Back to school after lockdown. Campaign with preschool children. Don't miss it! Webisode 24

Kids, school, and COVID-19

More than 1 billion children are at risk of falling behind due to school closures aimed at containing the spread of COVID-19.

Although schools in Angola reopened in early October, the Angolan government postponed the resumption of lessons in primary education (1st to 5th grade), the largest chunk of the education system. The postponement in the Primary Education owed to the increase in Covid-19 positive cases in the country.

Today we are taking to beautiful kids who are being left behind due to Covid-19 pandemic. They will share with us their experiences during school closures.

Interview with Tina

Hello, my name is Tina, I'm 12 years old and I'm Angolan.

The school has already reopened but I did not go back to study because the government did not create safe conditions against the pandemic for those in the 5th grade to study.

When the school reopens for us, I would like the government to provide Biosafety materials like gloves, masks, visors and alcohol gel.

I really want to go back to school, because as a student I have many things  to learn.

Tina was with us in the second part of Africa Educates Her Campaign. Do you remember her? Click here to see her first interview:https://she-leads.blogspot.com/2020/09/africa-educates-her-campaign-angola-day_19.html?m=1

Interview with Jenito

1. Introduction

Hello, my name is jenito, I am 5 years old, I am a 1st grader and I am Angolan.

2. Why did you stop attending school?

I stopped going to school because the coronavirus affected me and students.

3. Do you want to go back to school?

Yes, I want to study.

4. What are the necessary conditions that you want in order to return to study safely?

I want soap and water to wash my hands, plus alcohol gel, gloves and mask. Thanks!

Interview with Ivanilson

1. Introduction

Hi! My name is Evanilson, I am 9 years old, studying in the 4th class and I am Angolan.

2. As a student how did coronavirus affect you?

I don't go to school anymore, I miss my colleagues and teachers, I miss my friends. 

3. What are the conditions you would like the government to create to ensure your safety at school?

I want them to cement the school because when it rains my school becomes a beach. I also want the government to distribute masks, alcohol gel, gloves and other bio-safety materials.

4. Why do you want to continue going to school? 

Because I want to continue learning and not be illiterate.

To keep the world’s children learning, countries must implement remote education programmes. Yet many of the world’s children – particularly those in poorer households – do not have internet access, personal computers, TVs or even radio at home, amplifying the effects of existing learning inequalities.

Since July 2020, we have been conducting daily interviews with students, kids and teachers across Angola in order to make sure that all the students will return to school after lockdown. 

Link to signup form and pledge: 

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1hGOHt-E0TDUBT_oNswL1I34ynB1FtLZLsq_m3HjEnDY/edit

Don't miss this opportunity to bring girls back to school. Join us!

Share your experiences learning / teaching during the school closures & the projects or initiatives you've launched to get girls back to school post # COVID19 in your local communities.

Visit my new channel to see all the activities https://she-leads.blogspot.com/

ANGOLAN PRESIDENT UNVEILS DIPLOMATIC ACADEMY

 Luanda – The Angolan President, João Lourenço, inaugurated, this Thursday, the Diplomatic Academy "Venâncio de Moura", with the capacity to train 1,800 specialists in diplomacy and international relations annually.

Located in the Kilamba satellite city, in Luanda, the academic institution, fully equipped  with  29 classrooms and its construction budgeted at US $ 16 million, is a donation from the government of the People's Republic of China, under the cooperation between the two countries.

The academy, whose construction was carried out in 19 months, includes nine buildings built in an area of ​​four hectares, comprising computer labs (with 28 computers each) and language labs (for 25 students each) and consular and protocol and ceremonial practice rooms .

It also has a library, dormitories for lecturers (with 23 suites) and for students (with 78 suites), designed to accommodate up to 234 trainees.

The complex has a field for the practice of indoor sports, a tennis court, a gym, auditorium and administrative and service buildings.

It also houses a medical post, a cafeteria with a capacity for 290 people, two protocol rooms, an industrial kitchen and two parking areas for 128 cars.

The facilities will be monetized by offering specialization courses at different levels, namely scientific production and consultancy services, as well as professional and specialty courses for public and private employees.

Transformed into a higher education institution in 2017, it was renamed the Higher Institute of International Relations “Venâncio de Moura”, offering undergraduate, graduate, training and retraining courses at various institutions.

The Diplomatic Academy “Venâncio de Moura” appears within the scope of the ongoing reform in the Higher Education subsystem, maintaining the curricular matrix centered on diplomacy and international relations.

COVID-19: ANGOLAN ACTIVISTS GO DOOR TO DOOR SENSITIZING CITIZENS

 Twenty activists, trained by the NGO People Development Aid for People (ADPP), will start in the next three months, to sensitize and mobilize communities, in the north-eastern Lunda-Norte Province, on a door-to-door basis, focusing on preventive measures against the new corona-virus (Covid-19).

The head of the non-governmental organization ADPP, Rosa Musonza, made mention that the awareness programme has the support of the World Health Organization (WHO) and it is part of a project on risk and community engagement.

This activity, according to him, should also count on the involvement of the traditional authorities.

He added that the staff will be deployed in rural areas, markets, public roads and centres to inform the population about forms of contaminsation and measures to prevent Covid-19.

He informed that the activists will be subdivided into two groups to act in the municipalities of Chitato and Cuango, in a first phase.

The province of Lunda Norte has three positive cases, of which two are active and one is recovered.

 

COVID-19: ANGOLA REGISTERS 137 NEW POSITIVE CASES AND 89 RECOVERIES

 Luanda – The Health Authorities announced, last Wednesday, another 137 new infections due to Covid-19, 89 recovered and 4 deaths on the last 24 hours

According to the secretary of State for Public Health, Franco Mufinda, 44 were registered in Luanda, 43 in Cuanza Norte, 27 in Zaire, 16 in Huíla, 6 in Uíge and a Single case in Malanje.

The list of the new patients, in which ages goes around 4 and 74 years, includes 79 males and 58 females.

He went on to inform that regarding the four deaths, 2 were registered in Luanda and the other 2 in the northern province of Uíge, having the age of 16, 57, 60 and 68 respectively.

Angola registers a total of 12, 953 positive cases, with 312 deaths, 6125 recovered and 6516 diseased.

Among the diseased, nine are in critical condition, 12 severe, 170 moderate, 338 with symptoms and 5,987 asymptomatic.

The country's treatment centres provide treatment for 529 patients.

POLICE DENY DEATH IN DEMONSTRATION

 Luanda - The National Police (PN) denied last Wednesday night the occurrence of a death in the demonstration held by civil society activists, which was quashed by the authorities.

During the attempted demonstration, which was not authorized by the Government of Luanda, social media reported the death of a citizen, allegedly by gunshot.

A video showing a demonstrator wounded and sprawled on the ground was shared on different social networks, to support the rumour of the alleged death of a citizen.

Speaking to the press, regarding the protests, the provincial commander of the National Police in Luanda, Eduardo Serqueira, denied the allegations.

According to the official, the citizen who was said to have died is alive and undergoing medical care, in Américo Boavida hospital, in Luanda.

He informed, on the other hand, that the corporation did not use any lethal means to contain the demonstrators, the action was carried out with water jets, tear gas and bombs of moral effect.

The provincial commander of the National Police stated that in sequence of the police action, at least three citizens were detained, including a fugitive from justice who had an arrest warrant.

Two others were arrested for attempted arson at two fuel stations, in the Benfica and Pedro de Castro Van-Dunem Loy Avenue, whose actions were contained.

According to the official, other citizens were taken to areas far from the places of confrontation between the police and the demonstrators, to facilitate dispersion, but were released  afterwards.

Likewise, he confirmed the temporary detention of two journalists, released after due act of identification in a police station, with the authorities promising to return the personal documentation of the said media professionals.

He deplored the fact that the demonstrators tried to force a protest even after the ban by the Government of Luanda, underlining that the security forces will continue to work to maintain public order.

The demonstration was marked by a confrontation between the police and the protesters who set fire on tyres and used containers to block some roads.

The recent Decree on Public Calamity prohibits gatherings on public roads of more than five people, this being one of the grounds used by the authorities to quell the demonstration.

In addition to this reason, according to the Government of Luanda, some legal requirements on the part of the organisers were not observed.

In essence, the protesters tried to demonstrate against the rising cost of living and unemployment in Angola, as well as to require the government to indicate a precise date for the country's first municipal elections.

 

NEW 2,000 KWANZA BANKNOTES AVAILABLE AT ATMS

 Luanda – The National Bank of Angola (BNA) has announced the launch on Wednesday, November 11, of the new AKz 2,000 banknotes from Series 2020.

BNA said that the new 2,000 banknote, launched ahead of the celebration of 45th anniversary of National Independence, starts reaching users via automated teller machines (ATMs) across the country from Thursday.

With the picture of the first President of Angola, Agostinho Neto, the 2,000 kwanza banknote has the predominant green color, paying homage to one of Angola's wonders, Serra da Leba.

The new 2020 Series entered into circulation on July 30 of this year, with the launch of the 200 Kwanza banknote.

 

Biden denied key US intel briefings as Trump delays transition

 As President Donald Trump continues challenging the election results and delaying President-elect Joe Biden’s transition planning, a key part of US intelligence is being kept from the incoming president.

The Presidential Daily Brief (PDB), the ultra-secret daily briefing of the nation’s most sensitive intelligence, is a key part of keeping the president fully informed and, in recent years, the president-elect fully prepared.

In 2000, when the presidential election was still in legal limbo due to a recount in Florida, outgoing President Bill Clinton decided to let then-Governor George W Bush read the daily brief of the nation’s most sensitive intelligence.

Clinton was a Democrat and his vice president, Al Gore, was running against Republican Bush. Gore had been reading the so-called PDB for eight years; Clinton decided to bring Bush into the fold in case he won — and he did.

President Donald Trump has not followed Clinton’s lead.

Oklahoma Republican Senator James Lankford said on Wednesday he will intervene if Trump does not loop Biden in soon.

“I’ve already started engaging in this area … And if that’s not occurring by Friday, I will step in and push and say this needs to occur so that regardless of the outcome of the election, whichever way that it goes, people can be ready for that actual task,” Lankford told Tulsa, Oklahoma radio station KRMG.

He said Vice President-elect Kamala Harris also should be getting the briefings, which should not be a problem because she already has security clearances as a member of the Senate intelligence committee.

National security and intelligence experts hope Trump changes his mind, citing the need for an incoming president to be fully prepared to confront any national security issues on day one.

“Our adversaries aren’t waiting for the transition to take place,” says former Michigan Republican Representative Mike Rogers, who was chairman of the House intelligence committee. “Joe Biden should receive the President’s Daily Brief starting today. He needs to know what the latest threats are and begin to plan accordingly. This isn’t about politics; this is about national security.”

US adversaries can take advantage of the country during an American presidential transition and key foreign issues will be bearing down on Biden the moment he steps into the Oval Office.

Among them: Unless Trump extends or negotiates a new nuclear arms accord with Russia before Inauguration Day, Biden will have only 16 days to act before the expiration of the last remaining treaty reining in the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals. Perhaps US spies have picked up tidbits about the Russians’ red lines in the negotiations, or about weapons it really wants to keep out of the treaty.

That is the type of information that might be in the PDB, a daily summary of high-level, classified information and analysis on national security issues that has been offered to presidents since 1946. It is coordinated and delivered by the Office of the National Intelligence Director with input from the CIA and other agencies. It is tailored for each president, depending on whether they prefer oral or written briefs or both, short summaries or long reports on paper or electronically.

Having access to the PDB could also help Biden craft a possible response to North Korea, which has a history of firing off missiles or conducting nuclear tests shortly before or after new presidents take office.

Biden has decades of experience in foreign affairs and national security, but he likely has not been privy to the latest details about how Iran is back to enriching uranium, or the active cyberattack operations of Russia, China and Iran. China’s crackdown on Hong Kong is heating up. And the threat from armed groups, although curbed, still remains.

Biden is trying to play down the significance of the delay in getting access to the PDB.

“Obviously the PDB would be useful but it’s not necessary. I’m not the sitting president now,” Biden said on Tuesday.

He was also asked about needing access to classified information as soon as possible if Trump does not concede the race.

“Look, access to classified information is useful. But I’m not in a position to make any decisions on those issues anyway,” Biden said. “As I said, one president at a time. He will be president until January 20. It would be nice to have it, but it’s not critical.”

While the Bush team had access to the intelligence brief in 2000, the election recount delayed the Bush team’s access to government agencies and resources for more than five weeks. Biden is missing out on all counts: More than a week into his transition, Biden does not have access to the PDB, the agencies or government resources to help him get ready to take charge.

“President-elect Joe Biden and his transition team should not suffer a similar delay,” John Podesta, who served as the White House chief of staff under Clinton, and Bush’s chief of staff Andrew Card wrote in a joint op-ed published this week in The Washington Post.

“We have since learned the serious costs of a delayed transition,” they wrote. “Less than eight months after Bush’s inauguration, two planes flew into the World Trade Center, killing nearly 3,000 Americans.”

The 9/11 Commission Report on September 11, 2001 attacks warns of the danger in slow-walking presidential transition work in general, not just the intelligence piece. The Bush administration did not have its deputy cabinet officers in place until early 2001 and critical subcabinet positions were not confirmed until about that midyear — if then, the report said.

For now, the office of National Intelligence Director John Ratcliffe says it cannot begin talking with the Biden transition team until a federal agency starts the process of transition, which the Trump administration is delaying.

The office, which oversees more than a dozen US intelligence agencies, said it must follow the Presidential Transition Act, which requires the General Services Administration to first ascertain the winner of the election, which Trump is contesting. GSA administrator Emily Murphy, who was appointed by Trump, has not yet officially designated Biden as the president-elect.

____

Source: Aljazeera and news agencies

For Biden, tough China trade and tech questions may have to wait

 As Joe Biden prepares to become the 46th president of the United States in January, China is unlikely to be top of mind.

A once-in-a-century pandemic that is raging through the US and persuading a possibly divided Congress to pass an economic stimulus bill is probably going to be the issue that keeps him up at night during his first months on the job.

But after losing this month’s election – though not accepting defeat as yet – incumbent President Donald Trump is leaving Biden a deeply scarred foreign policy legacy, especially when it comes to the world’s second-biggest economy, China.

In the waning months of Trump’s presidency, his administration’s rhetoric against China has become more vitriolic than ever. In a speech on Tuesday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo described China as “the world’s number-one threat to freedom today” and a “Marxist-Leninist monster”.

Once Biden does get around to tackling the China issue, he will have to approach it on several fronts: Trade, technology, human rights and regional security. The fact that they overlap with one another will hugely complicate his task.

Analysts say Biden is unlikely to move too far away from the main strategic goals set by Trump: Ensuring China is not able to undermine the US’s key economic, geopolitical and military strengths.

But Biden’s tactics will be fundamentally different from those of his predecessor.

“There won’t be a major directional change by the Biden administration [with regards to China], but there will be many technical adjustments in its approach,” Victor Zhu, an analyst at Rhodium Group focusing on China’s macroeconomic development told Al Jazeera.

And Biden’s approach to China will also likely be different in character to that of Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, who Biden served as vice president.

“[Biden] will have many of the same advisors that worked with Obama, but they have a different look [regarding] China,” Shen Dingli, a professor at the Center for American Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai told Al Jazeera. “They don’t want to repeat Obama’s approach either. They want to be tough.”

Trade

When it comes to rebalancing the US’s $345bn trade deficit with China as at the end of last year, Biden is expected to try to work with the US’s traditional allies, rather than antagonising them as Trump has done. The incumbent president has imposed trade tariffs against the European Union, India, Japan and other countries traditionally considered US allies, in addition to China.

Trump initiated the trade war against China starting in 2018. Despite a “phase-one” trade deal signed in January, US tariffs on about $370bn worth of Chinese goods – and retaliatory levies by China – remain in place.

And China’s pledge to boost purchases of US services and goods – including agricultural and manufactured products and energy – by about $200bn above 2017 levels under the agreement is behind schedule.

“Whether Biden would remove existing tariffs, that’s a big unknown,” said Zhu. “I don’t think we have any evidence to tell at this point, though what we sort of know is that Biden has very little interest in increasing or escalating the trade war.”

Allies such as the EU have their own grouses against China’s trade practices and treatment of their firms’ intellectual property. Biden has said he would capitalise on those disagreements to build a coalition against China.

“China is playing the long-game – extending its global reach and investing in the technologies of the future – while Trump is designating our closest allies – from Canada to the EU – as National Security Threats in order to impose damaging and pointless tariffs,” Biden said in a speech last year.

“By cutting us off from the economic clout of our partners, he knee-caps our capacity to take on the real economic threat,” he added.

Technology

The other arena within the emerging US-China economic cold war is technology.

The Trump administration placed China’s Huawei, the world’s biggest maker of equipment for the latest-generation 5G mobile phone networks, on its so-called Entity List last year, accusing it of helping Beijing spy on US concerns. Huawei has repeatedly denied doing so. The move restricts US firms from doing business with Huawei.

Trump is also trying to force ByteDance, the Chinese owner of the wildly popular video-sharing app TikTok, to sell the US operations of the platform to American firms. The Trump administration accuses it of harvesting the data of US users for Beijing, something TikTok has also strenuously denied.

Moves such as these are pushing Beijing towards becoming more self-sufficient for its technological aspirations. It wants to become a global leader in advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning and robotics, for which it has relied heavily on US chipmakers and other fundamental technologies.

But China’s forthcoming five-year plan for the 2021-2025 period will stress what the government describes as a “dual circulation” development model, which emphasises domestic production, consumption and distribution of goods and services. Its latest version of the “Made in China 2025” development plan that drew a backlash from the US and the EU, now known as the Strategic Emerging Industries Plan, calls for the nurturing of domestic high-tech firms.

China sees this not only as an economic priority but also a national security imperative, analysts say.

“That’s going to be a head-on conflict or source of fierce competition with the US,” Zhu of the Rhodium Group said.

How Biden responds to China’s push to become a technological superpower will be a defining part of his presidency.

Whether he is able to persuade a possibly hostile US Congress to provide the funds to go toe-to-toe with China in a tech space race is something analysts and investors will be watching closely.

“Boosting competitiveness can begin by simply embracing and openly supporting America’s current strengths: foundational R&D, semiconductor equipment and intellectual property, open-source technology, space technology,” said Kevin Xu, founder of the bilingual tech newsletter Interconnected, and who served in the White House and Department of Commerce under the Obama administration.

“When it comes to technology policy vis-a-vis China, boosting domestic competitiveness is a race to the top, not race to the bottom.”

Regional security and human rights

Questions over China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea, the erosion of democratic freedoms in Hong Kong, tensions over the future of democratic Taiwan and a whole host of other issues ranging from diplomatic wrangling over consulates and journalists, to repression and the mass detention of ethnic Uighurs in China’s Xinjiang region raise other challenges for the new US president.

But as with the US’s commercial and economic disputes with China, Biden is expected to rally the US’s allies to try to contain Beijing on these issues as well.

And fractures between China and several of its neighbours in recent months could be the opening Biden needs, analysts say.

Brutal hand-to-hand combat in June along the disputed India-China border in the Himalayas left 20 Indian and an undisclosed number of Chinese soldiers dead, escalating tensions and triggering large deployments on the remote, desolate border area.

Meanwhile, China has slowed or halted imports of commodities such as wine, barley, coal, timber and lobster from Australia in recent months. Beijing has not explicitly said the move is in retaliation for any Australian actions, but Canberra has angered China over its handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

Other regional powers such as Japan and South Korea have long-standing territorial disputes with China.

“As part of Biden’s reimagined approach towards China, we expect the administration to pursue a more multilateral strategy,” Nick Marro, lead on global trade for the Economist Intelligence Unit said in a note sent to Al Jazeera.

“There’s strong regional appetite for that right now, particularly amid China’s border dispute with India, the emerging trade war with Australia, and long-standing economic and political tensions with Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.”

____

Source: Aljazeera

Former Ghanaian President, Jerry John Rawlings dies aged 73

 Former Ghanaian President, Jerry John Rawlings has been confirmed dead.

He died in the early hours of today, Thursday, November 12, 2020.

He is said to have died of Covid-19.

Jerry John Rawlings buried his mother, Madam Victoria Agbotui October 2020. She was 101.

About Jerry John Rawlings

Jerry John Rawlings was born June 22, 1947.

He was a former military leader and subsequent politician who ruled Ghana from 1981 to 2001 and also a brief period in 1979.

He led a military junta until 1992, and then served two terms as the democratically elected President of Ghana.

Saudi king urges world to take ‘decisive stance’ against Iran

 Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud urged the world on Thursday to take “a decisive stance” to address efforts by Iran to develop nuclear and ballistic missile programmes, in his annual address to the top government advisory body.

“The kingdom stresses the dangers of Iran’s regional project, its interference in other countries, its fostering of terrorism, its fanning the flames of sectarianism and calls for a decisive stance from the international community against Iran that guarantees a drastic handling of its efforts to obtain weapons of mass destruction and develop its ballistic missiles programme,” the king said.

They were the 84-year-old ruler’s first public remarks since he addressed the United Nations General Assembly in September via videolink, where he also took aim at Iran condemning its “expansionism“. Sunni Muslim-majority Saudi Arabia and Shia-dominated Iran are locked in several proxy wars in the region, including in Yemen where a Saudi-led coalition has been battling the Tehran-aligned Houthi movement for more than five years.

There was no immediate reaction from Iran to the king’s remarks. Tehran described the king’s UN remarks as “baseless allegations” and has denied arming groups in the Middle East.

State news agency SPA published a full transcript of the king’s speech after midnight, and state television broadcast photos of what appeared to be the king addressing council members via videolink from his palace in Neom.

Tensions have risen in the region since United States President Donald Trump pulled the US out of a landmark nuclear deal with world powers in 2018 and reimposed stringent economic sanctions on the Islamic Republic.

The relationship Trump shares with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) had provided a buffer against international criticism over Riyadh’s rights record sparked by the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Riyadh’s role in Yemen’s war and the detention of women activists.

Saudi-US relationship

But US President-elect Joe Biden pledged in his campaign to reassess ties with the kingdom, a major oil exporter and buyer of US weapons and military equipment.

Saudi Arabia was an enthusiastic backer of Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran. But Biden has said he would return to a 2015 nuclear pact between world powers and Tehran, a deal negotiated when Biden was vice president in Barack Obama’s administration.

In Yemen, where the war has killed tens of thousands of people and triggered a humanitarian crisis, King Salman said the kingdom continues to support UN-led efforts to reach a political settlement.

He also condemned what he alleged was the Houthi movement’s “deliberate and methodological” targeting of civilians inside Saudi Arabia via drones and ballistic missiles.

Riyadh was working to guarantee the stability of global oil supplies to serve both producers and consumers, despite COVID-19’s impact on oil markets, the king said.

He repeated his long-standing support for a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, but did not refer to the US-brokered agreements signed between the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan to normalise ties with Israel.

Riyadh has quietly acquiesced to the UAE and Bahrain deals, although it has stopped short of endorsing them, and has signalled it is not ready to take action itself.

The king spoke days before the G20 summit, which Saudi Arabia is hosting virtually this year. Human Rights Watch has urged leaders attending the event to press Riyadh to release all those detained unlawfully and provide accountability for past abuses, including the Khashoggi murder.

MBS has denied ordering the killing, but in 2019 acknowledged that it had happened on his watch. Hatice Cengiz, Khashoggi’s fiancee, last month filed a lawsuit in the US alleging MBS and the Saudi authorities had planned the grisly murder. Riyadh has jailed eight people for between seven and 20 years in the killing.