Clearing the Land of Landmines

(ANGOP) A total of 99,980 kilometres of road have been cleared of landmines around Angola from 1996 to Q1 of 2011 as confirmed by Angola Social Welfare minister, João Baptista Kussumua. The minister was chairing the opening of the 3rd National Meeting on Demining, in representation of the Angolan head of State, José Eduardo dos Santos. 

Millions of landmines were laid in Angola during the 27 years of bitter conflict that followed independence from Portugal in 1975.  Government and Cuban forces laid extensive minefields around their bases in and around towns as well as around infrastructure such as airports, water supply stations, electrical pylons and bridges.

 Both the Government and opposing UNITA forces laid a significant number of anti-tank mines on primary, secondary and tertiary roads and to this day anti-tank mines on roads pose a far greater problem than in any other mine affected country.

The Minister also confirmed that another 3,200 kilometres of railway have been cleared of mines, including 6,016 kilometres of fiber-optic and 5,571 of electricity conveying line. In the reporting period, a total of 930,191,457 square metres have been cleared involving the clearing of a sum total of 428,274 anti-personnel landmines of which 23,384 were anti-tank mines and 2.3 million were unexploded ordnances.

Also cleared were 2.7 million kilograms of lethal material, plus 3.7 million kilograms of assorted materials. He said that despite the excellent results achieved in the process, the threat of landmines continues, putting flow of people and goods and certain areas of the national territory at permanent risk.

A British NGO, The Halo Trust, the world's oldest and largest humanitarian landmine clearance organization, has been instrumental in clearing a majority of these mines in Angola. Halo has conducted extensive surveys of the five provinces in which it operates in Angola and, as of June 2010, has confirmed 778 minefields that require clearance. http://www.halousa.org/home/index.aspx (Angop, The Halo Trust)

An Award for 'Clean-Up' Advertising

Angola recently won the Grand Award of the Sixth International Advertising Festival of Maputo in addition to eight other medals.  The event’s Grand Award was attributed to a piece developed by the Advertising Agency Executive Center, an Angolan company, to support an awareness campaign to clean up the garbage left on the streets of the Angolan capital, commissioned by the Provincial Government of Luanda.

The Festival promotes the work of international advertising agencies, producers and communications companies from the African and Indian Ocean regions whose creativity and originality particularly contribute to the development of the African advertising market.

In this integrated advertising work, the agency Executive Center draws attention to the need to combat the garbage in the streets of Luanda, with educational messages to appeal to the problem, which had great impact on the international jury of the festival, which was unanimous in handing over the award to Angola.

The Sixth International Advertising Festival of Maputo reported this year the participation of 28 agencies from several countries, including Mozambique, the host country, Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Mauritius, France, Portugal, Seychelles, breaking the record of presented work in this annual competition.

According to the team of judges, chaired by the Mozambican creative José Ricardo, Cabaço who works in the United States as Global Brand Director of Nike’s Worldwide Communication,“the competition was tough because the standards were high”. (TAAG Austral Magazine)

Angola Humor 5

See another example of a daily comic page from Journal de Angola, a daily Angola newspaper. This comic strip highlights the reaction of some Angolans to the massive influx of the Chinese workers to the country. Some 30 - 40 thousand Chinese are in-country now to rebuild the main infrastructure and most certainly the culture and language of these short-term workers have had an impact.

Translation: "I have arranged some books to learn Chinese."

                                           "The Chinese must learn Portuguese"                                                  (Angola's national language)!            

Angola's Giant (Dinosaur)

The first dinosaur found in Angola has been named the Angolatitan adamastor.  Angolatitan means ‘Angolan giant’ and adamastor refers to the mythical sea giant of the South Atlantic feared by Portuguese sailors. The long-necked sauropod was uncovered in 2005 about 70km north of Luanda by Portuguese paleontologist Octávio Mateus from Portugal’s Universidade Nova de Lisboa and Museum of Lourinhã.

Remains of the large plant-eating dinosaur, which was believed to have been 13 metres long and lived 90 million years ago during the late Cretaceous period, were found in marine sediments. “These and other fossils tell us an amazing story about the climate and climate change in this part of the world,” says Louis Jacobs from the Southern Methodist University, who is a member of the Mateus PaleoAngola Project team. “In an oilproducing country like Angola, this project helps us to understand the geology of the region and the implications for its richness.”

The detailed description, in which the Angolatitan adamastor officially received its scientific name, was presented in the publication Anais da Academia Brasileira de Ciências (Annals of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences).

As well as discovering Angola’s first dinosaur, the PaleoAngola team has uncovered mosasaurs, plesiosaurs, turtles and other cretaceous marine animals. The long-term goal of the project is to create a strong and lasting institutional and scientific collaboration with Angolan academia.  (Sonangol Universo Magazine, June 2011)