Phi

[ốc]

Dân đào mỏ.

Có công đào mỏ có ngày nên kim (cương):

World’s third largest diamond discovered in Botswana
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ed-in-botswana

The diamond firm Debswana has announced the discovery in Botswana of a 1,098-carat stone that it described as the third largest of its kind in the world.

It is also the biggest stone of gem quality to be discovered in the history of the company, a joint venture between the government and the global diamond giant De Beers.

The world’s biggest diamond was the 3,106-carat Cullinan, found in South Africa in 1905.

The second largest was the 1,109-carat Lesedi La Rona, discovered at Karowe in north-eastern Botswana in 2015.
Botswana is Africa’s leading diamond producer.

- Botswana: có thể từ chữ Hột Xoàn
- Xoàn: từ chữ TOÁN (蒜) nghĩa là củ tỏi

(còn tiếp)

[Triển]

Thì ra hột xoàn nguyên chất giòm nhăn nhúm thấy ghê.

[ốc]

nhăn nhúm thấy ghê

Tại vì chưa qua dao kéo, photoshop.

Ngọc bất trác bất thành khí
Xoàn bất cắt bất chiếu sáng.

[Triển]

Mài thôi đừng cắt, nếu không mất hết công dụng.

[ốc]

Hỏi đá thạch anh bao nhiêu tuổi đời:

Stones that sparked ‘diamond’ rush in South Africa are just quartz
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...z-tests-reveal

People from across South Africa travelled to KwaHlathi in eastern KwaZulu-Natal province where villagers had been digging with picks and shovels since 12 June after a herder discovered the first stone in an open field and put out the word.

The provincial executive council member for economic development and tourism, Ravi Pillay, said on Sunday he had counted about 3,000 people there during a visit to the site, where samples were taken to identify the stones.

The event had highlighted the challenges faced by local people, he continued. Like many areas in South Africa, high levels of unemployment and poverty have left communities living hand to mouth.

Meanwhile, the number of people mining the land had dwindled to less than 500, Pillay said, though significant damage had already been done with an area of about 5 hectares (12 acres) covered in holes of up to one metre, posing a danger to cattle.

He said those who continued to mine – a situation that also risks the spread of Covid – would be encouraged to leave, and law enforcement could be drawn upon if necessary.

Một đêm ăn trộm bằng ba năm đào...
(Ca dao)

[ốc]

Hàng Phi pháp:

Belgium unveils plans to return DRC artworks stolen during colonial rule
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...-colonial-rule

Belgium’s Africa Museum – a former totem to empire that has undergone a €75m (£64m) revamp and “decolonisation” process – has said up to 2,000 works, including statues, musical instruments and weapons, were acquired illegally during colonial rule of a swathe of central Africa, mostly the modern-day Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The Black Lives Matter movement has accelerated Belgium’s reckoning with its colonial past, with statues to former King Léopold II defaced in the wake of the global protest.

This week, the Belgian government unveiled long-awaited plans for restoring plundered works to the DRC.

“Everything that has been acquired through force and violence under illegitimate conditions must in principle be returned,” said Thomas Dermine, the secretary of state for science policy. Objects that have been acquired in an illegitimate fashion by our ancestors, by our grandparents, great-grandparents, do not belong to us. They belong to the Congolese people. Full stop.”

Belgium has returned works on an ad-hoc basis since the 1960s, but this is the first time items will be returned to Congolese ownership in a systematic way, without waiting for requests. The majority of the Africa museum’s collection – 85,000 of 120,000 items – came from Congo.

Germany pledged to return its Benin bronzes to Nigeria earlier this year. Soon after taking office in 2017, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, promised to return African works held in French national museums – but campaigners have since criticised the slow pace of restitutions.

Chờ đến Tết Công gô?

[ốc]

Bị Tô lâm ở Phi châu:

From hero of Hotel Rwanda to dissident facing life in prison
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...life-in-prison

Paul Rusesabagina, whose story of sheltering Tutsis from machete-wielding Hutu militiamen was turned into the Hollywood film Hotel Rwanda, visited the White House to receive the US presidential medal of freedom from George W Bush.

Paul Kagame, leader of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) rebels who overthrew the Hutu extremist regime that led the killing of hundreds of thousands of Tutsis, has been feted by prime ministers and presidents for ending the slaughter and rebuilding Rwanda. Bill Clinton called Kagame “one of the greatest leaders of our time”.

But more than quarter of century after the genocide, Rusesabagina is in a Kigali prison awaiting the verdict on 20 August in his trial on charges of terrorism, murder and founding an armed group intent on overthrowing Kagame.

Rusesabagina’s supporters have little doubt he will be convicted after the Rwandan authorities went to elaborate lengths to lure him from the US to Dubai and then on to a plane that the former hotel manager thought was taking him to Burundi. It landed in Rwanda’s capital, Kigali, where he was arrested and put on trial – not, Rusesabagina’s family say, because he has committed any real crime but because he stood up to Kagame.

[Triển]

C.1.2 dữ hơn Delta?

---

New COVID-19 Variant C.1.2 Sparking International Concern

Published: Aug 30, 2021

As the world struggles to get the COVID-19 pandemic under control, the virus continues to mutate, particularly in unvaccinated populations. A new variant, C.1.2., which was first detected in South Africa in May, is causing public health experts worldwide to keep an eye out for its presence as it seems to be more infectious and even more resistant to vaccines than other variants.

So far, C.1.2. has been identified in South Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mauritius, China, New Zealand, England, Switzerland and Portugal. It seems to have an unusually high mutation rate and more mutations than other variants of concern (VOCs) or variants of interest (VOIs).

Researchers at South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases and the KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform found C.1.2 has a mutation rate of about 41.8 mutations per year, nearly double the current global mutation rate observed in other VOCs.

In the report, published in Nature, the investigators stated, “We describe and characterize a newly identified SARS-CoV-2 lineage with several spike mutations that is likely to have emerged in a major metropolitan area in South Africa after the first wave of the epidemic, and then to have spread to multiple locations within two neighboring provinces.”

They further say that the lineage has expanded quickly and become dominant in three provinces. “Although the full import of the mutations is not yet clear, the genomic and epidemiological data suggest that this variant has a selective advantage – from increased transmissibility, immune escape or both.”

Earlier in August, Public Health England reported that the C.1.2. variant was one of 10 variants they were monitoring in the UK.

One of the authors of the study stated, “Compared to C.1., the new variant has ‘mutated substantially’ and is more mutations away from the original virus detected in Wuhan than any other Variant of Concern (VOC) or VOI detected so far worldwide.”

Another South African strain, B.1.351, was reported in April that potentially could “breakthrough” the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. In a study of 400 people who tested positive for COVID-19 after receiving one of two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and 400 who tested positive with no vaccine, the B.1.351 variant was eight times more common in people who had two doses than none.

Another variant has been observed in Britain, B.1.621, which also has public health officials tracking. They believe it originated in Colombia but say there is no evidence that it is deadlier than Delta, accounting for 99% of cases in the UK. There is also no evidence that it neutralizes vaccine effectiveness.

But a UK study did find that the Delta variant is more than twice as likely — 2.26 times — to result in hospitalizations than other variants. This appears to be associated with the speed at which the Delta variant replicates, causing much higher viral loads in a shorter time.

“Our analysis highlights that in the absence of vaccination, any Delta outbreaks will impose a greater burden on healthcare than an Alpha epidemic,” said Anne Presanis, a senior statistician at Cambridge University. “Getting fully vaccinated is crucial for reducing an individual’s risk of symptomatic infection with Delta in the first place and, importantly, of reducing a Delta patient’s risk of severe illness and hospital admission.”

Israel recently classified a sub-lineage of the Delta variant, called AY.12. It is one of several sub-lineages dubbed “Delta Plus.” It’s not clear currently if it is more threatening than the original Delta strain. At this time, Delta is still the dominant strain and most dangerous.

The best way to slow further mutations and control the current strains of COVID-19 is to get vaccinated and continue to practice social distancing and masking, as appropriate.

/* src.: https://www.biospace.com/article/alt...nt-of-concern/

[ốc]

Trời sinh dân, trời sinh cỏ (Tục ngữ xưa)

‘Swazi gold’: grandmothers in Eswatini growing cannabis to make ends meet
https://www.theguardian.com/global-d...make-ends-meet

In Nhlangano, in the south of Eswatini (formerly Swaziland), the illegal farming of the mountainous kingdom’s famous “Swazi gold” is a risk many grandmothers are ready to take.In what is known locally as the “gardens of Eden”, a generation of grandparents are growing cannabis, many of them sole carers for some of the many children orphaned by the HIV/Aids epidemic that gripped southern Africa.

The plots of marijuana are tucked away in forests in the mountains. Around one tiny village alone, the Guardian counted 17 fields of cannabis plants.

They sell a gram of cannabis for seven to 10 rand (about 50p) in South Africa and Mozambique, where it is resold for 10 times the price.

These women face many challenges, with the authorities using networks of spies in local communities, while some police officers solicit bribes.

“Our market is in South Africa but even if you manage to cross the border into South Africa, clients can tell you that your weed is sub-standard, pushing you to sell at a lower price or to look for other clients. This might expose you to criminal gangs, resulting in you being robbed or raped.

“It is hard being a woman in a country where policies do not prioritise the welfare of women and children.”

Cần sa chẳng qua cần tiền.
(Tục ngữ mới)

[ốc]

Tết Công gô:

Congos seek Unesco listing for rumba
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ting-for-rumba

Born in the melting pot of 19th-century Cuba, rumba combined the drumming of enslaved Africans with the melodies of Spanish colonisers.

Re-exported to Africa in the early 20th century on vinyl, it found a ready audience in the two Congos, who recognised the rhythms as their own.

“They took our ancestors to the Americas in the 15th or 16th century. Congolese rumba was created and embedded with the same dynamics as the story that forged this country,” said André Yoka, the director of the National Institute for the Arts in Kinshasa, who is leading the DRC’s candidacy for Unesco status.

Rumba derives from “nkumba”, meaning belly button in the local language, a dance that originates “in the ancient kingdom of Kongo”, according to the submission to Unesco.

“When our ancestors who were taken abroad wanted to remember their history, their origin, their memory, they danced the navel dance,” said Catherine Kathungu Furaha, the DRC’s minister of art and culture. “We want rumba to be recognised as ours. It is our identity.”

Unesco will announce its decision in November.

Quá quan này khúc Rumba
Nửa phần nhớ nước nửa phần tư gia
(Vũ trường tân thanh)