi Di Maio, declared that Italy wants to guarantee a government presence in the Islamic Emirate. “With the countries of the area and with our partners we are reflecting on the creation of a joint presence in Afghanistan with mainly consular functions and which serves as an immediate point of contact”, said Di Maio in the briefing on Afghanistan in the Parliament. (more…)