Angola: Sao Vicente money laundering trial postponed

Carlos Manuel de Sao Vicente, businessman accused of corruption, seated during the court hearing in Luanda, Angola

The trial of Carlos Manuel de Sao Vicente, a businessman married to one of the daughters of Angola's first president, Antonio Agostinho Neto, has been postponed until February 11, 2022, apparently due to a procedural flaw.

The accused headed a group of companies that sold insurance contracts to Sonangol, the Angolan national oil company.

“The law requires that a summons be sent 15 days before the start of the hearing by the prosecutor and the defense. Unfortunately, this was not done. The defense only learned of this on January 18, 2022, this which prompted her to request a postponement of the trial. The opening of the trial has therefore been postponed to February 11, 2022 at 9 a.m. in the same courtroom. explained Judge Edson Escrevao.

An economist by training, Carlos Manuel de São Vicente, finds himself at the head of an insurance giant in Angola, the AAA group, closely linked to Sonangol, which will be entrusted with the management of the risks of the country's oil activities by the President Dos Santos.

In 2016, his daughter Isabel Dos Santos will be appointed head of the company. Sonangol is said to have transferred the risk management of the country's oil activities, as well as the management of its pension funds, to the AAA group of Carlos Manuel de Sao Vicente.

The current head of state, Joao Lourenço, launched an anti-corruption campaign against the former Dos Santos regime when he came to power in 2017.

"I am very worried because so far what I observe is that human rights are not respected, the presumption of innocence is not respected, the rights of the defense are not are not respected. I remind you that he has been detained for 600 days, whereas normally pre-trial detention should never exceed one year in this country. And in any case, it is not justified. " declared François Zimeray, French lawyer and human rights ambassador.

The two reigning families are said to have embezzled hundreds of millions of dollars from the coffers of the country.

Several children of Dos Santos have paid the price, like Isabel Dos Santos who, accused of corruption, will have to return more than 400 million euros in shares to the Angolan oil company Sonangol.

Syria, Yemen, Somalia and Libya top the list of “the most corrupt countries in the world”

Washington - Four Arab countries are among the most corrupt countries in the world , according to the annual report of the Corruption Perceptions Index, issued by Transparency International.

The four countries are Syria in second place after South Sudan, which ranked first in the list of the most corrupt countries in the world, Somalia in third place, Yemen in fifth place, and Libya in eighth place.

Sudan improved in the index, but it remained at the forefront of the most corrupt countries in the world, as it ranked 15th in the list, Iraq ranked 24, Lebanon ranked 27, and Mauritania ranked 41.

The United States was ranked as the 27th least corrupt country in the world, ahead of many opponents, including Russia and North Korea, but far behind allies such as France, Norway and Japan, according to a Transparency report, released on Tuesday.

US researchers have explained the country's lack of progress in the Corruption Perceptions Index due to persistent attacks on fair and free elections, culminating in the violent attack on Capitol Hill and the somewhat opaque campaign finance system.

Transparency International said the COVID-19 pandemic has been used as an excuse to limit fundamental freedoms and important checks and balances, citing increasing restrictions on civil liberties in Europe, the Americas and Asia.

Kenya: Traditional Foods UNESCO Cultural Heritage

Thanks to campaigns by Kenyan farmers to improve nutritional knowledge, Kenya has been selected to be included in the register of good safeguarding practices.

This inscription aims to protect intangible cultural heritage, which allows people and communities to be distinguished by their history, nationality, language, ideology and values, according to UNESCO .

It took fifteen years of collaboration between scientists and communities, including schoolchildren, to obtain this distinction. In 2007, researchers became aware of a decline in the country's dietary diversity. They attributed it to changing lifestyles and the rise of less nutritious convenience foods, but also to the colonialists encouraging the locals to despise their traditional food sources.

Jodeh Kinyanjui, a 61-year-old market gardener, remembers when farming practices were different.

“ We used to never spray traditional vegetables with pesticides because they grew naturally without it. We just added a bit of fertilizer. We also depended on rainfall for water. traditional vegetables, " he said.

Meat is considered excessively expensive for most ordinary people, although silverfish, called omena or dagaa, from Lake Victoria is quite cheap and is becoming popular. Chickens are raised but mainly sold to cover household financial needs. They are slaughtered for special occasions.

The colonial impact on diets

Patrick Maundu, an ethnobotanist at the National Museums of Kenya , is one of the researchers involved in the campaign. He explains that during colonial times, people came to view traditional vegetables as inferior to other vegetables such as potatoes, cabbage, Swiss chard and kale.

"Our research has shown that we have about 220 species of traditional vegetables eaten by the approximately 60 communities in the country. But again, during the colonial period, people were brainwashed into believing that what was to them was not good. So little by little, people forgot their own traditional vegetables. They started eating cabbage, kale and Swiss chard and almost forgot their traditional vegetables_", explains Patrick Maundu.

" These traditional vegetables have up to ten times the nutrient content of cabbage and so we have every reason to promote these traditional vegetables and traditional foods. "

According to researchers like Maundu, many indigenous foods were in most cases more nutritious than the exotic foods that replaced them. The seeds of leaf amaranth have been found to be a better source of iron and vitamin A than cabbage, by a factor of ten. Similarly, the baobab contained almost 10 times more vitamin C than the orange.

According to the ethnobotanist, the 1970s and 1980s saw a tendency to promote exotic foods over traditional foods, which led to a decrease in the variety of foods available for consumption. For example, vegetable varieties have narrowed to kale, cabbage and chard.

Over the years, two local groups, the African Leafy Vegetables Program and the Food Traditions Program, have worked with UNESCO.Researchers studied traditional foods in Kenya and how they were prepared and eaten . They embarked on a mission to rigorously promote traditional vegetables, which are also better able to withstand warmer climates.

To popularize local vegetables, a program involving a partnership between Biodiversity International and the National Museums of Kenya has published information on different vegetables and their nutritional value.

In the capital Nairobi, this small restaurant specializes in cooking and serving traditional dishes. It was opened in 2014 by Miriam Nabakwe, who is also a consultant in the hospitality industry. Passionate about fitness, she likes to serve healthy meals at affordable prices, under six US dollars.

His most popular dish is smoked chicken, ugali and amaranth. Nabakwe says Covid-19 has made people generally more health conscious and traditional foods are having a big impact.

" Traditional food restaurants are the future. I've seen it and it's worked for me. I think it's because people are trying to get away from these conventional foods like junk food and so they embrace more to that, ” she adds.