Day: September 10, 2021

COPENHAGEN – Denmark Friday dropped proof-of-vaccination — or vaccine passports — requirements at nightclubs, the last of the European nation’s COVID-19 restrictions, after a successful vaccination program led to almost 87% of all adults being fully vaccinated.

The European Center for Disease Control says as of Friday, nearly 90% of adults in Denmark have at least one dose and nearly 70% of its entire population.

Officials have been gradually lifting restrictions as vaccination levels increased, lifting mask requirements on public transportation August 14, and reopening nightclubs, lifting limits on public gatherings, and use of the vaccine passports at restaurants, sporting events and other venues September 1.

Denmark’s health minister, Magnus Heunicke, said last month the epidemic appears to be under control but warned the government will act as needed if the situation deteriorates.

Face masks or shields are still mandatory at airports and people are advised to wear one when at the doctor’s, test centers or hospitals.

Distancing is still recommended, and strict entry restrictions still apply for non-citizens at the borders.

The outbreak is still considered “an ordinary dangerous illness” in Denmark.

Source: Voice of America

The White House COVID-19 response team Friday used its regular briefing to support and defend the new round of vaccination mandates announced a day earlier by U.S. President Joe Biden.

Part of Biden’s plan calls for the U.S. Department of Labor to implement an emergency rule requiring all employers with 100 or more employees to ensure their workers are fully vaccinated or show a negative test at least once a week. The plan would cover more than 80 million workers. Non-compliance could bring fines of as much as nearly $14,000 per violation.

The plan drew criticism from Republican lawmakers and state governors. But during the team’s virtual briefing, White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Jeff Zients called the president’s plan an aggressive, comprehensive way to get more people vaccinated, which is the surest path out of the pandemic.

He reiterated getting vaccinated is a public health issue, not a political one.

Zients said statistics show vaccine mandates work. He said when the president announced his mandate for federal employees to be fully vaccinated in July, hundreds of businesses, colleges and universities, health care systems, and state and local governments followed his lead.

Zients pointed out that since large companies like Tyson Foods and United Airlines announced similar requirements, vaccination numbers rose substantially. Tyson, for example, saw vaccination numbers go from 45% to 72%, with nearly two months to go before its November deadline, Zients said.

Centers for Disease Control Director Rochelle Walensky said this remains a pandemic of the unvaccinated, with more than 90% of people hospitalized with COVID-19 unvaccinated, more than 10 times the number of vaccinated patients.

The team said the pace of U.S. vaccinations has picked up, with 14 million people receiving their first shots in August, four million more than in July. The CDC reports more than 73% of U.S. residents, age 12 and older, have now received at least one vaccination and 62.5% are fully vaccinated.

Source: Voice of America

The U.S. space agency on Friday will brief the media on the initial analysis of the first sample of a Martian rock collected by its Perseverance rover earlier this week.

NASA confirmed the rover had collected the rock, releasing a picture of the sample inside a collection tube. The rover made a first attempt to collect a sample in early August, but the rock crumbled during the drilling and coring process.

The rover moved to a different location earlier this month where the team selected a rock that held up better.

Over the past week, scientists have been using Perseverance’s instruments to analyze the sample and they are expected to reveal what they have discovered at Friday’s briefing.

Former NASA research director Scott Hubbard — now a professor at Stanford University — told the Associated Press the collection “is a huge step forward in what the science community has wanted for more than 50 years, which is to bring samples back from the Red Planet.”

He said the sample appears to be one that could be dated, a main goal of collecting such rocks, along with looking for evidence of past or present biological life. A key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life.

The plan is for subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with the European Space Agency, to send spacecraft to Mars to collect Perseverance’s sealed samples from the surface and bring them to Earth for in-depth analysis.

Perseverance landed in Jezero Crater February 18, and the rover team kicked off the science phase of its mission June 1.

Source: Voice of America

Overview

UNHCR has been in Angola for 43 years since the signing of the ‘Accord de Siege’ in February 1977. During this time, UNHCR has played an important role in the history of Angola such as leading the repatriation of Angolans who fled the long civil war. With reestablishment of peace in 2002, the Government of Angola asked for UNHCR support to facilitate repatriation of Angolan refugees. After voluntarily repatriation took place, from 2003 until 2015, more than 523,000 Angolan refugees returned, more than half coming from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). From 2015 to 2016, UNHCR Angola operation focused on urban refugees and asylum seekers. In 2017, influx of refugees fleeing Kasai region in DRC forced the operation to scale up. The Field Office Dundo was established and, eventually, the Lovua Settlement in Lundo Norte. Currently, there are more than 56,000 refugees and asylum seekers in Angola spread over provinces such as Luanda and Lunda Norte. These refugees represent a multitude of countries such as the DRC, Rwanda, Mauritania and others. They are located in several provinces across Angola, including Luanda and Lunda Norte. UNHCR is a key observer of the National Council for Refugees (CNR) and works with several partners on the ground to ensure that refugees and person at risk of statelessness are protected and have access to livelihood and durable solutions.

Refugees from DRC include regular caseload and Kasai caseload. Kasai caseload comprised of 9,695 individuals out of which 6,801 are residing in Lovua refugee settlement while 2,894 individuals are in out of camp settings. They are the refugees originating from Kasai region of DRC who came to Lunda Norte province in Angola as a result of conflict in 2017 and were given Prima Facie refugee status. The regular caseload consists of the remaining population ( 46,802) excluding the 2017 Kasai caseload and comprises of refugees and asylum-seekers who came to Angola as far as 35 years ago. The regular caseload includes urban refugees from different nationalities including Congolese, majority of them settled in Luanda but also in the other 12 provinces.

Source: UN High Commissioner for Refugees

Luanda – The President of the Committee of Ambassadors of the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS) Mário de Azevedo Constantino chaired Thursday a special session of the body he leads.

The organisation states in its note that the session held in Brussels, Belgium, received the President of Guinea Bissau Umaro Sissoco Emalo, who visited that country.

Delivering his welcome speech, Mário de Azevedo Constantino highlighted, among other aspects, the implementation of the new partnership in the economy and the initiatives for the recovery in post-covid-19 pandemic era.

According to ambassador, the president Umaro Sissoco Embalo visit coincides with an important period in the life of the organisation, which is working on operation of dispositions of the revised Georgetown Agreement and, at the same time, to improve the inter regional cooperation.

He said that following the signing of the new Partnership Agreement of ACP and the European Union (EU), the organisation is working on creation of structures and necessary mechanisms for its effectiveness.

According to the Angolan diplomat, the new Agreement opens room for cooperation with EU and demands the countries of the organisation to put into practice the principles of subsidiary, complementary and personality which add value in the Intra ACP relations.

He also said a new Agreement to reinforce the continent and regional agendas, like that of 2063 in Africa, will contribute to the deepening and enlargement of the regional integration in Caribbean and Pacific zone.

Angola started on 01 August a six-month presidency at the helm of Committee of Ambassadors and the Council of Ministers of ACP.

Source: Angola Press News Agency