Watching Lake Malawi Run Dry
There was a time when the vast Lake Chilwa almost disappeared. In 2012 it had been extremely hot in southern Malawi, with little rain to fill the rivers that ran into the lake. Friday Njaya, Malawi’s assistant director of fisheries, says that as water levels vary by season, the lake can cover more than 2,000 […]
Algeria is the Last Country to Stop Selling Leaded Petrol
Leaded petrol, a staple of motoring for nearly a century but blamed for more than 1-million premature deaths annually, has finally had its day. After a prolonged campaign to end its use, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) announced on Monday that Algeria, the last country to sell leaded petrol, had stopped doing so and the […]
Lusaka’s Plans to Deal with a Mountain of Debt
Zambia’s new finance minister, Situmbeko Musokotwane, said it was critical to agree to a lending programme with the IMF because it would give creditors confidence and the government cheaper and longer financing. Musokotwane faces the daunting task of trying to pull the southern African country out of a protracted debt crisis and has pledged to […]
Ethiopians’ Pockets Hit by War and Covid
Ethiopia’s 10-month war has come at a huge human cost, with thousands killed, millions displaced and many in desperate need of assistance. But that’s not the only damage being done to Africa’s second most populous nation – the war has incurred a huge economic cost, too, that could take years to repair. In the capital […]
South African Scientists have Detected a New Coronavirus Variant with Multiple Mutations
They are yet to establish whether it is more contagious or able to overcome the immunity provided by vaccines or prior infection, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) has said. The variant, known as C.1.2, was flagged last week by the KwaZulu-Natal Research and Innovation and Sequencing Platform in a preprint study that has […]
