Category: General

Luanda- Angola Press News Agency (ANGOP-E.P) launched Thursday in Luanda a pre-payment system for closed news content on its official website, aimed to improve its quality services.

Addressing a launch ceremony, the company’s CEO, Josué Isaías, said the pre-payment system covers contents in text, videos, photographs and audio based on its initiative agenda available on the portal under a closed regime.

The access to the closed materials, he said, is only possible through pre-payment in the local currency Kwanzas and in dollars.

Isaías clarified that the news, reports and interviews, articles and dossiers of closed products will discuss several themes.

They include the topics related to the economics, politics, social, sports as well as analysis on different national and international events to be prepared by a special team.

It also features products in text, video, photography and audio produced under an official or institutional agenda.

Source: Angola Press News Agency

Luanda – The municipality of Chongoroi, in Angola’s south-west Benguela province, has over the last few years shown signs of recovery in its agri-livestock potential, and currently has over 12,000 head of cattle, although it is still far from the numbers of the colonial era.

By Francisca Augusto/Venceslau Mateus Despite the good will of the authorities and local breeders, data estimates that the area, once considered the granary of Benguela, is producing about 10 percent ….

Source: Angola Press News Agency

Luanda – Anyone travelling to the Dombe Grande commune, south of the city of Benguela, is likely to hear stories about supernatural practices that turn the town into a permanent stage of mysteries.

By Francisca Augusto and Venceslau Mateus For several decades, the town, situated in the municipality of Baía Farta, has been known as the;Land of Witchcraft;, a designation that, despite reports, h….

Source: Angola Press News Agency

Luanda – With an area of just over 6,744 square kilometres, the municipality of Baía Farta, located in the coastal city of Benguela and inhabited mostly by fishermen, is investing heavily in the production of salt, which has generated encouraging results in recent years.

By Francisca Augusto and Venceslau Mateus With an annual production of about 40,000 tons of the product, the municipality has five salt pans that ensure, regularly, the subsistence of at least a 1,00….

Source: Angola Press News Agency

Google said Wednesday it plans to limit tracking and data sharing for users of its Android operating system, which is used by over 2.5 billion people around the world.

The change, which won’t take effect for at least two years, comes in response to growing pressure on tech companies to increase privacy by limiting tracking.

Google, which dominates the online advertising market, currently assigns IDs to each Android device and then collects highly valuable data on users that allows advertisers to target them with ads based on their interests and activities.

Google said it would test alternatives to those IDs or get rid of them entirely.

“These solutions will limit sharing of user data with third parties and operate without cross-app identifiers, including advertising ID,” the company said in a blog post. “We’re also exploring technologies that reduce the potential for covert data collection.”

“Our goal … is to develop effective and privacy-enhancing advertising solutions, where users know their information is protected, and developers and businesses have the tools to succeed on mobile,” Google added.

Google’s move follows Apple’s announcement last year that it would allow users to decide if they wanted to be tracked or not.

Google made $61 billion in advertising revenue in the fourth quarter of 2021, according to The Washington Post.

Source: Voice Of America

A study released Tuesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests that infants are less likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 if their mothers are vaccinated during their pregnancy.

The study found that babies whose mothers received two doses of an mRNA vaccine while pregnant were about 60% less likely to be hospitalized for the virus during their first six months of life. The odds are strengthened if the mother is vaccinated after the first 20 weeks of pregnancy.

The agency has urged all women who are pregnant, breastfeeding or planning to get pregnant to get vaccinated against the coronavirus, which it says increases the risk of a variety of complications, including premature birth and stillbirth.

The CDC researchers based their conclusions from monitoring 379 infants who had been hospitalized at 20 pediatric hospitals across the U.S. between last July and January of this year, including 176 who tested positive for COVID-19.

In another vaccine-related development, Britain’s Health Security Agency says the results of several studies suggests a COVID-19 vaccine reduces the chances of someone suffering from the lingering effects of a COVID-19 infection, a condition commonly known as “long COVID,” according to The Guardian newspaper.

The agency came to its conclusion after examining data from 15 studies conducted at home and abroad, half of which looked at whether the vaccine could protect someone from developing long COVID if they had not been infected, with the others focusing on the effect of vaccination among people who were already suffering from long COVID.

The HSA researchers found that those who have received one or two doses of a vaccine are less likely to develop long COVID symptoms, such as fatigue, headaches, hair loss, shortness of breath or loss of smell, compared with those who are unvaccinated. The review also said there was evidence that unvaccinated people suffering from long COVID had fewer or reduced symptoms once they were vaccinated, compared to those who remained unvaccinated.

Meanwhile, South Korea says its daily number of new COVID-19 cases has risen above 90,000 for the first time Wednesday. The 90,443 new infections reported by the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency was a dramatic increase from the 57,164 new cases from Tuesday.

Despite the increasing number of new cases driven by the highly-contagious omicron variant, Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum said the government may soon ease current coronavirus restrictions, including lifting a 9 p.m. curfew on restaurants, cafes and bars, and ending the cap on the number of people allowed for private gatherings at six.

In the United States, the administration of President Joe Biden has told key lawmakers that it needs an additional $30 billion to fund its COVID-19 response efforts.

The extra spending requested by President Biden comes nearly a year after passage of the massive $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan aimed at helping the U.S. economy recover from the pandemic. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday that while the administration continues to have “sufficient funds” to respond to the current omicron-driven surge, “our goal has always been to ensure that we are well prepared to stay ahead of the virus.”

Source: Voice Of America

200 farmers (140 refugees, 60host community)from two co-operatives in Mayukwayukwa refugee settlement, received farming inputs under theGovernment’sFarmer Input Support Programme (FISP)for the 2021/2022 farming season.

As of end of November 2021, 681 refugees (189 households)have departed on resettlement to Canada, Finland, Netherlands, Swedenand the United States of America.

A family of five refugees voluntarily returned to Rwandawith assistance from UNHCR. Assistance provided by UNHCR included Voluntary Repatriation Grant and one-way air tickets.

Operational Context

The Government of the Republic of Zambia (GRZ) leads and coordinates the refugee response in line with its commitments under the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) and the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework (CRRF). Under the 2017 Refugee Act, the Office of the Commissioner for Refugees(COR), within the Ministry of Home Affairs, is mandated to deal with refugee matters. UNHCR supports the Government in the protection and assistanceof refugees. The response to thearrival of refugees from DRC is coordinated by acommittee composed of key line ministries, the UN Resident Coordinator’s Office and UNHCR. The Ministry of Home Affairs chairs the Committee.

•As of 30November, Zambia was hosting103,920PoC’s (73,399refugees, 5,662Asylum seekers and 24,859Others of Concern) consisting of 34,378families.

•Out of the103,920PoCs, 45per cent are women, 27per cent are children(aged between 0-17 years old) and 3per cent are elderly(age above 59 years old).

•During the reporting period,there was an increaseof986 individuals (586 new asylum-seekers, 148 new births and 252 In-Situ registrations).

•Of the new asylum-seekers, 75 per cent were from the DRC, 20 per cent from Burundi and 5 percent other nationalities.UNHCR has four offices in Zambia: Representation office in Lusaka, field offices in Solwezi and Kawambwa, and a field unit in Kaoma. UNHCR Zambia has115staff throughout the country including56national, 26international and 33affiliate staff.

Source: UN High Commissioner for Refugees

A billionaire who led an all-private space crew into orbit last year has announced plans for up to three new missions in conjunction with SpaceX, including one with a spacewalk.

Jared Isaacman, who founded payment processing company Shift4, will lead the first of the new flights with a launch potentially coming by the end of this year.

In addition to a mission featuring the first spacewalk attempted by non-professional astronauts, the planned flight also includes achieving a record altitude in Earth orbit.

As part of the partnership with SpaceX, the flights are set to utilize SpaceX spacecrafts.

Source: Voice of America

A Nigerian rights group has filed a lawsuit to force authorities to publish an agreement reached with Twitter in January to lift a block on the social media company. The rights group says the failure by Nigerian authorities to publish all the details of the agreement raises concerns about citizens’ rights and censorship.

A Nigerian rights group, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), said this week that authorities ignored its request last month to publish the agreement.

The lawsuit seeks a court order compelling authorities to publish details of the agreement reached with Twitter before the company restored access to the site in Nigeria.

Nigeria suspended Twitter last June for deleting a tweet from President Muhammadu Buhari that threatened regional separatists and referred to the 1960s war in the Biafra region.

Nigerian authorities lifted the ban in January, boasting that its new engagement with the company will create jobs and generate revenue for the country.

But rights groups are concerned the terms of agreement may include clauses that violate the rights of citizens, says Kolawole Oluwadare, a deputy director at SERAP.

“If this agreement has the tendency to impact on the rights of Nigerians to freedom of expression, it’s important that Nigerians have access to the agreement, scrutinize the terms and critique it if necessary, because of the effect it will have on our ability to use Twitter freely,” said Oluwadare. “How are we sure that those terms do not necessarily affect even the rights to privacy? I’m talking about the access of Nigerian government to the data of Nigerians.”

Nigerian authorities are often accused of trying to stifle free speech.

In 2019, lawmakers considered a bill that sought to punish statements on social media deemed to diminish public confidence in the president or government officials. The bill never passed.

This week, Nigerian Information Minister Lai Mohammed criticized Twitter and the Canadian government as having double standards citing the truckers protest against COVID-19 mandates in Canada.

“Twitter actively supported the EndSARS protesters and even raised funds,” said Mohammed. “These are the same entities that are now rushing to distance themselves from the protest in Canada and even denying them the use of their platforms.”

But Amnesty International spokesperson Seun Bakare has this to say: “International human rights laws are clear on standards that even platforms like Twitter and Facebook must uphold,” said Bakare. “They must uphold the fundamental tenets of freedom of expression, and access to information and they must not bend their rules just to please any government at all.”

Under its agreement with Twitter, Nigeria said the company agreed to be legally registered in the country, run a local office, appoint country representatives to interface with authorities, pay taxes and enroll officials in its partner support portals.

It remains unclear if Nigerian officials have the ability to monitor and block prohibited content.

An ECOWAS court of justice is scheduled to rule on SERAP’s lawsuit this week.

Source: Voice of America

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, has begun a two-week meeting to consider a report that assesses the impact of the world’s changing climate and how humans might adapt.

Hundreds of scientists meeting virtually will lay out the latest evidence on how past and future changes to the Earth’s climate system are affecting the planet.

The report under review is the second of three installments that will comprise the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report, which will be released later this year.

In August, the scientific body approved the first contribution of Working Group I, which dealt with the physical science basis of climate change.

The second part, currently under review, highlights the role of social justice and diverse forms of knowledge, such as indigenous and local knowledge, might play to strengthen climate change action and reduce the risks.

The chair of the IPCC, Hoesung Lee, said the report focuses on solutions and productive areas for action.

“It will be more strongly integrated, the natural, social and economic sciences. And it will provide policymakers with sound data and knowledge to help them shape policies and make decisions. The need for the Working Group II report has never been greater because the stakes have never been higher,” he said.

The United Nations-backed IPCC was established in 1988 to provide political leaders with periodic scientific assessments regarding climate change. The panel previously issued five assessment reports that spotlighted climate change as an issue of growing global importance.

The Paris Agreement on climate change calls for limiting human-induced global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius, preferably 1.5 degrees Celsius, above pre-industrial levels. The IPCC warns that mark will be exceeded this century, unless drastic action is taken.

Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization, Petteri Taalas, said weather-related disasters have been increasing dramatically over the past two decades.

He said vulnerable areas in tropical latitudes, especially in Africa, Southern Asia and the Pacific are suffering the worst impacts of climate-driven disasters.

He said he often uses a sports analogy to communicate the seriousness of climate change to humanity.

“We have at the moment Winter Olympics going on in China. We have high-performing athletes. And if you give them doping, then they perform even more expertly. So, that is what we have done with the atmosphere. We have been doping the atmosphere,” said Taalas.

The contribution by Working Group III, dealing with the mitigation of climate change, will be finalized in April. The concluding synthesis of IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report will be made in September.

Source: Voice of America