The OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID) Internship Program 2021

 Application Deadline: unspecified 

The OPEC Fund offers an Internship Program enabling students from diverse academic backgrounds to experience work with an international organization.

Interns are assigned to different departments/units depending on their interests and qualifications, and according to departmental needs. The Internship Program offers opportunities to focus on one or more of the following: public sector operations; private sector and trade finance operations; grants; financial management; risk management; strategic planning and economic services; internal audit; human resources; administration; communication; legal services; and information technology.

Work assignments undertaken by interns may include:

Conducting research;
Writing documents;
Organizing information; and
Assisting employees with their day-to-day work.

Eligibility criteria

Applicants must be between 19 to 25 years of age and enrolled in an undergraduate program (having completed at least two years) or graduate program. Alternatively, applicants may be recent graduates, having graduated a maximum of one year before the application deadline.

Applicants must be:

Proficient in English. Knowledge of an additional language (e.g. French, Spanish, Arabic) is an asset;
Computer literate in standard software applications (Microsoft Office);
Keenly interested in the work of the OPEC Fund;
Able to demonstrate cultural awareness; and
Able to demonstrate the OPEC Fund’s core values (Integrity, Empowerment, Excellence, Innovation, Community).

Click here to apply: http://bit.ly/3cJlaPQ

ANGOLAN EMBASSY UNVEILS 4 DE FEVEREIRO EXHIBITION

 The Embassy of Angola to Portugal inaugurated last Thursday on its web page a virtual photo exhibition on the celebration of the February, 4  date of the beginning of the Armed Struggle for National Liberation.

Entitled “4 de Fevereiro a Mark of Our History” the displays shows defining moments of the journey that driven Angola from 1961 to the proclamation of the National Independence on 11 November 1975.

This exhibition that is to preserve and honor in a simple way the memory of the Angolan Homeland heroes is accompanied by a message of the Ambassador of Angola in Portugal Carlos Alberto Fonseca.

In a message the diplomat highlights the transcendent historic significant made by nationalists in the beginning and in the context of the armed struggle with wider range of the Portuguese colonies in Africa whose wars contributed to stimulate as well the collapse of the dictatorship and the colonialist system then in force.

COVID-19: ANGOLA RECORDS 50 RECOVERIES, 34 NEW CASES

 Angola has reported 50 recoveries, 34 new infections and one death in the last 24 hours.

According to the secretary of state for public health, Franco Mufinda, of the patients recovered, 21 live in Luanda, 17 in Huambo, 10 in Cuanza Sul and two in Benguela, aged between four and 86.

The deaths, he said, involved a 63-year old Angolan citizen.

Among the new infections, 21 were male and 13 female, with ages ranging from 11 months to 59 years, 26 were diagnosed in Luanda and eight in Huambo.

Angola has 20,030 positive cases, with 474 deaths, 18,431 recoveries and 1,125 active. Of the active, two are in critical condition, eight severe, 88 moderate, 87 with mild symptoms and 940 asymptomatic.

Laboratories processed 1,040 samples on a molecular biology basis, with a daily positivity rate of 3.3 percent.

At least 145 people are in institutional quarantine, 185 are hospitalized, and 2,025 are under epidemiological surveillance.

Luanda province has released three people from the institutional quarantine centres.

The Mental Health and Psychosocial Intervention Team assisted 31 people.

 

Tunisia demonstrators defy lockdown to protest police brutality

 Rally held to mark the anniversary of the 2013 killing of a prominent activist and to protest against police abuses.

Hundreds of protesters backed by Tunisia’s powerful labour union gathered in central Tunis on Saturday, defying a police lockdown that blocked roads in a large area of the capital.

The rally was held to mark the anniversary of the 2013 killing of a prominent activist and to protest against police abuses that demonstrators say have imperiled freedoms won in the 2011 revolution.

Riot police deployed cordons around the city centre, stopping cars and many people from entering the streets around Avenue Habib Bourguiba, a witness told Reuters news agency.

“I lived 10 years in freedom … I am not ready to lose it,” said Haytem Ouslati, a 24-year-old demonstrator. Protesters raised placards condemning police violence and chanted: “No fear. The street belongs to the people.”

Unlike previous marches in a wave of protests that have spread across Tunisia in recent weeks, Saturday’s rally was backed by the UGTT union, the country’s most powerful political organisation with a million members.

Samir Cheffi, a senior UGTT official, said the protest was needed to protect liberties. “Today is a cry of alarm to defend the revolution, to protect freedoms under threat,” he said.

Protests which began last month over inequality have increasingly focused on a large number of arrests and reports – denied by the Interior Ministry – of abuse of detainees.

Mohammed Ammar, a member of parliament for the Attayar party, said he had phoned the prime minister to protest against the closure of central Tunis.

Protesters chanted against the moderate Islamist Ennahdha party, a member of successive government coalitions, and reprised the Arab Spring slogan: “The people want the fall of the regime.”

Ten years after Tunisia’s revolution, its political system is mired in squabbling between the president, prime minister and the parliament as the economy stagnates.

While some Tunisians are disillusioned by the fruits of the uprising, others have decried a perceived erosion of the freedoms that democracy secured.

For some, the febrile climate has recalled the political polarisation after a suspected hardliner assassinated secular activist and lawyer Chokri Belaid in February 2013.

His death triggered a wave of protests in Tunisia that led to a grand bargain between the main Islamist and secular political parties to stop the country from sinking into violence.

“We won’t accept Tunisia becoming a barracks. We ask the president to intervene and protect freedoms,” said Naima Selmi, a woman in the protest.

Germany welcomes US troop withdrawal freeze under Biden

 The German government on Friday welcomed a decision by President Joe Biden to put on hold plans to reduce US troops in Germany, saying their presence was in the countries’ mutual interest.

“We have always been convinced that American troops being stationed here in Germany serves European and transatlantic security and hence is in our mutual interest,” German government spokesman Steffen Seibert told reporters.

As part of a major foreign and security policy overhaul presented Thursday, Biden announced a freeze on plans set in motion by his predecessor Donald Trump to reduce the US troop presence in Germany, a cornerstone of NATO security since the start of the Cold War.

Trump’s decision was seen as linked to his tense relationship with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and his frequent complaints that Europe’s top economy spent too little on defence.

The United States has had US troops stationed in Germany since World War II but their numbers have declined since the fall of the Berlin Wall from some 200,000 soldiers in 1990 to 34,500 today.

Although the prospect had been looming for years, Trump’s decision in July to redeploy 12,000 soldiers from Germany still came as a shock, particularly to towns that have built strong economic and cultural ties to the US military.

Two missing, one seriously hurt in France garage explosion

 An 89-year-old was seriously hurt and two other people are missing after an explosion in a garage in the French city of Bordeaux on Saturday, firefighters said.

Initial investigations suggest gas was the cause of the blast, which destroyed the garage as well as two neighbouring buildings and prompted around 50 firefighters to rush to the scene.

So far nine other people have been identified with minor injuries following the blast, while an 89-year-old is in a “serious condition”.

The two missing people are the garage mechanic and his partner.

“At the moment we’re worried that the number of victims will rise and that neighbouring buildings and those further away could be weakened and may collapse,” a spokesman for the firefighters said.

While gas supplies to the district have been cut, “we don’t know yet whether it was the gas network or canisters” that caused the explosion, said Eric Destarac, a spokesman for gas distribution company Regaz.

Firefighters had recovered some gas bottles from the garage, he added.

Ghana: Children, pregnant women with underlying health conditions will not be vaccinated

 The Director-General of the Ghana Standards Authority, Dr. Alexander Dodoo has revealed that children, pregnant women, people with allergies and underlying health conditions, and the aged will not be vaccinated against the novel coronavirus.

Ghana is expected to receive 19.5 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines by the end of June and according to Dr. Dodoo these vaccines will be given to people with strong immunity in order to reduce the spread of the virus in the country.

Speaking on JoyNews’ Newsfile Saturday, the Ghana Standards Authority boss said, “Normally for starters, children will not be included, they’re more protected and they’re not passing on the virus. Those with allergies, those with underlying health conditions, those whose immune system appears compromised will not be vaccinated.”

He explained that pregnant women will not be vaccinated because there is no scientific data to prove that the virus will be safe for them and their unborn babies when administered to them.

He however stated that a doctor could recommend for a pregnant woman to be vaccinated after measuring the risks and benefits of taking the vaccine.

“You have to look at her as an individual and judge from the potential benefits and the harm that you know can also happen and make a call,” he explained.

Dr. Alexander Dodoo further added that people with HIV/AIDS, those on Cancer treatment and the aged will also not be vaccinated.

He also told Ghanaians to expect side effects after taking the vaccine.

According to him, though the vaccine is safe, there will be some tolerable risks related to being vaccinated which the population should ready for.

He advised health practitioners to educate the general public on the need for the vaccine and its accompanying side effects in order to allay fears.

“We need to get the public ready not just for the vaccine but to also expect that the protection offered by the vaccine goes with some amount of risk. There will be side effects. And it’s not going to be 100% safe. It never happens. So we need to communicate that there will be a lot of benefits, but there will be an accompanying measurable amount of tolerable risk which the population should be ready for,” he said.

He told host, Samson Lardy Anyenini that, the deployment of the vaccines will be done using the government’s Expanded Programme for Immunisation (EPI) to reach all 238 districts of Ghana.

He, however, stated that churches and mosques may also be used as vaccination centres should there be a need to do so.

“Deploying vaccines may sound like a small issue, but just imagine about 238 districts in Ghana and having to ensure that every vaccine is kept at the temperature it should be kept.

“Also it must be given to people who are stated and then we follow up to ensure that they’re not damaged because, at the end of the day, safety becomes key.

“In the US they’re using FedEx to move vaccines around, they’re using pharmacies to deploy vaccines. In Ghana, it will be the usual system we have been using for EPI, the Expanded Programme for Immunisation but we cannot rule out the possibility that churches and mosques will be used as vaccination centres.”