MPLA leader calls for party’s high voter turnout in 2022 elections

Huambo – MPLA president João Lourenço appealed to his party for a massive vote in the August elections, to ensure the continuity of solving the population's problems.

The leader of the ruling party in Angola launched the appeal at the mass  rally held in central Huambo province, as part of his two-day visit started Friday to the region.

João Lourenço stressed the need to carry on the construction of ongoing projects so that, in the next term, "his government can do much more than what is being done now".

He promised more work in the near future on building more schools, hospitals, housing, provide more energy and clean water for populations, for industries, as well as offering more jobs.

Also, President of the Republic, João Lourenço added that the Executive is working to give more space to the private sector, making it the main responsible not only for the production of goods and services, but also responsible for the supply of jobs.

He informed that since 2018, the Angolan Executive has generated 430,000 jobs in different sectors of the economy.

According to the MPLA leader, through the Informal Economy Reconversion Programme (PREI), about 155,000 Angolans left the informal economy, moving to the formal economy, thus managing to earn a living and their daily bread in a more decent way.

He also highlighted the gains of the Programme for Supporting Production, Diversification of Exports and Substitution of Imports (PRODESI) and the Action Plan for the Promotion of Employability (PAPE).

He mentioned that during the last four years the Executive has guaranteed technical-professional training to just over 260,000 citizens, mostly young people, and launched them into the job market.

Public service salary increase

To reduce the cost of living and increase the purchasing power of citizens, João Lourenço recalled that the State reduced the Value Added Tax (VAT) from 14 to 7 percent, as well as increased the value of the minimum wage and the salary of Public function.

Fighting price speculators

During his speech, the leader of the MPLA said that the Executive stormed the price speculators in an intelligent way, guaranteeing a Strategic Food Reserve, that is, guaranteeing a greater supply of essential goods with prices controlled by the Executive, which forced speculators to lower prices.

refineries

He announced that, starting this year, the country will start producing 30,000 barrels a day of oil transformed into diesel, gasoline and other refined products.

He also announced the start-up, in 2025, of the Soyo Refinery, which will refine at least 100,000 barrels of crude oil per day, and the increase in the production capacity of the Luanda Refinery.

In 2025, the country will be producing at least 160,000 barrels of crude oil,  being 60,000 in Cabinda and 100,000 in Soyo, revealed the President of the Republic.

Huambo Stadium

The MPLA leader ended his speech with the announcement of the construction of a football stadium in Huambo province.

"Huambo has a football tradition, we all know the great glories of football in this province", he concluded.

Tucker Carlson’s “Replacement” conspiracy motivates mass minority murder in Buffalo

The suspected shooter expressed repeated fears online that whites are being replaced by people of color, The New York Times reported.

The suspect in the fatal shooting of 10 people at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket Saturday was reportedly haunted in his writing by the “great replacement” conspiracy theory — a viciously racist view of the world that has been touted by Fox News host Tucker Carlson and several other far-right personalities.

Payton S. Gendron, who is white, repeatedly returned to the conspiracy in his 180-page online manifesto that white Americans are at risk of being replaced by people of color by immigration, interracial marriage and eventually violence, The New York Times reported Saturday. Almost all of the victims in the mass shooting were Black.

Gendron, 18, referred to “racial replacement” and “white genocide” in his writings, according to the Times. The first page included a symbol known as the sonnenrad, or black sun, which was once used by German Nazis but has been adopted by white supremacist neo-Nazis, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

In an interview on CNN Saturday night, Rep. Brian Higgins (D-N.Y.), who represents Buffalo, called the mass shooting part of a planned, “organized” effort to attack the minority community within an “element in our society that is blatantly racist, and they’re violent.”

The horrific crime “points to an effort to exact domestic terrorism that is racially motivated,” he added. “That threat to our community in Buffalo and western New York is a threat to the nation.”

This is a “problem that’s pervasive and growing,” he warned.

“This was pure evil,” Erie County Sheriff John Garcia said of Gendron, who traveled some 200 miles from his home in Conklin, New York, to carry out the attack. “A straight-up racially motivated hate crime.”

The “great replacement” rhetoric was once considered an extreme-right belief, but has edged toward the mainstream with winks from politicians and outright support on right-wing programs, including Carlson’s.

Just a week ago, Carlson was dubbed in an MSNBC column the “No. 1 champion” of the racist ideology ― someone who repeatedly warns of invasions of “illegals” and has insisted that President Joe Biden wants to “change the racial mix” of the nation.

In September, Media Matters reported that Carlson launched a “dedicated campaign to insert the ‘great replacement’ conspiracy theory … into mainstream Republican discourse.”

The conspiracy motivated white nationalists who marched in 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia (who were described as “very fine people” by then-President Donald Trump). “Jews will not replace us,” marchers chanted.

The conspiracy has been cited as motivation in several racist mass shootings, including the killing of 20 people in an El Paso store in 2019 and the killing of 11 people at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018.

“It is the most mass-violence-inspiring idea in white supremacist circles right now,” Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, told the Times.

About 60% of extremist murders in the U.S. between 2009 and 2019 were committed by people espousing white supremacist ideologies like the replacement theory, according to the ADL.

“A racially motivated hate crime is abhorrent to the very fabric of this nation,” Biden said in a statement Saturday after the shooting.

“Any act of domestic terrorism, including an act perpetrated in the name of a repugnant white nationalist ideology, is antithetical to everything we stand for in America,” he added. “Hate must have no safe harbor. We must do everything in our power to end hate-fueled domestic terrorism.”

Source: New York Times

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Summit: Combined efforts to fight terrorism highlighted

Addis Ababa - African ministers of Defence, Protection and Security on Friday stressed the need for the Member States of the continental organisation to 6 and combine efforts to prevent and combat the scourge of terrorism and violent extremism.

The request came at end of the Extraordinary Summit on Terrorism and Unconstitutional Changes of Government.

The participants urged the Member States to support the Southern African Development Community Mission in Mozambique (SAMIM) to provide financial and material resources.

They concluded that it was necessary to review the African Standby Force (FAEA) concept and the Memorandum of Understanding between the AU and the Regional Economic Communities/Regional Mechanisms for Conflict Prevention, Management and Resolution.

Also they spoke of the method to set up the Special Unit against Terrorism to contribute to the completion of the FAEA Work Plan for 2021-2025.

Participants expressed their solidarity with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), in its efforts to address the issue of terrorism and violent extremism on its territory.

The participants reiterated the call to Member States regarding ratification of the AU Convention on Border Cooperation (2014 Niamey Convention).

They expressed expectation with the outcome of the summit, to be held on the 28th of this month, in Malabo, on the initiative of the Angolan Head of State, João Lourenço.

Angola was represented at the meeting by a delegation headed by the Minister of Defence and Veterans of the Homeland, General João Ernesto dos Santos “Liberdade”.

Also joined the Angolan delegation the Secretary of State for the Interior José Bamóquina Zau, the Chief of the Military Intelligence and Security Services (SISM) General João Pereira Massano, the General Director of the External Intelligence Services General José Higino de Sousa “Zé Grande”, and the Second Commander of the National Police Chief Commissioner António Pedro Joaquim “Kandela”.

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UN General Assembly President pleased with his stay in Angola

Luanda - President of the United Nations General Assembly Abdulla Shahid expressed his satisfaction at the warm welcome the President João Lourenço extended to him.

The appreciation is expressed on his Twitter page, shortly  after he left Luanda, at the end of an official four-day visit to Angola.

The diplomat also thanked the minister of Angolan Foreign Affairs, Téte António, for the invitation and for having him.

During his stay in Angola, the President of the United Nations General Assembly was received by President João Lourenço, in addition to other meetings with top government officials.

Abdulla Shahid also visited the province of Cunene, where he saw the functioning of the Cafu channel, the river's water transfer system.

The UN official also got in touch with Venâncio de Moura Diplomatic Academy, where he interacted with young students on the issues related to peace and security, climate change and the United Nations reform.

Covid-19: Angola reports no death for 70 days

Luanda - The Minister of Health, Sílvia Lutucuta, said Saturday in Luanda that Angola has not registered any death by Covid-19 for more than 70 days.

Silvia Lutucuta made the announcement during the update of the measures for prevention and fight against Covid-19, stating that in the last 24 hours five new cases were registered, all of them in Luanda, two males and three females, with ages between 30 and 58 years old.

So far, Angola has a register of 99,481 positive cases, of which 97,507 have been recovered, 1,900 have died and 74 are active.

Of the active cases, nine symptomatic patients are hospitalised and the rest receive home monitoring.

She said that the country had so far processed 1,594,848 samples by RTP-CR, with an average positivity rate of 6.2 percent.

The transmissibility rate had a relative increase in the last two weeks, from 0.74 to 1.88 per cent.

According to the minister, despite the reduction in cases and the non-recording of deaths, the health authorities are continuing to carry out epidemiological and laboratory surveillance at air, land and river entries and exits, with containment and testing measures.

Vaccination

On the other hand, she made it known that 18.8 million people have already been vaccinated, of which 12.3 million people received the first dose and 6.5 million individuals had the complete vaccination with two doses.

EXCLUSIVE Google Paying More Than 300 EU Publishers For News, More To Come

 Alphabet (GOOGL.O) unit Google has signed deals to pay more than 300 publishers in Germany, France and four other EU countries for their news and will roll out a tool to make it easier for others to sign up too, the company told Reuters.

The move to be announced publicly later on Wednesday followed the adoption of landmark EU copyright rules three years ago that require Google and other online platforms to pay musicians, performers, authors, news publishers and journalists for using their work.

News publishers, among Google’s fiercest critics, have long urged governments to ensure online platforms pay fair remuneration for their content. Australia last year made such payments mandatory while Canada introduced similar legislation last month. read more

“So far, we have agreements which cover more than 300 national, local and specialist news publications in Germany, Hungary, France, Austria, the Netherlands and Ireland, with many more discussions ongoing,” Sulina Connal, director for news and publishing partnerships, said in blogpost seen by Reuters and expected to be published later on Wednesday. The blog did not say how much publishers were being paid.

Two-thirds of this group are German publishers including Der Spiegel, Die Zeit and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

“We are now announcing the launch of a new tool to make offers to thousands more news publishers, starting in Germany and Hungary, and rolling out to other EU countries over the coming months,” Connal said in the blogpost.

The tool offers publishers an extended news preview agreement that allows Google to show snippets and thumbnails for a licensing fee.

Coups undermining Sahel anti-jihadist force: UN chief

 Military coups in Mali and Burkina Faso — two members of the G5-Sahel anti-jihadist force — are undermining the mission’s operational capacity, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a Wednesday report.

“I am deeply concerned by the rapidly deteriorating security situation in the Sahel, as well as by the potentially debilitating effect the uncertain political situation in Mali, Burkina Faso and beyond will have on efforts to further operationalize the G5-Sahel Joint Force,” Guterres’ report to the UN Security Council said.

Mali was hit by coups in August 2020 and May 2021, while another took place in Burkina Faso in January 2022. In addition to those countries, the 5,000 strong Sahel force is composed of personnel from Mauritania, Chad and Niger.

“The highly volatile political and security situation in the Sahel impacted the operationalization of the Joint Force… Among other issues uncertainty over the transition timelines in Mali and the 23 January coup d’etat in Burkina Faso significantly slowed down the Joint Force’s operational tempo,” said the UN chief’s report, obtained by AFP.

Guterres also highlighted reports of human rights abuses by both security forces and militants.

“I am also seriously disturbed by the deteriorating human rights situation, amid reports of gruesome violations committed against civilians, both by terrorist armed groups but also reportedly by armed and security forces in the region,” he said.

Command and control problems are posing challenges for the G5-Sahel force.

In Mali, there are issues determining whether security forces are operating under the Joint Force or national command, “particularly when investigating alleged human rights violations,” Guterres said.

And the Sahel force’s leadership reported “conflicting chains of command as a major impediment to the Force’s full operationalization.”

The force is also fighting against militants who are able to infiltrate and move within the civilian population, Guterres said.

“The infiltration and increased mobility of terrorist armed elements within local communities continues to present a major challenge for the G5 Joint Force, both in terms of identifying suitable informants and protecting civilians during operations.”