Angola News Wire

Australian mining billionaire Andrew Forrest’s philanthropic organization will help 18 small news publishers in the country to negotiate collectively with Google and Facebook to secure licensing deals for the supply of news content.

Forrest’s Minderoo Foundation on Monday said it would submit an application with the country’s competition regulator, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), allowing the publishers to bargain without breaching competition laws.

Forrest, Australia’s richest man, is the chairman and the largest shareholder of iron ore miner Fortescue Metals Group. He has a net worth of around A$27.2 billion ($19.7 billion), according to the Australian Financial Review.

Facebook and Alphabet Inc’s Google have been required since March to negotiate with Australian media outlets for content that drives traffic and advertising to their websites. If they don’t, the government may take over the negotiation.

Both companies have since struck licensing deals with most of Australia’s main media companies, but they have not entered into agreements with many small firms. The federal government is scheduled to begin a review of the law’s effectiveness in March.

Frontier Technology, an initiative of Minderoo, said it would assist the publishers.

“Small Australian publishers who produce public interest journalism for their communities should be given the same opportunity as large publishers to negotiate for use of their content for the public benefit,” Emma McDonald, Frontier Technology’s director of policy, said in a statement.

Google and Facebook did not immediately respond to requests seeking comment.

The 18 small publishers include online publications that attract multicultural audiences and focus on issues at a local or regional level, McDonald said.

The move comes after ACCC late last month allowed a body representing 261 radio stations to negotiate a content deal.

News organizations, which have been losing advertising revenue to online aggregators, have complained for years about the big technology companies using content in search results or other features without payment.

Source: Voice Of America

As coronavirus infections hit Ukraine, a single shift for Dr. Oleksandr Molchanov now stretches to 42 hours — 24 of them in Kakhovka’s hospital, followed by another 18 hours spent visiting tents set up to care for 120 COVID-19 patients.

While vaccination rates in Eastern Europe have generally lagged, Ukraine has one of the lowest in the region. But because of its underfunded and struggling health care system, the situation has turned dire nearly two years since the virus swept into Europe.

The country is setting records almost every day for infections and deaths, most recently on Tuesday, when 838 deaths were reported.

“We are extinguishing the fire again. We are working as at the front, but our strength and capabilities are limited,” said Molchanov, who works at the hospital in the city in southern Ukraine on the Dnieper River. “We are working to the limit.”

After his grueling shift, the 32-year-old doctor goes home to sleep and recover for two days. The next one may be even more challenging.

“The situation is only getting worse,” Molchanov said. “Hospital beds are running out, there are more and more serious patients, and there is a sore lack of doctors and medical personnel.”

The tents beside Kakhovka’s hospital have 120 beds, and 87 of them are occupied, with more patients arriving every day. But Molchanov is one of only three doctors to care for them.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s administration inherited a health care system that was undermined by reforms launched by his predecessor that closed many small-town hospitals.

In those communities, people have to seek care in large cities. If the problem is severe enough that a patient needs an ambulance, the wait can be as long as eight hours.

“They are bringing patients in extremely difficult condition, with a protracted form” of COVID-19, said Dr. Anatoliy Galachenko, who also works at the tent hospital. “The main reason is the remoteness of settlements and the impossibility of providing assistance at the primary stages of the disease.”

Yulia Tymoshenko, a former prime minister who leads the opposition Batkivshchyna party, said she has traveled to many hospitals in Ukraine and found shortages everywhere.

“The mortality from COVID that is now recorded in Ukraine, is not just mortality; it is the killing of people by this government, which does not have oxygen, antiviral drugs, beds and normally paid medical personnel,” she said in parliament.

“There are no free beds in the country anymore — a new patient immediately comes to the bed of a discharged person,” Tymoshenko added.

Four coronavirus vaccines are available in Ukraine — Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Sinovac — but only 21% of its 41 million people are fully vaccinated. The Ministry of Health reported that 96% of patients with severe COVID-19 weren’t vaccinated.

Zelenskyy has promised every fully vaccinated Ukrainian a payment of 1,000 hryvnia ($38), about 5% of the average monthly wage, but widespread hesitancy persists.

Doctors say the vaccines are highly effective at preventing deaths and hospitalizations, and when infections in vaccinated people do occur, they usually are mild.

Oleksandr Kymanov, who refused to get vaccinated, ended up getting infected and was brought to the tent hospital in Kakhovka from the town of Rozdolne, about 20 kilometers away. Connected to supplemental oxygen, he cited various falsehoods about the vaccine, saying it was “useless” and that “people still get infected and get sick.”

Doctors complain that vaccine falsehoods about containing microchips or that they cause infertility and disease is driving the COVID-19 surge.

“People believe in the most absurd rumors about chips, infertility and the dangers of vaccines, elderly people from risk groups massively refuse to be vaccinated, and this is very harmful and increases the burden on doctors,” Molchanov said. “People trust their neighbors more than doctors.”

The government has required teachers, doctors, government employees and other groups of workers to be fully vaccinated by Dec. 1. It also has also begun to require proof of vaccination or negative COVID-19 test results for travel on planes, trains and long-distance buses.

The regulations have spawned a black market for fake vaccination documents, which sell for the equivalent of $100-$300. A phony government digital app for smartphones is reportedly available, complete with fake certificates installed.

“COVID cannot be fooled with a fake certificate, but many Ukrainians learn about it only in intensive care,” Molchanov said.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs said 1,200 groups have been sent throughout Ukraine to verify the authenticity of medical documents. Police already have identified several clandestine printers who were creating fake certificates.

Doctors say the fake certificates make their job harder.

“We are working to the limit, but we are tired of fighting not only with disease, but also with stupidity,” Molchanov said.

Source: Voice Of America

On a recent afternoon, Tina Singh watched nearly a dozen students at a suburban Los Angeles truck-driving school backing up their practice vehicles into parking spaces. Many had never operated a manual transmission before.

“It’s an exciting time to be a truck driver right now because there’s so much demand for drivers,” said Singh, the school’s director. “Our yards are busy, and they’re very vibrant with a lot of activity.”

Business is booming at the California Truck Driving Academy amid a nationwide shortage of long-haul drivers that has led to promises of high pay and instant job offers. The Inglewood school has seen annual enrollment grow by almost 20% since last year, and has expanded to offering night classes.

“Everything in this country runs by truck at some point or another,” Singh said. “And so, you know, you need truck drivers to move goods.”

The U.S. is about 80,000 drivers short due to a convergence of factors, according to Nick Vyas, executive director of the University of Southern California’s Marshall Center for Global Supply Chain Management.

Consumer spending is 15% above where it was in February 2020, just before the pandemic paralyzed the economy. Production rose nearly 5% over the past year as U.S. factories worked to keep up with an increased demand for goods, according to the Federal Reserve. Imports have narrowed the gap.

At the same time, many U.S. workers decided to quit jobs that required frequent public contact. This created shortages of workers to unload ships, transport goods and staff retail shops.

In California, the straining supply chain is illustrated at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, where dozens of ships wait off the coast to be unloaded. The average wait is nearly 17 days, despite around-the-clock port operations beginning in October.

A lack of drivers at the ports has helped fuel the surge at the nearby California Truck Driving Academy, where instructors in reflective vests keep watch as students practice steering big rigs around a fenced-in paved lot.

“You’re kind of helping the community out, and you’re making money at the same time,” student Thierno Barry said. “It’s a win-win situation.”

Barry, 23, was happy to be behind the wheel on his first day, despite rolling over several orange safety cones.

“I feel great, especially during the pandemic,” he said.

Meanwhile, the school is facing its own shortage — of truck driving instructors.

Source: Voice Of America

President Joe Biden’s signature Build Back Better package of climate and social spending passed the House of Representatives on Friday morning, 220-213, less than 24 hours after the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) produced an analysis of the legislation finding that it would add a relatively modest $160 billion to the federal debt over the next 10 years.

The bill, which still must pass the narrowly divided Senate, dedicates more than half a trillion dollars to spending on measures to combat climate change, provides funding for universal pre-school, expands access to healthcare, and provides tax credits to families with children, among other things.

The rapid passage of the bill after the CBO announced the verdict on its costs underlines the importance of that agency to the legislative process in Washington, as well as lawmakers’ willingness to be flexible about how they read the agency’s analyses.

A significant number of Democrats who represent contested districts – enough to scuttle the bill if they had voted against it – had been concerned about the political impact of Republican claims that the bill would greatly expand the federal debt. Last week, these mostly moderate Democrats told Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that they would not vote for the bill without a CBO analysis that showed it was fully paid for.

Detailed ‘budget score’

The CBO is a non-partisan federal agency within the legislative branch created in 1974 that is considered by many economists the gold standard for analyzing the budgetary impact of proposed legislation and its long-term impact on the federal debt.

On Thursday afternoon, the CBO began releasing its analysis of the bill, known as a “budget score.” It found that the combination of spending and tax breaks contained in the package add up to $2.4 trillion and that elements that would raise revenue or reduce spending add up to $2.27 trillion.

One element of the CBO report caused some confusion because of the way the numbers were presented. The official release said that the bill would result in a $367 billion increase in the debt over 10 years, because it did not account for the revenue effects of the increased IRS enforcement. In a different statement, the agency estimated $207 billion of increased revenue related to IRS enforcement, leaving the ultimate budget deficit increase at $160 billion over a decade.

A flexible reading of the CBO

In a political climate where Democrats and Republicans generally distrust each other, the CBO is still seen as above the fray, delivering non-partisan analysis. The agency’s judgment that the addition to the debt would average out to just $16 billion per year meant that the legislation does not officially pay for itself.

That’s where the flexibility in reading CBO analysis kicked in.

A key element of the bill is an $80 billion increase in funding for the Internal Revenue Service to enforce the nation’s tax laws. The White House and a number of outside groups, including a bipartisan coalition of former IRS commissioners, had projected that the investment would return $400 billion in increased tax revenue over a decade. But CBO only estimated a $207 billion return.

“CBO is notoriously cautious about predicting revenue increases from IRS enforcement,” said William A. Galston, a senior fellow in the Brookings Institution’s Governance Studies program.

“Estimating revenues from enforcement is an art not a science,” Galston said. “Bottom line, nobody knows for sure.”

It was that uncertainty, and the generally accepted understanding that CBO is very cautious about estimating tax revenue, that gave all but one of the moderate Democrats the wiggle room they needed to throw their support behind the bill.

“They took the position, after the CBO score came out, that it was good enough,” said Galston. “It enabled them to make a good faith claim that the bill was completely paid for.”

Republicans disagree

Not surprisingly, Republicans in the House chose to take a much more literal reading of the CBO’s analysis, and slammed the Democrats for passing a bill that will add to the national debt.

“This is the single most reckless and irresponsible spending in the history of this country,” House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy declared.

McCarthy’s comment came during a marathon speech that stretched for more than eight hours, ending shortly before 6 a.m. on Friday. The overnight monologue took advantage of a loophole in House rules that allows the leader of either of the parties to take unlimited floor time, and forced Democrats to delay a vote they had hoped to take on Thursday.

CBO’s sway in the Senate unclear

The CBO score may have been enough to convince moderate Democrats in the House of Representatives to vote in favor of the bill, but the problems it faces in the Senate go deeper than the legislation’s effect on the federal deficit.

The Democrats have only 50 votes in the 100-seat Senate, and must rely on Vice President Kamala Harris to cast a vote in the event of a tie. That means Democrats cannot afford to lose any votes on the bill.

The most prominent member of the party likely to break from the pack is West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, who has been publicly skeptical of specific parts of the bill, and has been more generally concerned that an increase in government spending will lead to further increases in inflation.

Manchin’s constituents tend to be older and more likely than most Americans to be on a fixed income. That makes them especially vulnerable to price inflation, which was recently measured at an annual rate of 6.2%, the highest in more than 30 years.

Source: Voice Of America

Luanda – The Angolan Head of State, João Lourenço, received Friday in Luanda the credential letters of four new ambassadors, all with non-resident status in the country.

This procedure allows the new heads of diplomatic missions to represent the political, diplomatic, commercial, economic and cultural interests of their respective countries in the Republic of Angola.

In the Main Hall of the Presidential Palace, the ambassadors of Iran, Mehdi Aghajafari, and of the Kingdom of Denmark, Tobias Rahfeld, handed over their credentials to President João Lourenço.

The ambassador of Niger, Mariama Seydou and the ambassador of Czech Republic, Pavel Rezac, also delivered their letters of credence.

The new ambassadors are based in South Africa.

Last Thursday, President João Lourenço, in a similar ceremony, accredited four new ambassadors, three residents and one non-resident.

Source: Angola Press News Agency

Luanda – The President of the Republic, João Lourenço, discussed Friday in Luanda with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) ambassador to Angola, Khalid Salem Ali Almheiri, cooperation between the two countries.

Speaking to the press, after the audience granted by the Angolan Head of State, Khalid Ali Almheiri said that issues about investments made by the UAE government in Angola, particularly in agriculture, were also analysed.

He said that the Angolan authorities were “very much looking forward” to the visit by the Angolan head of state to the UAE later this year, with a view to boosting bilateral cooperation.

The two countries cooperate in the oil and gas, mining, trade and investment, energy, defence, transport, agriculture, fishing, banking, telecommunications and finance and tax sectors.

Source: Angola Press News Agency

Luanda – Angola Friday received a verbal invitation to join the Africa 50 group, a pan-African platform for investments in infrastructures, made up of 28 countries, as shareholders.

The invitation was made to the Angolan head of state, João Lourenço, during an audience he granted to the chairman of the board of the Africa 50 group, Alain Ebobissé.

“The integration or not of Angola in the Africa 50 group is at the criteria of the country’s entities,” said Alain Ebobissé, who considered the conversation with João Lourenço to have been “very constructive.

He added that the meeting also served to analyse details of the country’s internal conditions for investing in the infrastructure sector, as well as cooperation between Angola and the Africa 50 group, in the area of solar energy.

The Africa 50 group is based in Casa Blanca, Kingdom of Morocco.

Source: Angola Press News Agency

Moçâmedes – The President of the Republic, João Lourenço, arrived this Saturday morning (20) in the city of Moçâmedes, Namibe province, where, for two days, he will verify the implementation of the different social and economic projects in the region.

Accompanied by the First Lady of the Republic, Ana Dias Lourenço, the Angolan Head of State was received at Welwitschia Mirabilis Airport by the governor of Namibe, Archer Mangueira, members of the local government and representatives of civil society.

Later today, João Lourenço will hold a working meeting at the municipal administration building with members of the provincial government to assess the level of implementation of the different sectoral programmes.

He will also plant a tree to encourage environmental preservation in a region where a third of its territory is desert.

The presidential agenda also includes, for today, visits to industrial units of the fishing and agro-industrial sectors, as well as meetings with members of civil society, representatives of traditional and religious authorities, among other personalities.

On Sunday, the working day will start in the village of Caraculo, commune of Kapangombe, municipality of Bibala, with a visit to the mining port in the Sacomar neighbourhood, followed by the city of Moçâmedes, where he will be acquainted with the operation of several infrastructures and rehabilitation works of the local Bay, the Commercial Harbour, as well as the Maritime and Fishing Institute “Hélder Neto”.

According to the programme, the return of the Angolan statesman to the country’s capital, Luanda, is scheduled for Sunday afternoon (21).

Source: Angola Press News Agency