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BY STAFF REPORTER CABINET has resolved to withdraw operating licences for independent power producers (IPPs) whose projects have failed to take off the ground. This was announced by Information minister Monica Mutsvangwa during a post-Cabinet media briefing on Tuesday. “Independent power producers who do not implement projects as agreed upon, risk losing their licences,” she said. Mutsvangwa’s statement came after Energy Parliamentary Portfolio Committee last week revealed that IPPs were only feeding 135,8 megawatt (MW) into the national grid against a target of 6 858,65 MW, as the majority of them were still not operational. “Some private sector players are being engaged to supply power off-grid to communities with metering and tariffs being regulated by the Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority,” she said. The Information minister said by mid-year, a standard power purchase agreement and government support implementation agreement will be in place to incentivise investors to take up renewable energy projects. “The (Energy) ministry is also working on the development of the national integrated energy resource plan which will determine the renewable energy targets for the coming 20 years,” Mutsvangwa said. Follow us on Twitter @NewsDayZimbabwe
A November 26 letter from the presidency asked the head of Uganda's national drug authority to 'work out a mechanism' to clear the importation of the vaccines.
China has about five COVID-19 vaccine candidates at different levels of trials. It was not clear what vaccine was being imported into Uganda.
One of the frontrunners is the Sinopharm vaccine developed by the Beijing Institute of Biological Product, a unit of Sinopharm’s China National Biotec Group (CNBG).
On Wednesday, the United Arab Emirates said the vaccine has 86% efficacy, citing an interim analysis of late-stage clinical trials.
China has used the drug to vaccinate up to a million people under its emergency use program.
On Tuesday, Morocco said it was ordering up to 10 million doses of the vaccine.
Record cases
Uganda on Monday registered 701 new COVID-19 cases, the highest-ever daily increase, bringing its national count to 23,200.
The new cases were out of the 5,578 samples tested for the novel coronavirus over the past 24 hours, the country's health ministry said in a statement.
Tuesday's tally was 606, the second-highest ever number of new infections, bringing the cumulative number of confirmed cases in the east African country to 23,860.
Health authorities have blamed ongoing election campaigns which have drawn huge crowds for the rise in infections.
WESTERN BUREAU: Health Minister Dr Christopher Tufton all but declared the parish of Westmoreland Jamaica’s new COVID-19 epicentre, telling the nation’s Parliament on Tuesday that with more than 100 new confirmed cases, including 12 deaths in the...
To read Donald Trump's Twitter feed is to see a man seemingly obsessed with finding some way, any way, to hold onto the presidency. To watch what he does (or, more accurately, doesn't do) in his waning days in the White House suggests that Trump has already folded his tent - effectively not even trying to do the job that […]
[East African] Value for money is the name of the game for travel within Kenya during the Covid-19 pandemic. When containment measures in the Nairobi metropolitan area were lifted in July 2020, Kenyan families took the opportunity to go on holiday after three months of confinement. Now hotels and travel companies are looking ahead to the festive season.
Welcome To The NBA: LaMelo Ball Cops Iced-Out Grill
[East African] Kenya's national carrier Kenya Airways is seeking to play a role in the distribution of Covid-19 vaccines in Africa.
MANAGING director of Whitter Group of Companies Angella Whitter says her company will be launching a $5-million fund to assist needy tertiary students who have health and financial challenges.The fund, aptly named the Joe and Angella Whitter Foundation, is also in memory of her late husband who died in 2013 and is remembered as an iconic land developer in the Rose Hall and Ironshore areas of Montego Bay.
For most, the year 2020 has been the most trying year of our lives. The…
The post Is It Worth It? Adding up the Cost of Escalating Violence appeared first on Houston Forward Times.
[Nation] Dr Stephen Mogusu continued to serve patients under the most horrible conditions - working long hours and without a salary for several months - dreaming, like thousands of fellow frontline workers across the country, of a better day.
FireEye, one of the largest cybersecurity companies in the US, said on Tuesday that foreign government hackers with “world-class capabilities” broke into its network and stole tools it uses to test the defenses of its thousands of customers, who include federal, state and local governments and major global corporations. The hackers “primarily sought information related to certain government customers”, said FireEye’s CEO, Kevin Mandia, in a statement, without naming them. He said there was no indication the hackers got customer information from the company’s consulting or incident-response businesses or threat intelligence data it collects. “I’ve concluded we are witnessing an attack by a nation with top-tier offensive capabilities,” Mandia said, deeming it “different from the tens of thousands of incidents we have responded to throughout the years”. The hack of FireEye, a company with an array of business contracts across the national security space in the US and among its allies, is among the most significant breaches in recent memory. “I do think what we know of the operation is consistent with a Russian state actor,” said the former NSA hacker Jake Williams, president of Rendition Infosec. “Whether or not customer data was accessed, it’s still a big win for Russia.” The FireEye breach was disclosed in a blogpost authored by Mandia. The post said “red team tools” were stolen as part of a highly sophisticated operation. It is not clear exactly when the hack initially took place. Beyond the tool theft, the hackers also appeared to be interested in a subset of FireEye customers: government agencies. “We hope that by sharing the details of our investigation, the entire community will be better equipped to fight and defeat cyber-attacks,” Mandia wrote. The company itself has partnered in recent weeks with different software makers to share defensive measures. There is no evidence yet that FireEye’s hacking tools have been used or that client data was exfiltrated. But the investigation, which includes help from the FBI and Microsoft, is in its early phases. “This incident demonstrates why the security industry must work together to defend against and respond to threats posed by well-funded adversaries using novel and sophisticated attack techniques,” a Microsoft spokesperson said. The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The stolen computer espionage kit targets a myriad of different vulnerabilities in popular software products. It is not yet clear exactly which systems may be affected. But Mandia wrote that none of the red team tools exploited so-called “zero day vulnerabilities”, meaning the relevant flaws should already be public. Experts say it can be difficult to measure the impact of a hacking tool leak which focuses on known software vulnerabilities. When a private company becomes aware of a vulnerability in their software product, they often try to offer a “patch” or upgrade that nullifies the issue. Yet users do not always download these patches quickly, leaving themselves exposed for month
Deaths from COVID-19 in the U.S. have soared to more than 2,200 a day on average, matching the frightening peak reached last April, and cases per day have eclipsed 200,000 on average for the first time on record, with the crisis all but certain to get worse because of the fallout from Thanksgiving, Christmas and […]
The post US virus deaths hit record levels with the holidays ahead appeared first on DefenderNetwork.com.
[The Herald] The return to normal shifts by all nurses in the public sector, with modest groups in central hospitals being the last to do so, is very welcome, since the health of the vast majority, those who cannot afford the very expensive private care now on offer, was at serious risk.
An Anti-Jihadist Military Operation in Egypt
The Egyptian army said Tuesday its air force had \"managed to eliminate 25 takfiri elements” i.e. jihadists and that another 15 suspected Islamist militants had been killed \"in special operations\" since September with combined ground operations in the northeastern Sinai region, the site of an Islamist insurgency in the country. In addition, the army said the operations also \"resulted in the arrest of 12 other\" suspected extremist fighters and that it had destroyed 437 weapons caches, defused 159 improvised explosive devices, and confiscated dozens of other types of weapons.
The statement also mentioned that its own army personnel had been either wounded or killed, without specifications.
Background
Egyptian forces have fought the jihadist insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula for years. A problematic presence led mainly by the local branch of the Islamic State group.
Terrorist attacks have multiplied in the region since the army ousted President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013.
Egyptian authorities have been conducting a nationwide operation against Islamist militants - mainly focused on the northern Sinai and the Western Desert, since February 2018.
About 970 suspected militants and dozens of security personnel have been killed in the Sinai, according to official figures. However, as North Sinai is off-limits to journalists n o independently-sourced death toll is as yet publicly available.
Isabel dos Santos may be Africa's richest woman but she's just lost another legal battle, this time in the British Virgin Islands.
The Angolan businesswoman targeted in the \"Luanda leaks\" owned 25% of Unitel, Angola's telecommunications operator, which was registered under Vidatel in the British Virgin Islands.
According to a statement by PT Ventures, the supreme court decided, on 19 November, following a lawsuit, to set up judicial administrators for the management of specific assets of Vidatel, Limited, one of Isabel dos Santos's companies registered in the Virgin Islands, transferring to the management all bank accounts held and/or controlled by Vidatel.
The directors will also now control the 25% participation, including the rights inherent to such participation.
The Paris Arbitration Court ordered the \"founding shareholders\" of that telecommunications company to pay PT Ventures two indemnities totalling 654.2 million dollars (568.8 million euros).
The decision was disclosed at the time by Unitel, according to which the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) ordered the company to pay compensation of US$339.4 million (295.1 million euros) and US$314.8 million (273.7 million euros).
Meanwhile, Unitel began legal proceedings in London last month against Unitel International Holdings (UIH), owned by Angolan businesswoman Isabel dos Santos, to recover a debt of over 350 million euros.
Dos Santos has been accused of embezzlement and money laundering by prosecutors in Angola.
Leaked documents showed how she got access to lucrative land, oil, diamond and telecoms deals when her father was president. They also show how Western firms helped her take her money out of Angola.
She has denied the accusations and alleged corruption revealed by leaked documents. Her fortune is believed to be $2.1 bn.
[Monitor] Government has cleared Chinese Community of Liao Shen Industrial Park to import 4,000 doses of Covid-19 vaccine (Vero Cell) into the country for their own use.
[The Herald] The Minister of Defence and War Veterans Affairs, as chairperson of the Covid-19 Ad-Hoc Inter-Ministerial Task Force, presented an update report on the country's response to the Covid-19 outbreak, which was adopted by Cabinet.
Save the Giraffes
Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), Save Giraffes Now , and the Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT) make up the team of conservation groups coordinating a daring and unusual rescue operation to save eight Rothschild’s giraffes from the flooded Longicharo Island near Lake Baringo in Western Kenya.
The team is using a specially adapted barge to float the giraffes one-by-one to a nearby nature preserve on custom-made steel that is part of the Ruko Community
Wildlife Conservancy built by the local Ruko community for animal rescues.
The animals are part of a group of Rothschild's giraffes that were sent to the remote Kenyan Rift Valley in 2011 in anti-poaching protection efforts and in the hopes that the tranquillity of the remote area would help increase the subspecies' population.
Not Out of Danger Just Yet
Asiwa, an adult female, was the first giraffe to arrive \"safely on the mainland, safe from rising floodwaters.\" She had been stranded on a more remote part of the island away from the other giraffes — making her rescue a priority. Pasaka, a young male was the second giraffe to be brought to safety.
The same barge will likely be used to move the remaining six giraffes — five females, Susan, Nkarikoni, Nalangu, Awala, and Nasieku, and one adult male, Lbarnnoti, who are still stranded on the island which has been steadily shrinking due to intense rainfall.
With six more to go, the rescue team stated at least one more giraffe is set to be moved this week, with the rest likely to be moved over the next few months.
Giraffe Protection Efforts in Kenya
Africa’s population of giraffes has been on a steady decline over the last few decades due to habitat loss and poaching activity. However, some subspecies within the giraffe family are at higher risk of extinction than others. One of the most threatened populations is The Rothschild’s giraffe —who once roamed the entire western Rift Valley in Kenya, but there are fewer than 3,000 left in Africa today with as little as 1,600 of these giraffes are estimated to still be living in the wild and only about 800 in Kenya.
USC’s Isaiah Mobley shoots as UC Irvine’s Collin Welp defends during Tuesday night’s game at the Galen Center. (Photo by Hans Gutknecht, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG) UC Irvine Dawson Baker (1) grabs a rebound away from USC’s Isaiah Mobley (3) during their game at the Galen Center in Los Angeles, Tuesday, December 8, 2020. (Photo […]
[The Herald] The widening of tax brackets by Government is expected to boost spending by employees since they will have more money, and correspondingly result in businesses pushing more volumes, Employers Confederation of Zimbabwe (Emcoz) president Dr Israel Murefu has said.
While Congress debates another potential round of PPP funding for small businesses, the urgency for this money is becoming more acute by the minute. Alignable's latest poll conducted from 12/5 to 12/7/20 among 5,500 small business owners reveals that 85% say additional funding is very important for the survival of their businesses from now to June 2021. On […]
The post 85% Of Small Businesses Need New Federal Funds Now appeared first on Milwaukee Community Journal.
1. Civil Rights Leaders Call on Biden to Make Good Promise of Diversity What You Need To Know: During an almost two hour virtual meeting with President-elect Biden, leaders of seven Civil Rights organizations, pressed for wider diversity in the new administration. 2. Black 'Firsts': News Executive Rashida Jones and Army General Lloyd J. Austin […]
[Thomson Reuters Foundation] New York -- Many shipping and transport workers have been at sea as long as 17 months or longer, due to COVID-19-related restrictions
Washington (CNN)Senate Democrats are outraged that a witness invited to testify before a congressional hearing on Tuesday is being given a public platform for her discredited ideas that could endanger the US response to thecoronavirus pandemic. They say Dr. Jane Orient is a vaccine skeptic […]
The post Republicans invite discredited vaccine critic to testify appeared first on The New York Beacon.
… only 42 percent of African Americans are willing to be … progressed in the body.
African American Memphian Derrick Jones isn’t … to gaining the trust of Black Americans.
“Showing the community that … study, 71 percent of Black Americans either know somebody who’s …
By Cheryl SmithPublisher Recently I was privy to two calls where very critical information was shared. One conversation involved information the world needed to hear regarding COVID-19; even though I …
By Associated Press Undefined SENECA FALLS, N.Y. (AP) — 'Queen of Soul' Aretha Franklin and Nobel laureate and 'Beloved' author Toni Morrison will be inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame Thursday as part of a posthumous class of Black honorees that also includes Henrietta Lacks, whose cells were widely used in biomedical research; Barbara Hillary, the first Black woman to travel to both the North and South Poles, and civil rights activists Barbara Rose Johns Powell and Mary Church Terrell. The evening ceremony will be the first in a series of planned virtual inductions meant to correct a […]
The post Women's Hall of Fame honors Aretha Franklin, Morrison, Lacks appeared first on Black News Channel.
By SAMUEL PETREQUIN Associated Press BRUSSELS (AP) — Germany's Europe minister said Tuesday that further delaying the European Union's landmark 1.82 trillion-euro ($2.21 trillion) long-term budget and coronavirus recovery package would be 'irresponsible' as diplomats envisage a solution without Poland and Hungary, the two EU states holding up the measure. Speaking ahead of a video conference of European affairs ministers, Michael Roth said the stimulus is crucial for many European countries whose economies have been devastated by the pandemic. But Poland and Hungary, who agreed on the deal in July, are now vetoing the package because of a mechanism that […]
The post Pressure mounts on Hungary, Poland to unlock EU stimulus appeared first on Black News Channel.
One of the escapees is serving a life sentence for various crimes, while the other is serving a 20-year sentence.
