Sunday, May 24, 2020

DRCGovernment reports South Sudan military incursions into Upper Uélé and Ituri

The Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo took stock of the situation at the borders at the 32th meeting of the Council of Ministers chaired by the head of state Félix Antoine Tshisekedi tshilombo on 22 May 2020 by video conference ..
And in this respect, the national executive has reported South Sudan military incursions into the Ituri and Haut-Uélé provinces.
According to the record of the said council signed by the government spokesperson David-jolino Makelele, the services concerned were told to react "strongly" to these movements.
The Government of the Republic has also noted the continued evictions of Congolese from Angola via the city of Tshikapa in the province of Kasai.
With regard to militias at the border with Zambia (KALUBAMBA and KIBANGA), the Government has said that Congolese troops remain alert to deal with the threat in case negotiations under the aegis of the CFDC do not stop ..
The National Executive has also reported that the Southern African Development Community has finally accepted the setting up of an ad hoc committee on this.

When general maheshe of north Kivu surrendered to DRC gorvenment





Surrender of the leader of the  Armed group of Mr. MAHESHE with 120 of his militia men and 20 weapons thanks to the work of the  Provincial administration and the MONUSCO. No more rebel activities will he   operate on the Ngweshe-Walungu axis. The people of south kivu aspire to attaining peace and security. Calling on other rebellious groups to follow President Félix tshilombo's call.

116 new cases of covid-19 confirmed in the DRC (2141 total)


The of-19 pandemic that shakes the world continues to gain ground in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
116 new cases have been confirmed, including 112 in Kinshasa and 4 in Haut-Katanga for the only day of 23 May 2020 according to the newsletter of the technical secretary of the multisectoral response committee.
Since the official statement of this pandemic in rd Congo on March 10th, 2141 cases have been confirmed, including 2140 confirmed and 1 likely.
In addition, the Technical Secretariat reports that 5 new people have been healed from the-19, bringing the total healings to 317

At least 5 dead in an alleged ADF rebel trap in Irumu


At least 5 civilians killed, a burned vehicle and property looted in a tense ambush on the evening of Friday, 22 May 2020 by alleged ADF rebels at Byane-Mufutabangi, a village located about 4 kilometers of Ndalya on National Route number 4, in the territory of Irumu, Ituri province.
According to John Mabelle president of the civil society of Ndalya who delivers the news to 7,. CD this Saturday, the attackers attacked the village around 17 p. m local time, in heavy rain and barricaded the road.
On the spot, they burned a car leaving Komanda (Ituri) for the city of Beni (North Kivu) before killing civilians.
A woman, alleged to have been captured by FARDC elements that intervened to limit the damage.
" We cannot leave the region to leave space for the enemy, we are determined to accompany the FARDC elements as long as peace returns here. We call on the government to strengthen the military force in the city ", said a civil society actor.
Just before this attack, rebels had just made an foray into the village of Eringeti in Kasana, North Kivu province, during the day in which A civilian was shot.

Saturday, May 23, 2020

USA army Tests New High-Velocity Cannon on USS Zumwalt, World’s Largest Destroyer

After years of being defenseless, the US Navy’s futuristic USS Zumwalt destroyer has test-fired its new high-velocity gun off the California coast.
The US Pacific Fleet announced on Wednesday the Zumwalt had “successfully executed a ‘structural test fire’ of the Mark 46 MOD 2 Gun Weapon System,” a 30-millimeter high-velocity cannon derived from the Mark 42 Bushmaster gun used in the Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle. The system was also previously installed on the San Antonio-class amphibious landing dock, as well as the Littoral Combat Ship .
The test is part of a systematic shakedown of the ship’s systems designed to discover how firing and operating different systems affects the ship in terms of vibration, damage caused by operation or other hazards to the warship and its crew.
“The privilege of being a ‘first-in-class’ ship includes having the opportunity to systematically conduct testing across the breadth of systems installed onboard the ship,” Capt. Andrew Carlson, the Zumwalt’s commanding officer, said in the news release. “The real plus is conducting those tests, such as today’s live fire with the Mark 46 GWS, which provide tangible evidence of combat capability maturation.”
At nearly 16,000 tons of displacement, the USS Zumwalt is the world’s largest destroyer, outpacing the slightly smaller Type 055 destroyer Nanchang , built by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy.
Although the Zumwalt was commissioned in 2016, only now has it gained working weapons. The warship was initially designed around a pair of massive 155-millimeter rapid-fire cannons that would have given it the firepower of 16 land-based howitzer guns. However, as the cost ballooned to extraordinary heights, the Zumwalt was reimagined and rebuilt as a standard guided missile destroyer. Sputnik reported in late March that the ship’s combat system would soon be installed.
“Today’s event is the first in a chapter of live fire test events over the next year that will prove the lethal capability that these ships will bring to the fight,” Lt. Cmdr. Tim Kubisak, Zumwalt test officer, Program Executive Office for Integrated Warfare Systems, said in the statement.

A new drug that has shown its effectiveness at combating COVID-19, which is being produced as a joint venture between the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and the ChemRar Group, will be called Avifavir.


According to the organization, Avifavir is currently undergoing clinical trials and early results are promising. The RDIF stated that it is the first Russian antiviral drug that has shown its effectiveness in clinical trials.
"Avifavir shows better results compared to other drugs that are currently being tested in Russia and abroad. RDIF and ChemRar are cooperating with both leading medical institutions and state regulatory bodies. We look forward to receiving approval for the production of Avifavir in the near future," RDIF CEO Kirill Dmitriev said in the statement.
On Thursday, the Russian Ministry of Health gave the green light to begin trials of Avifavir on 330 patients who have tested positive for COVID-19, the RDIF stated.
In the first stage of trials , no side-effects were observed and the efficacy rate was over 80 percent.
The treatment, which was previously called favipiravir, disrupts the reproduction mechanisms of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

Behemoths a US tech company is Reportedly Cooperating With Chinese Surveillance Firms

In October 2019, Washington put several Chinese artificial intelligence firms on its Entity List in order to restrict their access to US technology, the same blacklist the Chinese firm Huawei is on.
CNBC has cited a Top10VPN report as saying Amazon, Google, and Microsoft are among a spate of US companies that have been named as firms providing "essential web services that power" the websites of Chinese surveillance companies accused of human rights abuses.
Top10VPN is a website that reviews virtual private network (VPN) services and deals with privacy-related issues.
Simon Migliano, head of research at Top10VPN, was quoted by CNBC as saying that "through providing essential web services to these controversial companies, US firms are playing a part in the proliferation of highly invasive surveillance products that have the potential to undermine human rights around the world".
He claimed that "despite the Trump administration's efforts to decouple the American and Chinese technology sectors, the continued presence of American companies in more discreet settings shows that cooperation between the two remains".
Top10VPN specifically singled out Amazon and Google which were allegedly providing web services to Dahua Technology and Hikvision, while Microsoft’s services were reportedly being used by the Chinese artificial intelligence start-ups SenseTime and Megvii.
Additionally, the Top10VPN report mentioned Twitter and Facebook as companies ostensibly providing content delivery network services to the Chinese company Hikvision.
All the US companies singled out in the document have declined to comment on the matter.
The report comes after these Chinese surveillance firms were blacklisted by the White House in October 2019 for alleged human rights violations in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region . In an August 2018 report, UN experts on the elimination of racial discrimination said that up to 1 million ethnic Uighurs are thought to be detained in so-called re-education camps.
Beijing has repeatedly denied the existence of such camps, claiming that the unsubstantiated accusations are connected to what it insists are vocational colleges set up as part of counter-terrorist efforts in the region.
The Chinese artificial intelligence companies were put on the same blacklist as Huawei, a crackdown that was unleashed by Washington against China's tech giant in May 2019.
At the time, the US Department of Commerce has prohibited internet providers from using the company's products and American tech companies from selling technologies to the Chinese tech titan without obtaining a special license first.
The White House claims that the company is collaborating with the Chinese government to allow it to spy on those who use the firm's equipment, allegations that have been rejected by both Beijing and Huawei.