In Mogadishu, One Name Brings Smiles to People’s Faces
All across Mogadishu and beyond, there is one name that brings smiles to people’s faces: Muwado. The eight-year-old girl is the star of short comedy videos that have taken Somalia by storm. Viewed millions of times on online platforms such as TikTok and YouTube, Muwado Abshir’s sketches touch on a wide range of topics, from unemployment […]
Nigerian App Makes Virtual Missals Possible
The O’Sanctus app, created last year by Nigerian tech firm Applus Dome Limited, allows Catholics to attend virtual services, reserve time with priests and make financial offerings. It is part of a broader trend across Africa which has seen people worshipping remotely, often by watching sermons online, because of the widespread closure of churches. O’Sanctus, […]
Tech Solutions Yield Great Results for Africa’s Small-scale Farmers
More than half of working Africans have jobs in agriculture, but poor infrastructure, inadequate tools and a lack of investment have left the continent’s mostly small-scale farms struggling to feed a growing population. Now, a wave of technological solutions is aiming to help. In Ghana, a company called Acquahmeyer rents out drones that help small-scale […]
Pathetic Scenes after a Terror Attack in Cameroon
The U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, says poor roads and the threat of further Boko Haram attacks is preventing it from helping civilians in a camp for displaced people in northern Cameroon. The UNHCR says hundreds of displaced people and aid workers are trapped in the camp, which militants attacked over the weekend, killing 17. The […]
Mauritius Faces an Environmental Mess on its Pristine Beaches
Officials have barred access to beaches and lagoons on its southeast coast due to an oil spill from a stranded bulk carrier. “Access to Blue Bay Marine Park and the Mahebourg fishing reserve is strictly restricted as from this morning and until further notice,” the Ministry Of Environment said in a statement. The National Coast […]
African States have to Reconcile Nkrumah’s and Mazrui’s Approaches to Nuclear Arms
There are at least two traditions of African thought on nuclear weapons, traceable to their most vocal exponents: Kwame Nkrumah, the scholarly first president of independent Ghana, and Ali Mazrui, the renowned Kenyan scholar. Both Nkrumah and Mazrui associated nuclear weapons with imperialism and racism, but proposed different approaches to address the problem they present. […]
A Booming Black Market for Malaria Vaccine
Since the outbreak of the coronavirus, there have been claims that hydroxychloroquine can help in preventing and treatment the deadly virus, and since it’s been a valuable object that is trafficked. Chloroquine is well known in Africa, and was one of the most widely prescribed anti-malaria drugs until the 1980s. But it is no longer […]
Harare’s Hardline Response to Dissidence
Zimbabwe’s government is moving ahead with plans to criminalise political parties and the media for what it calls campaigning against the state. This emerged as a cabinet resolution on Wednesday afternoon amid the backdrop of global condemnation of abductions and crackdown on civil liberties ahead of the thwarted July 31 public demonstrations. Vice-President Constantino Chiwenga […]
Rwandan Researchers Make a Disturbing Discovery about Malaria Parasite
A drug-resistant strain of the parasite that causes malaria has been identified by scientists in Rwanda. The study, published in Nature, found the parasites were able to resist treatment by artemisinin – a frontline drug in the fight against the disease. This is the first time scientists have observed the resistance to the drug artemisinin […]
Pandemic Forces Malawi to Relook its Prison System
Human rights campaigners in Malawi are calling on the government to urgently release people from its notoriously overcrowded prisons as cases of Covid-19 are rising among both staff and inmates. Seven organisations have written to the government to request the decongestion of prisons, noting that a space which is supposed to accommodate 5,000 prisoners is […]
