Angola News Wire

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) says it regrets the decision of Malis head of state Colonel Assimi Goïta, to extending the duration of the transition by 24 months from March 26, 2022.

The regional bloc in a statement on Tuesday expressed dissapointment that that the decision was taken at a time when negotiations are still taking place to reach a consensus.

ECOWAS however said its mediator will continue discussions with the Malian authorities, with a view to reaching a mutually acceptable timetable for the transition

Mali’s ruling junta, which first came to power in an August 2020 coup, issued a decree on Monday fixing the 24-month timetable, to be counted from March 2022.

The 15-member bloc has been pushing for a shorter extension of at most 16 months. In January, ECOWAS imposed sanctions after Malis junta said it would not organise democratic elections the following month as initially planned.

Heads of state from ECOWAS member countries are expected to hold another summit on Mali before July 3.

Source: Angola Press News Agency

Luanda – The reconciliation of studies and sports practice by the country’s children and youths should be a priority in order for them to be successful in their careers, the Minister of Youth and Sports, Ana Paula do Sacramento Neto said today in Luanda.

Speaking to the press, after receiving the national judo and wrestling teams, which won medals at the African championships (Algeria and Morocco), the minister said that the combination of the two activities allows a better understanding of the aspects inherent to the practitioners.

She added that there is currently a great effort to attract talents to practice the sport and that they should be better accompanied by the trainers. This also encourages practitioners to reconcile the binomial study and sport.

“My appeal is that reconciling school and sport increases the intelligence capacity of those who practice it. The better understanding and assimilation of the training contents taught by the coaches, therefore, a big step in the search for positive results,” he said.

Still in the meeting, Ana Paula do Sacramento Neto, also highlighted the current movement of individual modalities, which lately have won many medals for the country, especially jiu-jitsu and mixed martial arts (MMA).

On judo, the minister argued that being an Olympic modality, it deserves due treatment to reach the next Olympic Games in Paris2024.

On fights, while also expressing his delight for the medal, he promised to work with the federation in order for the country to be well represented at the world championship in Serbia, in October, by the fighter Jones Mabungo (82 kg), after having won the bronze medal in Morocco.

Source: Angola Press News Agency

Luanda – The Angolan Skating Federation (FAP) has stipulated the amount of 500 million kwanzas for the participation in the African and World Championships, to be held this year.

The continental event will take place as from 28 September to 2 October, in Cairo (Egypt), while the world championship will be held from 2 to 13 November, in San Juan, Argentina.

Besides roller hockey, Angola will participate in both competitions with figure skating and freestyle.

The president of the federation, Dionísio Viegas, said that on Tuesday there had been a meeting with the Minister for Youth and Sports, Ana Paula do Sacramento Neto, at the end of which no guarantees had been given about the total allocation of the amount.

He said that the incumbent minister expressed willingness to help, showing, however, that she was reserved when making a statement about the extent to which the stipulated amount would be met.

The pre-selection includes athletes Dorivaldo, Wilson, Nadi, Estevão, Adilson, Nilson, Fábio, Chiquinho, Chico, Bruno, Jimbinho, Mauro, Tino, Geovetti and Erivaldo.

In the continental competition, the national squad, defending champions, will face Mozambique (winning finalist of the 2019 edition), South Africa, hosts Egypt and debutants DRC and Benin.

Angola won the African title in 2019 after beating Mozambique (5-3) in the final in Luanda.

Source: Angola Press News Agency

Luanda – The first 50 tons of electoral equipment and materials from Spain were delivered to the National Electoral Commission (CNE) on Wednesday.

The non-sensitive materials, which include training kits and banners, were delivered by INDRA’s director general of the Public sector, Pedro Viega, to the president of CNE, Manuel Pereira da Silva.

Source: Angola Press News Agency

No 15-year-old figure skaters will be allowed to compete at the 2026 Olympics following the controversy surrounding Russian national champion Kamila Valieva at this year’s Beijing Games.

A new age limit for figure skaters at senior international events was passed Tuesday by the International Skating Union in a 110-16 vote that will raise the minimum age to 17 before the next Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy.

“This is a very important decision,” ISU president Jan Dijkema said. “I would say a very historic decision.”

The limit will be phased in with 15-year-olds continuing to be allowed to compete next season, a minimum age of 16 in the 2023-24 season, rising to 17 the season after, which is the last before the Olympics.

The ISU said the new rule was “for the sake of protecting the physical and mental health, and emotional well-being of the skaters.”

It should disrupt the career of top Russian junior Sofia Akateva, who is 14. Her birthday in July falls days after the July 1 deadline to classify skaters’ ages for the upcoming season, though for the 2026 Olympics she will be 18 and able to compete.

The change was coming even before figure skating at the Beijing Olympics was dominated by the emotional stress put on the 15-year-old Valieva. She was the favorite to take individual gold, after helping the Russians win the team title, before her positive doping test from December was belatedly revealed during the Olympics.

The teenager was allowed to train under intense scrutiny as a Court of Arbitration for Sport hearing was prepared that allowed her to compete pending the full investigation in Russia. That is still ongoing.

However, her main routine was filled with errors and she dropped to fourth place. She was then criticized rink-side by her coach, Eteri Tutberidze.

The ISU drafted an age-limit proposal saying “burnout, disordered eating, and long-term consequences of injury” were a risk to young teenage skaters who are pushed to perform more quadruple jumps.

The decision was criticized in Russia, where skaters are currently banned by the ISU from international competitions because of the country’s military invasion of Ukraine.

“I think it was done to more or less even out the competition, so that our Russian female skaters couldn’t have the opportunity to win world championship, European, Olympic medals,” Dmitri Soloviev, a team event gold medalist for Russia at the 2014 Sochi Olympics, told broadcaster Match TV.

“But in my opinion Eteri Tutberidze will find a way to get our athletes into ideal condition at the age of 17 or 18,” Soloviev said, “so that they can show their best results at international competitions at that age in particular.”

Source: Voice of America

The stars of the new Saudi-funded golf league tried to fend off concerns on Tuesday about human rights abuses and signing up to accept hundreds of millions of dollars, despite the risk of being banned from long-standing events.

After announcing he quit the PGA Tour to join the LIV Golf series, Dustin Johnson evaded questioning about the source of the $25 million prize fund for each event flowing from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. The first LIV Golf Invitational is taking place outside London from Thursday.

Another former major winner — Graeme McDowell — was left at a news conference trying to publicly reconcile causing fractures in golf by signing for the rebel series that appears to be part of Saudi Arabia’s attempt to reshape its image as a backer of lavish sports events rather than one associated with human rights abuses.

The Northern Irish golfer, who won the U.S. Open and Ryder Cup in 2010, did bring up the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul as a legitimate area of concern of joining a series he accepts is “incredibly polarizing” for the sport.

“Take the Khashoggi situation,” he said. “We all agree that’s reprehensible. Nobody is going to argue that fact.”

U.S. intelligence services said they believe the killing of the U.S.-based Saudi journalist came at the orders of the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, who heads the Public Investment Fund. The prince denies wrongdoing.

The fund is providing the hundreds of millions of dollars in sign-on fees and prize money that is enticing players away from the established tours and jeopardizing their participation in the majors and Ryder Cup.

Human rights groups describe Saudi Arabia’s efforts as “sportswashing” its image.

McDowell tried to avoid discussing the specifics of the country he is effectively working for.

“I really feel like golf is a force of good in the world — I just try to be a great role model to kids,” he said. “We are not politicians. I know you guys hate that expression, but we are really not, unfortunately. We are professional golfers.

“If Saudi Arabia wanted to use the game of golf as a way for them to get to where they want to be and they have the resources to accelerate that experience, I think we are proud to help them on that journey using the game of golf and the abilities that we have to help grow the sport and take them to where they want to be.”

How, though, McDowell was asked, is that journey helping women who are oppressed in Saudi Arabia, the LGBTQ individuals whose rights to live freely are criminalized, the migrant workers whose rights are violated, the victims of the Saudi-led bombing of Yemen, or the 81 men who were executed by the kingdom in March?

“I wish I had the ability to be able to have that conversation with you,” McDowell said. “As golfers, if we tried to cure geopolitical situations in every country in the world that we play golf in, we wouldn’t play a lot of golf. It’s a really hard question to answer.

“We’re just here to focus on the golf and kind of what it does globally for the role models that these guys are.”

McDowell did most of the talking on Saudi rights issues, with two-time major winner Johnson responding earlier, “I would pretty much say the exact same thing. I’d agree with what Graeme said.”

The series is being overseen by Greg Norman with 54-hole tournaments and a shotgun start that sees every group start at the same time on different holes. The winner gets $4 million, while last place gets $120,000.

The golfers are taking more heat than some other athletes who have competed in Saudi Arabia. While sports, including golf, soccer and Formula One, have chosen to take events to Saudi Arabia without the stars having a say, LIV is a case of the players opting out of existing structures to go all-in on the kingdom’s project. Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy are among the players to reject an approach from LIV.

“An opportunity like this comes along,” the 42-year-old McDowell said, “where you can play the last three or four years of your career, in a very financially lucrative environment. It would be crazy to walk away from that as a businessman.”

Ari Fleischer, a former White House press secretary in George W. Bush’s presidency, was the tournament organizer’s host of the two news conferences involving players Tuesday. He posed questions to the golfers before the media had the opportunity.

Fleischer was asked about a tweet he posted in 2011 that talked about Saudi Arabia and implied that the king was willing to “spend hundreds of billions so he won’t be overthrown.” He said that comment was made “a long, long time ago.”

Source: Voice of America

Luanda – The actions of the National Human Rights Strategy, planned for 2022, are already with an execution level of 80 percent, according to the Minister of Justice and Human Rights, Francisco Queiroz.

The minister made this statement at the opening of the II National Conference on Local Human Rights Committees, adding that, in this sense, 160 local committees have already been created.

He also pointed out that, in the next few days, the last four Local Human Rights Committees will be opened so that they can cover all the municipalities.

He added that the local committees are decisive factors in the human rights strategy, since it is through their local work that the fundamental rights and freedoms of citizens are guaranteed.

He said that the system for managing human rights in Angola aims to give national actors a greater role in the promotion and monitoring of this issue, thereby restoring national sovereignty over this essential component of human existence.

To this end, he narrated that human rights were elevated to the category of national security matter, with a seat in the evaluations of the National Security Council presided over by the President of the Republic.

He clarified that the committees are privileged spaces for debate and local consultation on the promotion, defence and protection of human rights.

Source: Angola Press News Agency

Luanda – Climate change, consumption of fish caught illegally, overfishing and plastic disposal in seas are some of the practices that cause changes in the oceans and compromise the survival of marine species.

Oceans can be defined as immense bodies of saltwater that occupy the depressions in the surface of the earth’s crust on our planet. With a coverage of 70 percent of the planet they are fundamental to human life.

The United Nations has declared 2022 as the “International Year of Artisanal Fisheries and Aquaculture,” focusing the worldwide attention on the role of small-scale fishermen and fish traders.

The World Oceans Day, June 8, celebrates the essential role of the oceans as climate regulators, oxygen providers, key players in the water cycle, sources of food and energy resources, and habitats of a biodiversity far greater than that on land.

For Angola, the ocean is inscribed in the culinary culture, providing a significant part of the country’s animal protein consumption and a source of employment from artisanal to industrial fishing, oil and mining, tourism, and even telecommunications.

Based on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Angola recently approved the National Climate Change Strategy to reduce the impacts, with emphasis on the creation of the first marine conservation area in south-western Namibe Province, the director of the National Institute of Biodiversity and Conservation (INBC), Albertina Nzunzi, said. She underlined that at least 50 percent of it has already been executed.

Ms Nzunzi explained that the project of the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Environment aims to optimize the participatory governance in marine conservation in Angola and create the first marine protected area in the country, adjacent to the animals conservation Iona Park.

The area was chosen because of the spectacular geography of the southern Cunene River basin, with its dunes extending to the sea, the Tiger Bay, the diversity of avifauna (bird species of a particular region), such as white pelicans flamingos, and the red-billed gulls, and the more discrete marine fauna, such as the Atlantic humpback dolphin, blue whale, humpback whale, dolphin, olive ridley sea turtle, and the reef-breasted hammerhead shark.

The INBC director said the site is of great biological and ecological importance and has a potential for ecotourism, since the project focuses on the optimization of artisanal fishing of the province of Luanda, the development of mariculture in the central and southern provinces of the country and support community management of marine resources in Namibe Province.

In 2018, the Angolan government decree number 252/18 contained a red list of vulnerable species out of one hundred and fifty.

If climate change does not get a drastic and rapid response, the greenhouse gases that heat the oceans and consume oxygen, plus the destruction of habitats, overfishing and coastal pollution will wipe out marine life.

Scientific studies show that if global warming persists unchanged, marine ecosystems across the planet are likely to suffer massive extinctions similar in size and severity to that of the late Permian, known as the Great Killing, which occurred 250 million years ago and caused the disappearance of more than two-thirds of marine animals.

The global challenges are aimed at finding knowledge and solutions to current climate problems and their side effects on marine health and the need to assess the impacts of these phenomena, especially on the sea.

Along Angola’s 1650 km of coastline there are multiple unique habitats with their associated fauna. These are the basins of larger rivers, such as the Congo River and Cunene River which are trans-border ecosystems, mangroves, sandy beaches, and bays such as those of Cabinda, Mussulo island in Luanda and Lobito in Benguela Province.

More than 45 percent of jobs in Angola are somehow related to the marine environment. The ocean also absorbs part of the greenhouse gases emitted and stabilizes environmental temperatures, reducing the immediate impacts of climate change, thus making the conservation of marine ecosystems a matter of paramount importance.

The World Oceans Day is marked with the aim of remembering their importance for the balance of life on planet Earth. In this ambit, several activities are to be carried out, with emphasis on awareness campaigns about the dangers oceans currently face.

The date has been celebrated since 1992, however the United Nations only made the commemoration official in 2008.

Source: Angola Press News Agency

Luanda – The Secretary of State for Higher Education, Eugénio da Silva, today in Luanda defended the need for higher education institutions (HEIs) to be present in the agricultural activity, with a view to innovation and increase production, allowing for the transfer of knowledge and technologies.

Speaking at the opening of a workshop on the “Role of Higher Education Institutions in the Development of Agri-business,” he noted that teachers and researchers were important agents, and should train farmers and managers to improve processes and techniques, with a direct impact on the increase of production, organisation and management of agricultural activities.

Eugénio da Silva said that projects were being developed by the HEIs, as part of the “Plan for Integration of Universities in the Development of Agribusiness and Value Chains,” in partnership with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

FAO, he pointed out, helped train 1,068 key actors from the public and private sector, in techniques of agribusiness development and technological innovation of value chains.

According to the same, as a result of the action plan with FAO, 22 projects of training, scientific research and technological innovation in agriculture and fisheries value chains, sustainable management of natural resources and climate change are being developed in 14 Higher Education Institutions.

The Secretary of State for Higher Education noted that one of the priorities of the National Development Plan (PDN 2018-2022) is the qualification of human capital (through higher education), development of agriculture and industrial infrastructures, with a focus on decentralised development of the productive potential of the economy.

In this sense, he continued, the actions are aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2030 and the African Science, Technology and Innovation Strategy (Agenda 2063).

For this, he added, the Foundation for Scientific and Technological Development (FUNDECIT) was created, under the public policy of Science, Technology and Innovation, whose main objective is the mobilization/attracting and management of financial resources for scientific research and development.

Source: Angola Press News Agency

Los Angeles – US Vice President Kamala Harris announced another 1.9 billion dollars in private-sector funding to boost jobs in hopes of reducing migration from Central America, on Tuesday, June 7, at a Latin America summit in Los Angeles snubbed by the leaders of Mexico and other affected countries.

Ms. Harris has been given the unenviable task of tackling the root causes of rising migration into the United States, an issue seized upon by the rival Republican Party that has become a top priority for President Joe Biden at a week-long Summit of the Americas.

A day before Mr. Biden’s arrival, the White House said that Ms. Harris was unveiling another 1.9 billion dollars in commitments – in addition to 1.2 billion dollars announced last year – from businesses with the aim of creating economic opportunity in the impoverished so-called Northern Triangle of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

Ms. Harris will also give details on the “Central American Service Corps” funded through US aid to provide opportunities for young people. The investments aim “to provide hope for people in the region to build safe and prosperous lives at home,” a White House statement said.

The new funding announced by Harris included a commitment by credit card giant Visa to invest more than 270 million dollars over five years with an aim of bringing one million more businesses and 6.5 million people into a formal financial system in a region rife with corruption. The North America branch of Yazaki, the Japanese autoparts maker, will invest 110 million dollars, hiring more than 14,000 new employees in Guatemala and El Salvador, the White House said. Other companies making commitments include clothing maker Gap and Millicon, a telecommunications company that plans to invest 700 million dollars to expand mobile and broadband networks across the three countries.

Source: Angola Press News Agency