Anatomy of Action Challenge by Sofonie Dala - Angola. Day 7

 How we MOVE - Keep Active

Dear Game Changers, it is day 7!

We have covered FOOD and STUFF! Now it's time to keep active and move mindfully.

 According to scientists, cutting our mobility carbon footprint is one of the most effective ways to meet the 1.5°C target set by the Paris Agreement.

Did you know that walking three hours per week can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease by 16%? It's time to promote people powered transport for ourselves and the planet! 

If you can't walk, bike or skate to wherever you're going, think about public transport, sharing, and cleaner options to reduce your transport footprint.

If you’re looking for inspiration on how to participate in the challenge, think of these facts: 

Transport accounts for around one-fifth of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Road travel is responsible for three-quarters of transport emissions. Most of this comes from passenger vehicles – cars and buses (45.1%) – as well as from trucks carrying freight (29.4%). Aviation accounts for 11.6%. 

On average, air pollution shortens human life by 2.2 years. Daily exposure affects our respiratory, cardiovascular and defence systems.

Public transportation in Angola

It is so good more public transportation, but needs good Maintenance and needs spare parts available, needs good technicians for maintenance. 

Unfortunately we do not have so many buses available in the country, they are always full and do not provide any comfort and it is dangerous to enter this public transport during this period of covid-19.

We will explore and share efforts to #KeepActive, #ShareYourRide and #GoCleaner. 

World Bank Group Winter Internship Program 2022 for young Professionals (Paid Internship)

Application Deadline: October 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

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/3A4RdBL

COVID-19: ANGOLA WITH 527 NEW CASES, 7 DEATHS

Luanda – Health authorities reported Saturday 527 new cases, 7 deaths and 39 recoveries, according to the daily bulletin.

The source states that 489 new cases were detected in Luanda, 11 in Huambo, 10 in Cuanza Norte, 7 in Cabinda, 6 in Zaire, 2 in Huíla and 2 in Namibe.

The list, which includes patients aged 2 months to 82 years, has 244 men and 283 women.

Deaths were recorded in Luanda, with 5, Cuanza Norte 1 and Huambo also 1.

Among those recovered, 15 are residents in Huambo, 13 in Namibe, 7 in Luanda, 3 in Huíla and 1 in Moxico.

In the last 24 hours, the laboratories have processed 5,559 samples, with a daily positivity rate of 9.5 percent.

In the internment centers there are 319 patients, 123 in institutional quarantine and 4,648 contacts of positive cases are under epidemiological surveillance.

The country’s global tally stands at 58,603 infections, 1,574 deaths, 48,118 recoveries and 8,911 active patients.

Amputee national football team

Huambo – Angola’s pre-national team for the African Cup of football for amputees, to be played on November 25 - December 5, in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), includes five debutants compared to the group that won the previous edition, Benguela '2019.

They are goalkeeper António Maria from Misto do Cuanza Norte, defenders Francisco Amaro (1 de Junho de Viana), Paciência Félix and Marcelino Alfredo (both from Misto de Viana) and forward Lucas Fungulo (03 de Dezembro do Moxico).

Still, in the pre-team summoned Saturday by the national coach, Baptista Chieto, after the end of the National Championship, won by Misto do Huambo, also features goalkeeper Sebastião Cacumba (Misto do Huambo) and striker José José Candieiro (Misto do Huambo) and Alberto Adelino (Misto do Viana).

Check below de list:

Goalkeepers: José Mateus (1 Junho de Viana), Augusto Lilito (03 Dezembro do Moxico), Sebastião Canjuloca (Misto do Huambo) and António Maria (Misto do Cuanza Norte).

Defenders: Celestino Elias (Misto do Huambo), Francisco Amaro (1 de Junho de Viana), Paciência Félix (Misto de Viana), Rocha Manuel and Manuel Dingate (Misto de Benguela).

Midfielders: Laurindo Lucamba (Misto do Huambo), Hilário Kufula (Misto de Benguela), Jesus Morais (Misto de Viana), Marcelino Alfredo (Misto de Viana) and Neves Sonhi (3 de Dezembro do Moxico).

Forwards: José Candieiro (Misto do Huambo), Sabino António Joaquim and Lucas Elias Fungula (3 de Dezembro do Moxico), Heno Guilherme (1 de Junho de Viana), Francisco João (Misto do Cuanza Norte),João Chiquete and Catarino de Carvalho, who evolve in Turkey.

The team will meet on the 9th, in Luanda, for the first phase of preparation until the 23rd.

From the 24th of October to the 14th of November, the second phase of preparation will take place in Benguela, and a training is scheduled for 15 - 24 November, in South Africa.

Trump asks US judge to force Twitter to restore his account

NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump has asked a federal judge in Florida to force Twitter to restore his account, which the company suspended in January following the deadly storming of the U.S. Capitol.

Trump’s attorneys on Friday filed a motion in U.S. District Court in Miami seeking a preliminary injunction against Twitter and its CEO, Jack Dorsey. They argue that Twitter is censoring Trump in violation of his First Amendment rights, according to the motion.

Twitter declined to comment Saturday on Trump’s filing.

The company permanently banned Trump from its platform days after his followers violently stormed the Capitol building to try to block Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s presidential win. Twitter cited concerns that Trump would incite further violence. Prior to the ban, Trump had roughly 89 million followers on Twitter.

Trump was also suspended from Facebook and Google’s YouTube over similar concerns that he would provoke violence. Facebook’s ban will last two years, until Jan. 7, 2023, after which the company will review his suspension. YouTube’s ban is indefinite.

In July, Trump filed lawsuits in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida against all three tech companies and their CEOs, claiming that he and other conservatives have been wrongfully censored. The motion for a preliminary injunction was filed as part of Trump’s case against Twitter.

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Kenyan President Kenyatta exposed by ‘Pandora Papers’ on secret offshore accounts

Hundreds of world leaders, politicians, celebrities and religious leaders have been using offshore accounts to shield assets collectively worth trillions of dollars.

Hundreds of world leaders, powerful politicians, billionaires, celebrities, religious leaders and drug dealers have been hiding their investments in mansions, exclusive beachfront property, yachts and other assets for the past quarter-century, according to a review of nearly 12 million files obtained from 14 firms located around the world.

The report released Sunday by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists involved 600 journalists from 150 media outlets in 117 countries. It’s being dubbed the “Pandora Papers” because the findings shed light on the previously hidden dealings of the elite and the corrupt, and how they have used offshore accounts to shield assets collectively worth trillions of dollars.

The more than 330 current and former politicians identified as beneficiaries of the secret accounts include Jordan’s King Abdullah II, former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, Czech Republic Prime Minister Andrej Babis, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, Ecuador’s President Guillermo Lasso, and former associates of both Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

METIN AKTAS/ANADOLU AGENCY VIA GETTY IMAGES

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta was one of many prominent politicians identified as beneficiaries of secret offshore accounts, according to a bombshell investigation called the “Pandora Papers.”

The billionaires called out in the report include Turkish construction mogul Erman Ilicak and Robert T. Brockman, the former CEO of software maker Reynolds & Reynolds.

Many of the accounts were designed to evade taxes and conceal assets for other shady reasons, according to the report.

“The new data leak must be a wake-up call,” said Sven Giegold, a Green party lawmaker in the European Parliament. “Global tax evasion fuels global inequality. We need to expand and sharpen the countermeasures now.”

Oxfam International, a British consortium of charities, applauded the Pandora Papers for exposing brazen examples of greed that deprived countries of tax revenue that could be used to finance programs and projects for the greater good.

“This is where our missing hospitals are,” Oxfam said in a statement. “This is where the pay-packets sit of all the extra teachers and firefighters and public servants we need. Whenever a politician or business leader claims there is ‘no money’ to pay for climate damage and innovation, for more and better jobs, for a fair post-COVID recovery, for more overseas aid, they know where to look.”

The Pandora Papers are a follow to a similar project released in 2016 called the “Panama Papers” compiled by the same journalistic group.

The latest bombshell is even more expansive, porting through nearly 3 terabytes of data — the equivalent of roughly 750,000 photos on a smartphone — leaked from 14 different service providers doing business in 38 different jurisdictions in the world. The records date back to the 1970s, but most of the files span from 1996 to 2020.

In contrast, the Panama Papers culled through 2.6 terabytes of data leaked by one now-defunct law firm called Mossack Fonseca that was located in the country that inspired that project’s nickname.

The latest investigation dug into accounts registered in familiar offshore havens, including the British Virgin Islands, Seychelles, Hong Kong, and Belize. But some of the secret accounts were also scattered around in trusts set up in the U.S., including 81 in South Dakota and 37 in Florida.

Some of the initial findings released Sunday painted a sordid picture of the prominent people involved.

For instance, the investigation found advisers helped King Abdullah II of Jordan set up at least three dozen shell companies from 1995 to 2017, helping the monarch buy 14 homes worth more than $106 million in the U.S. and the U.K. One was a $23 million California ocean-view property bought in 2017 through a British Virgin Islands company. The advisers were identified as an English accountant in Switzerland and lawyers in the British Virgin Islands.

ALEX BRANDON VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS

King Abdullah II of Jordan set up at least three dozen shell companies from 1995 to 2017, helping the monarch buy 14 homes worth more than $106 million in the U.S. and the U.K., according to the newly released “Pandora Papers” investigation.

There was no immediate comment from Jordan’s Royal Palace.

The details are an embarrassing blow to Abdullah, whose government was engulfed in scandal this year when his half brother, former Crown Prince Hamzah, accused the “ruling system” of corruption and incompetence. The king claimed he was the victim of a “malicious plot,” placed his half brother under house arrest and put two former close aides on trial.

Abdullah took power in 1999 after the death of his father, King Hussein.

U.K attorneys for Abdullah said he isn’t required to pay taxes under his country’s law and hasn’t misused public funds, adding that there are security and privacy reasons for him to have holdings through offshore companies, according to the report. The attorneys also said most of the companies and properties are not connected to the king or no longer exist, though they declined to provide details.

Blair, U.K prime minister from 1997 to 2007, became the owner of an $8.8 million Victorian building in 2017 by buying a British Virgin Islands company that held the property, and the building now hosts the law firm of his wife, Cherie Blair, according to the the investigation. The two bought the company from the family of Bahrain’s industry and tourism minister, Zayed bin Rashid al-Zayani. Buying the company shares instead of the building saved the Blairs more than $400,000 in property taxes, the investigation found.

The Blairs and the al-Zayanis both said they didn’t initially know the other party was involved in the deal, the probe found. Cherie Blair said her husband wasn’t involved in the purchase, which she said was meant to bring “the company and the building back into the U.K. tax and regulatory regime.” A lawyer for the al-Zayanis said they complied with U.K. laws.

In 2009, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis put $22 million into shell companies to buy a chateau property in a hilltop village in Mougins, France, near Cannes, the investigation found. The shell companies and the chateau were not disclosed in Babis’ required asset declarations, according to documents obtained by the journalism group’s Czech partner, Investigace.cz.

A real estate group owned indirectly by Babis bought the Monaco company that owned the chateau in 2018, the probe found.

“I was waiting for them to bring something right before the election to harm me and influence the Czech election,” Babis tweeted in his first reaction to the report.

The Czech Republic parliamentary election is being held on Friday and Saturday.

“I’ve never done anything illegal or wrong,” Babis added.

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Liedtke reported from San Ramon, California, and Mattise reported from Nashville, Tennessee.

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