Day: May 22, 2023

Senior military and police officers of the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS) met with the Hirshabelle State police officers and resolved to increase the fight against al-Shabaab in Jowhar in the south-central part of the country.

ATMIS Burundi Contingent Commander Jean Claude Niyiburana, who chaired the meeting to discuss ways of boosting cooperation to secure the Jowhar region against al-Shabaab, said they had good exchanges, good discussions on how they can work together, plan operations to fight al-Shabaab terrorists effectively.

“We agreed that we will continue with such meetings to exchange information and plan operations,” Niyiburana said in a statement issued in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia.

The fight against al-Shabaab extremists has become the top priority for both ATMIS and Somali government as the drawdown of troops enters a critical phase.

The AU mission said it has stepped up preparations for the withdrawal of 2,000 soldiers by June 30 from Somalia.

Niyiburana said the engagement between ATMIS and Somali Police in Hirshabelle State would pave the way for a speedy and successful operation against al-Shabaab terrorists.

Hirshabelle State Police Commissioner Hassan Di’isow Hassan described the meeting as a positive step toward strengthening joint efforts to degrade al-Shabab and other armed groups.

“We discussed ways of fighting al-Shabaab and liberating areas under their control. As you know there are ongoing operations against the militants in Hirshabelle. The areas east of River Shabelle were stabilized and liberated and the aim was to plan on how to liberate the remaining areas west of River Shabelle,” he said.

Hassan and his team also inspected the joint operations center (JOC) in Jowhar which supports the coordination and planning of operations between the allied forces.

The ATMIS Police Reforms Advisor in Jowhar Rogers Chebene said ATMIS and Somali Police had resolved to work closely in countering the threat posed by improvised explosive devices (IEDs) commonly used by the militant group to target civilians and security officers.

“The focus is to organize refresher training for local officers who had earlier completed EOD (explosive ordnance disposal) training. They need to be trained on how to use equipment recently donated by UNMAS (United Nations Mine Action Service) to neutralize IEDs planted on roadsides,” Chebene said.

Other key issues discussed and agreed upon during the meeting included the inclusion of Hirshabelle State police officers in the joint operations center and engaging Somali Police officers in different policing aspects.

Source: Nam News Network (NNN)

Bulgaria never perished as a spiritual nucleus. In its long national history, it managed to preserve its language and identity under three kingdoms, even when it disappeared twice from the map of Europe and for centuries. And Bulgarians managed to win their independence not only with the power of the sword, but also with the power of literacy, Vice President Iliana Iotova said in her address at Monday’s opening in Sofia of an international scientific conference titled ‘Cyrillo-Methodian Legacy in International Scholarship and Cultural Memory’.

The organizers underscored Iotova’s role in the establishment of a national scientific programme for the development and promotion of Bulgarian studies abroad.

Assoc. Prof. Elka Traikova, BAS Scientific Secretary responsible for Cultural and Historical Heritage, and National Identity, also addressed the forum in the name of the academy’s leadership.

The two-day forum, hosted by the Institut francais, is organized by the Cyrillo-Methodian Research Centre at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in the year marking the 1160th anniversary of the Cyrillic alphabet. Taking part are more than 70 scholars from 12 countries (Austria, Bulgaria, Britain, Czechia, India, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Ukraine and the US) representing dozens of universities and research centres around the world. They will present papers cutting across the disciplinary spectrum: history, literature, linguistics, palaeography, epigraphy, cultural anthropology, art studies, etc.

St Constantine Cyril the Philosopher (826/827-869) and St Methodius (c. 815-885) made history when they invented the Slavonic script in AD 855-863 and, together with their disciples, started its dissemination in medieval Europe. Their ministry revolutionized the spread of Christianity, making its teachings accessible to common people in their own vernacular five centuries before the Reformation in Western Europe. The brothers lived just a couple of hundred years before the Great Schism of 1054 between Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism but are nevertheless venerated by both the Eastern and the Western Church.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Dr. Aba Folson, a Cardiologist at the International Maritime Hospital (IMaH), Tema has stated that being diagnose with hypertension is not a death sentence but rather a warning for patients to control it.

Dr Folson, who is also the Treasurer of the Ghana Society of Cardiology, noted that seeing diagnoses of hypertension as a death sentence tends to prevent patients from taking their medications and following their doctor’s advice to control it.

She disclosed that with this perception, some of those diagnose were not religiously checking their blood pressure and altering their lifestyle as a way of controlling it, adding that with this, they stand a higher risk of developing fatal complications and even death.

Dr Folson said this at the weekly ‘Your Health! Our Collective Responsibility! A Ghana News Agency Tema Regional Office initiative aimed at promoting health-related communication and providing a platform for health information dissemination to influence personal health choices through improved health literacy.

The Ghana News Agency’s Tema Regional Office developed the public health advocacy platform ‘Your Health! Our Collective Responsibility’ to investigate the components of four health communication approaches: informing, instructing, convincing, and promoting.

Dr Folson was speaking on the topic; ‘Measure blood pressure accurately, control it and leave longer,’ which is the theme for the ‘May Measurement Month’ and the ‘World Hypertension Day’ commemoration.

The IMaH Cardiologist said such complications include blindness, kidney failure, stroke, heart attack, erectile dysfunction, and dementia, among others.

Dr Folson reminded the public that an uncontrolled hypertension has a higher risk of causing damage to every organ in the body including the heart, brain, feet, lever, and eyes, among others.

She therefore advised patients to make a conscious effort to control their blood pressure by following the instructions of their doctors and take their medications as well as follow health lifestyles such as exercising, regular check-ups, eating of fruits and vegetable, avoiding excessive consumption of salt and meat, avoid smoking and many others.

She said having a consistent blood pressure above 140/90 was a cause for concern as that could be diagnosed as hypertension, explaining that the upper reading represents when the heart was pumping blood while the lower measure is for when the heart was relaxing.

She encouraged the public to buy their own automated BP machines, or regularly check from the pharmacies or hospitals to always be within the accepted rate.

She said issues on hypertension must be of great concern to all as it was the most influential disease all over the world adding that it also has a lot of long-term effect on the body.

Mr. Francis Ameyibor, Regional Manager of Ghana News Agency Tema, explained that ‘Your Health! Our Collective Responsibility’ is part of a collaborative effort to establish a means for the dissemination of health information.

He said existing evidence indicates that mass media can help increase awareness of a health problem, raise the level of information about health topics; make a health topic or problem more salient, thereby sensitizing the public.

Mr. Ameyibor, therefore, called on both the traditional and social media managers to devote some time to engaging health professionals to educate the public, saying that ‘the education we offer today through our media platform may save a life tomorrow.’

Source: Ghana News Agency