SADC Journalism Award 2021 portrays issues of Angola's integration in SADC, in the domains of social, economic and political life.
SADC Journalism Award 2021 portrays issues of Angola's integration in SADC, in the domains of social, economic and political life.
Angola registered, in the last 24 hours, more 51 new cases and the recovery of 23 patients.
According to the national epidemiological bulletin that ANGOP had access to, 32 were diagnosed in Luanda, 11 in Huambo, 3 in Benguela, 3 in Zaire, 1 in Bié and 1 in Lunda Sul.
Among the new patients, whose ages range from 7 months to 75 years, 30 are men and 21 women.
Among those recovered, 8 are in Luanda, 8 in Uíge and 7 in Huambo.
The laboratories processed 1,168 samples based on molecular biology (RT-PCR).
Angola has a total of 20,261 positive cases, with 487 deaths, 18,710 recovered and 1,064 active. Of the active cases, 8 are critical, 6 serious, 75 moderate, 76 with mild symptoms and 899 asymptomatic.
In quarantine centres are 121 people under institutional quarantine, 165 are hospitalised and 1,914 are under epidemiological surveillance.
At least USD 60 million will be made available to the Angolan Government, by the World Food Bank (WFB), to finance the increase of agricultural production and food stability in the country.
The information was provided to the press this Thursday in Luanda, by the president of the World Food Bank, Richard Cackey, at the end of the meeting granted to him by the Angolan Head of State, João Lourenço.
"The Angolan president is being well referenced at world level," said Cackey, who noted the development registered by Angola over the last few years in the agri-industrial field.
Cackey said he intended to continue to help Angola to increase food production and growth of small farmers, via funding.
He said that the bank's investments in Angola over the next few years could reach up to USD 2 billion, in the areas of increasing food production and supporting small farmers, in order to ensure the country's food security.
Audience with the head of Rwandan diplomacy
Today, in another audience at the Presidential Palace, President Lourenço received the Rwandan Foreign Affairs Minister, Vincent Biruta, with whom he discussed bilateral issues.
The meeting also reviewed the current political, security and defence situation in the Great Lakes region.
The Angolan Head of State currently holds the rotating presidency of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR), of which both countries are members.
In the framework of bilateral cooperation, Angola and Rwanda have, among others, Agreements in the field of Civil Aviation and in matters of Security and Public Order.
Air Namibia (SW, Windhoek Int’l) has announced the cancellation of all its operations, effective February 11, as the country’s government is poised to announce its flag carrier’s voluntary liquidation.
In a late-night notice on social media, the 75-year-old airline announced that all its aircraft would be grounded. Its reservations system was suspended with no new bookings being accepted from February 11, 2021. Passengers have been advised to register claims for refunds.
Air Namibia spokesperson Twaku Kayofa told ch-aviation the government was expected to make an announcement on February 11 to explain its decision.
Kayofa confirmed that trade union representatives had informed the company’s 636 employees on February 10 that they would receive an ex gratia pay-out equal to 12 months of salary, but no benefits.
The government, the airline’s executive, and unions are to meet on Thursday to discuss the liquidation’s finer details. Cabinet has already approved the voluntary liquidation of the airline with a three-person board of directors now appointed to prevent the airline’s assets from being attached in case of failure to pay creditor Challengair (1I, Brussels National) its first instalment next week.
According to the Namibian Sun newspaper, the board includes lawyer Norman Tjombe, businesswoman Hilda Basson-Namundjebo, and economist James Cumming who will collectively assist interim CEO Theo Mberirua in running the company.
The decision to shutter the 75-year-old carrier follows the airline’s board’s resignation on February 3, after the government did not oppose an application in the Namibian High Court to have the airline liquidated. The application was made by the estate of former Belgian operator Challengair over outstanding payments on legacy debt of 1998 concerning the lease of a B767-300(ER). Lawyers representing both parties reached an 11th-hour out-of-court settlement on January 28 for EUR9.9 million (USD11.9 million), but without the government’s apparent support, who said it could not afford to bail out the airline, nor had it managed to find it a strategic equity partner. The first installment of EUR5 million (USD6 million) on the settlement was due on February 18. Kayofa told ch-aviation Challengair would join the list of creditors following liquidation.
Finance Minister Ipumbu Shiimi earlier said a turnaround plan for the cash-stricken flag carrier would cost taxpayers significantly more than NAD7 billion Namibian dollars (USD461.6 million), after already spending NAD8.4 billion (USD554 million) in the past 10 years to bail out the airline. He said Air Namibia had been loss-making since its inception, plagued by a flawed business model that rendered 15 out of its 19 routes unprofitable. A combination of the types of aircraft, routes, high employee numbers, and other structural inefficiencies had contributed to the financial distress of the company.
At the time of its collapse, Air Namibia’s fleet entailed four A319-100s (of which two are owned and two are leased from Deucalion Aviation Funds), two A330-200s (both leased from Castlelake), four EMB-135ERs (financially leased from HOP! (A5, Paris Orly) but unencumbered since October 2020), and one inactive B737-500 (owned). The Namibian government has been in contact with the lessors, Kayofa said.
Nearly a year ago when this COVID-19 crisis was taking hold, people across the world expressed outrage at the term “China virus”.
Nearly a year ago when this COVID-19 crisis was taking hold, people across the world expressed outrage at the term “China virus”.
It was important to condemn such divisive and, some said, racist language.
But a year later, after more than 2.3 million people across the world have died from the virus, the global economy has dived and education has been disrupted for an entire generation of children, I wonder if we have really learned our lessons.
Referring to the 501 V2 strain of COVID-19, which was first discovered in December here in South Africa, as the “South Africa variant” or “South Africa strain” is just as divisive.
This label apportions blame. It was discovered in South Africa because the country is leading in genome sequencing, just like with the variant in the United Kingdom. The global community is using the systems we are relying on to get out of this mess as a stick to beat us with, instead of championing them.
This label says loud and clear: South Africa is the source of a threat.
This label cares nothing for the nearly 50,000 lives lost in South Africa, for the majority of the population who have little to no access to healthcare. More than 40 percent of the continent’s total confirmed cases have been in South Africa.
Adding the fact that 20 percent of the population live with HIV, making them more vulnerable to the worst effects of the virus, COVID-19 has the potential to bring about South Africa’s biggest crisis since the end of apartheid in the early 1990s.
On top of this health emergency, through my work at Save the Children, I have seen the deep impact this crisis has had on the next generation.
Of course, we need restrictions to control the spread of the virus. Already in September the economy had taken a huge hit, with gross domestic product (GDP) plunging to its lowest in 13 years. The burden of this impact is felt by the poorest, widening social inequality in what was already the most unequal country in the world.
At the end of November, the country’s education minister confirmed that at least 300,000 primary-aged children had dropped out of school since March last year. The longer they stay out of school the harder it will be to get them to return, introducing not just barriers to future opportunities but a higher risk of child protection issues like increased child abuse at home.
Our country is in turmoil. But if you search for “South Africa” these days, the news is preoccupied with us as a threat, rather than another country traumatised.
Vaccine nationalism – which the WHO has called a “catastrophic moral failure” – is a very real concern. We are blamed for the global spread of this new variant, but when it comes to help in tackling it, South Africa and the wider continent have been, until far too recently, effectively hung out to dry. Through a bilateral deal, South Africa only received its first doses of the vaccine last week – two months after the UK. Our hopes have now been dashed again as the roll-out of AstraZeneca vaccines has been put on hold.
There has also been a lack of concern for what this strain means for other African countries which, having avoided the number of confirmed cases and deaths seen in other parts of the world during spring last year, have now recorded higher death rates with the recent second wave.
Many of these countries have far less capacity to deal with COVID-19. In Malawi, the surge in demand for oxygen coupled with a chronic oxygen undersupply is undermining the health system’s ability to cope with COVID-19 cases, as well as its ability to respond to other illnesses such as childhood pneumonia.
The COVAX initiative, which was set out to guarantee equitable access to vaccines, should be applauded. But a lack of financing coupled with higher income countries’ over-ordering of vaccine supplies continues to hinder its ability to roll out doses for the world’s poorest.
It’s time for people in the northern hemisphere to see the African continent as more than just the source of a problem. I ask people to think before they use the term “South Africa variant”. As we continue to wait for a vaccine that can protect our population – and ultimately the future of children – South Africa’s role in the global narrative should not be reduced to the source of a threat.
Believe me, we did not want this variant either.
A military offensive in Senegal’s southern region of Casamance has thrown separatist rebels on the back foot, raising the prospect that one of Africa’s oldest conflicts may finally end.
Thousands have died since the Casamance Movement of Democratic Forces (MFDC) began its fight for independence in 1982.
The poor region had returned to an uneasy calm in recent years.
But Senegal, supported by neighbouring Guinea-Bissau, suddenly launched an offensive on January 26, claiming the capture of several bases and forcing the rebels to fall back.
Several war-weary local residents told AFP that they welcomed the development.
“We very much wish for an end to the rebellion,” said Bailo Coly, who has been displaced by the conflict.
“It has done us a lot of harm, delaying the region by 50 years and creating social rifts.”
The conflict has rumbled on at a low level for several years, with occasional flareups.
In 2018, 14 young men were slaughtered in execution style-killings north of the regional capital Ziguinchor.
Senegal’s army says the latest operation aimed at stopping alleged rebel exactions on civilians and helping displaced people return home.
Another aim is to curb the illegal cannabis and timber trade, which Casamance separatists are thought to control.
Troops captured several simple tin and wood shelters from the rebels under the huge trees of the Blaze forest, which they said had served as bases.
Army officers led media, including AFP, on a tour of the captured bases and displayed dilapidated items they had captured, including mortars, rusty rifles and kitchen utensils.
An expert in Casamance politics, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said that the separatists had been badly outgunned.
But he also added that the MFDC is also losing its emotional appeal among locals.
“Those Casamancais who believe in independence have come to realise, little by little, that this is no longer straightforward,” the expert said.
Casamance, home to 1.9 million people, was once part of Portugal’s colonies in West Africa, along with what today is Guinea-Bissau.
Adding to this historical distinction is Casamance’s location.
It is almost separated from the rest of Senegal by The Gambia — a remoteness that fed into perceptions of discrimination by the government in far-off Dakar and helped create an independence movement that erupted into violence in 1982.
– Political firepower –
An MFDC fighter who fled to Guinea-Bissau after the offensive, and who requested anonymity, told AFP that the rebels were poorly equipped.
“We withdrew because we could not face the firepower of the Senegalese army,” he said.
The operation against the rebel forest bases began with artillery fire and ended with a ground offensive, which had air support, according to an army officer who requested anonymity.
As well as improved military capabilities, a realignment in West African politics may have played into Senegal’s hands.
The Gambia had long been accused of aiding the rebels, for example. But Gambian President Adama Barrow, who came to power in 2017, is considered close to Senegalese President Macky Sall.
Guinea-Bissau has faced similar accusations. But Umaro Sissoco Embalo, another ally of Sall’s, took office in the poor former Portuguese colony last year.
The expert in Casamance politics said it was Embalo’s ascent which proved “decisive”.
– ‘Ready to lay down arms’ –
The rebels are still believed to have bases in the Ziguinchor region and near the Gambian border.
Colonel Souleymane Kande, one of Senegal’s military commanders in Casamance, nonetheless said he thought some MFDC factions “are ready to lay down their arms”.
He added that soldiers would remain on the captured bases and any rebel exactions on civilians “will be viewed as a declaration of war.”
Solo Sima, a villager, told AFP he was “very happy” with the army’s operation.
“I find it hard to realise that the armed men are no longer there because we are so traumatised,” he said.
Edmond Bora, an 80-year-old former separatist leader, said he had tried, at the request of villagers, to convince the rebels to negotiate when the army began its offensive.
“We can’t continue to shoot each other (and continue) without negotiating for 40 years,” he said.
Writing in Le Quotidien newspaper this week, Senegalese political analyst Yoro Dia warned that peace is not guaranteed despite the military gains.
“The army won the war,” Yoro Dia said. “It is the politicians who are incapable of winning the peace”.
More children could be pushed into joining armed groups in conflict zones as families face increasing poverty due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a top United Nations official has warned.
The exact number of child soldiers is unknown, but in 2019 alone about 7,740 children – some as young as six – were recruited and used as fighters or in other roles by mostly non-state armed groups, according to UN data.
Speaking on International Day against the Use of Child Soldiers – or Red Hand Day – the UN Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict Virginia Gamba said that number was likely to rise as a result of coronavirus-related hardship.
“There is a real threat that as communities lack work and are more and more isolated because of the socioeconomic impact of COVID-19, we’re going to see an increase in the recruitment of children for a lack of options,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a video call.
“More and more children will be either attracted or sometimes told by their parents to just go and join because someone’s got to feed them.”
Girls and boys are still forced to join armed groups, as fighters or in roles such as cooks or for sexual exploitation, in at least 14 countries including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan and Somalia, the UN has said.
The UN called for a global ceasefire last year to help fight COVID-19, but armed groups have continued fighting and Gamba said the pandemic had also hampered efforts to protect children in conflict zones.
She said she was concerned about a surge in attacks by armed groups against children in the Sahel and Lake Chad region, including kidnappings, killings and forced displacement, noting that COVID-19 was changing these groups’ tactics.
As children are not in schools, “the target of attacking a school for abduction or recruitment of children … is shifting to where the children are,” she said.
The pandemic has also delayed progress on implementing legislation in different countries to prohibit and criminalise the recruitment and use of children by armed forces and groups, Gamba said, calling for legislators to prioritise the issue.
“The issue of accountability is fundamental,” she said.
But despite some worrying trends, progress on combating the use of child soldiers is being made, Gamba said.
In South Sudan, the number of violations against children including their recruitment as fighters has significantly declined over the past five years, according to her office’s annual report.
And last week, the International Criminal Court (ICC) convicted Dominic Ongwen, a commander of Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army rebels and former child soldier, of dozens of crimes including child abductions and murder.
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