Before we close June - #AlbinismDay: United in making our voice heard on June 29, 2022

 People with albinism face multiple forms of discrimination worldwide

On June 13, 2022, we marked the International Albinism Awareness Day with the theme "United in making our voice heard". This data seeks to dispel the erroneous beliefs and myths that put the security and lives of persons with albinism at constant risk.

Our guest is called Future, he talked about his lifestyle, and also commented on important dates such as the Africa's year of Nutrition and the international day of the African child.

Good afternoon young man!

Good Afternoon! Thank you.

What's your name?

My name is Future.

Given that this year we are celebrating the Africa's year of nutrition and, on June 13th we mark the international day of albinism and finally on June 16th we celebrate the international day of the  African child.

We would like to know your thoughts on these dates that aim to raise awareness and mobilize people to take positive actions towards people with albinism.

Thank you very much, it is a pleasure to talk about these dates. Starting with the 13th of  June, the albinism in the Angolan context, we can say that there are still a lot of taboos in Angola, many people cannot deal with albinism in the midst of their families. But this issue is gradually being overcome. However, some people still take negative attitudes because they don't know the true concept of albinism.

In general, this is a very commemorative date in Africa, for example we can include some typical foods in the albinism diet. Now I'm going to link the dates.

Speaking about the nourished Africa, as you can see, I really like to eat grilled food, this satisfies me, I also really like calulu, it is a typical Angolan dish made up of nutrients such as okra, vegetables and herbs such as Jimboa (similar to spinach), aubergine and other nutrients that help us deal with some of our skin problems. That's how my day-to day has been.

In this way I would recommend some people of my blood group to opt for this type of diet that does not harm us but makes us stronger. This is very good!

Talking about June 16th, the International Day of the African Child, I would like to appeal to parents to educate and encourage their children not to discriminate against albinos, not to take negative practices against this group of people. Because in the end these negative attitudes don't help at all. But if we start from a good education, the albino will be treated well not only in Angola, but throughout the world.

That's why it's a pleasure to talk about it as I said at the beginning, it's also a pleasure to have you here. For today that's all.

Thank you very much!

People with albinism face multiple forms of discrimination worldwide. Albinism is still profoundly misunderstood, socially and medically. The physical appearance of persons with albinism is often the object of erroneous beliefs and myths influenced by superstition, which foster their marginalization and social exclusion. This leads to various forms of stigma and discrimination.

Consequently, in the realm of development measures, persons with albinism have been and are among those “left furthest behind.” Therefore, they ought to be targeted for human rights interventions in the manner envisioned by the Sustainable Development Goals.

2022 Theme - United in making our voice heard

The theme was chosen: 

because including voices of persons with albinism is essential to ensure equality #Inclusion4equality; 

to celebrate how groups of persons with albinism and individuals increase the visibility of persons with albinism in all domains of life; 

to encourage and celebrate unity among groups of persons with albinism; 

to amplify the voices and visibility of persons with albinism in all areas of life;

 to highlight the work being done by albinism groups around the world.

What is albinism?

Albinism is a rare, non-contagious, genetically inherited difference present at birth. Due to a lack of melanin in the skin and eyes, persons with albinism often have permanent visual impairment. They also face discrimination due to their skin colour; as such, they are often subject to multiple and intersecting discrimination on the grounds of both disability and colour.

NATO allies agree to meet or exceed defense spending of 2% of GDP for the first time

 THIS JUST IN – US President Joe Biden has announced that NATO allies have, “for the first time,” begun spending the required 2% of GDP on defense with Germany and the Baltic states going beyond that minimum.

At a press conference in the Spanish capital of Madrid, Biden emphasized that Russia’s war on Ukraine has united NATO in a way that Vladimir Putin did not anticipate.

Biden pointed out that “Putin wanted the ‘Finlandization’ of NATO but instead received the ‘NATOlization’ of Finland,” meaning rather than triggering NATO members to feel less committed to the Alliance like Finland, the opposite effect of NATO absorbing Finland has been achieved.

Observers believe the Russia/Ukraine war has become somewhat of a brinkmanship between NATO and Russia. what makes it interesting is that while NATO member states face pressure from their citizens due to high cost of living, Putin faces no such pressure at home due to the autocratic regime he presides over.

DNT News, Madrid

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Internet Cut In Sudan’s Capital Ahead Of Pro-Democracy Protests

 Internet services were cut in Sudan’s capital Khartoum on Thursday ahead of pro-democracy protests, a Reuters reporter said, the first time for months that web access had been blocked in the lead-up to rallies.

The protests mark the third anniversary of huge demonstrations during the 2019 uprising that overthrew long-time autocratic ruler Omar al-Bashir and led to a power-sharing arrangement between civilian groups and the military.

Last October, military leaders toppled the transitional government in a coup, triggering mass rallies that have called on the military to quit politics and continued for more than eight months.

After the military takeover, there were extended internet blackouts in an apparent effort to hamper the protest movement.

Staff at Sudan’s two private sector telecoms companies, speaking on condition of anonymity, said authorities had ordered them to shut down the internet once again on Thursday.

Security forces also closed bridges over the Nile between Khartoum and its twin cities of Omdurman and Bahri, another step taken on big protest days to limit the movement of marchers.

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Tesla Closes An Office As Layoff Hits Autopilot Jobs, Including Hourly Ones

 Tesla (TSLA.O) has shuttered its office in San Mateo, California and laid off roughly 200 employees working on its Autopilot driver-assistant system there, one of the people told Reuters, in a move seen as accelerating cost-cutting.

Most of the laid-off people had been hourly workers, that person said.

Early this month, Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk told top managers he had a “super bad feeling” about the economy and that the maker of electric cars needed to cut staff by about 10%. read more

Later, the billionaire said that the 10% cuts would apply only to salaried workers and that hourly staff numbers were still expected to grow.

“Tesla clearly is in a major cost-cutting mode,” said Raj Rajkumar, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. “This (staff reduction) likely indicates that 2Q 2022 has been pretty rough on the company due to the shutdown in Shanghai, raw material costs and supply chain problems.”

Anti-pandemic measures in Shanghai have depressed Tesla’s production there.

The laid-off person who spoke to Reuters said employees at the satellite office had previously been told that they would move to an office in Palo Alto in stages beginning this month after the San Mateo lease expired. But most of the workers were laid off on Tuesday.

“It was definitely kind of numbing,” he said. “Yeah, we’re definitely shocked; we’re definitely blindsided.”

Some workers expected Tesla to shift some of the jobs to lower-wage workers in Buffalo, New York, to save costs.

Tesla did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Many people in Tesla’s San Mateo office work on data annotation – reviewing and labeling various visuals collected from Tesla vehicles to teach the cars’ Autopilot system how to handle certain kinds of road scenarios.

A number of Tesla data annotation employees said on Linkedin on Tuesday that they had been laid off.

“So kind of a disappointing day today. Myself along with almost the whole San Mateo Branch at Tesla just got laid off,” Caeser Rosas, a data annotation specialist, said on a Linkedin post.

Bloomberg first reported about the San Mateo job cuts.

Musk has also said Tesla’s new factories in Texas and Berlin are “gigantic money furnaces” losing billions of dollars.

Source: Reuters

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Women’s Africa Cup Of Nations 2022 – Group A

 

The 12th Women’s Africa Cup of Nations kicks off in Morocco on 2 July.

Africa’s four qualifiers for next year’s Women’s World Cup will be decided at the tournament, which culminates with the final on Saturday, 23 July.

Here, BBC Sport Africa runs the rule over Group A, which includes hosts Morocco, Senegal, Uganda and debutants Burkina Faso.

Group A fixtures

Saturday, 2 July: Morocco v Burkina Faso (Rabat)

Sunday, 3 July: Senegal v Uganda (Rabat)

Tuesday, 5 July: Burkina Faso v Senegal, Uganda v Morocco (Rabat)

Friday, 8 July: Morocco v Senegal (Rabat), Burkina Faso v Uganda (Casablanca)

Morocco

Back at the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (WAFCON) after a 22-year absence and eyeing a maiden Women’s World Cup spot, Morocco have their status as host nation to thank for their automatic qualification.

The North Africans appeared at the first finals in 1998, when they had their best run – amassing four points and their only win to date (a 4-1 victory over Egypt) – but missed the knock-out stages on goal difference before falling away after their second trip to the finals in 2000.

In 2020, a four-year women’s football development programme was introduced, one that helped AS FAR – who contribute over half the squad – become zonal champions before winning bronze in last year’s Women’s African Champions League.

The side has also been boosted by the 2020 arrival of French coach Reynald Pedros – a two-time European Women’s Champions League winner with Lyon – who has hit the ground running, enjoying a 12-match unbeaten streak against African sides.

The 2020 North African champions have played a host of games in the past year, stunning Cameroon in September at the 2021 Aisha Buhari Cup where they also beat Ghana and Mali among others.

They have an admirable array of talent including AS FAR duo Sanaa Mssoudy and Ghizlane Chebbak (daughter of former men’s international Larbi Chebbak), and Dijon midfielder Salma Amani, who boasts 18 years of experience in Europe.

Burkina Faso

Burkina Faso are the best-ranked of the four nations debuting at WAFCON this year and arrive with a squad where all but two players are based on home soil.

Not the first team that comes to mind when one thinks of Africa’s strongest football nations, the Stallions – aided by some big-name absentees – are nonetheless among the finals’ best eight sides according to the Fifa rankings.

Following his impactful takeover in November, coach Pascal Sawadogo – the founder and handler of multiple cup winner Etincelles – will rely on captain Charlotte Millogo, star striker Juliette Nana, 21, and Morocco-based Limata Nikiema to cause a stir.

Having shone for Belarus’ Neman Grodno with 22 goals in 25 league games, Nana will be one to watch in a side who knocked out Benin (5-2 agg) before sweeping past Guinea-Bissau (7-0 agg) to reach their first finals.

Senegal

After 10 years away, Senegal are back on the continental stage and looking to improve on their sole previous showing in 2012 when they scored none and conceded seven.

After beating Liberia in the first round of qualifying, the Teranga Lionesses upset none other than Mali, who had reached the 2018 WAFCON semi-finals, to ensure their second appearance.

The qualification via a penalty shoot-out rewarded Senegal’s investment in the women’s game, with the nation also recently reaching the final round of the African qualifiers for the Under-20 Women’s World Cup.

After taking charge in early 2020, Mame Moussa Cisse – excelling this time, after a failed attempt to qualify in 2016 – will be counting on France-based trio Safietou Sagna, Marseille playmaker Awa Diakhate and Nguenar Ndiaye.

Domestic Senegalese women’s football has been growing recently, with last season’s double winners, US Parcelles Assainies (USPA), providing eight of the squad, including striker Hapsatou Malado Diallo, who is just 16.

Uganda

The East African nation may be the second lowest-ranked team in the competition (156th), but they reached Morocco after shocking Ethiopia before being gifted a return ticket thanks to Kenya’s withdrawal.

In what will be their second WAFCON appearance, but a first in 22 years, the Crested Cranes will be guided by experienced coach George Lutalo.

He took over as manager last September and edged them past the Ethiopians on penalties – a result ultimately good enough to take them to WAFCON and one which came weeks after crashing out early after being invited to the 2021 Cosafa Women’s Cup.

Lutalo, who handles local league side Onduparaka, has proved his mettle and his charges enter on a high after winning the Cecafa Cup just weeks ago, beating fellow WAFCON debutants Burundi 3-1 in the final on home soil on 11 June.

Overseas-based players like Finland-based goalkeeper Ruth Aturo, Kazakhstan Women’s Cup winner Fauzia Najjemba, just 18, plus Rita Kivumbi and forward Violah Nambi, based in Sweden and Austria respectively, will be key to a positive display.

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N.Korea May Be Behind New $100 Mln Cryptocurrency Hack, Experts Say

 North Korean hackers are most likely behind an attack last week that stole as much as $100 million in cryptocurrency from a U.S. company, three digital investigative firms have concluded.

The cryptoassets were stolen on June 23 from Horizon Bridge, a service operated by the Harmony blockchain that allows assets to be transferred to other blockchains.

Since then, activity by the hackers suggests they may be linked to North Korea, which experts say is among the most prolific cyber attackers. U.N. sanctions monitors says Pyongyang uses the stolen funds to support its nuclear and missile programmes.

The style of attack and high velocity of structured payments to a mixer – used to obscure the origin of funds – is similar to previous attacks that were attributed to North Korea-linked actors, Chainalysis, a blockchain firm working with Harmony to investigate the attack, said on Twitter on Tuesday.

That conclusion was echoed by other investigators.

“Preliminarily this looks like a North Korean hack based on transaction behaviour,” said Nick Carlsen, a former FBI analyst who now investigates North Korea’s cryptocurrency heists for TRM Labs, a U.S.-based firm.

There are strong indications that North Korea’s Lazarus Group may be responsible for this theft, based on the nature of the hack and the subsequent laundering of the stolen funds, another firm, Elliptic, said in a report on Thursday.

“The thief is attempting to break the transaction trail back to the original theft,” the report said. “This makes it easier to cash out the funds at an exchange.”

If confirmed, the attack would be the eighth exploit this year – totalling $1 billion in stolen funds – that could be attributed to North Korea with confidence, accounting for 60% of total funds stolen in 2022, Chainalysis said.

North Korea’s ability to cash in on its stolen assets may have been complicated by the recent drop in cryptocurrency values, experts and South Korean officials told Reuters, possibly threatening a key source of funding for the sanctions-strapped country.

Source: Reuters

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Nigerian gay asylum seekers among deportees from UK

 The authorities in Nigeria say they are expecting to receive at least 38 Nigerians who are being deported from the United Kingdom.

The deportees include members of LGBTQ+ communities who had sought asylum in the UK.

Others are mothers, grandmothers and people who had lived in the UK for decades.

They are scheduled to arrive in Lagos early on Thursday morning on a controversial Home Office charter flight.

There are indications some Ghanaian nationals who are also being deported might be on the flight.

Nigeria’s foreign affairs ministry told the BBC that the affected persons were being sent back to the country because of immigration-related offences.

Human rights campaigners in the UK say they are concerned about the welfare of the deportees.

They say about 10 women among the deportees are suffering from severe mental health problems and are on anti-psychotic medication.

Campaigners believe some of the affected persons could face persecution – either because of their religion or on the basis of their sexual orientation.

On Wednesday protesters gathered in County Durham in north-east England to demand that they remain in Britain.

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