Angola recorded an inflow of foreign exchange estimated at 139.7 million this week, according to the Secretary of State for Planning, Milton Reis.
The official said USD 105.3 million concern the Single Treasury Account, that is, the collection of petroleum taxes and the issuance of foreign currency bonds.
The official, who was speaking at usual briefing on the progress of the national economy, said that another USD 34.3 million corresponds to operations by the National Bank of Angola (BNA).
The latter values, he clarified, have to do with the purchase of foreign exchange and deposit interest.
On the other hand, the Secretary of State, Milton Reis explained that in terms of project execution levels, the Development and Welfare axis reached 74.8%, Sustainable, Diversified and Inclusive Economic Development 65.6% and the Infrastructure and Development 69.7%.
The axis on Peace building, Democratic and Law Strengthening, Good Governance, State Reform and Decentralization had an execution of 80%.
Harmonious Development of the territory stands at 52.7% and the Guarantee of Territorial Stability of Angola and Strengthening of its role in regional integration with 29.2%.
As for the main commodities, in average terms, the price of Brent was higher this week, compared to the previous one, standing at 42.21%, against 43.22% having justified that it was due to the optimism of the vaccine against Covid-19 and the prospect of extending the agreement to cut oil production by around 7.7 million barrels / day from OPEC and OPP +.
As for futures prices, Brent recorded an appreciation of 5.1%, compared to last week, standing at USD 44.96 / barrel, with the performance of Angolan stocks that registered an increase of 5.79 percent when moving to USD 44.55 / barrel.
While natural gas decreased to USD 2.6 / cubic meter, due to the increase in production in the market, influenced by China and the United States of America, which are the biggest consumers of gas.
The price of gold, on the other hand, registered an average increase of 0.3 per cent, compared to the previous week, standing at USD 880 / ounce, justified by the excess demand for the purpose of reserving value, following the announcements about the levels effectiveness of the Covid-19 vaccine.
Angolan head of State João Lourenço said Thursday in Luanda that the demonstration should not degenerate into violence.
The president was speaking at the youth consultation meeting, stressing that there is no need for violence, either by demonstrators or authorities.
However, he recalled that everything is relative and depends on the behavior of citizens, who should not commit excesses, as happened in recent protests.
At the time, he discouraged rallies on the public road with more than five people, saying that social gatherings fuel Covid-19 emerges. "The Executive does not ban demonstrations.
The Executive prohibits gatherings ", he clarified. According to João Lourenço," if the demonstration is tantamount to a public gathering, it should obvious not be allowed, otherwise it will contribute to the spread of the Covid-19 virus throughout the national territory " .
The President underlined that, internally, it is the Executive's obligation to prevent Covid-19's progression from spiraling out of control.
João Lourenço called for collaboration of Angolan society to prevent the country's health system from collapsing, in the face of Covid-19.
The president considered the meeting with the youth an alternative way to avoid violating the Presidential Decree.
The Angolan Head of State was speaking at the meeting with representatives of various Angolan Youth.
Similar meetings took place in July and October last year, respectively in the cities of Soyo (Zaire) and Kuito (Bie).
Angolan President of the Republic João Lourenço said Thursday that the country is unlikely to hold the first municipal elections in 2021, due to the lack of completion of some tasks related to the process.
The president said so at the youth consultation meeting, having clarified that the local elections require complete legislative package, as well as conduct unofficial and in-person electoral registration.
Among the tasks, the president spoke of the need to establish the residence of citizens, the completion of the process of political-administrative division.
João Lourenço underlined that the National Electoral Commission (CNE) must issue an opinion, addressed to the President of the Republic, in which it declares that conditions have been created for municipal elections.
However, the Angolan statesman pledged the Executive’s commitment to municipal elections.
The President Joao Lourenço held similar meetings in July and October last year in Soyo (Zaire) and Kuito (Bie).
The minister of Finance, Vera Daves, assured last Thursday, in Luanda, that the General State Budget (OGE) for the coming financial year sets aside, for great endemic diseases, an amount of 13.4 billion kwanzas (US $ 20.7million) and an additional 142 billion kwanzas (US $ 218.1million) for possible purchase of Covid-19 vaccines.
The official, who was speaking at the National Assembly in the ambit of the analysis, discussion and voting n the OGE for the 2021 financial year, said she took good note that parliamentarians have already internalized the awareness that there is little room to make the budget grow without aggravating the pressure on public accounts.
She clarified that what managers are asked to do is restructure their form of management, taking into account that there is little fiscal space and limited financial resources to meet the expectations.
The Executive recognizes the importance of dialogue with the social partners, within the current procedures, in the preparation of the OGE, which this year was reviewed.
She added that the situation with Covid-19 made the timings more challenging for the economic team and, therefore, procedures that had already been established were not fully implemented.
The Angolan health authorities announced, last Thursday, the registration, in the last 24 hours, 99 new infections, 100 patients recovered and one death.
According to the secretary of State for Public Health, Franco Mufinda, who spoke at the usual Covid-19 data update session in the country, he pointed out also that the new infections involve citizens whose ages range from two months to 77 years, 65 being male and 34 female.
According to the official, there are 46 cases diagnosed in the province of Luanda, 21 in Huambo, 14 in Cunene, 7 in Cuanza Sul, 4 in Malanje and Cabinda, 2 in Uíge and 1 in Moxico.
Regarding the recovered patients, 34 are from Huíla, 32 from Luanda, 17 from Malanje, 13 from Huambo, 3 from Lunda Sul and 1 from Cuanza Sul, aged between 2 to 63 years.
On the death, Franco Mufinda informed that she is a 63-year-old Angolan citizen that resided in Luanda.
Angola registers 14,920 positive cases so far, 341 deaths, 7,617 recovered and 6,962 active cases (diseased).
Of the diseased, 7 are in critical condition with invasive mechanical ventilation, 13 severe, 175 moderate, 185 with mild symptoms and 6,582 asymptomatic.
The health authorities are also taking care of 380 patients admitted to treatment centers in the country.
The President of the Republic, João Lourenço, has left the Angolan capital heading to Gabon, where he will participate in the eighteenth Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS).
At the 4 de Fevereiro International Airport, the Head of State was bid farewell by the Vice President of the Republic, Bornito de Sousa, members of the government and office aides.
In Libreville, João Lourenço will witness the transition from the ECCAS presidency from the Gabonese Head of State, Ali Bongó, to his Congolese counterpart Dennis Sassou Nguessou.
The contributions of the member states, the organization's budget for 2021, and the activity report of the ECCAS Commission, a body that is now headed by Angolan Gilberto Veríssimo, are some of the documents that will be analyzed at the Libreville Summit.
With barely two weeks left to the Extraordinary Summit of African Union Heads of State on December 5, 2020, ahead of the expected start of trading under AfCFTA on 1st January 2021, the AfCFTA Secretariat is pleased to announce AfCFTA Vision, an initiative in partnership with the Sankoree Institute, an affiliate of AfroChampions.
In addition to building a community of visionaries (the “AfCFTA Visioneers”) and creating a platform for knowledge creation and sharing to help accelerate the pace of implementation of AfCFTA, the initiative also creates room for entrepreneurial contests to find investable solutions that can propel AfCFTA to success with the backing of the continent's development finance institutions.
Major African DFIs and other visionary financial institutions such as TDB, Africa50, AfDB, AFC, Equity Bank, Ecobank and Afreximbank will serve as the institutional jury for the AfCFTA Vision Challenge.
Compelling solutions to challenges posed by some of Africa’s foremost political leaders, and analyzed by leading continental thinkers, in 8 identified issue areas submitted ahead of the two deadlines of 30th November and 22nd December stand a chance of securing syndicated investment from these leading institutions.
Innovators and doers of all stripes, committed to the ideal AfCFTA, are therefore encouraged to submit their plans through the online portal (https://www.afcfta.blog/challenge).
AfCFTA’s success shall however require more than brilliant solutions from Africa’s finest minds and doers. It shall require more intense connections among problem-solvers, infrastructure to bridge gaps and differences, and vast material resources.
The role of the AfCFTA Secretariat is to coordinate capacity that already exists on the continent in order to generate the necessary momentum. Digital technology can play a critical role in this quest due to its leveling function and exponential network creation ability.
Above all, digital technology has become one of the most efficient ways to bring large but marginalized communities like Small, Medium & Micro Enterprises (SMMEs), youth, women and the informal sector into the productive sectors of an integrated African company.
Thus, a major component of the AfCFTA Vision Initiative is a suite of apps (or collectively, a “super-app”) that shall serve as the base for a continental business registry, trade directory, cross-border trade facilitation network, and a dashboard for the private sector to interact with the upcoming Africa Trade Observatory (for beta access, visit: www.afcfta.app).
As an integral part of the AfCFTA Digital Strategy, and building on top of the AVRIVA (www.avriva.org) program developed to support the AU's Open Corridor Initiative, the AfCFTA App offers a free “trusted identity” (known as the “AfCFTA Number ”) to every AfCFTA Actor, as well as a range of complementary tools to discover opportunities made available to all economic actors throughout the continent in the wake of AfCFTA.
The partners are of the view that all the components of the AfCFTA Vision Initiative work seamlessly together to boost the chances of a spectacularly successful AfCFTA rollout.
About AfCFTA Secretariat
The AfCFTA Secretariat is a creation of the AfCFTA Agreement tasked with the responsibility of coordinating the successful implementation of the Agreement.
The Secretariat operates as an autonomous organ of the African Union charged with implementing the decisions of the higher organs of the body in respect of the wide array of areas covered by the Agreement, ranging from industrialization to intellectual Property, and from trade in professional services to harmonization of standards for manufactured goods.
About Sankoree Institute
An affiliate of the AfroChampions Initiative and other leading pan-African institutions, the Sankoree Institute brings together many of Africa's most passionate and eminent leaders, thinkers, and doers to reimagine all the best paths to a strong, globally influential, integrated, and prosperous Africa .
Sankoree leads the charge in experimentation, exploration, prototyping and execution of the best ideas resulting from robust, rigorous, and action-oriented dialogue, analysis and design-thinking
In Libya’s frontline city of Sirte, parts of which still lie in ruins, the commission set up to oversee warring rivals ’recent ceasefire has put its name on a large downtown conference center - an outward sign of its commitment to peace.
So far the ceasefire is holding, and some elements of the truce have been implemented: flights between rival cities Tripoli and Benghazi have summarized and foreign fighters have left oil facilities - the keys to Libya’s economy.
But meetings of the Joint Military Commission in northern Libya, attended by five officers each from the two sides, have yet to make progress on other key demands of a U.N.-brokered agreement, underlining its fragility.
The rivals in a civil war that has left thousands dead and the country in chaos have yet to withdraw troops from frontline positions, open a major coastal road linking Sirte to Misrata and rid their ranks of foreign mercenaries.
“The danger won’t end unless the process of national reconciliation is completed,” said Mohammed Mofteh, 33, the head of a charity in Sirte, summing up widespread public skepticism about permanent peace.
Since the internationally recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) drove Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA) back from the capital Tripoli in June, the shooting has given way to political jostling.
The U.N.-led diplomatic effort has set a roadmap to elections at the end of next year and implemented an audit of the central bank, which is split between the sides.
The 75 participants in a U.N.-led political dialogue, which is separate from the military commission’s work, also have a Dec. 24, 2021 election date. But they have not agreed on a unified transitional government needed to oversee the vote.
Progress in those political talks slowed when they turned to the question of who would be on the new presidential council and the prime minister, said Hamad al-Bandaq, an eastern-based member of parliament who took part.
“We reached a stumbling block, which is the choice of who will be in the presidential council and government,” he said.
Beyond the GNA and LNA's involvement in the peace process, their foreign backers - Turkey in the case of the GNA and Russia, the UAE and Egypt in the case of the LNA - also support it, although they, too, have invested heavily in the conflict.
Some of their military and economic interests could be lost or reversed under a new unified government.
Situated near Libya’s main oil terminals, and seen as the gateway to the OPEC producer’s “oil crescent”, Sirte - now under the control of the LNA - was a major prize in the civil war.
Its domed Ouagadougou Conference Center, an undamaged part of which is now the Joint Military Commission headquarters, serves as a reminder of what is at stake.
The biggest building Muammar Gaddafi gave to his hometown, the center hosted the 2009 African Union summit. But it is pitted with bullet and shrapnel marks from a battle in the 2011 uprising that toppled the former leader.
After Islamic State seized Sirte in 2015, its black flag was painted onto the center. Today a new banner for the commission hangs where GNA and LNA negotiators hash out details of their October ceasefire.
They have pledged to remove foreign mercenaries from Libya by late January, pull forces back from forward positions and open the road across frontlines.
But U.N. acting Libya envoy Stephanie Williams last week told the Security Council the GNA was still patrolling, the LNA setting up new fortifications and both sides landing cargo planes at bases they have used to resupply.
A Western diplomat focused on Libya said the two sides had asked for only limited outside monitoring of the ceasefire - a sign they may not plan new withdrawals until the political situation is clearer.
In Sirte, queues of up to 50 cars at petrol stations point to the hardships of life near the frontline. Living conditions in Tripoli and the eastern center of Benghazi this summer led to widespread protests.
Williams has said this public frustration will aid the push for a deal. The U.N. process helped resolve an eight-month LNA blockade of oil exports which aggravated economic problems in both east and west.
The third strand of talks beyond the military commission and the political process is economic negotiations. There, too, the tussle, particularly over the National Oil Company and Central Bank of Libya, continues.
President Roch Marc Christian Kabore will serve another five years as Burkina Faso’s leader, according to preliminary results announced by the National Independent Electoral Commission.
“Mr Kabore… with 57.87 percent of the vote, is provisionally elected president of [Burkina] Faso in the first round,” Newton Ahmed Barry, head of the commission, said on Thursday.
Kabore vowed on Thursday to strengthen dialogue in his troubled country after the landslide victory in his bid for a second term.
“I will deploy all my efforts so that through continuous consultation, through dialogue… we can work together for peace and development,” he said at his party’s headquarters in the capital Ouagadougou.
Some analysts had expected a closer contest in the election held on Sunday between Kabore, who was elected in 2015, and his 12 rivals, who argued he had failed to contain armed groups and ethnic violence.
The voting process was marred by threats of attacks by armed groups linked to al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS) which operate across vast swathes of Burkina Faso amid an escalating security situation in West Africa’s Sahel.
Last year, the conflict killed some 2,000 people in Burkina Faso. More than one million Burkinabe people have been displaced by the fighting.
Kabore received 1.6 million votes of the nearly three million cast, with voter turnout at 50 percent, Barry said.
The opposition had hoped to split the vote and deprive Kabore of the 51 percent needed for an outright victory and then form a coalition behind the strongest candidate for round two.
But leading candidate, Eddie Komboigo, head of the Congress for Democracy and Progress, received 15 percent and the other leading rival, Zephirin Diabre, from the Progress and Change Party, who lost to Kabore during the previous election, received approximately 12 percent.
The opposition has accused the governing party of foul play, including bribery.
The process was “riddled with fraud” and the electoral commission was not up to the task of organizing responsible elections, Tahirou Barry, an opposition candidate, told a news conference.
The electoral body, though, has dismissed such claims and an international observer mission gave the election a mostly clean bill of health.
The opposition has seven days to appeal the vote. It was not immediately clear if they would.
The African Union and the Economic Community of West African States, a regional bloc, said appeals should be made through legal avenues in a “calm environment and especially to avoid violence,” Makuza Bernard, who led the AU delegation, told The Associated Press.
Civil society organizations say the president will need to work harder in his second term to unite an increasingly divided country.
“He should make sure that promises not met during the last five years will be met in order to alleviate social discontent. The social discontent is not only happening in big towns but that is happening more and more in the countryside, ”Chrysogone Zougmore, president of the Burkinabe Movement for Human Rights, a local advocacy group, told AP.
Ahmed Idris, reporting from Abuja in Nigeria, said the indication is that the opposition do intend to challenge the results.
“So the biggest question for most Burkinabes is how far will the opposition go. Are they going to call on their supporters onto the streets of Ouagadougou and other cities around the country? ” he said.
“[Some] believe that it will give the opportunity to armed groups to attack targets in Burkina Faso, despite the fact that the election passed peacefully without any major incident or attack from any of the armed groups that have been bothering the country for the last five years. ”
The United Nations has raised alarm over shortages that have become “very critical” in Ethiopia’s Tigray, as Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announces a “final phase” of the three-week conflict in the embattled region.
Tigray’s population of six million remains sealed off and its capital is under threat of attack by Ethiopian forces seeking to arrest the regional leaders.
Fuel and cash are running out, more than a million people are displaced and food for nearly 100,000 refugees from Eritrea will be gone in a week, according to a new report released by the UN overnight on Thursday.
More than 600,000 people who rely on monthly food rations have not received them this month, the global body said.
Travel blockages are so dire that even within Tigray’s capital, Mekelle, the UN World Food Program cannot gain access in order to transport food from its warehouses there.
Communications add travel links remain severed with the Tigray region since the deadly conflict broke out on November 4.
Human Rights Watch is warning that “actions that deliberately prevents relief supplies” violate international humanitarian law.
More than 40,000 refugees from Tigray have crossed the border into Kassala, one of the most impoverished regions of Sudan, which itself is one of the world’s poorest countries.
Analysts and international aid agencies warn that Sudan urgently needs assistance in order to be able to help those desperately fleeing Ethiopia.
“A larger influx would have very dangerous economic repercussions for Sudan,” said Sudanese economist Mohamed el-Nayer.
“We need the international community to urgently intervene economically and help provide food, shelter and medicines to those refugees. If not, Sudan’s economy will be over-burdened. ”
Al Jazeera’s Malcolm Webb, reporting from Kenya’s Nairobi, said: “Civilians have been caught up in this conflict so far.”
“The Ethiopian government’s human rights commission has said that more than 600 civilians were killed in an attack that took place two weeks ago in a massacre that it says was carried out by a Tigray militia,” he said.
"Both sides have been accused of killing civilians but both sides have denied targeting civilians."
Abiy on Thursday ordered Ethiopia’s army to launch a final offensive against Tigray’s leaders in Mekelle, saying the window for their surrender had expired.
Abiy’s government set a 72-hour ultimatum on Sunday for the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) forces to lay down its arms or face an assault on Mekelle, the highland regional capital city of 500,000 people.
“The Ethiopian National Defense Forces have now been directed to conclude the third and final phase of our rule of law operations,” Abiy said in a statement on Twitter.
“In this final phase, great care will be given to protect innocent civilians from harm. All efforts will be made to ensure that the city of Mekelle, which was built through the hard work of our people, will not be severely damaged. ”
A Seoul court on Thursday sentenced the ringleader of the Nth Room - one of the biggest online sex trafficking rings ever discovered in South Korea - to 40 years in prison, falling short of the life sentence demanded by prosecutors.
The Seoul Central District Court found Cho Ju-bin guilty of violating laws to protect minors from sexual abuse and of operating a criminal ring to make profits by producing and selling abusive videos, the Yonhap news agency reported.
“The accused has widely distributed sexually abusive content that he created by luring and threatening many victims,” the court said.
The Nth Room ran on the encrypted messaging service Telegram and the perpetrators used private information - sometimes collected illegally from local government offices - to blackmail dozens of women and children into performing sexually explicit acts on camera, with thousands of users paying cryptocurrency to watch.
At least 74 women, including 16 teenagers, were ensnared in what authorities called “virtual enslavement” between May 2019 and February 2020.
The discovery of the ring sparked a national outcry, with millions of Koreans signing petitions urging authorities to release Cho's identity and investigate not only the ringleaders but also those who participated in the network, paying as much as 1.5 million won ($ 1,360) to view the abusive videos and images.
The punishment fell short of a life sentence sought by prosecutors last month who cited irreparable damage done to his victims. One of the victims said in a petition that Cho and his co-conspirators were evil and deserved to be jailed for 2,000 years.
Police have said at least 124 suspects have been arrested and 18 operators of chat rooms on Telegram and other social media, including Cho, imprisoned following investigations into similar sexual crimes that have been under way since late last year.
In April, the National Assembly passed a string of laws to make digital sex crimes easier to prosecute. Under the new law, those who possess, buy, store or watch illegally filmed sexual content can be sentenced to a maximum of three years in prison or 30 million won ($ 24,660). Before the new legislation was enacted, it was not illegal to possess such content.
Extreme heat is a serious hazard to people’s health. It affects the cardiovascular system and is particularly dangerous for the elderly and people with pre-existing health conditions.
Recent research has found that since the 1950s, extreme heat has become more frequent and severe, and lasted longer, in nearly all regions of the world. The biggest increases have been seen in the Middle East, South America and parts of Africa.
Because societies in different parts of the world have adapted to varying average temperatures, there’s no universal definition of what temperature range qualifies as extreme. For instance, in the UK temperatures above 25⁰C are rare whereas the Indian Meteorological Service only considers temperatures above 40⁰C as hot.
But almost everywhere thresholds are now more frequently exceeded and for more days at a time.
More worrying is that climate projections show that such heatwaves over the African continent will become hotter and more dangerous, even if global warming is kept below 1.5 ° C. Particularly strong increases in extreme heat are foreseen over Eastern and Southern Africa.
Bearing in mind changes in populations, the number of people exposed to dangerous heat in African cities is expected to increase at least 20-fold by the end of the century. Yet extreme heatwaves aren’t systematically monitored in many countries in the sub-Saharan Africa region.
As we explain in a recent paper, this means the effects of extreme heat are under-reported - putting even more people in harm’s way.
In most countries in sub-Saharan Africa there are no early warnings and no heat action plans. Unnecessary, premature deaths aren't counted. And there are very few adaptation efforts for the fastest growing hazard in a changing climate.
Gaps in the records
There’s a near-complete absence of reported heatwave events over sub-Saharan Africa in disaster databases. The largest of these databases, EM-DAT, lists technological and environmental disasters across the world. It records events like earthquakes and oil spills and their impact on lives, livelihoods and economies.
EM-DAT lists only two heatwaves in sub-Saharan Africa since 1900. These have led to 71 recorded premature deaths. By contrast, 83 heatwaves were recorded in Europe over the last 40 years alone. Other inventories of weather-related disasters contain similarly stark discrepancies.
Heatwaves in Africa are not reported by governments, weather services or public health agencies, although they are obviously happening. Exposure and vulnerability to extreme weather is also more pronounced in many sub-Saharan African countries when compared with European countries. This is mainly due to higher poverty levels, informal settlements and the need for outdoor work.
Hence, there’s likely to be an even larger number of premature deaths from severe heat. But they have never been registered, so the number is unknown.
Reporting and observing
A lack of reporting on deaths associated with heatwaves means there’s little awareness that extreme heat can be deadly. It was only after the 2003 European heatwave killed more than 70,000 people that countries and cities began to plan for such times.
The Indian city of Ahmedabad implemented a heatwave plan after an extremely hot and deadly pre-monsoon season in 2010. This resulted in the country reporting fewer deaths after an even more intense heatwave in 2015.
This type of planning is impossible if heatwaves aren’t recorded.
Heatwaves are possibly unreported as they may occur along with other extreme weather events such as droughts.Shutterstock
Since heatwave mortality is rarely reported in sub-Saharan Africa, we don’t know the precise temperature thresholds that result in heat-related mortality. Yet this information is crucial for local communities to adapt.
One reason for this uneven reporting of extreme heat lies in which entities report the impact of extreme weather. In most developed countries, national governments provide numbers about affected people, mortality rates and even economic losses for extreme weather events. But for many lower-income countries, these reports are provided by different NGOs as an unsystematic by-product of their disaster relief work.
Reporting standards differ depending on the NGO and usually have little or no connection to meteorological services. There’s no central place that records the nature of the event and its impact.
Another reason heatwaves aren’t reported could be that they might occur in combination with droughts. They can often lead to food insecurity and humanitarian crises. So most observations and response mechanisms developed by NGOs and governments are tailored to the adverse outcomes of drought.
What needs to be done
In our paper we identified several key areas where improvements can occur quickly.
First, early warning systems and heat action plans can be beneficial. At first they might have to be based on information from other countries with similar climates. More analysis of historical periods of extreme heat in sub-Saharan Africa from a purely meteorological standpoint can help to build a useful definition of heatwaves for the region and improve warnings.
Second, collaborations between local researchers, hospitals and epidemiologists can identify direct health impacts of extreme heat. There have been successful pilot projects in Ghana and The Gambia.
Heatwaves are killers. But relatively simple measures such as opening public buildings to provide cool rooms, distributing free drinking water, informing people about the dangers of heat and early warning can reduce the danger dramatically.
Combining data with local expertise, the effects of heatwaves can be understood and future risks minimised even though the hazard itself is increasing.
