Day: May 10, 2022

Luanda – Angola announced Tuesday that it is extending for 2025 the deadline of its Programme for the Strengthening of Social Protection “Kwenda”, the minister of State for Social Affairs, Carolina Cerqueira, has said.

The programme expects to assist 1.6 million families by 2023.

Available data indicate that until the end of 2021, the Kwenda programme benefited 314,000 families in the first phase with cash transfers. Each of the families received quarterly 25, 500 kwanzas.

From a total of 650,000 households registered in the country, 62 percent are led by women, who were registered in 6,500 villages from 42 municipalities and 158 communes in the country’s 18 provinces.

According to the minister, the programme was designed for three years (until 2023), but due to the positive impact, the World Bank decided to extend the funding until 2025.

Carolina Cerqueira also said that with this World Bank procedure, the number of families targeted by the programme will increase, as well as the monetary values that each household currently receives, which is of 8,500 kwanzas per month.

The minister underscored that the monetary amounts allocated to families are mostly applied in economic and productive activities, a fact that demonstrates its impact on the communities.

“The families are using this income for inclusion and productivity,” the minister stressed.

In the meantime, the secretary of State for Budget and Public Investment, Aia-Eza da Silva, underlined that the Kwenda Programme has four main components, namely the cash transfer, productive inclusion, municipalization (decentralization) of social action and the single social data registry.

Aia-Eza da Silva added that the programme has always counted on the support of the World Bank and that its first budget of 200 million US dollars has just been doubled in recognition of the positive impact it has had at the level of the communities.

Kwenda is a programme created by the Angolan government operated by the Social Support Fund (FAS), with the aim to support families in situations of poverty and vulnerability.

The country has already applied 23 million dollars from the total of 420 million dollars available, of which 320 million dollars are financed by the World Bank and 100 million by the Angolan government.

Kwenda has supported 17 000 direct beneficiaries and 84 000 indirect ones in economic and productive initiatives, focusing on agriculture, fishing, animal husbandry, honey production, cutting and sewing, motorcycle cab, community boxes, product transformation, and handcrafts, according to the families’ vocation.

Source: Angola Press News Agency

Following China’s announcement that it would tighten restrictions in Shanghai to prevent the spread of COVID-19, the head of the World Health Organization on Tuesday said the country’s zero-tolerance policy is not sustainable.

Speaking at a media briefing Tuesday, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus noted the behavior of the disease caused by the coronavirus and what experts “anticipate in the future.” He added, “We have discussed this issue with Chinese experts… I think a shift would be very important.”

Authorities in Shanghai have tightened restrictions on its 26 million residents, despite a steady decline in new COVID-19 infections.

Residents in some neighborhoods have been informed in writing that they are not allowed to leave their homes or receive deliveries as part of a “quiet period” that would last for at least three days. The new restrictions caught residents by surprise, coming after a brief period of being allowed to move about their neighborhoods.

There have also been accounts posted on Chinese social media sites of residents being forcibly removed from their homes and placed in hotels or quarantine facilities if their neighbors tested positive for the coronavirus, as well as anecdotes of cleanup crews in full protective suits entering apartments to disinfect them.

A Shanghai city official confirmed the move in an interview with The Associated Press, saying the homes of people in older communities with shared bathrooms and kitchens will be disinfected.

The actions prompted open letters posted on social media Sunday by Tong Zhiwei, law professor at Shanghai’s East China University of Political Science and Law, and Liu Dali, a corporate lawyer in Shanghai, to question the legality of such practices.

Nearly all of Shanghai’s residents have been under strict orders for the past six weeks as officials in the Chinese financial hub struggle to contain a mass outbreak of new COVID-19 cases largely driven by a highly contagious omicron variant. The lockdown has led to angry complaints of a lack of fresh food and medicine throughout China’s biggest city.

Officials reported about 3,000 new cases Monday, far below a peak of 26,000 posted in mid-April.

Elsewhere in China, Beijing further tightened COVID-19 curbs on residents Monday with more mass testing and road closures as the country continues with its uncompromising battle with the virus.

Residents of the city’s worst-hit areas were told to work from home while more roads, compounds and parks were sealed off as the capital of 22 million grappled with its worst outbreak since 2020.

China has doubled down on its strict “zero-COVID” policy even as it severely disrupts everyday life and brings economic activity to a halt.

Source: Voice of America

Elon Musk on Tuesday said he would reinstate former President Donald Trump’s Twitter account.

The Tesla CEO who’s vying to buy Twitter and take it private for a reported price tag of $44 billion made the comment at the Financial Times Future of the Car conference.

“I do think that it was not correct to ban Donald Trump,” Musk said. “I think that was a mistake because it alienated a large part of the country and did not ultimately result in Donald Trump not having a voice.”

Musk added that Trump’s ban was “morally wrong and flat-out stupid.”

Trump’s account was permanently banned after the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, with Twitter saying his continued presence on the platform was a “risk of further incitement of violence.”

Musk added that permanent bans should be “extremely rare” and reserved for “bots, or spam/scam accounts.”

“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,” he said in a recent statement.

Trump has said he does not intend to rejoin Twitter and will focus mostly on the social network he launched called Truth Social.

Source: Voice of America