Deutsche Telekom Women’s STEM Award 2021 for Female STEM graduates worldwide (3,000 euros in prize money)

 Application Deadline: 14th March 2021

For the eighth time, Deutsche Telekom praises the Women's STEM Award. STEM graduates from all over the world can submit their thesis with focus on one of the strategic growth areas: Cloud, Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, Cyber ​​Security and Networks of the Future. The best thesis will be awarded 3,000 euros. In addition, each innovative topic will be awarded 500 euros.

requirements

Bachelor, Master and Diploma theses can be submitted. Deutsche Telekom will not accept PhD, seminar papers, technical or similar work.

Students and graduates of STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) are entitled to take part. Your thesis can be written in English or German. The thesis has been submitted within the last 18 months. Furthermore, a CV and form document have to be handed in. Those documents should be written either in English or in German.

Only theses without non-disclosure notes can be submitted. If your work contains a non-disclosure note, we need a written approval by the co-operating company with whom you prepared your thesis. Please be secure that your work is only read by the jury. If we publish press texts in which your thesis is mentioned, we will check it with you in advance.

Benefits

First prize: 3,000 Euros, additional prizes: 500 Euros

Click here to apply: https://bit.ly/2Vj10Co

Old Mutual GAP IT Trainee Programme 2020 for young Nigerians

 Application Deadline: December 11th 2020 

Old Mutual is a premium African financial services organization that offers a broad spectrum of financial solutions to retail and corporate customers across key market segments in 14 countries.

Role overview

·Our Tech Talent Incubator is aimed at graduates and postgraduate IT students seeking invaluable work experience and exposure in our IT business.

Young Tech Talent will have the opportunity to use cutting-edge technology to deliver results for our customers while earning certification in current and emerging technologies.

·Opportunities are available to graduates across our various Pan-African businesses - South Africa, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Nigeria and Malawi.

Be part of Old Mutual IT

· We drive innovation and leverage technology to deliver a better customer and intermediary experience.

· We aim to transform our wonderful Old Mutual brand through Technology and the development of Tech Talent.

What we offer

• An opportunity to acquire hand on technical experience across our various disciplines - Data Science, Cloud, DevOps, SecOps and Software Engineering.

• Rotational opportunities may be available depending on your area of ​​expertise.

• An opportunity to earn certification in current and emerging technologies

• Your voice is important to us and we will provide engagement platforms and tools to encourage meaningful dialogue.

• A great culture based on diversity and inclusion that forms a strong foundation of our values.

• Continuous coaching and development opportunities

Do you qualify to apply?

• Are you aged 26 or younger?

• Are you a Nigerian citizen?

Click here: vhttps: //bit.ly/2KW4rNH

World Bank Group Summer Internship Program 2021 for young Professionals (Paid Internship)

 Application Deadline: January 31st 2021

The World Bank Internship Program (BIP) offers highly motivated individuals an opportunity to be exposed to the mission and work of the World Bank. The internship allows individuals to bring new perspectives, innovative ideas and research experience into the Bank's work, while improving skills in a diverse environment. In addition, it is a great way to enhance CVs with practical work experience.

Internships are available in both development operations and other business units (such as Human Resources, Communications, Accounting, etc.) however, availability during a given internship term is based on business need.

Eligibility Criteria

To be eligible for an Internship, candidates must have an undergraduate degree and be enrolled in a full-time graduate study program (pursuing a master's degree or PhD with plans to return to school full-time). There is no age limit.

Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of languages ​​such as: French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Portuguese, and Chinese is desirable. Other skills such as computing skills are advantageous.

Benefits

The WB pays an hourly salary to all Interns and, where applicable, provides an allowance toward travel expenses up to USD 3,000 at the discretion of the manager.

These travel expenses can only include transport expenses (airfare) to or from the duty station city. Interns are responsible for their own accommodations. Driven by business needs, most Intern positions are based in Washington, DC with a few others in the WB country offices. Usually, internship opportunities are for a minimum of four weeks.

Click here to apply:  https://bit.ly/2HW7gNx

Moderna asking US, European regulators to OK its virus shots

 Moderna Inc. said it would ask U.S. and European regulators Monday to allow emergency use of its COVID-19 vaccine as new study results confirm the shots offer strong protection - ramping up the race to begin limited vaccinations as the coronavirus rampage worsens.

Multiple vaccine candidates must succeed for the world to stamp out the pandemic, which has been on the upswing in the U.S. and Europe. U.S. hospitals have been stretched to the limit as the nation has seen more than 160,000 new cases per day and more than 1,400 daily deaths. Since first emerging nearly a year ago in China, the virus has killed more than 1.4 million people worldwide.

Moderna is just behind Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech in seeking to begin vaccinations in the U.S. in December. British regulators also are assessing the Pfizer shot and another from AstraZeneca.

Moderna created its shots with the U.S. National Institutes of Health and already had a hint they were working, but said it got the final needed results over the weekend that suggest the vaccine is more than 94% effective.

f 196 COVID-19 cases so far in its huge U.S. study, 185 were trial participants who received the placebo and 11 who got the real vaccine. The only people who got severely ill - 30 participants, including one who died - had received dummy shots, said Dr. Tal Zaks, the Cambridge, Massachusetts, company’s chief medical officer.

When he learned the results, “I allowed myself to cry for the first time,” Zaks told The Associated Press. “We have already, just in the trial, have already saved lives. Just imagine the impact then multiplied to the people who can get this vaccine. "

Moderna said the shots ’effectiveness and a good safety record so far - with only temporary, flu-like side effects - mean they meet requirements set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for emergency use before the final-stage testing is complete. The European Medicines Agency, Europe’s version of FDA, has signed it also is open to faster “conditional” clearance.

WHAT COMES NEXT

The FDA has pledged that before it decides to roll out any COVID-19 vaccines, its scientific advisers will publicly debate whether there’s enough evidence behind each candidate.

First up on Dec. 10, Pfizer and BioNTech will present data suggesting their vaccine candidate is 95% effective. Moderna said its turn at this “science court” is expected exactly a week later, on Dec. 17.

INITIAL RATIONING DOSES

If the FDA allows emergency use, Moderna expects to have 20 million doses ready for the U.S. by year’s end. Recipients will need two doses, so that's enough for 10 million people.

Pfizer expects to have 50 million doses globally in December. Half of them - or enough for 12.5 million people - are earmarked for the U.S.

Shipments are set to begin to states within 24 hours of FDA clearance. And this week, a different panel of U.S. experts, established by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, will meet to decide how those initial supplies will be given out. They’re expected to reserve scarce first doses for health care workers and, if the shots work well enough in the frail elderly, for residents of long-term care facilities.

As more vaccine gradually becomes available in coming months, other essential workers and people at highest risk from the coronavirus would get in line. But enough for the general U.S. population isn’t expected until at least spring.

Outside the U.S., Zaks said significant supplies from Moderna would be available later, “in the first quarter” of next year.

“Obviously we are doing everything in our power to increase the capacity and accelerate the timelines,” he said.

Britain’s government said Sunday it has ordered 7 million doses from Moderna.

The U.K. also has ordered 40 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, although it’s not clear how much of the companies ’limited December supply could go toward that order - if British health authorities clear the shots. Still, British hospitals are gearing up to receive some doses as early as next week.

Both Moderna’s and Pfizer’s vaccines are made with the same technology, using a piece of genetic code for the “spike” protein that studs the virus. That messenger RNA, or mRNA, instructs the body to make some harmless spike protein, training immune cells to recognize it if the real virus eventually comes along.

ASTRAZENECA CONFUSION

AstraZeneca and Oxford University last week announced confusing early results of their vaccine candidate from research in Britain and Brazil.

That vaccine appears 62% effective when tested as originally intended, with recipients given two full doses. But because of a manufacturing error, a small number of volunteers got a lower first dose - and AstraZeneca said in that group, the vaccine appeared to be 90% effective.

Experts say it's unclear why the lower-dose approach would work better and that it may just be a statistical quirk.

A larger U.S. study of the AstraZeneca candidate still is underway that should eventually give the FDA a better picture of how well it works. The FDA has said any COVID-19 vaccine would have to be at least 50% effective.

Meanwhile Britain’s government will have to decide whether its U.K. data is sufficient for an early rollout there.

STILL IN THE PIPELINE

Johnson & Johnson also is in final-stage testing in the U.S. and several other countries to see if its vaccine candidate could work with just one dose.

Both the J&J and AstraZeneca vaccines work by using harmless cold viruses to carry the spike protein gene into the body and prime the immune system.

The different technologies have ramifications for how easily different vaccines could be distributed globally. The AstraZeneca shots won't require freezer storage like the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.

Candidates made with still other technologies are in late-stage testing, too. Another U.S. company, Novavax Inc., announced Monday that it has finished enrolling 15,000 people in a late-stage study in Britain and plans to begin recruiting even more volunteers for final testing in the U.S. and Mexico "in the coming weeks."

Vaccines made by three Chinese companies and a Russian candidate also are being tested in thousands of people in countries around the world.

Top secret: Biden gets access to President’s Daily Brief

 Joe Biden has had his first look as president-elect at the President’s Daily Brief, a top secret summary of U.S. intelligence and world events - a document former first lady Michelle Obama has called "The Death, Destruction, and Horrible Things Book."

Biden has already had eyes on different iterations of the so-called PDB, which is tailored to the way each president likes to absorb information.

More than a decade ago, Biden read President George W. Bush’s PDB during Biden’s transition into the vice presidency. After that, I have read President Barack Obama’s PDB for eight years. Beginning Monday, after a four-year break, he’s reading President Donald Trump’s PDB.

“The briefers will almost certainly be asking Biden what he prefers in terms of format and style,” said David Priess, author of “The President’s Book of Secrets,” a history of the PDB. "At a minimum, they’re seeing what seems to resonate most with him so that when they make the book his book, they can tailor it to him."

Obama’s PDB was a 10- to 15-page document tucked in a leather binder, which he found waiting for him on the breakfast table. Later in his presidency, I liked reading the ultra-secret intelligence brief on a secured iPad.

"Michelle called it" The Death, Destruction, and Horrible Things Book, "Obama wrote in his recently released book," A Promised Land. "

"On a given day, I might read about terrorist cells in Somalia or unrest in Iraq or the fact that the Chinese or Russians were developing new weapons systems," Obama wrote. “Nearly always, there was mention of potential terrorist plots, no matter how vague, thinly sourced, or unctionable - a form of due diligence on the part of the intelligence community, meant to avoid the kind of second-guessing that had transpired after 9 /eleven."

From now until Inauguration Day, Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will be reading the PDB crafted for Trump, who had delayed giving Biden and Harris access to it as he contests the outcome of the election.

Trump, who prefers absorbing information in visual ways, likes short texts and graphics.

“Trump himself said during his campaign and during the transition in 2016 that he did not like reading long documents - that he preferred bullet points,” said Priess, who has not seen any of Trump’s PDBs. “It probably has charts, tables, graphs - things like that. Not the parody that people make that’s like a cartoon book… but something that is more visual. But we don't know for sure. "

The written brief, which Trump doesn’t always read, often is followed by a verbal briefing with an intelligence official, although those oral briefings stopped at least for a time in October. Priess said he didn’t know why they stopped or if they had resumed, but that they stopped at a time when Trump was spending much of his time on the campaign trail.

Before Trump authorized Biden to get the PDB as president-elect, Biden was given some intelligence background briefings as a candidate. But they were more general and did not include the nation’s top secrets.

The other thing that a president-elect gets is a briefing “on CIA’s covert actions,” former acting CIA director Mike Morell said at an event hosted by the Center for Presidential Transition based in Washington. "It’s important for the president-elect to get this briefing… because on Inauguration Day, these covert actions will become the new president’s."

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy read his first brief while sitting on the diving board of a swimming pool at his retreat in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. President Lyndon Johnson liked to read his brief in the afternoon. President Richard Nixon relied on his national security adviser Henry Kissinger to peruse the briefs and tell him what he thought the president should know.

As the laborious recount of ballots dragged on in 2000, President Bill Clinton decided that then-Gov. George W. Bush should get access to his PDB just in case he was the winner. Bush became the first incoming president to read it before he was president-elect.

Biden is getting the PDB later than usual because of Trump’s ongoing protest of the election results. Trump approved the briefings for Biden last Tuesday, a day after his administration approved the formal transition process to his successor.

When Biden walks into the Oval Office, he’ll be inheriting nuclear threats from North Korea and Iran, changing political dynamics in the Middle East, the winding down of America’s presence in Afghanistan and rising competition from China.

Biden had access to the PDB in Wilmington, Delaware. Harris received it in a secure room at the Commerce Department, where the presidential transition offices are located.

Even Biden, who has decades of experience in foreign policy, could be the victim of an old political adage that no matter how informed he thinks he is, he could learn otherwise from the PDB.

Former CIA Director Michael Hayden wrote in his book that revelations and new insight found in the PDB are known as “aw s—” moments. As in: “Aw s—,” he wrote, “wish we hadn't said that during that campaign stop in Buffalo.”

____

Source: AP

Americans face new COVID-19 restrictions after Thanksgiving

 Americans returning from Thanksgiving break faced strict new coronavirus measures around the country Monday as health officials brace for a disastrous worsening of the nationwide surge because of holiday gatherings over the long weekend.

Los Angeles County imposed a stay-at-home order for its 10 million residents, and Santa Clara County, in the heart of Silicon Valley, banned high school, college and professional sports and decreed a quarantine for those who have traveled more than 150 miles outside the county.

In Hawaii, the mayor of Hawaii County said trans-Pacific travelers arriving without a negative COVID-19 test must quarantine for 14 days, and even those who have tested virus-free may be randomly selected for another test upon arrival. New Jersey is suspending all youth sports.

"The red flags are flying in terms of the trajectory in our projections of growth," said California Gov. Gavin Newsom. "If these trends continue, we're going to have to take much more dramatic, arguably drastic, action."

Health experts had pleaded with Americans to stay home over Thanksgiving and not gather with anyone who didn’t live with them. Nevertheless, almost 1.2 million people passed through U.S. airports Sunday, the most since the pandemic gripped the country in March, and others took to the highways to be with family and friends.

Now they’re being urged to watch for any signs of illness and get tested right away if they experience symptoms.

Some families are already seeing the fallout from Thanksgiving gatherings.

Jonathan Eshnaur lugged his 32-inch TV to a Thanksgiving Day family gathering at his sister’s home in Olathe, Kansas, so he could watch football outside. He wore a mask and only went into her house for the prayer and to use the bathroom.

His father began feeling terrible that day and tested positive the next. His mother now is showing symptoms, and six others were exposed.

“I think we all have a tendency to think it won't happen to me,” said Eshnaur, a 34-year-old special education teacher. "But that is kind of the issue with these kinds of viruses is it does happen, especially when we have widespread community spread that is going on."

Priya Patel, 24, is isolating at her parents' home in San Antonio after visiting friends over the weekend and coming down with a sore throat.

Patel, who works in public health in New York City, said she had been careful, wearing masks in public and staying out of restaurants and bars. But she spent time at a friend’s home in Texas over Thanksgiving.

“I'm an extremely extroverted person, and there is just so much time I can spend with my parents at home,” said Patel, who will stay away from her parents, both of whom have preexisting medical conditions, and wear a mask inside their home for the next 14 days.

Health officials are urging people to remain vigilant until a vaccine becomes widely available, which is not expected to happen for at least a few months.

On Monday, Moderna Inc. said it will ask U.S. and European regulators to allow emergency use of its COVID-19 vaccine as new study results confirm the shots offer strong protection. Pfizer is also seeking approval for its vaccine and hopes to begin administering shots in the U.S. in December.

The virus is blamed for over 267,000 deaths and more than 13.4 million confirmed infections in the U.S. The country on average is seeing more than 160,000 new cases per day and over 1,400 deaths - a toll on par with what the nation witnessed in mid-May, when New York City was the epicenter.

A record 90,000 people were in the hospital with the virus in the U.S. as of Sunday, pushing many medical institutions to the limit.

West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice said hospitals across the state will reduce elective surgeries to ensure there is room for coronavirus patients. The number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 jumped 29% in the past week. In Kansas City, Kansas, hospital and nursing officials said they fear there will not be enough nurses to staff new hospital beds in the metro area if COVID-19 cases continue unchecked. Health officials on Monday added 4,425 confirmed infections and 87 hospitalizations to the state’s pandemic tally since Friday.

Rhode Island’s hospitals reached their COVID-19 capacity on Monday, the same day the state’s two-week pause took effect. Under restrictions announced by Gov. Gina Raimondo, some businesses will be required to shut down, while others are restricted. Residents are also asked to limit their social circles to people in their household.

"This will not be easy, but I am pleading with you to take it seriously," Raimondo said in a statement.

In suburban St. Louis, a hospital official warned that hospitalizations could double in two to three weeks if people don't quarantine after Thanksgiving gatherings. SSM Health DePaul Hospital in Bridgeton, Missouri, last week brought in a morgue trailer to store the dead, canceled elective surgeries and doubled up patients in rooms.

“We will be absolutely overwhelmed,” said Shelly Cordum, vice president of patient care services and chief nursing officer. "I can’t even imagine what we are going to be facing in three weeks if we stay on this path."

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s foremost infectious-disease expert, warned on ABC over the weekend that the country could see a “surge upon surge” of infections tied to Thanksgiving. And White House corononavirus task force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx told CBS that people who traveled should “assume that you were exposed and you became infected,” and get tested if they experience symptoms.

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Source: AP

Biden to name Nigerian-American Adewale Adeyemo as Deputy Treasury Secretary

 P Adewale “Wally” Adeyemo, a Nigerian-born attorney and former senior international economic adviser during the Obama administration, will serve as * deputy Treasury secretary under former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, who Biden plans to appoint to lead the Treasury Department *.

Adewale Adeyemo is currently the President of the Obama Foundation. He previously served as the first Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economics from 2015-2016, and Deputy Director of the National Economic Council. * He is 39 years old *. This will be the HIGHEST LEVEL a Nigerian-American has reached in the USA Government in the 244 years history of the United States of America.

FINANCE CALLS ON MANAGERS FOR GREATER RIGOUR

 The Secretary of State for Finance and the Treasury, Osvaldo João, Monday demanded greater rigor and discipline from public managers in the management of the funds, given the uncertainties surrounding the global economy.

Osvaldo João asked that each player review his / her role in managing the treasury and strengthen control measures to ensure their effectiveness, warning that the 2021 state budget does not allow for waste or deviations of any kind.

The Government official, who was speaking at the National Seminar on "Treasury Rules", promoted by the School of Administration and Public Policies (ENAPP), recalled that the organs of sovereignty are working relentlessly to combat all those who are trying to appropriate the resources of the State.

"In addition to the pressure to deviate, permanent technical training is required for those who execute the treasury. Manage better those who know best and make better decisions.

Those who execute requirements adopting practices subject to full scrutiny and understood by the community we serve - the people ", said Osvaldo João.

According to the official, who was addressing managers from the country's 18 provinces, including governors, the 2021 State Budget, under discussion in the National Assembly, faces great challenges due to uncertainties on a global scale, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, which could still be resented next year.

For this reason, I have called for a greater focus on cash management, whose executors must respond to the guarantee of expenditure and correspond with what is budgeted for.

The budget units, he continued, are responsible for the policies defined, but those making the payments have a duty to watch over the rules and procedures.

Angola came from a cycle of surpluses in 2018 and 2019 of 2% and 0.6% of GDP, respectively.

ANGOLA TAKES OVER OPEC ROTATING CHAIRMANSHIP IN 2021

 Angola was elected Monday to the rotating presidency of the Conference of Ministers of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), for the mandate of the year (2021).

The election took place during OPEC's 180th meeting, which was held by videoconference in Vienna, Austria.

Angola, which currently holds the vice-presidency of this body, will replace Algeria. The two countries had been elected to office in December 2019 in Vienna (Austria) during the 179th Meeting of the OPEC Conference of Ministers.

In addition to Angola's election to the rotating presidency of OPEC for 2021, this year's meeting is also presenting the action plan up to 2021, as well as the report of the 134th meeting of the economic commission.

Angola participates in this meeting with a delegation headed by the Secretary of State of the Ministry of Mineral Resources and Petroleum, José Barroso.

This Conference of Ministers is chaired annually and in alphabetical order, with the vice-president taking the lead the following year.

Angola already led OPEC in 2009, two years after joining the cartel (2007).

In that period, Angola was also the largest oil producer in Africa, with an estimated production of 1.9 million barrels per day.

The Republic of Angola was admitted as a full member of OPEC during its 143rd extraordinary conference held in Abuja, Nigeria, on 14 December 2006.

OPEC was founded on 15 September 1960. The current members of OPEC are Algeria, Angola, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Republic of Congo, Saudi Arabia (de facto leader), United Arab Emirates and Venezuela, Ecuador, Indonesia and Qatar.

ANGOLA RECORDS 88 RECOVERIES, 36 NEW INFECTIONS

 Angola has recorded, in the last 24 hours, 88 new recoveries from Covid-19, 36 new infections and two deaths, the Health authorities announced.

The information was released Monday evening in Luanda by the secretary of State for Public Health, Franco Mufinda.

Speaking at the daily Covid-19 update briefing, the official said the recoveries with ages from five to 56 years, were recorded in southwestern Namibe province (65) northern Uige (14) and southeastern when Cubango (03).

Other recoveries were recorded in eastern Moxico province (03), northeastern Lunda Norte (02) and central Benguela (01), the source said.

Accoding to Mufinda, the new positive cases of Covid-19 involve people with ages from 10 to 71 years, 21 males and 15 females, detected in the provinces of Luanda (19), northern Cabinda (11), central Cuanza Sul (05) and northern Malanje (01).

The dead are Angolan nationals of ages from 43 to 53 years, all resident in Luanda. One is a male and the other a female.

Angola’s Covid-19 figures show 15,139 positive cases, 348 deaths, 7,851 recoveries and 6,940 active patients.