Day: October 4, 2022

Luanda – The decrease in the basic interest rate (BNA rate) from 20% to 19.5%, recently announced by the National Bank of Angola, could motivate entrepreneurs to increase their investments in the national economy, said the economist José Lumbo on Tuesday in Luanda

Speaking to ANGOP, the Capital Market and Public Finance specialist justified his statement by the fact that the reduction in the BNA Rate signals the course of the country’s monetary policy, making the achievement of liquidity on the Interbank Money Market (MMI) cheaper.

Despite the BNA rate “not being the one charged to investors to obtain financing for their projects”, the source clarified that, with the reduction of this variable, it is expected that the other interest rates of the Angolan financial system will follow the same behaviour, positively impacting investments in the economy.

Therefore, he added, the cost of obtaining liquidity in the MMI may allow commercial banks to transfer this money to the economy at a lower cost, through bank credit.

“Technically, the macroeconomic equations show us that the interest rate has an inverse relationship with investment, that is, as the interest rate drops, investment is expected to increase and vice versa”, he clarified.

According to José Lumbo, the decrease in interest rates pointed out by the Central Bank represents an indication of an expansionist monetary policy, which has, among several objectives, increasing liquidity in the economy and stimulating consumption.

In addition to lowering the basic interest rate, the BNA’s Monetary Policy Committee (CPM) also decided to reduce the interest rate on the Permanent Liquidity Assignment Facility from 23% to 21%.

However, the expert considers that this measure has the advantage of reducing the costs of obtaining liquidity from commercial banks with the BNA, which can also be passed on to non-banking economic agents at reduced costs, via bank credit, for example.

The economist defines the Permanent Liquidity Assignment Facility as one of the monetary policy instruments used by the Central Bank, with the purpose of restricting or expanding the money supply.

“The BNA is the creditor of last resort of commercial banks, that is, when commercial banks cannot obtain liquidity on the Interbank Money Market to honor their commitments, they turn to the Central Bank, being able to opt for the Liquidity Assignment Facility, whose rate is the highest, representing a punitive rate”, he clarified.

Among other measures taken from the 107th ordinary meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee, held on 26 September, the BNA also decided to keep the inflation rate perspective below the initial forecast of 18%, until the end of the current year, moving towards the mid-term single-digit target.

According to the BNA, the application of the respective measures is due to the consistency of the slowdown in prices in the national economy, as a result of the continuous and rigorous control of liquidity, the appreciation of the kwanza regarding to the main currencies used in transactions with foreign countries and the increase in supply of essential goods for broad consumption

Source: Angola Press News Agency

Istanbul – The assistant coach of the National Amputee Football Team, Hélder Gomes said Tuesday that Angola will use its offensive speed to surprise England, a slow team to recover due to weight.

Looking ahead to the 2:00 pm match on Wednesday, at the Turkish Football Federation Complex, where this phase of the event is taking place, he said that from the scouting made to the opponent, technical capacity was identified as a strong point.

Speaking to Angop, He reiterated, however, that the slowness of the English team is compensated by the individual technique and that the game of Angola is being prepared based on these assumptions.

The coach recalled that the team lost 1-3 to this same opponent at the 2014 World Cup in Mexico, where Angola was runner-up.

Angola finished the group stage with 9 points, 15 goals scored, the best attack of the competition. Scored four against Uruguay and against Iraq and seven against Italy, conceding just one goal.

England lost 0-1 to the USA, beat Indonesia 3-1, and was defeated by Argentina 1-3, totaling 4 goals scored and 5 conceded.

Source: Angola Press News Agency

South African conservationists are on high alert after an outbreak of bird flu killed close to 30 penguins at one of the country’s most stable colonies and a popular tourist attraction.

The disease, formally known as avian influenza, is untreatable and has already killed more than 20,000 Cape cormorant birds since last year.

Boulders Penguin Colony, about a 40-minute drive from Cape Town’s city center, is home to about 3,000 African penguins — a significant number given there are only about 14,000 breeding pairs left on the planet.

Bird flu was identified in the colony in August.

Dr. David Roberts is a clinical veterinarian who works for the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds, an NGO which advises South African National Parks, the government entity that manages the colony. He said that, for now, tourists and beachgoers are still allowed.

“We don’t think there’s any extra threat caused by people visiting,” he said. “If there’s more of an outbreak, then other measures might be put in place.”

The disease is typically spread between birds by feces. Roberts said rangers are on the lookout for sick birds.

“Because this is an untreatable disease, we don’t take them in and give them medication, we’d rather euthanize them,” he said.

There are concerns that the bird flu could spread to ostriches and chickens, which would have dire economic implications.

As far as spreading to humans, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control’s website said illness in humans from bird flu virus infections are rare and have ranged in severity from no symptoms or mild illness to severe disease that resulted in death.

Roberts said the H5N1 strain present in South Africa has a low probability of being transmitted to mammals.

“It is a threat that we know is real and we’re concerned about that possibility but it’s a very low probability at the moment,” he said. “But we still encourage people not to interact with sick animals, sick birds or to interact with dead birds either.”

Roberts said if people do find sick, injured or dead birds they should find somebody who is trained to respond appropriately.

Azwianewi Makhado, the seabird specialist scientist at the Department of Fisheries, Forestry and the Environment, said the department has a bird security policy for any staff handling penguins in the colonies.

“Clothes that you wear when you enter the colony should be taken off as soon as you come out and should not be worn again,” Makhado said.

Authorities said they will post regular updates about the outbreak.

Source: Voice of America

Enzymes found in the saliva of wax worms can degrade one of the most common forms of plastic waste, according to research published Tuesday that could open up new ways of dealing with plastic pollution.

Humans produce some 400 million metric tons of plastic waste each year despite international drives to reduce single-use plastics and to increase recycling.

Around a third is polyethylene, a tough plastic thanks to its structure, which traditionally requires heating or radiation before it starts to break down.

There have been several studies showing that microorganisms can release enzymes that start the degradation process on polyethylene, but the process has until now taken months each time.

But the enzymes contained in the saliva of the wax worm moth (Galleria mellonella) can act in only a few hours, Tuesday’s research showed.

Researcher Federica Bertocchini, an avid beekeeper, said she originally stumbled on the idea that this small caterpillar had unusual powers when storing honeycombs a few years ago.

“At the end of the season, usually beekeepers put some empty beehives in a storage room, to put them back in the field in the spring,” she told AFP.

“One year I did that, and I found my stored honeycombs plagued with wax worms. In fact, that is their habitat.”

Bertocchini cleaned the honeycombs and put the worms in a plastic bag.

When she returned a short time later, she found the bag “riddled with holes.”

“That raised the question: Is it the result of munching, or is there a chemical modification? We checked that, doing proper lab experiments, and we found that the polyethylene had been oxidized,” she said.

In her latest research, Bertocchini, from Madrid’s Margarita Salas Centre for Biological Studies (CIB) and her colleagues analyzed proteins in the wax worm saliva and identified two enzymes that could break polyethylene down into small polymers in only a few hours at room temperature.

Writing in the journal Nature Communications they explained how they used another worm’s saliva as a control experiment, which produced no degradation compared with the wax worm.

Bertocchini said her team is still trying to figure out precisely how the worms degraded the plastic.

While the study authors stressed that much more research was needed before Tuesday’s findings could be implemented at any meaningful scale, there were a number of possible applications.

“We can imagine a scenario where these enzymes are used in an aqueous solution, and liters of this solution is poured over piles of collected plastic in a waste management facility,” Bertocchini said.

“We can also imagine small amounts that can reach more remote locations, like villages or small islands, where waste facilities are not available.”

She said that further down the line the solution could be used in individual houses, where each family could degrade their own plastic waste.

Source: Voice of America