Bishop issues Palm Sunday appeal for end to IS-led violence in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado

29 March 2021

(Photo: WFP/Marco Frattin)Aerial views from drones and World Food Programme rescue helicopters clearly show the scale of the devastation in Mozambique in April 2019. i

In Mozambique, the Catholic apostolic administrator of Pemba issued an appeal on Palm Sunday for an end to violence in the northern province of Cabo Delgado where jihadi fighters linked to the group calling itself Islamic State are terrorizing the local population.

Bishop António Juliasse, the Diocese of Pemba’s apostolic administrator in Cabo Delgado, called for an end to the war in the province, where extreme violence by the terror group has led to at least 2,000 deaths and over 700,000 displaced, Vatican News reports.

The Islamic State, also known as ISIS, appears to be expanding its influence in Mozambique by solidifying its hold in Cabo Delgado, one of the country’s most important provinces, the Global Observatory reported on March 26.

The reports focused on insurgent operations along the south coast of Africa in the country that borders countries like South Africa, Zimbabwe and Tanzania.

Its report reveals that the jihadists linked to ISIS, especially those operating under the name Al Sunnah wa Jama’ah (ASWJ), have consolidated their hold in Mozambique’s northern Cabo Delgado region and captured the city of Mocímboa da Praia last year.

The fighters are now perpetrating attacks on the Afungi peninsula, only miles from energy giant Total’s operations, targeting lines of communication and overrunning government outposts across the region.

PALM SUNDAY SERMON

Meanwhile, in his sermon for Palm Sunday, Bishop António Juliasse invoked Christ’s mercy so that “all can be changed from within” and this war “that no one understands and that harms everybody can finish as soon as possible.”

He reminded Mozambican leaders of their duty to guarantee Justice so as “to preserve people from evils.”

(Photo: Juan Michel/WCC)

The bishop said, “Justice in a nation is non-negotiable. A leader who does not practice Justice is no longer truly a leader.”

He stressed that the government should pay attention to the poorest and help them overcome poverty, and no one should be excluded “for religious, political, ethnic or even regional reasons.”

Bishop Juliasse also stressed that religious leaders should not incite violence because, he said, “there is no religion of violence.”.

On the other hand, he noted that government leaders cannot “wash their hands” of their responsibilities, like Pilate, because it condemns innocent people.

If a leader washes his hands, he condemns all the people he governs”, he emphasized.

The bishop called on God to show Mozambicans another way: “not the way of violence, not the way of cruelty, but the way of love, of fraternity.”

In Geneva, United Nations agencies expressed horror and alarm on March 30 at the violence inflicted on civilians in Palma, where they have no access and insurgents who are locally known as “al-Shabaab” have control.

“What has happened in Palma is an absolute horror being inflicted on civilians by a non-state armed group,” said Jens Laerke, spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) at a UN press conference in Geneva.

Eric-Theodore Yepao is the Subject of Two New Interviews for Online Periodicals Thrive Global and IdeaMensch

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29 March 2021

Eric-Theodore Yepao is the Subject of Two New Interviews for Online Periodicals Thrive Global and IdeaMensch – Book Publishing Industry Today – EIN Presswire

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CapVest enters into an agreement with Sofina Foods for the sale of Eight Fifty Food Group

Newsdesk

29 March 2021

CapVest enters into an agreement with Sofina Foods for the sale of Eight Fifty Food Group

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              <h2 class="fe_heading2">CapVest enters into an agreement with Sofina Foods for the sale of Eight Fifty Food Group</h2>
              </p><div readability="187.46054519369">

Mar, ON, Mar 29, 2021 (Canada NewsWire via COMTEX) —

Funds managed by CapVest Partners LLP (“CapVest”), an international private equity firm, have agreed on the sale of Eight Fifty Food Group (“Eight Fifty” or “the Group”) to Sofina Foods Inc. (“Sofina Foods”), a leading Canadian multi-protein producer, for an undisclosed consideration.

CapVest acquired Karro Food Group, a leading UK pork processor, in 2017. CapVest and Management subsequently acquired iconic seafood business Young’s Seafood in 2019 to create Eight Fifty Food Group. Eight Fifty later consolidated five other protein businesses from across Europe to create what is today a leading European multi-protein specialist.

Sofina Foods is one of Canada’s largest food producers and has a 25-year history of acquisitions, growth and success. Sofina Foods is one of the country’s leading manufacturers of primary and further processed protein products for both retail and foodservice customers. Its brands are staples in Canadian households and include Cuddy; Lilydale; Janes; Mastro; San Daniele; Fletcher’s, Vienna and Zamzam. Sofina Foods currently operates 21 different sites and employs approximately 5,000 people.

Eight Fifty is a leading supplier of both branded and own-label seafood and pork. The pork division is one of the largest processors and suppliers of products across the UK and Ireland. The seafood division is the largest provider of chilled and frozen products across the UK, including the Young’s brand, and is a major player in frozen seafood across Germany and France.

The Group employs around 8,300 people, across 23 manufacturing sites. The business will remain under the leadership of Di Walker and will complement Sofina Food’s existing leading North American platform. As Europe’s multi-protein specialist, Eight Fifty will continue to provide sustainable, high-quality food products while focussing on growth.

Jason Rodrigues, Partner at CapVest, said: “We’ve created a leading European multi-protein business through a combination of strategic investment in our core asset base and complementary acquisitions of fantastic national champions. Eight Fifty delivers best-in-class products to our customers and consumers and we are all very proud of what Di Walker and her team have achieved over the last four years. We’re confident that Eight Fifty will continue to flourish under Sofina Food’s ownership.”

Di Walker, CEO of Eight Fifty, said: “We began this journey as a UK-only pork supplier doing less than £500 million in sales and after several years of transformational organic and acquisitive progress are now the European multi-protein specialist with over £2 billion in sales. This transaction and the interest in Eight Fifty is a great reflection on the quality of the business and testament to the work that CapVest and our entire management team have completed. We’re very excited to join Sofina Foods to deliver on their ambitious future growth plans.”

Michael Latifi, Founder and Executive Chairman of Sofina Foods, said: “As a leading Canadian multi-protein specialist, this acquisition allows Sofina Foods to continue on our path of ambitious expansion. Sofina Foods is one of Canada’s largest food producers and we have created a solid global foundation for continued growth. With a history of excellence in food production and processing spanning over 25 years, the strong brands of Eight Fifty Food Group align perfectly with our prominent brands and our shared future vision.”

The new company will have over 13,000 employees globally across 44 sites and near $6B in annual revenue.

Bob Wilt, President and CEO of Sofina Foods, said “Our team in Canada and our new partners at Eight Fifty Food Group have set the stage for considerable growth. I look forward to working with Di and to welcoming Eight Fifty to the Sofina family, and to drawing upon the significant expertise that exists across both businesses.”

CapVest and Management received financial advice from Jefferies, JP Morgan and Rothschild & Co, legal advice from Willkie Farr & Gallagher and Walker Morris, and financial and tax due diligence services from KPMG.

Sofina Foods received financial advice from Rabobank as the lead financial advisor and Scotiabank as the co-financial advisor. Additional advice was provided by PWC, Stikeman Elliott and Taylor Wessing.

The transaction is subject to approval from regulatory authorities.

About CapVest:

CapVest is a leading international private equity investor that partners with ambitious companies that supply essential goods and services. As an active and patient investor, CapVest has established a strong track record of success in delivering attractive returns by working closely with management teams in supporting transformation in the size and scale of its portfolio companies through a combination of investing behind organic and acquisition-led growth. For more information, visit www.capvest.co.uk

About Eight Fifty Food Group:

Eight Fifty Food Group is a leading supplier of both branded and own-label seafood and pork. The pork division is a leading processor and supplier of pork products across the UK and Ireland. The seafood division is a provider of chilled and frozen products across the UK, Germany and France. Central to its proposition is the iconic 200-year-old Young’s brand, benefitting from elevated brand awareness and unparalleled trust as the UK’s fish and seafood specialist.

Eight Fifty employs around 8,300 people, across 23 manufacturing sites. Eight Fifty is focussed on providing sustainable, high-quality food products while continuing to grow alongside its valued customer base.

About Sofina Foods Inc.

Sofina Foods Inc. is a privately owned Canadian company headquartered in Markham, Ontario, Canada dedicated to providing great tasting, high quality food products for consumers. As one of the nation’s leading manufacturers of primary and further processed protein products for both retail and foodservice customers, Sofina Foods has a broad portfolio of branded and private label pork, beef, fish, turkey, and chicken products. Sofina’s family of branded products consists of: Cuddy, Lilydale, Janes, Mastro, San Daniele, Fletcher’s, Vienna and Zamzam. Sofina Foods currently operates 16 HACCP-approved manufacturing facilities, 2 distribution centres, 3 hatcheries and employs close to 5,000 people. To learn more about Sofina Foods, visit www.sofinafoods.com.

SOURCE Sofina Foods Inc.

View original content to download multimedia: https://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/March2021/29/c0606.html

SOURCE: Sofina Foods Inc.

Media contacts: CapVest Partners LLP, Ben Valdimarsson (ReputationInc), +447889805930
/ [email protected]; Sofina Foods, Lisa Joyce, (905) 747-3322 ext 2118
/ [email protected]; Eight Fifty Food Group, Alex Beagley / Tom Hufton / Fiona
Walker, (FTI Consulting), +442037271000 / [email protected]

$29 billion a year by 2025 needed to get back on track to tackle AIDS, say UNAIDS

officialinstitutions

29 March 2021

billion a year by 2025 needed to get back on track to tackle AIDS, say UNAIDS

UNAIDS adopted the new Global AIDS Strategy 2021–2026 during a special session, chaired by the Minister of Health of Namibia, held on 24 and 25 March 2021.

Table of Contents

2020 targets unmet

The strategy updates the 2016 targets for 2020, which were not met, and was developed utilising extensive analysis of HIV data and input from more than 10,000 stakeholders from 160 countries.

It found the total resource needs for lower income, and lower-middle income countries, is around $13.7 billion. Donor resources are mainly needed for these countries.

For upper-middle income countries, which account for 53% of the investments needed, domestic resources are the predominant source of funding.

The strategy’s three priorities are to:

Maximise equitable and equal access to comprehensive people-centred HIV services.
Break down legal and societal barriers to achieving HIV outcomes.
Fully resource and sustain HIV responses and integrate them into systems for health, social protection and humanitarian settings.

A key focus of the strategy is the call on countries to utilise the full potential of HIV prevention tools, especially for adolescent girls and young women in sub-Saharan Africa, sex workers, people who inject drugs, gay men and other men who have sex with men, transgender people and people in prison settings.

If the targets of the strategy are achieved:

The number of people who newly acquire HIV will decrease from 1.7 million in 2019 to less than 370,000 by 2025.
The number of people dying from AIDS-related illnesses will decrease from 690,000 in 2019 to less than 250,000 by 2025.
The number of new HIV infections among children will drop from 150,000 in 2019, to less than 22,000 in 2025.. .

The strategy comes after the 2016 United Nations Political Declaration on Ending AIDS agreed to invest $26 billion in the HIV response by 2020.

Resources in low and middle income countries peaked in 2017 but they started decreasing in 2018.

The failure to achieve the targets has come at a tragic human cost: an additional 3.5 million people were infected with HIV and an additional 820 000 people died of AIDS-related illnesses between 2015 and 2020.

“We must not repeat the mistakes of the past”, said Jose Izazola, UNAIDS Special Advisor on Strategic Information and Evaluation. “The time to invest is now.”

Captain Underpants Book Pulled by Scholastic Over Passive Racism Concerns

Newsdesk

29 March 2021

Captain Underpants Book Pulled by Scholastic Over Passive Racism Concerns

The Captain Underpants book series is losing one of its titles due to controversy over “passive racism.” Scholastic has announced that the publisher will no longer be distributing the book The Adventures of Ook and Gluk: Kung-Fu Cavemen from the Future, a spinoff of the Captain Underpants series. It will also be completely scrubbed from the official website to remove all mentions of the book, all with “the full support” of author Dav Pilkey.

“Together, we recognize that this book perpetuates passive racism,” a statement from Scholastic reads. “We are deeply sorry for this serious mistake. Scholastic has removed the book from our websites, stopped fulfillment of any orders (domestically or abroad), contacted our retail partners to explain why this book is no longer available, and sought a return of all inventory. We will take steps to inform schools and libraries who may still have this title in circulation of our decision to withdraw it from publication.”
RELATED: Captain Underpants Epic Choice-O-Rama Trailer Shows Off Netflix’s Interactive Special
In a letter posted to his YouTube account, Dav Pilkey offered an apology of his own. The author writes: “About ten years ago I created a book about a group of friends who save the world using kung fu and the principles found in Chinese philosophy. The Adventures of Ook and Gluk: Kung-Fu Cavemen from the Future was intended to showcase diversity, equality, and non-violent conflict resolution.”

[embedded content]

“But this week it was brought to my attention that this book also contains harmful racial stereotypes and passively racist imagery,” adds Pilkey. “I wanted to take this opportunity to publicly apologize for this. It was and is wrong and harmful to my Asian readers, friends, and family, and to all Asian people. I hope that you, my readers, will forgive me, and learn from my mistake that even unintentional and passive stereotypes and racism is harmful to everyone. I apologize, and I pledge to do better.”

The children’s book author has also announced that he and his wife pledged to donate all of his advance and royalties from the sale of The Adventures of Ook and Gluk: Kung-Fu Cavemen from the Future to “charities that provide free books, art supplies, and theater for children in underserved communities; organizations that promote diversity in children’s books and publishing; and organizations designed to stop violence and hatred against Asians.”

A long-running series with 12 books and 11 spinoffs, Captain Underpants has been around since Pilkey released the first graphic novel in 1997. The story follows two fourth-graders, George and Harold, who accidentally turn their principal into the titular superhero. With over 80 million books sold, the last title in the Captain Underpants series was released in 2015, though spinoffs like Dog Man are still ongoing. Released in 2010, The Adventures of Ook and Gluk is presented as an in-universe comic written and illustrated by George and Harold.

DreamWorks Animation and 20th Century Fox released the first movie adaptation, Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie, in 2017. Featuring the voices of Kevin Hart, Ed Helms, and Nick Kroll, the movie was a success and would later spawn the Netflix TV series The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants. There doesn’t seem to be any plans for a new Captain Underpants movie anytime soon, but the Netflix series has been on for four seasons. This news comes to us from Scholastic.

Topics: Captain Underpants

Article – What does the European Parliament President do? (video)

officialinstitutions

29 March 2021

Article - What does the European Parliament President do? (video)

, https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/eu-affairs/20210325STO00803/

Dutch Ag-tech Company Smartkas Enters The Frankfurt Stock Exchange

Newsdesk

29 March 2021

Dutch Ag-tech Company Smartkas Enters The Frankfurt Stock Exchange – Organic Food News Today – EIN Presswire

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Cerecor Announces New Worldwide License Agreement with Kyowa Kirin for Anti-LIGHT Antibody CERC-002

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29 March 2021

Cerecor Announces New Worldwide License Agreement with Kyowa Kirin for Anti-LIGHT Antibody CERC-002 – Book Publishing Industry Today – EIN Presswire

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EU values explained in one minute | News | European Parliament

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29 March 2021

EU values explained in one minute | News | European Parliament

, https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/eu-affairs/20210325STO00802/

Big Tech Censors Religion, Too

Newsdesk

29 March 2021

It’s not only politics. So far this year, religious groups and figures have been silenced by tech companies at a rate of about one a week, according to a new report from the Napa Legal Institute.
Consider LifeSiteNews, a popular religious news website. In February its YouTube channel was permanently banned by Google, which deleted all its videos. Google claimed its action was a response to Covid-19 misinformation but wouldn’t tell LSN which video had offended its standards. The tech giant had flagged LSN for a video of an American Catholic bishop criticizing vaccines developed with fetal cells. The website’s editor in chief said “our best guess is that the channel was taken down for our frank and factual discussion of the controversy around abortion-tainted medicines and vaccines.”
In January, Bishop Kevin Doran, an Irish Catholic, tweeted: “There is dignity in dying. As a priest, I am privileged to witness it often. Assisted suicide, where it is practiced, is not an expression of freedom or dignity.” Twitter removed this message and banned Bishop Doran from posting further. While the company reversed its decision after public opposition, others haven’t been so lucky.
The previous month, Twitter blocked a post from the Daily Citizen, which is run by Focus on the Family, an evangelical Christian nonprofit, and suspended its account. The reason: a tweet that respectfully challenged the underlying premise of transgenderism. Twitter made a similar move against Catholic World Report, though the company later said it had acted in error. Ryan T. Anderson of the Ethics and Public Policy Center saw Amazon ban his book criticizing transgenderism, “When Harry Became Sally.” Amazon shows no signs of changing course.
Books from specific publishers are often targeted, such as Catholic TAN Books. One of its authors is Paul Kengor, who wrote an anticommunist tract called “The Devil and Karl Marx.” TAN Books can’t advertise his work on Facebook , or that of Carrie Gress, who wrote a book on “rescuing the culture from toxic femininity.” Facebook has also banned ads for Kimberly Cook’s book, “Motherhood Redeemed.” The offending ad called it “a book that challenges feminism in the modern world.”

Latest news of Europe and the world.

Bishop issues Palm Sunday appeal for end to IS-led violence in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado

Eric-Theodore Yepao is the Subject of Two New Interviews for Online Periodicals Thrive Global and IdeaMensch

CapVest enters into an agreement with Sofina Foods for the sale of Eight Fifty Food Group

$29 billion a year by 2025 needed to get back on track to tackle AIDS, say UNAIDS

2020 targets unmet

The strategy’s three priorities are to:

If the targets of the strategy are achieved:

Captain Underpants Book Pulled by Scholastic Over Passive Racism Concerns

Article – What does the European Parliament President do? (video)

Dutch Ag-tech Company Smartkas Enters The Frankfurt Stock Exchange

Cerecor Announces New Worldwide License Agreement with Kyowa Kirin for Anti-LIGHT Antibody CERC-002

EU values explained in one minute | News | European Parliament

Big Tech Censors Religion, Too

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