Category: APO-OPA

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, September 17, 2014/African Press Organization (APO)/ — The Chairperson of the Commission of the African Union (AU), Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, continues to closely follow the evolution of the situation in Guinea-Bissau, particu…

PARIS, France, September 17, 2014/African Press Organization (APO)/ — With “Orange Fab Ivory Coast” and “Fab Israel”, Orange’s network of start-up accelerators is now present on four continents (http://www.orange.com). The programme, which is a pillar of the Group’s open innovation approach, reflects the determination of Orange to support the new digital players and help them grow by accelerating innovation.

Logo: http://www.photos.apo-opa.com/plog-content/images/apo/logos/orange-logo.jpg

Photo: http://www.photos.apo-opa.com/index.php?level=picture&id=1376 (Mari-Noëlle Jégo-Laveissière, Senior Executive Vice President of Innovation, Marketing and Technologies of Orange)

the 4 start-ups of Orange Fab Ivory Coast

4 start-ups were selected from 86 submissions:

– ICT4Dev.ci: a platform for managing agricultural cooperatives composed of an information web portal (Lôr Bouôr); a distribution system for the agricultural prices via mobile (Djori Djori); a vocal booth (Djassi); and a virtual market.

– Samartsell: a management solution for points of sale with the following functions: remote management and automation of inventory, billing with mobile devices and selling of airtime from cash registers in order to solve the problems of currency.

– Sycelim: responds to the needs of the insurance and healthcare programmes for asset management, billing management and pension payments. Sycelim also supports the management of the patient’s follow-up: registration of benefits, conditions, prescriptions and medical dispensations pharmacies.

– Sportif 225: a sports web agency whose main activity is the sale of web and mobile services adapted to the sport environment, the production of sport contents and the creation of sport events.

The aim of Orange Fab Ivory Coast is to facilitate the development of start-ups in the Ivorian economic system. In order to be eligible, the start-ups must already have a product / service in one of the following fields : customer experience, digital solutions for the company connected objects, social networks and community services, e-commerce, everyday life, local content, mobile payment and money transfer, e-education, e-agriculture and e-health. The selected start-ups will be supported for 3 months in the development of their product and their business. They will benefit from the valuable mentoring of fifty coaches, including Orange mentors, entrepreneurs and local academics. Moreover, six workshops will be offered to them. They will also have the opportunity to test their products in the customers’ testing center of Orange in Abidjan, have access to Orange’s APIs and will receive financial support in the form of a convertible note of 15,000 euros. They will also benefit from workspaces and from communication services made available by Orange Ivory Coast and the Technocentre of Orange, based in Abidjan. Finally they can participate in two demo days (in Abidjan and Paris) and two investment forums.

Besides its commitment with start-ups, Orange has also attracted the interest of African partners and of the ecosystem of developers in Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Mali and Senegal by organising an API challenge this summer via Orange Partner, the programme for developers exposing Orange APIs. Developers received the SMS, USSD and credit airtime API’s and were challenged to develop various applications for different sectors (agriculture, transportation, voting and games). Orange will use the feedback from developers in order to launch an API portfolio in 2015, dedicated to the AMEA region, starting with the launch of the SMS API.

the 5 start-ups of Fab Israel

5 start-ups were selected from150 submissions:

– Parko: a traffic data management application with a ‘smart’ navigation that offers a real-time estimation of how long it will take to find a parking space.

– Idomoo: delivers large-scale personalised video solutions for companies in order to improve communication across every stage of the customer lifecycle.

– mpharma: reinvents how pharmaceuticals are prescribed, delivered and monitored in Africa.

– LogDog: protects online accounts from hacking (Facebook, gmail, Twitter…) and sends you an alert if there is any suspicious activity.

– Evolero: a platform for event organisers which facilitates the creation of events’ websites while using a variety of social tools.

Fab Israel supports start-ups that are based in Israel and which change the way people are connected and communicate. Its proposal to the selected start-ups is to accompany them for 3 months in the development of their product and to help them reach the European and African markets. The programme will host the selected start-ups in SOSA, an accelerator based in south Tel Aviv, housed in a former industrial building which has been transformed into an entrepreneur’s paradise.

“With the opening of two new accelerators in Israel and Ivory Coast, the network of Orange Fab is now present on four continents. We believe it is our role to support, internationally, the growth of start-ups, which is a win-win situation”, declares Mari-Noëlle Jégo-Laveissière, Senior Executive Vice President of Innovation, Marketing and Technologies of Orange.

Orange engages closely with start-ups and entrepreneurs

The Orange Group has set a range of measures to support innovative entrepreneurs through its accelerator Orange Fab, the Orange Partner program dedicated to developers and funding, through Iris Capital, a venture capitalist of which Orange is a shareholder. Orange is also working with Deutsche Telekom as part of their respective acceleration start-ups programs and with AppCampus in order to promote the creation of mobile applications. Furthermore, Orange is a founding member of the « Startup Europe Partnership » and of the « European Digital Forum », two initiatives of the “Action Plan for Entrepreneurship 2020” of the European Commission. Finally, Orange also supports innovation in Africa through the three incubators that it opened, in Dakar, Senegal, in Mauritius and in Niamey, Niger.

Find out more:

http://orangefab.co.il/Accueil

www.orangefab.ci

www.orangepartner.com

Distributed by APO (African Press Organization) on behalf of Orange.

Press contact:

Héloïse Rothenbühler, 01 44 44 93 93 – heloise.rothenbuhler@orange.com

about Orange

Orange (http://www.orange.com) is one of the world’s leading telecommunications operators with sales of 41 billion euros in 2013 and has 161,000 employees worldwide at 30 June 2014, including 101,000 employees in France. Present in 30 countries, the Group has a total customer base of more than 236 million customers at 30 June 2014, including 179 million mobile customers and 16 million fixed broadband customers worldwide. Orange is also a leading provider of global IT and telecommunication services to multinational companies, under the brand Orange Business Services.

Orange is listed on the NYSE Euronext Paris (symbol ORA) and on the New York Stock Exchange (symbol ORAN).

For more information on the internet and on your mobile: www.orange.com, www.orange-business.com, www.livetv.orange.com or to follow us on Twitter: @orangegrouppr.

Orange and any other Orange product or service names included in this material are trade marks of Orange or Orange Brand Services Limited.

MOGADISHU, Somalia, September 17, 2014/African Press Organization (APO)/ — The Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General (DSRSG) for Somalia, Fatiha Serour, welcomed the start of a reconciliation conference in Kismayo as a positive st…

PARIS, France, September 17, 2014/African Press Organization (APO)/ — In the coming months, BANK OF AFRICA and Orange Money customers will be able to transfer money directly from their Orange Money account to their BOA account and vice versa simply with their mobile.

Logo Orange: http://www.photos.apo-opa.com/plog-content/images/apo/logos/orange-logo.jpg

Orange (http://www.orange.com) customers will have the opportunity to carry out safe and real-time banking operations, to transfer money, pay for goods and services (water, electricity, education, television bills, etc.) and purchase airtime credit without going to the bank or to the shop.

The large network of licensed Orange Money distributors will supplement the network of 450 BANK OF AFRICA branches, offering a maximum number of cash withdrawal points to the customers of the two companies.

“The partnership between Orange and BANK OF AFRICA illustrates Orange’s ambition to offer its customers high-quality services that are both easily accessible and easy to use. Our respective businesses complement each other making it easier for customers to manage their money using their mobile, wherever they are in the country and at any time of the day,” said Marc Rennard, Senior Executive Vice President, Africa, the Middle-East and Asia, Orange.

“The partnership with Orange Money enhances our range of services enabling us to increase customer proximity while offering high-quality, simple and useful services. This new service is also a ideal solution that meets our customers’ desire to carry out financial transactions any time and wherever they are,” says Alfa Barry, Deputy Director in charge of Marketing for the BANK OF AFRICA Group.

This new service, which is designed for both individuals and professionals, is already available in Madagascar since August and will be extended to Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, Senegal, Niger and the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the coming months. BOA Madagascar is the first bank in sub-Saharan Africa to launch this service with Orange.

This is also the first step in a range of innovative financial services that will be developed by the two companies.

Orange Money currently has more than 11 million customers in 14 countries in Africa and the Middle East. Subscription to Orange Money is free of charge.

BANK OF AFRICA currently has millions of customers in 16 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Distributed by APO (African Press Organization) on behalf of Orange.

Press contacts:

BANK OF AMERICA :

Alfa Barry, abarry@boaholding.com

Orange :

Tom Wright, tom.wright@orange.com, +33 1 44 44 93 93

Vanessa Clarke, vanessa.clarke@orange.com +44 718 848 848

Nicole Clarke, nicole.clarke@orange.com +44 7811 128 457

About BOA Group

BANK OF AFRICA Group is presently established in 17 countries, of which 8 are in West Africa (Benin, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Mali, Niger, Togo and Senegal), 7 in East Africa and Indian Ocean (Burundi, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Tanzania and Uganda), in the Democratic Republic of Congo and in France, through a network of 15 commercial banks, 1 finance company, 1 housing bank, 1 stock brokerage firm, 2 investment companies, 1 asset management firm and 1 representative office in Paris.

Since 2010, BMCE Bank (the second largest private bank in Morocco) is the majority shareholder of BOA Group. BMCE Bank provides it with strong strategic and operational support as well as direct access to international markets thanks to its presence in Europe and Asia.

Established almost 30 years ago in Mali, BOA Group presently has 5000 staff members, as at 31 December 2013 a consolidated total balance sheet of EUR 4.8 billion and it made a consolidated net profit of EUR 56.8 million.

http://www.bank-of-africa.net/

about Orange

Orange (http://www.orange.com) is one of the world’s leading telecommunications operators with sales of 41 billion euros in 2013 and has 161,000 employees worldwide at 30 June 2014, including 101,000 employees in France. Present in 30 countries, the Group has a total customer base of more than 236 million customers at 30 June 2014, including 179 million mobile customers and 16 million fixed broadband customers worldwide. Orange is also a leading provider of global IT and telecommunication services to multinational companies, under the brand Orange Business Services.

Orange is listed on the NYSE Euronext Paris (symbol ORA) and on the New York Stock Exchange (symbol ORAN).

For more information on the internet and on your mobile: www.orange.com, www.orange-business.com, www.livetv.orange.com or to follow us on Twitter: @orangegrouppr.

Orange and any other Orange product or service names included in this material are trademarks of Orange or Orange Brand Services Limited.

NEW YORK, September 17, 2014/African Press Organization (APO)/ — Sam Kahamba Kutesa was elected President of the United Nations General Assembly’s sixty-ninth session on 11 June (Press Release GA/11520). At the time of his election, he was serving a…

WASHINGTON, September 17, 2014/African Press Organization (APO)/ — Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Atlanta, Georgia

4:01 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: Good afternoon, everybody. Please be seated. I want to thank Dr. Frieden and everybody here at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for welcoming me here today. Tom and his team just gave me an update on the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, our efforts to help mobilize the international community to fight it, and the steps that we’re taking to keep people here at home safe.

Tom and his team are doing outstanding work. Between the specialists they have on the ground in West Africa and here at headquarters, they’ve got hundreds of professionals who are working tirelessly on this issue. This is the largest international response in the history of the CDC. After this, I’ll be meeting with some of these men and women, including some who recently returned from the front lines of the outbreak. And they represent public service at its very best. And so I just want them to know how much the American people appreciate them. Many of them are serving far away from home, away from their families. They are doing heroic work and serving in some unbelievably challenging conditions — working through exhaustion, day and night, and many have volunteered to go back. So we are very, very proud of them.

Their work and our efforts across the government is an example of what happens when America leads in confronting some major global challenges. Faced with this outbreak, the world is looking to us, the United States, and it’s a responsibility that we embrace. We’re prepared to take leadership on this to provide the kinds of capabilities that only America has, and to mobilize the world in ways that only America can do. That’s what we’re doing as we speak.

First and foremost, I want the American people to know that our experts, here at the CDC and across our government, agree that the chances of an Ebola outbreak here in the United States are extremely low. We’ve been taking the necessary precautions, including working with countries in West Africa to increase screening at airports so that someone with the virus doesn’t get on a plane for the United States. In the unlikely event that someone with Ebola does reach our shores, we’ve taken new measures so that we’re prepared here at home. We’re working to help flight crews identify people who are sick, and more labs across our country now have the capacity to quickly test for the virus. We’re working with hospitals to make sure that they are prepared, and to ensure that our doctors, our nurses and our medical staff are trained, are ready, and are able to deal with a possible case safely.

And here I’ve got to commend everybody at Emory University Hospital. I just had the opportunity to meet with Doctors Gartland and Ribner and members of their team and the nurses who — sorry, doctors, but having been in hospitals, I know — (laughter) — they’re the ones really doing the work. And I had a chance to thank them for their extraordinary efforts in helping to provide care for the first Americans who recently contracted the disease in Africa. The first two of those patients were released last month and continue to improve. And it’s a reminder for the American people that, should any cases appear in the United States, we have world-class facilities and professionals ready to respond. And we have effective surveillance mechanisms in place.

I should mention, by the way, that I had a chance to see Dr. Brantly in the Oval Office this morning. And although he is still having to gain back some weight, he looks great. He looks strong and we are incredibly grateful to him and his family for the service that he has rendered to people who are a lot less lucky than all of us.

As we all know, however, West Africa is facing a very different situation, especially in the hardest hit countries: Liberia, Sierra Leone, and in Guinea. Tom and others recently returned from the region, and the scenes that they describe are just horrific. More than 2,400 men, women and children are known to have died — and we strongly suspect that the actual death toll is higher than that. Hospitals, clinics and the few treatment centers that do exist have been completely overwhelmed. An already very weak public health system is near collapse in these countries. Patients are being turned away, and people are literally dying in the streets.

Now, here’s the hard truth: In West Africa, Ebola is now an epidemic of the likes that we have not seen before. It’s spiraling out of control. It is getting worse. It’s spreading faster and exponentially. Today, thousands of people in West Africa are infected. That number could rapidly grow to tens of thousands. And if the outbreak is not stopped now, we could be looking at hundreds of thousands of people infected, with profound political and economic and security implications for all of us. So this is an epidemic that is not just a threat to regional security — it’s a potential threat to global security if these countries break down, if their economies break down, if people panic. That has profound effects on all of us, even if we are not directly contracting the disease.

And that’s why, two months ago, I directed my team to make this a national security priority. We’re working this across our entire government, which is why today I’m joined by leaders throughout my administration, including from my national security team.

And we’ve devoted significant resources in support of our strategy with four goals in mind. Number one, to control the outbreak. Number two, to address the ripple effects of local economies and communities to prevent a truly massive humanitarian disaster. Number three, to coordinate a broader global response. And number four, to urgently build up a public health system in these countries for the future — not just in West Africa but in countries that don’t have a lot of resources generally.

Now, this is a daunting task. But here’s what gives us hope. The world knows how to fight this disease. It’s not a mystery. We know the science. We know how to prevent it from spreading. We know how to care for those who contract it. We know that if we take the proper steps, we can save lives. But we have to act fast. We can’t dawdle on this one. We have to move with force and make sure that we are catching this as best we can, given that it has already broken out in ways that we had not seen before.

So today, I’m announcing a major increase in our response. At the request of the Liberian government, we’re going to establish a military command center in Liberia to support civilian efforts across the region — similar to our response after the Haiti earthquake. It’s going to be commanded by Major General Darryl Williams, commander of our Army forces in Africa. He just arrived today and is now on the ground in Liberia. And our forces are going to bring their expertise in command and control, in logistics, in engineering. And our Department of Defense is better at that, our Armed Services are better at that than any organization on Earth.

We’re going to create an air bridge to get health workers and medical supplies into West Africa faster. We’re going to establish a staging area in Senegal to help distribute personnel and aid on the ground more quickly. We are going to create a new training site to train thousands of health workers so they can effectively and safely care for more patients. Personnel from the U.S. Public Health Service will deploy to the new field hospitals that we’re setting up in Liberia. And USAID will join with international partners and local communities in a Community Care Campaign to distribute supplies and information kits to hundreds of thousands of families so they can better protect themselves.

We’re also going to build additional treatment units, including new isolation spaces and more than 1,000 beds. And in all our efforts, the safety of our personnel will remain a top priority. Meanwhile, our scientists continue their urgent research in the hope of finding new treatments and perhaps vaccines. And today I’m calling on Congress to approve the funding that we’ve requested so that we can carry on with all these critical efforts.

Today, the United States is doing even more. But this is a global threat, and it demands a truly global response. International organizations just have to move faster than they have up until this point. More nations need to contribute experienced personnel, supplies, and funding that’s needed, and they need to deliver on what they pledge quickly. Charities and individual philanthropists have given generously, and they can make a big difference. And so we’re not restricting these efforts to governmental organizations; we also need NGOs and private philanthropies to work with us in a coordinated fashion in order to maximize the impact of our response.

This week, the United States will chair an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council. Next week, I’ll join U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to continue mobilizing the international community around this effort. And then, at the White House, we’re going to bring more nations together to strengthen our global health security so that we can better prevent, detect and respond to future outbreaks before they become epidemics.

This is actually something that we had announced several months ago at the G7 meeting. We determined that this has to be a top priority; this was before the Ebola outbreak. We anticipated the fact that in many of these countries with a weak public health system, if we don’t have more effective surveillance, more effective facilities on the ground, and are not helping poor countries in developing their ability to catch these things quickly, that there was at least the potential of seeing these kinds of outbreaks. And sadly, we now see that our predictions were correct. It gives more urgency to this effort — a global health initiative — that we have been pushing internationally.

Let me just close by saying this: The scenes that we’re witnessing in West Africa today are absolutely gut-wrenching. In one account over the weekend, we read about a family in Liberia. The disease had already killed the father. The mother was cradling a sick and listless five-year-old son. Her other son, 10-years-old, was dying, too. They finally reached a treatment center but they couldn’t get in. And, said a relative, “We are just sitting.”

These men and women and children are just sitting, waiting to die, right now. And it doesn’t have to be this way.

The reality is that this epidemic is going to get worse before it gets better. But right now, the world still has an opportunity to save countless lives. Right now, the world has the responsibility to act — to step up, and to do more. The United States of America intends to do more. We are going to keep leading in this effort. We’re going to do our part, and we’re going to continue to make sure that the world understands the need for them to step alongside us as well in order for us to not just save the lives of families like the one I just discussed, but ultimately, to make sure that this doesn’t have the kinds of spillover effects that become even more difficult to control.

So thank you very much to the entire team that’s already doing this work. And please know that you’ve got your President and Commander-in-Chief behind you. Thank you.

GENEVA, Switzerland, September 17, 2014/African Press Organization (APO)/ — WHO welcomes the contribution from the Government of the United States of America to significantly build upon their previous Ebola response in West Africa.

The new commitment provides support to the United Nations and to other international partners to help the Governments of Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, and Senegal in their work to contain this outbreak.

“This massive ramp-up of support from the United States is precisely the kind of transformational change we need to get a grip on the outbreak and begin to turn it around,” says Dr Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization.

The backbone of the US response is military leadership and the establishment of a regional command and control in Monrovia. The approach includes a military staging base to facilitate the coordination of the American and international response and to expedite the transportation of equipment, supplies and personnel including up to 3,000 from the military.

In addition, engineers will construct additional Ebola Treatment Units in affected areas and establish a site to train up to 500 health workers per week to care for patients.

The United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps will deploy 65 health workers to support the previously-announced, state-of-the-art hospital that will be placed in Monrovia to provide care to health workers who become sick.

The WHO Ebola response roadmap, released on 28 August, highlights the need for a massively scaled response to support affected countries. The commitment from the US Government exemplifies the kind of international effort required to intensify response activities and strengthen national capacities.

GENEVA, Switzerland, September 17, 2014/African Press Organization (APO)/ — Urgently needed medical supplies today reached Al-Zahra hospital in Warshefana, on the outskirts of Tripoli, in an operation carried out by the International Committee of the…

LUANDA, Angola, September 17, 2014/African Press Organization (APO)/ — Mr. Naoyuki Shinohara, Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), visited Angola during September 14-16, 2014, and issued the following statement at the conclusion of the visit:

“I would like to thank Vice-President Manuel Vicente for his hospitality and our fruitful discussions during my visit. I also had the privilege to meet the Acting President of the National Assembly Joana Lina Ramos Baptista, Minister of Finance Armando Manuel, National Bank of Angola Governor José Massano, and representatives of the business community and civil society. I had the honor to address faculty and students at the Agostinho Neto University, visited and made a donation to the Dom Bosco Salesian community in Luanda, which focuses on youth education, and was shown the impressive transformation of Luanda’s port.

“In our discussions we covered many important topics, including the maintenance of macroeconomic and financial stability, continued diversification of the economy, good governance, and policies to enhance job creation and reduce poverty and inequality. I was encouraged by the progress made over the last five years and the authorities’ strong commitment and efforts to transform Angola into a more inclusive economy.

“I am pleased with the open dialogue with the authorities on their efforts to address Angola’s macroeconomic challenges and implement economic reforms. We discussed issues concerning policy advice as part of the IMF annual consultations with this important member country as well as stepped-up IMF technical assistance to Angola. There has been progress over the past several years toward implementing sound economic policies to deliver historically-low inflation, adequate international reserves and robust growth. More recently, the Angolan authorities accelerated their efforts to improve the business environment, which bodes well for the future.

“But more needs to be done. Angola still faces challenges, in particular fiscal deficits, dependence on oil exports, improving infrastructure and oversight on public investments, and reducing poverty. Angola is strengthening financial sector governance, and it will be important to continue efforts to further strengthen bank supervision. It is also important that the government carries on pushing for good governance and the rule of law.

“I encouraged the authorities to continue the reforms, particularly to address the emerging fiscal deficits in order to protect the economy against swings in international oil prices and preserve space for their objectives to rebuild infrastructure, while saving part of the oil wealth for future generations. In this connection, it will be important to increase domestic revenue mobilization by improving revenue administration, restrain the growth of current spending by adopting a modern wage policy for civil servants and reducing costly and regressive fuel subsidies, while expanding mechanisms to protect the poor and improve public investment efficiency through better project selection and monitoring.

“The IMF remains committed to assist the Angolan government in the best possible way to address these challenges and meet its development goals.”

NAIROBI, Kenya, September 16, 2014/African Press Organization (APO)/ — The Federal Government of Nigeria is setting in motion new efforts to address long-term oil pollution in Ogoniland, Nigeria. The move by Nigeria’s Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, to convene a multi-stakeholder workshop on the implementation of the UN Environment Programme’s 2011 assessment of Ogoniland marks an important step towards the large-scale clean-up of the region.

The workshop in Abuja today will discuss the measures needed to implement the recommendations outlined in the 2011 UNEP report entitled, “Environmental Assessment of Ogoniland”. Participants from civil society, Ogoni communities, government, academia and the oil industry will attend the workshop. The day-long meeting will be held under the leadership of the Federal Government of Nigeria, with Mr. Erik Solheim, chairman of the OECD Development Assistance Committee, chairing the sessions.

Mr. Solheim has, since early 2013, served as a UNEP Special Envoy for Ogoniland, conducting and coordinating high-level political talks related to the planned environmental clean-up in Ogoniland.

Since the release of the Assessment in 2011, UNEP has expressed its readiness to support restoration efforts and commends the latest efforts by the Federal Government to put the necessary procedures in place for a large-scale clean-up and restoration of the region.

The UNEP report, conducted at the request of the Federal Government of Nigeria, was a detailed scientific assessment of environmental contamination in Ogoniland from over 50 years of oil operations in the region. The results from soil, ground water, remote sensing and public health studies showed that pollution was extensive, with widespread contamination of drinking water, land, creeks and vital ecosystems.

UNEP welcomes this positive development in Ogoniland after years of pollution. Environmental restoration will require coordinated action from oil companies, community and the government. UNEP remains ready and available to support stakeholders in making Ogoniland a cleaner and safer place for all.