Angola: Airspace to reopen on 21 September

 Angola will reopen its airspace to international flights from 21 September and domestic flights from 14 September, no longer requiring authorisation to enter the country, the government announced on Tuesday.

The announcement was made today by the Head of the Civil House of the President of Angola, who updated the measures that will be in force from Wednesday under a new presidential decree, after a reassessment of the epidemiological situation.

“It is intended, according to the schedule, to begin scheduled flights, not yet commercial in the strict sense of the word, as of 14 September for domestic and 21 September for international flights,” dispensing with formal authorisation from Angolan authorities provided that a Covid-19 screening test is done before boarding, he announced.

According to Adão de Almeida, the principle of the existence of the sanitary cordon in Angola remains, but some categories of citizens become part of the exceptions of those who can enter and leave the national territory, namely Angolan citizens and foreign residents, as well as foreign professionals who provide services in Angola and foreigners with work visas.

The new rules “aim to create a larger space for some citizens to return with fewer constraints,” he justified.

Home quarantine is maintained for national citizens and residents in Angola, while non-residents are subject to the principle of institutional quarantine.

Other exceptions include official trips by Angolan officials abroad or the entry of foreign delegations, Almeida added.

It is still necessary to sign a liability agreement and fines of 150 to 250 thousand kwanzas (€206 to €343) can be imposed on anyone who breaks the rules.

Angola closed its air borders on 20 March.

Angola currently has 3,092 positive cases, 126 deaths, 1,245 recoveries and 1,716 active patients.

RFI Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon Scholarship 2020 for francophone African Journalists (Full Funded to Paris, France)

 Application Deadline: September 11th 2020 https://bit.ly/3hhv7CO

RFI is organizing the seventh edition of the Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon scholarship. Exceptionally, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the 2020 edition is not organized in a single country but in 25 French-speaking countries on the continent.

The seventh edition of the Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon scholarship has been launched. Due to the global health situation, the 2020 edition is not organized in a specific French-speaking country on the African continent. But this year it is aimed at all young journalists and reporting technicians under the age of 35 who have already worked in the radio sector and reside in one of the following French-speaking countries: Algeria, Benin, Burkina Faso , Brundi, Cameroon, Comoros, Congo, Ivory Coast, Djibouti, Gabon, Guinea, Madagascar, Mali, Morocco, Mauritius, Mauritania, Niger, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Senegal, Seychelles, Chad, Togo, Tunisia, Rwanda.

Benefits

The winners benefit from a one-month training course in Paris. The scholarship will be awarded on November 2 during a special broadcast on RFI.

Ten candidate journalists and ten candidate technicians will be selected on file and then invited to follow a distance training course from Monday 5 to Friday 24 October. These remote workshops will lead to the production of a report for journalists and an “all sound” element for technicians.

The AKO Caine Prize 2021 for African Writing (£10,000 Cash Prize & Funded Workshop in London)

 Application Deadline: 31st January 2021

Click here to apply:  https://bit.ly/35ivF9e

The AKO Caine Prize for African Writing is a literature prize awarded to an African writer of a short story published in English. The prize was launched in 2000 to encourage and highlight the richness and diversity of African writing by bringing it to a wider audience internationally. The focus on the short story reflects the contemporary development of the African story-telling tradition.

Requirements

Unpublished work is not eligible for the Caine Prize.
Submissions should be made by publishers only.
Only fictional work is eligible.
Only one story per author will be considered in any one year.
Submissions should specify which African country the author comes from and the word count.
We require 6 copies of the work in its originally published version.
If the work is published in a book or journal, we would like to receive at least one copy of the book / journal and five photocopies; but particularly where several stories are submitted from one anthology we would like if possible to receive six copies of the book / journal itself.
If the work is published online, we would like to receive six photocopies.

Travel

Winning and short-listed authors will be invited to participate in writers’ workshops in Africa, London and elsewhere as resources permit. There is a cash prize of £10,000 for the winning author and a travel award for each of the short-listed candidates (up to five in all). The shortlisted candidates will also receive a Prize of £500.

Call for aplications: 2021 SPDC/JV sabbatical and postgraduate research internship Programme

 Application Deadline: 22nd September 2020 

Click here to apply: https://bit.ly/2FfYgkV

The Shell Postgraduate Research Internship provides opportunities for Nigerian Postgraduate students (MSc., M.Phil. and Ph.D.) to gain industry-related work experience and carry out topical research within The Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Ltd. (SPDC).

Environment: Impact Assessment and Environmental Compliance Monitoring
Occupational Health: Health Promotion; and Epidemiology/ Statistics.
Oil Spill Response: Eco friendly Bioremediation (Non-intrusive, In-situ).

The Shell sabbatical attachment offers University lecturers from the rank of Senior Lecturer and above, opportunity to undertake research or other activities that would contribute to The Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Ltd. (SPDC). It also offers them avenue to acquire industry-related experience and lectureship at the SPDC JV Centres of Excellence (CoE).

Environment: Impact Assessment and Biodiversity, Environmental Toxicology, Air Quality Assessment, Hydrobiology, Water Chemistry, Hydrogeology, Ecology, etc.
External Relations: Social Performance - Social Impact Assessment; and GMoU Implementation
Community Health: Consultant Community Health;Obstetrics & Gynaecology; and Paediatrics.
Oil Spill Response: Mechanized Bioremediation.
UniBen CoE: Geology and Petroleum Engineering.
Nigerian Content Development: Process and Project Engineering

Reduced workload for parents with children aged five and bellow

 Parents of children aged five or bellow will start toiling only 50% of the working period.

The measure is part of the new Presidential Decree on the Situation of Public Disaster, which should remain in effect until 30 September.

In light of the new Presidential Decree (nº 229/20) on the current social phase of the country, people with obesity also enjoy the same right to provide services only part of the normal working period, under the terms defined by the employer.

Meanwhile, citizens vulnerable to covid-19 infection remain subject to special protection, namely people aged 60 and over, pregnant women, and with chronic risk diseases (hypertensive, diabetic, cardiovascular and kidney patients).

The group of “chronic ones” also includes respiratory patients, oncology patients and those with sickle-cell anaemia, all of whom are exempt from face-to-face work, and must be submitted to the home work regime, according to the referred document.

"Regardless of what is foreseen, by agreement between the employer and the worker, schedules can be created that allow remote or safe work to be carried out", says the diploma signed by the President of the Republic, João Lourenço.

Subsequently, the document indicates that public services operate from 8:00 am to 3:00 pm, with the presence of 50% of the workforce in the province of Luanda, and 75% in the rest of the country, with the integration of women with children up to 12 years old.

This schedule doesn’t covers port, airport and related services; customs delegations; defense and security bodies; health services; electronic communications; energy, water, solid waste collection and media that can operate with the entire workforce.

“Without prejudice to the provisions of a specific rule, administrative services in the private sector operate between 6am and 4pm, with the presence of 50% of the workforce in the country's capital, and 75% of the staff in the remaining provinces. ”, clarifies the decree.

Covid-19: Naturopathic doctors' proposal under analysis

 The Proposal on Natural Medicine on combat and prevention of covid-19 has been forwarded to the National Institute for Health Research (INIS) Department, aimed at assessing its authenticity and effectiveness.

Natural or conventional medicine should firstly be evaluated and certified in order to gauge their effectiveness, Health minister Silvia Lutucuta told a press conference on the new rules of Public Calamity Situation in Angola on Tuesday

"We must not risk like some countries which publicised medicines that eventually did not bring desired effect," stressed Silvia Lutucuta.

Naturopath doctors have recently expressed desire to collaborate with the country's health authorities. They pledged to contribute to a tight rein on the spreading of covid-19 pandemic, through natural medicine.

"As example there is in Angola one of the plants capable to fight all types of viruses in 20 days. It is with this plant that we set out to prepare a specific composition to save the lives of people who are being hit by covid-19 in country ", the naturopath doctor José Nguepe told Angop.

He stressed the plant named Ipox exists only in Angola and Botswana, and is also used for the composition of HIV/AIDS treatment.

Angola’s Cabinet Council met on 26 August to discuss the draft Law on Traditional Medicine in the National Health System.

The National Policy on Traditional Medicine aims to integrate into the National Health System good practices, the use of traditional medicines scientifically proven, safe, effective and of qualitya.

Angolan Diamond production reaches 5.3 million carat in 8 months

 Angola produced from January to August this year, 5.3 million carats of diamonds, and until December the target is to reach the mark of 8.3 million carats, which is a dropdown of about 20% compared to the initial estimate, announced last Wednesday the president of Endiama, Ganga Júnior.

For this year, the National Diamond Company (Endiama) had a production target of 10.5 million carats and a turnover of 1.4 billion US dollars.

The 20% drop is due to the readjustments in the exploration sector, in face of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Ganga Júnior, who last Wednesday was the main speaker at the virtual Conference on Diamonds in Angola, said that due to the readjustments, the forecast is to collect revenues of USD 1.1 billion by the end.

He said that depending on the current context, the sector has some stocks of diamonds, whose quantities have not been revealed.

"So far we have stocks of diamonds as a result of weak demand, but recently we have already started to sense an increase in demand", he said.

Meanwhile, the minister of Mineral Resources and Petroleum, Diamantino Pedro de Azevedo, who chaired the opening act of the conference, highlighted the progress achieved in the past two years, in the Angolan mining sector.

Angola currently has 65 concessions for investment in the mining sector. The sector expects to create, with the new projects, more than four thousand jobs by 2022.

Advanced business meetings have already been carried out by Endiama with some multinationals such as Rio Tinto and De Beers, to invest in the mining sector in Angola.

The conference was held under the motto “Leading the world of diamonds in the new era”. The new governance model for the mining sector, the impact of covid-19 on the diamond industry was also presented during the conference.

The webinar was supported by technical support from the international media group “The New Jeweler” and aimed to present the latest developments and business opportunities in the diamond subsector in the country in light of the current international situation.

Angola is among the main diamond producers in the region, both in carats (4th place) and in value (5th place).

Diamond production in the country comes from kimberlite ores, representing 98% of the total.

Covid-19: Angola reports 59 new infections, 30 recoveries, two deaths

Fifty-nine new positive cases of covid-19, two deaths and 30 recoveries have been reported in the last 24 hours in Angola, the Health minister, Sílvia Lutucuta, said.

Delivering the usual covid-19 update on Wednesday evening, the minister said the new infections were detected in Luanda (53), northern Cabinda province (02), central Benguela (01) and northern Zaire (03).

According to the minister, those infected include 50 males and nine females, with ages from one to 39 years.

With the new data, Angola’s covid-19 figures show 3,092 positive cases, 126 deaths, 1,245 recoveries and 1,716 active patients.