South African firefighters are struggling to extinguish another fire at the complex housing the country’s parliament in Cape Town, a day after a blaze swept through the buildings. Police have charged a 49-year-old man with arson and other offences including theft. The speaker of the national assembly said arson, if confirmed, would represent an attack on South Africa’s democracy
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British Council launches inquiry after Kenyan staff allege racism
Senior white executives are accused of discriminating against BAME Kenyan-born staff
The British Council has launched an inquiry into allegations from black current and former staff members in Kenya who claim they were subjected to systemic racism.
Senior white executives at the organisation, which is the British government’s cultural arm abroad, have been accused of discriminating against BAME Kenyan-born staff, particularly as they were selected and assessed for redundancy.
A programme manager who worked at the British Council from August 2014 to 2019 who claimed they were put at risk of redundancy without adequate explanation.
Another complainant claimed they resigned as a senior official of the Kenyan office’s welfare association after a white executive frustrated efforts to channel staff concerns to the senior leadership team. “Staff have no confidence raising concerns through HR … for fear of being victimised,” the complainant said.
A manager for the professional skills centre in Kenya who claimed they were among a number of black employees who were unfairly targeted for redundancy.
Continue reading...Sudan’s prime minister resigns as pro-democracy protests violently repressed
Abdalla Hamdok quits on same day at least two protesters killed by security forces during unrest in Khartoum and other cities
Sudan’s prime minister has announced his resignation amid political deadlock and widespread pro-democracy protests following a military coup that derailed the country’s fragile transition to democratic rule.
Abdalla Hamdok, a former UN official seen as the civilian face of Sudan’s transitional government, had been reinstated as prime minister in November as part of an agreement with the military following the October coup. In that time he had failed to name a cabinet and his resignation on Sunday throws Sudan into political uncertainty.
Continue reading...Fossil hunter Richard Leakey who showed humans evolved in Africa dies at 77
Kenyan conservationist found oldest near-complete human skeleton in 1984, dating from 1.5m years ago
The celebrated Kenyan conservationist and fossil hunter Richard Leakey, whose groundbreaking discoveries helped prove that humankind evolved in Africa, has died aged 77.
The president of Kenya, Uhuru Kenyatta, announced Leakey’s death with “deep sorrow”.
Continue reading...Man due in court after fire ravages South African parliament
Police say suspect arrested inside building over blaze that spread from oldest wing of national assembly
A man is due to appear in court on Tuesday after a massive fire tore through South Africa’s national assembly building.
An investigation has been opened into the blaze that started at about 3am on Sunday in the parliament complex’s oldest wing, which was completed in 1884 and has wood-panelled rooms.
Continue reading...Fire breaks out in South African parliament in Cape Town
Firefighters still battling to contain blaze that broke out in the historic building
A major fire in the South African parliament in Cape Town is continuing to burn after more than six hours, with authorities fearing significant damage.
Images broadcast on television showed flames leaping from the roof of one large building, while several others in the parliament precinct including the National Assembly were enveloped in a thick cloud of black smoke.
Continue reading...What is aquamation? The process behind Desmond Tutu’s ‘green cremation’
The anti-apartheid hero requested an eco-friendly cremation, which uses water instead of flames to process the remains
The body of Archbishop Desmond Tutu will undergo aquamation, an increasingly popular and environmentally friendly alternative to traditional cremation methods, using water instead of fire.
With aquamation, or “alkaline hydrolysis”, the body of the deceased is immersed for three to four hours in a mixture of water and a strong alkali, such as potassium hydroxide, in a pressurised metal cylinder and heated to around 150C.
Continue reading...‘They lost almost everything’: photographing the terror and joy of refugees in DRC
Alexis Huguet’s image of this twin girl, born as her mother fled into Congo, captures the fragility of life in the Central African Republic
The picture is a joyful one. Laure, a midwife at a health facility in Ndu, a village in the Democratic Republic of Congo, holds a healthy newborn girl. The baby’s mother, Ester, was at the health centre for a postnatal appointment after giving birth to twin daughters.
A couple of weeks earlier, when she was heavily pregnant and due to go into labour at any moment, Ester was forced to leave her home in Bangassou, on the other side of a river, in the neighbouring Central African Republic.
Continue reading...Hundreds pay respects to Desmond Tutu ahead of low-key funeral
Mourners queue in Cape Town to see casket of former archbishop, who requested a funeral without lavish expense
Hundreds of mourners queued outside Saint George’s cathedral in Cape Town, waiting to pay their respects before the plain wooden casket bearing the remains of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who died six days ago aged 90.
Clerics, family members, close friends and dignitaries will attend a requiem mass for Tutu, the icon of the fight for freedom in South Africa, on Saturday morning. Their numbers will be restricted due to Covid regulations. President Cyril Ramaphosa is expected to read a eulogy.
Continue reading...We can vaccinate 70% of the world against Covid by mid-2022. Here’s how
The WHO’s vaccination goal is achievable – but it will take proper funding, better vaccine distribution and jabs with longer shelf lives
While western countries scramble with their booster rollout to deal with the Omicron wave, only 8.4% of people in low-income countries have had at least one Covid vaccination dose.
The gap in the vaccination rates between high- and low-income countries is wider than ever. We cannot keep turning a blind eye to it.
Continue reading...Death of young woman after FGM revives calls for ban in Sierra Leone
Maseray Sei, 21, was found dead after undergoing the procedure in a centuries-old ritual carried out by a secret society for women
The death of a young woman in Sierra Leone, almost immediately after undergoing female genital mutilation, has sparked outrage and revived calls to end the practice.
The body of 21-year-old Maseray Sei was found on 20 December at Nyandeni village in Bonthe district, southern Sierra Leone, a day after the FGM took place. Sei’s family said that after the procedure the mother of two boys complained of a migraine and was in pain, with complications from FGM thought to be the cause, according to activists working on the case.
Continue reading...Citroën pulls Egypt ad accused of promoting harassment of women
Egyptian singer Amr Diab uses camera installed in car to take photo of woman without consent
The French car manufacturer Citroën has withdrawn an advertisement featuring the Egyptian singer Amr Diab after it sparked widespread accusations of promoting the harassment of women.
In the ad posted on Egyptian social media in early December, the 60-year-old pop star uses a camera installed in the car’s rearview mirror to secretly take a picture of a woman crossing in front of the vehicle.
Continue reading...The person who got me through 2021: Ami Faku sang the break-up track I listened to on a loop
I’ve spent 12 months of the pandemic obsessively listening to the song Uwrongo, with its line: “This is not working, go home.” I’m very grateful to its singer
I was born on a farm in northern South Africa. My parents moved nearer to Johannesburg when I was still a baby. They have a photograph of me at maybe six months old, asleep inside my dad’s guitar case. Just picturing it in my mind makes me feel safe. I can hear my dad playing.
When I feel overwhelmed, I need something I can listen to on loop. Not just for hours, but for days, sometimes weeks. I think of these tracks as an aural hood. They hold my head together.
Continue reading...‘Our house was gone, it was sea and sand’: life on the vanishing coasts – in pictures
Coastal communities in Mexico, Bangladesh and Somalia are struggling to adapt to the climate crisis. Many people have already lost livelihoods and homes to rising waters
Continue reading...The Guardian view on Africa rising: the continent must develop in its own way | Editorial
African nations have huddled together in face of climate and Covid storms. They must make that unity pay off for their citizens
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” So opens Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. Set in London and Paris during the late 1700s and the lead-up to the French Revolution, the novel was a warning about what happens when wealth funnels upwards while the masses stagnate. Nowhere do the best and worst of times collide with more geopolitical force than in Africa.
African writers swept the board for literature awards from the Nobel to the Booker, while seven out of eight children in the continent’s sub-Saharan region are unable to read by the age of 10. This year the continent was home to the slowest internet speeds on the planet, as African judges granted the world’s first patent given to a robot inventor. About 50 million Africans are expected to fall into extreme poverty in 2021, when the continent’s richest billionaires have seen their wealth increase by a fifth.
Continue reading...Desmond Tutu’s devotion to the planet and to justice for all | Letters
Readers commemorate the late South African archbishop, and the causes of peace, equality and environmentalism that he championed
Your informative obituary of Archbishop Desmond Tutu (26 December) missed an important dimension – his warnings on the need to save the planet. In March 2004, he delivered a lecture entitled God’s Word and World Politics at the United Nations as part of Kofi Annan’s public lecture series on cutting-edge topics in the humanities, natural sciences, social sciences and the arts.
The archbishop said: “Ecological concerns are a deeply religious, spiritual matter. To pollute the environment, to be responsible for a disastrous warming, is not just wrong and should be a criminal offence; it is certainly morally wrong. It is a sin.”
Prof Abiodun Williams
Tufts University
Archbishop Desmond Tutu to lie in state in Cape Town for two days
Body of revered anti-apartheid figure to be displayed for extra day ‘to accommodate more mourners’
The body of archbishop Desmond Tutu, the revered South African anti-apartheid fighter who died at the weekend aged 90, will lie in state for two days before his funeral on New Year’s Day, his foundations have said.
The lying in state was initially scheduled to last just one day – Friday – but has been extended to include Thursday “to accommodate more mourners”, said the Archbishop Tutu IP Trust and the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation.
Continue reading...From criminal to ‘teacher’: the ex-gangster tackling crime in Nairobi
One of the city’s most wanted, Peter Wainaina was given a second chance and used it to turn his life around and help others find different path out of poverty
At the entrance of Kibagare, a slum in Nairobi’s outskirts, boots of dead gangsters dangle from electricity wires that hover over ramshackle homes of wood and iron sheets.
With little state protection from crime, angry local people will often take the law into their own hands and beat an offender who is caught in the act, sometimes to death.
Continue reading...Engineering the future: meet the Africa prize shortlist innovators
Turning invasive plants into a force for good and powering healthcare with solar – here are three of the 2022 nominees
From a solar-powered crib that treats jaundiced babies to fibre made from water hyacinth that absorbs oil spills, innovators from nine African countries have been shortlisted for the Royal Academy of Engineering’s 2022 Africa prize.
This year half of the shortlist of 16 are women, and for the first time it includes Togolese and Congolese inventors. The entrepreneurs will undergo eight months of business training and mentoring before a winner is chosen, who will receive £25,000, and three runners-up, who win £10,000 each. All the projects are sustainable solutions to issues such as access to healthcare, farming resilience, reducing waste, and energy efficiency. The Guardian spoke to three of the shortlisted candidates.
Continue reading...‘We looked up to him’: South Africa begins week of mourning for Desmond Tutu
The beloved anti-apartheid hero will lie in state for two days in Cape Town before a funeral on 1 January
Thousands of South Africans will pause to remember the anti-apartheid icon Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who died on Sunday aged 90, every day this week as bells are rung at churches across the country for 10 minutes at noon.
Tributes to Tutu, described as the “moral compass” of his country, have poured in from around the world since his death in a Cape Town care home, as a series of events commemorating his life and achievements begin.
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