Corona Voice Angola. The tok show with Sofonie Dala. Don't miss it! Day 10

 Our Corona Voice Show is on going. Day 10

This is the first and the only Coronavirus show in Angola where the most ordinary citizens show their brilliant talents.

Our today's guest is Augusta. She will recite a very motivational Covid-19 poem.

Ladies and gentlemen, please meet our poet Augusta!

"Covid-19, Covid-19"

You came and covered our smile with a mask.

But you also taught us the importance of a hug, a kiss and especially a smile.

Oh how I miss the smile of people on the streets. And not the seriousness of their depressing faces.

But this will pass and when it passes we will return, we will return, we will return to conviviality and fraternity.

We launched the “Corona Voice show” campaign to provide a space for young women and men around Angola to share their views, experiences and initiatives.

One of the main tasks of the show is to refute the saying "you can't help things with a word." The heroes of the program are the most ordinary citizens - they share with the audience their songs, poems and real stories of how the Coronavirus pandemic affected their lives.

Click here to watch free full webisodes: https://coronavoice-angola.blogspot.com/

Five years after Paris climate deal, world leaders to hold summit

 The virtual event, co-hosted by the UN, Britain and France, aims to rally momentum and call for greater climate action.

Leaders from around the world are due to attend a day-long Climate Ambition Summit online, where they are due to present the progress they have been making and the plans they have to protect the environment.

The event, which aims to rally momentum and call for greater climate action, falls on the fifth anniversary of the Paris climate agreement when nearly all countries pledged to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius above 1990 levels.

Iran executes dissident journalist Ruhollah Zam: State TV

 Iran has executed a once-exiled journalist over his online work that helped inspire nationwide economic protests in 2017, authorities have said.

Iranian state television, the state-run IRNA news agency and the semi-official Nour news agency all said Ruhollah Zam was hanged early on Saturday morning.

In June, a court sentenced Zam to death, saying he had been convicted of “corruption on Earth” – a charge often used in cases involving espionage or attempts to overthrow Iran’s government.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) at the time said his trials were “grossly unfair”.

Zam, who was captured in 2019 after years in exile, was executed four days after the Iranian Supreme Court upheld the death sentence against him that was earlier issued by a revolutionary court.

Zam’s website and a channel he created on the popular messaging app Telegram had spread the timings of the protests and embarrassing information about officials that directly challenged Iran’s government.  His Amad News feed had more than a million followers.

Those demonstrations, which began at the end of 2017, represented the biggest challenge to Iran since the 2009 Green Movement protests and set the stage for similar mass unrest in November of last year.

Zam was also accused of being party to the destruction of property, interfering in the country’s economic system, working with the United States government, spying for French intelligence, and “spying for the intelligence service of a country in the region”.

“This individual committed criminal and corrupt acts against the security and livelihoods of the Iranian people through running the antagonist Amad News Telegram channel and espionage communication with elements linked with foreign services that are against the Iranian people’s security,” wrote Mizan, the official news website of the judiciary.

According to Mizan, during his trials Zam confessed to leading the 2017 unrests which led to “a number of our compatriots losing their lives due to the terrorist acts of mercenary elements linked with foreigners” and he confessed to being one of the founders of a council of 29 “regime change” media outlets.

Authorities also accused Zam of being in direct contact with agents from the US National Security Agency and other foreign intelligence services.

SOURCE : AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

COVID-19: ANGOLA REPORTS 100 NEW INFECTIONS, 43 RECOVERIES

 Angolan health authorities announced Saturday the registration of 100 new infections, 43 patients recovered and one death, in the last 24 hours.

According to the Secretary of State for Public Health, Franco Mufinda, who was speaking at the country's usual Covid-19 update session, 26 new cases were diagnosed in Lunda Norte, 25 in Luanda, 23 in Lunda Sul, 14 in Huambo, five in Namibe, three in Uige, the same number in Zaire and one in Moxico.

The list of new patients, whose ages range from 11 to 80 years old, is composed of 65 men and 35 women.

It was reported that 43 patients, 21 in Luanda, the same number in Moxico and one in Zaire, aged between 15 and 78 years old, were recovered.

In relation to the death, Franco Mufinda said that it was a 46-year old Angolan man.

Angola has a record of 16,161 cases, with 366 deaths, 8,841 recovered and 6,954 active people.

Of the active cases, six are in a critical state with invasive mechanical ventilation, eight severe, 78 moderate, 139 with mild symptoms and 6,723 asymptomatic.

The health authorities follow up 231 patients admitted to treatment centres in the country.

RULING PARTY SLAMS VANDALISM TO AGOSTINHO NETO STATUE

 Angola’s ruling MPLA party’s Politburo Friday in Luanda strongly condemned the vandalism and insult committed by some youths to the statue of the first Angolan President, Agostinho Neto, at 1º de Maio Square, in Luanda.

In a note that reached Angop, the ruling MPLA party says the humanist and intellectual dimension of Agostinho Neto, local and internationally recognised, must be respected by all Angolans.

“Agostinho Neto is the highest reference of the modern Angolan nationalism and of the national liberation movement and an undeniable landmark of our journey towards the construction of an independent, united, developed, democratic and inclusive Angola, the reason why MPLA expresses total repudiation of the vile and infamous behaviour adopted against the Angolans’ collective memory,” the note reads.

To MPLA, the expressive expansion of the spaces of freedom of expression of opinion and political manifestation promoted by the Executive should not serve to cover up acts that disrespect the national symbols and endangers the political stability and reconciliation among Angolans.

The ruling party also warns the organisers and instigators of this kind of anti-social attitudes and behaviours for the consequences of their acts within the limits of the Constitution and the law.

MPLA urges the authorities concerned to take measures to hold criminally responsible the authors of the acts that insult the figure of the National Hero, and exhorts the Angolan youth not to let being instrumentalised by the enemies of peace, reconciliation and national unity.

In its note, the party recommends the youths that while exercising their free and sovereign right to demonstrate, they should abide by a responsible citizenship based on the respect for the difference and political tolerance, by calling on the living forces of the society to work together in the construction  of a developed, democratic and inclusive Angola.

The demonstration, the third staged in Angola’s capital between November and December, started at Santa Ana cemetery, down to 1º de Maio Square.

COVID-19: ANGOLA RENEWS PUBLIC CALAMITY SITUATION

 The country starts this Saturday, 12, until 10 January 2021 its seventh period of Public Calamity Situation, in force in Angola since last May, aiming at the control of Covid-19.

The government decreed, in advance, new preventive measures against the Covid-19 pandemic.

Despite the fact the current trend is a decrease in cases, the authorities have called on citizens in general to obey the measures set in place by the government.

According to the new decree, the wearing of mask is still compulsory in public places and Luanda Province continues to be under cordon sanitaire.

According to the new measure, markets can now open five days a week (Tuesday to Saturday), from six in the morning to 03.00 pm.  Convenience shops and supermarkets are to operate their business from 07.00 am to 09.00 pm.

In the same ambit, activities and meetings held in closed-circuit must happen only with 50 per cent of the venue’s capacity, higher than that requires unequivocal permission from the authorities.