Year: 2023

Ondjiva – At least 2021 vulnerable families were assisted with several goods, in 2022, in southern Cunene Province, under the programme of valorisation and reinforcement of family skills of the Provincial Social Action, Family and Gender Equality Office.

According to the director of the Social Action Office, Georgina Braga, for that support some 3,694 tons of various products were made available such as corn grain, millet, beans, used clothes, kitchen kits, zinc plates and plastic utensils.

The programme benefited elderly people, orphans, widows and people with disabilities.

According to Georgina Braga, in the same period 88 elderly people in Cuanhama Municipality also benefited from food and transportation means and walking sticks.

She also pointed out the reunification of three children aged 12 years, previously separated from their families, as well as the distribution of milk and porridge to orphan children.

The official defended the need for awareness raising actions to be conducted for a greater valorisation of the family and the retrieval of moral, civic and cultural values.

Source: Angola Press News Agency

Ecuador, Japan, Malta, Mozambique and Switzerland got a formal welcome into the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday, taking the two-year seats they won unopposed in June.

In a tradition that Kazakhstan started in 2018, the five countries’ ambassadors installed their national flags Tuesday alongside those of other members outside the council chambers.

Mozambican Ambassador Pedro Comissário Afonso of Mozambique called it “a historic date” and Swiss Ambassador Pascale Baeriswyl said she felt “a deep sense of humility and responsibility” as their countries marked their first-ever terms on U.N.’s most powerful body. Malta joined for a second time, Ecuador a fourth and Japan a record 12th.

China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States are permanent, veto-wielding members of the group. Its 10 other members are elected by the 193-nation General Assembly for staggered, two-year terms. They’re allocated by global regions.

To many countries, winning a council seat is considered a signature diplomatic accomplishment that can raise a nation’s global profile and afford small countries a bigger voice than they might otherwise have in the major international peace and security issues of the day.

The council deploys peacekeeping missions, can approve sanctions and speaks out — sometimes — on conflicts and flashpoints, while also surveying such thematic issues as terrorism and arms control. While many matters are perennials on the agenda, council members also can use the platform to spotlight emerging concerns or topics of particular interest to them.

Countries often campaign for the council for years. Some 60 nations have never had a seat since the group’s formation in 1946.

The five latest members are replacing India, Ireland, Kenya, Mexico and Norway. Their terms ended December 31.

The other current two-year members are Albania, Brazil, Gabon, Ghana and United Arab Emirates.

Source: Voice of America

Pope Francis will preside at a funeral Mass in St. Peter’s Square on Thursday for his predecessor, former Pope Benedict, who died Saturday at 95.

More than 60,000 people are expected to attend. There will be official delegations from Italy and Benedict’s native Germany. Other leaders, including the king and queen of Belgium and the queen of Spain, and about 13 heads of state of state or government, will attend in a private capacity. Most countries will be represented by their ambassadors to the Vatican.

Here is a guide to what is expected to happen:

End of lying in state

Since Monday, the body of the emeritus pope has been lying in state in St. Peter’s Basilica, where more than 160,000 people had filed past to pay their respects as of midday Wednesday.

The viewing is due to end at 7 p.m. local time (1800 GMT). The body will then be placed in a coffin made of cypress wood, along with several papal items such as vestments symbolizing his role as pope and bishop, and coins and medals that were minted during his pontificate. Also included will be a lead tube with a deed in Latin listing the key points in his pontificate.

The cypress coffin will be closed privately in the presence of a few close aides, such as Archbishop Georg Ganswein, who was Benedict’s longtime secretary, and other members of the household where he lived after he resigned the papacy in 2013, the first pope to do so in 600 years.

Procession, prayers and Mass

At 8:45 a.m. local time (0745 GMT) Thursday, ushers known as papal gentlemen will carry the coffin in procession out of the basilica and place it on the steps facing St. Peter’s Square. The faithful will pray the rosary for about 45 minutes.

The funeral Mass presided over by Pope Francis is to start at 9:30 a.m. local time (0830 GMT). At first, the pope will sit before the coffin facing the crowd. The Sistine Chapel choir will start its singing with the introductory rites.

The pope will then move to a chair to the side of the altar and preside from there, sitting most of the time because of a knee aliment that impedes him from standing for too long. The celebrant standing at the altar will be Italian Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, dean of the College of Cardinals.

Francis will deliver the homily at the Mass, which will be con-celebrated by 120 cardinals, 400 bishops and nearly 4,000 priests.

At the end of the Mass, Francis will recite The Final Commendation and Farewell asking God to “console the Church.”

The liturgy for the funeral Mass is based mostly on that for a pope who dies while reigning, with some minor modifications, particularly in a few prayers and readings.

One prayer will include petitions to God for both Benedict and Francis.

Near the end of the Mass, Francis will sprinkle holy water on the coffin and wave incense around it.

He will say in Latin: “Gracious Father, we commend to your mercy Pope Emeritus Benedict, whom you made successor of Peter and shepherd of the Church, a fearless preacher of your word and a faithful minister of the divine mysteries.”

The choir will then sing in Latin: “May the angels lead you into paradise; may the martyrs come and welcome you and take you into the holy city, the new and eternal Jerusalem.”

Private service and burial

The pallbearers will then carry the cypress coffin back into the basilica for a private service in which it will be sealed and wrapped in ribbons.

It will then be placed into a zinc coffin, which will be soldered shut. Both will then go into a larger, wooden coffin.

Benedict will then be buried according to his wishes in the same spot in the crypts under St. Peter’s Basilica where Pope John Paul II was originally interred in 2005 before his body was moved up to a chapel in the basilica in 2011.

The burial will also be a private service.

Source: Voice of America

Huambo – More than 5,000 plants of narcotic (Cannabis) cultivated in an area of approximately three hectares in Huambo province were destroyed on Monday, police have announced.

The destruction of the cannabis farm in the village of Epalanga, commune of Calima, followed a tipoff, as the product had been planted among the corn crop to deceive the authorities, the chief superintendent António Manuel Katuta told the press,

The product was supposed to be sold in various parts of Huambo province and in the municipality of Chinguar (Bié).

Local peasants have been encouraged to promote the agriculture rather than the production of narcotics.

Police in province of Huambo destroyed in November 2022, 210 kilograms of cannabis and 5,335 plants of the same product.

At least 179 people were arrested in connection with the practice.

Source: Angola Press News Agency

A top health official in China has said that the fatalities from the latest surge in COVID-19 cases are “increasing” but within the normal range for mortality.

In an interview with state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV), Jiao Yahui, a National Health Commission official, said, “We have a huge base, so what people feel is that the severe cases, the critical cases or the fatalities are increasing.

“Relative to the rest of the world, the infection peaks we are faced with across the country are not unusual,” she added.

The contrast between statements by Chinese officials assessing the COVID situation and social media footage of crowded hospital hallways and long lines at clinics prompted leading scientists advising the World Health Organization to call Tuesday for a “more realistic picture” about what China is experiencing after the pivot from “zero-COVID.”

Normal mortality is the number of deaths authorities expect for a specific period based on long-term population data. Excess mortality reveals the difference between the number of deaths caused during the current wave of COVID and the number of fatalities expected had the pandemic not occurred. The excess mortality number has been used worldwide during the pandemic to provide a better sense of how many people have died of COVID.

Tong Zhaohui, vice president of Chaoyang Hospital in Beijing, agreed that while the actual number of deaths is growing, the fatalities remain a small percentage of China’s population.

“Think how many people around you have been infected but how many have developed critical cases or pneumonia? I think everyone has the idea,” he told CCTV.

China began relaxing its stringent zero-COVID policy in early December. Since then, Tong has supervised treatment for critically ill COVID patients at two major hospitals in Beijing.

Tong said, “I roughly counted, both severe and critical cases (of COVID) at the two designated hospitals accounted for 3% to 4% of infected patients.” He added that the actual number can’t be determined because PCR testing is no longer mandatory.

Beijing reported three new COVID deaths for Monday, taking the official death toll to 5,253 since the pandemic began in January 2020. China’s population was over 1.4 billion people in 2021.

CCTV’s coverage acknowledged that the number of fever outpatients in some hospitals increased tenfold, and one doctor saw up to 150 patients in one night. A fever patient cannot be assumed to be a COVID patient.

Photos and videos of hospitals full of sick people waiting to be treated are circulating on social media from facilities across the country. Reuters visited a Shanghai hospital and reported finding crowded hallways and emergency rooms. China’s censors are moving quickly to keep photos and videos from circulating inside the country, but many are leaping the country’s Great Firewall for the internet and posting photos and videos that were said to be from hospitals in China’s central and southern Hunan province as well as other cities.

Although VOA Mandarin was unable to independently verify the videos circulating on Twitter that are said to show hospitals in Hunan, a staffer who answered the phone at Changsha No. 1 People’s Hospital in Changsha, the province’s capital, said the hospital has no vacant beds left and new patients are being asked to go to other hospitals. According to Baike, China’s version of Wikipedia, the hospital has a total capacity of 1,593 beds. The staffer said that while many doctors have tested positive, they are still working.

Social media videos from various cities show long lines waiting to be admitted outside crematoriums.

In an interview with Da Jiangdong Studio, an affiliate of the state-run newspaper People’s Daily, Chen Erzhen, vice president of Shanghai’s Ruijin Hospital and a member of the city’s COVID expert advisory panel, estimated that 70% of population of 25 million people in Shanghai may have been infected. The interview was conducted December 31 and published Tuesday.

“Now the spread of the epidemic in Shanghai is very wide, and it may have reached 70% of the population, which is 20 to 30 times more than (in April and May),” he told Da Jiangdong Studio. Shanghai endured a two-month long lockdown in April and May, during which over 600,000 residents were infected and already weakened global supply chains were further strained.

China could see as many as 25,000 deaths a day from COVID later in January, according to a Bloomberg report.

That daily total is “roughly equivalent to China’s normal daily death toll from all other causes,” according to The British Medical Journal referencing research published December 20 from Airfinity, a London-based research firm that focuses on predictive health analytics.

Mortalities from the contagious respiratory illness will probably peak around January 23, the second day of the annual new year holiday, according Airfinity.

China said it had submitted genome sequence data from recently sampled COVID-19 cases to GISAID, an international database hosted by Germany, ahead of a meeting with WHO officials on Tuesday.

Before the meeting, Reuters reported that two unnamed scientists affiliated with WHO had asked Beijing for a “more realistic picture” of COVID in China.

Some experts doubted that Beijing would be forthright in its statistical offerings.

Alfred Wu, associate professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at National University of Singapore, told Reuters, “I don’t think China will be very sincere in disclosing information.”

“They would rather just keep it to themselves, or they would say nothing happened, nothing is new,” said Wu. “My own sense is that we could assume that there is nothing new … but the problem is China’s transparency issue is always there.”

Source: Voice of America

The Consumer Electronics Show, the biggest technology trade show in the world, is once again open for business.

After two challenging years coping with the COVID-19 pandemic, which was particularly difficult for the conference and trade show industry, CES is expected to welcome about 100,000 attendees this week in Las Vegas.

That’s down about 40% from CES 2020 but still a significant jump in the numbers who attended in 2022. Over the past two years, CES managed to put on its show, which was all digital in 2021 and a hybrid digital and in-person in 2022 amid the Omicron surge.

This year, the Consumer Technology Association, the trade organization that puts on the annual event, says about one-third of the attendees are coming from outside the U.S.

“On the exhibitor side, a significant number come from outside of the U.S., making CES a truly global event,” said John Kelley, vice president and acting show director for CES, who spoke with VOA via Skype.

In fact, of the estimated 3,200 exhibitors who are expected to show off their wares, more than 1,400, or 43%, are coming from outside the U.S.

In the African pavilion, a dozen companies from the Democratic Republic of the Congo will be showcasing their homegrown innovations. The Ukraine pavilion will include technology firms from the Eastern European nation under siege by Russian forces.

Organizers also expect hundreds of Chinese firms to exhibit, despite recent COVID-related requirements for people traveling from China to the U.S.

“The Chinese presence at CES has always been quite pronounced and we’re starting to see it come back this year, which is quite exciting,” Kelley said.

Digital health, transportation technology and the metaverse are just a few of the latest technological innovations being showcased in Las Vegas.

Addressing global concerns

This year’s theme is technology helping to address the world’s greatest challenges, said Kelley.

“We’ve partnered with a U.N.-affiliated group, the World Academy of Arts and Sciences, to showcase how technology is supporting what we call human securities, or human rights,” he said, which includes food, political and environmental security, and mobility.

Show organizers expect increased focus on the metaverse — a shared digital reality connecting users — and on Web3, also known as Web 3.0, which proponents describe as the third generation of the World Wide Web.

CES has partnered with CoinDesk, a news site specializing in bitcoin and digital currencies, to build a studio on the show floor to showcase these types of Web3 applications, including blockchain and crypto.

Cool cars and trash-collecting sharks

From the internet highway to the interstate, automobiles have always had a major presence at the show, with more than 300 auto industry exhibitors showing off their latest products.

Organizers say there is also growth in marine technology, with boat manufacturers moving toward sustainable forms of energy.

The battery-operated WasteShark by the Dutch firm RanMarine Technology is an autonomous surface vessel designed to remove algae, biomass, and floating pollution such as plastics from lakes, ponds, and other coastal waterways.

“There’s a lot of people doing really great stuff out in the ocean and cleaning that up,” said company CEO Richard Hardiman, who spoke with VOA via Skype.

“Our mandate for our company is to clean it before it goes into the ocean,” he said. “So we’re trying to, sort of, what we call, ‘capture that waste at source,’ before it pollutes the ocean.”

Digital health

Another area that’s grown significantly at CES is digital health, CTA’s Kelley said. Dozens of exhibitors will be showcasing the latest health technologies, including new applications and diagnostic tools.

“What this does is give consumers access to their information, access to their data, and allows them to make decisions based on the data that they receive,” he said.

Canadian-based eSight Eyewear plans to display a headset designed to help people with visual impairments such as age-related macular degeneration, also known as AMD.

“When a person with AMD looks at your face, they wouldn’t see any distinct features; it would just be flesh tones,” explained Roland Mattern, eSight Eyewear’s director of marketing, who spoke with VOA via Skype.

Once the user puts on the device, they will be able to see distinct features such eyebrows, mouth and eyes, Mattern said.

“Users can literally see your entire face,” he said. “Your reaction. And that is an important feature because so much of communication is being able to see the other person’s reaction.”

It’s just one example of the many technologies on display this year at CES 2023, where companies from all corners of the world will come together to share their latest innovations.

Source: Voice of America