The view of the Atlantic Ocean from Tubman Boulevard on any given day is nothing less than picturesque. On a sunny day, it is a beautiful solid blue. The walk from the main road to the ocean is probably half a mile long; but not for long. A few years from now, we may just be driving along that coastal… Read more »
Flooding is gripping Madagascar as a tropical cyclone swirls close to the island. The storm, named Dumazile, formed two days ago and since then has been throwing torrential rain across Madagascar. The cyclone is moving painfully slowly, at only 17 kilometres per hour, ensuring the heavy rain continues to fall for a prolonged period. In the north of the island… Read more »
Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) has insisted on taxing religious material imported into the country, the privately-owned Daily Monitor reported on Tuesday. The move has been met by resistance from the two main religious groups in the country – Christians and Muslims. It follows a plan by government months back, to tax social media. An umbrella body for religious groups, the… Read more »
If the Oscar-winning performance by Lupita Nyong’o in “12 Years A Slave” was in a Kenyan movie, her film probably would have been banned for being too obscene. That is how dumb Kenya’s content regulations have become, with an overzealous censorship board and a public that seems to believe any material it disagrees with should be banned. “Rafiki,” a lesbian love story directed by Wanuri Kahiu,… Read more »
South African police searching for three men who stabbed worshippers at a mosque near Durban have said the attackers’ motive was unknown but “elements of extremism” were involved. One Muslim leader said the mosque was targeted because it was a Shia place of worship that had received previous threats, exposing deep tension between the Shia and Sunni population. The assailants… Read more »
Deep in the steamy rainforest of Gabon, a poaching gang’s night-time fire is smouldering and two long elephant tusks lie among the tangled roots. The axe that hacked them off lies nearby. Just after dawn, the insect buzz and bird chatter is suddenly pierced by a whistle blast and camouflaged park guards burst out from their forest cover, swiftly pinning… Read more »
The UN and international rights groups are calling on Sudan to pardon a 19-year-old woman sentenced to death after she killed her husband as he tried to rape her. Noura Hussein, who was compelled by her family to marry when she was 16, is facing death by hanging after a sharia court, which follows Islamic religious laws, found her guilty… Read more »
Burundi is a country that is suffering from internal turmoil, and a political party that is taking advantage of this distress that the country is suffering. Burundi’s political election is soon coming up, and there are multiple cases of political corruption that are coming with it. The election is between Nkurunziza and who ever dares to be his opponent. It… Read more »
A DECADE after mobile phones began to spread in Africa, they have become commonplace even in the continent’s poorest countries. In 2016 two-fifths of people in sub-Saharan Africa had mobile phones. Their rapid spread has beaten all sorts of odds. In most African countries, less than half the population has access to electricity. In a third of those countries, less… Read more »
Nairobi — Hundreds of women and girls in Kenya are using SMS to report cases of rape through a toll-free messaging service set up to help survivors break the silence around sexual violence in the conservative nation, the initiative’s founder said on Thursday. Although there are several hotlines for victims of sex attacks, the SMS platform – operated by the… Read more »