Category Archives: Africa

China’s ‘splinternet’ will create a state-controlled alternative cyberspace

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Beijing is using blockchain to build a new internet and many developing countries are likely to sign up – but at what cost?

Cyberspace is one huge, unregulated mess. A virtual wild west where sophisticated criminal gangs ply their trade alongside multinational companies, spy agencies, activists, celebrity influencers – and nation states. The question of who governs it is one of the biggest of our time.

Britain needs to be, if not quite ruling the waves, at least a global force for good in the expanding virtual world. The issue has never been so pressing. Six years ago, I acted for a coder in the biggest cyberfraud phishing case in the UK. The malware my client and others created was so sophisticated that the police could not decode it but were able to show it was used for fraud. The financial data harvested was stored on two servers, one in France and one in the US, and the lack of international cooperation meant law enforcement never got their hands on it.

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‘Sex for a fare’ motorcycle taxis threaten Uganda’s fight against Aids

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Study shows pattern of risky sexual behaviour by young men making a living in the booming boda boda industry

Uganda’s motorcycle taxis riders threaten to derail the country’s fight against HIV because of risky sexual behaviours, including sex with clients in lieu of payment, according to a new study.

At least 12% of a sample of 281 commercial riders, a common informal job known as boda boda and dominated by young men, admitted to engaging in transactional sex with customers who failed to pay their fares; 65.7% reported having had sex with more than one partner in the past 12 months; and 23% had had multiple partners in the same period, with 57.1% reporting that they did not use a condom at all in the six months prior to the survey, conducted by Makerere University College of Education and External Studies (CEES).

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‘A question of dignity’: the pathologist identifying migrants drowned in the Med

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Dr Cristina Catteneo made it her mission to put a name to each man, woman and child found in the overcrowded hulls of sunken boats bound for Europe

At a glance, Dr Cristina Cattaneo assessed the lifeless body on the floor of an abandoned Sicilian hospital – a thin, young Eritrean refugee about 180cm tall. While most of the corpse was intact, his face and hands were skeletonised, probably the work of sea animals.

It was the morning of 3 July 2015, and this was the first body to be recovered by a navy robot after a shipwreck on 18 April that year, which left more than 1,000 people dead.

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Twitter deletes Nigerian president’s ‘abusive’ Biafra tweet

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Muhammadu Buhari’s comments come amid escalating violence and resurgence in secessionist sentiment

Twitter has deleted a tweet by Nigeria’s president Muhammadu Buhari in which he threatened to punish pro-Biafra groups blamed for escalating attacks on government and security authorities.

The social media firm said Buhari’s tweet violated its “abusive behaviour” policy, leading to a 12-hour suspension of his account.

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Ethiopia’s human rights chief as war rages in Tigray: ‘we get accused by all ethnic groups’

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Former political prisoner Daniel Bekele has made the commission more autonomous but critics claim he is biased on current conflict

There was a time when a report by Ethiopia’s human rights commission was a staid affair, its findings offering window-dressing for hand-wringing donors and legal cover to the government.

Between 2013 and 2017 the commission systematically “whitewashed human rights violations through compromised methodologies, dismissing credible allegations”, according to a 2019 Amnesty International study that accused it of “brazen bias against victims”.

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Eritrean soldiers killed 19 civilians in latest Tigray atrocity, locals claim

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Killings took place near Ethiopia’s Abuna Yemata church on 8 May, according to multiple testimonies

Eritrean soldiers killed 19 civilians in a village at the foot of an internationally celebrated rock-hewn church in Tigray three weeks ago, witnesses, relatives and local residents have claimed, the latest alleged atrocity in the war-torn Ethiopian region.

Most of the victims in the alleged attack were women and young children.

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UK and France to blame for chaos in Libya, says presidential hopeful

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Former interior minister Fathi Bashagha claims ‘lazy’ UK failing in moral responsibility after 2011 Europe-led regime change

The UK has been distracted by Brexit and “lazy” in fulfilling its moral responsibility to pull Libya out of the chaos that enveloped it after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi, a leading presidential candidate claimed.

The candidate, Fathi Bashagha, a former interior minister, who narrowly failed to become prime minister of an interim Libyan government in a UN process in February, said the UK had a special duty to come to Libya’s aid given David Cameron’s role in the country’s 2011 regime change.

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Ugandan minister speaks from hospital bed after assassination attempt – video

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Gunmen fired bullets at a car carrying Katumba Wamala in an attempted assassination on Tuesday, wounding the former army commander and killing his daughter and driver. Speaking from his hospital bed, the government minister said: 'I have survived … the bad guys have done it, but God has given me a second chance. I will pull through.'

There have been several unsolved assassinations and mysterious deaths of high-profile officials in the east African country in recent years that have fuelled speculation about perpetrators and their motivations


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My story proves Rwanda’s lack of respect for good governance and human rights | Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza

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Responsibility for defending what the Commonwealth stands for must not pass to the country without reforms

If Rwanda had hosted the Commonwealth heads of government meeting, which has been cancelled for the second time due to Covid-19, the UK was due to hand the country the Commonwealth chair.

Rwanda would have held the responsibility for defending what the Commonwealth stands for – despite violating those same values for decades. When Rwanda was admitted as a member in 2009, I had hoped our government would apply Commonwealth values in its governance. But this did not happen.

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Migrant guards in Qatar ‘still paid under £1 an hour’ ahead of World Cup

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Promises of better working conditions ring hollow for tens of thousands of security guards, who say they still work long hours for low pay

Every day at 5pm, Samuel boards the company bus that takes him to his night shift as a guard at a luxury high-rise tower near Qatar’s capital, Doha. When his shift ends 12 hours later, he says he will have earned £9, just 75p an hour.

Samuel, who is from Uganda, says he almost never has a day off. “You have to tell lies, like ‘you are sick, you’re not feeling good’, so that you get a day off,” he says.

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Gunmen in Nigeria abduct about 150 students from Islamic school

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One person shot dead after armed gang on motorcycles attack town in north-central Nigeria, ‘shooting indiscriminately’

An armed gang has abducted students from an Islamic school in the north-central Nigerian state of Niger.

The school’s owner, Abubakar Tegina, told Reuters he witnessed the attack and estimated about 150 students had been taken. “I personally saw between 20 and 25 motorcycles with heavily armed people. They entered the school and went away with about 150 or more of the students,” said Tegina, who lives around 150 metres from the school.

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Uganda police killings reconstructed using mobile phone footage

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Interviews with more than 30 witnesses also used in investigation by BBC Africa Eye into deaths in Kampala

A single truck carrying eight police officers was responsible for a mass shooting in the centre of the Ugandan capital, Kampala, in November last year in which at least four people died and many more were injured, an investigation by BBC Africa Eye has found.

The shootings were part of a crackdown on protests in Kampala following the arrest of opposition leader Robert Kyagulanyi, a singer turned politician known as Bobi Wine, who was campaigning as a candidate for presidential elections held two months later.

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Vaccine inequality exposed by dire situation in world’s poorest nations

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Analysis: the failings of the Covax programme, logistical issues and governments’ own inadequacies are making a bad situation worse

Only 1% of the 1.3 billion vaccines injected around the world have been administered in Africa – and that comparative percentage has been declining in recent weeks. It is a stark figure that underlines just how serious a problem global vaccine inequity has become. But the answer for the developing world is not as simple as delivering more vaccines.

From Africa to Latin America, Asia and the Caribbean, the same issues have been replicated. On top of finding enough doses, there have been logistical difficulties with delivery, problems over healthcare infrastructure and, in some countries, public hesitancy towards vaccines.

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Macron seeks African reset with new view of France’s troubled history on continent

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Honest examination of French colonial record in Africa and responsibilty in Rwanda key to new strategy, though critics say little has changed

With the golden winter sun slanting across the palm trees and yellow sandstone, the scene was perfect. Emmanuel Macron and his host, Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa, walked down the red carpet of the Union buildings in Pretoria as the Marseillaise resonated through the clean, crisp air.

The historic setting was apt. Since taking power in 2017, the French president has sought a broad reset of national strategy, relations and intervention in Africa. He has chosen a very contemporary way to do this: by re-examining the past.

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Woman shot dead in Lesotho as factory workers’ clashes with police escalate

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Trade unions say they have lost control of protests over pay as employers cite impact of Covid for restraint

A woman has died after being shot during violent clashes between factory workers and police in Lesotho as trade unions say they have lost control over angry protests over pay.

Demonstrations spilled over into violence in what is the second week of industrial action, with looting and damage to several businesses in the capital Maseru.

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Protesters call on banks to ‘drop African debt’ in wake of Covid

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World’s poorest nations saddled with ‘imprisoning’ debt, hampering responses to the pandemic, say activists protesting HSBC meeting

Activists at a demonstration outside the annual general meeting of HSBC in London have demanded the bank and other financial giants provide debt relief to African countries hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic.

In an attempt to highlight the role of private creditors in the debt crises of the world’s poorest countries, campaigners with “drop the debt” banners gathered outside HSBC’s AGM at the Southbank Centre.

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I Am Samuel: the film aiming to ‘change the narrative’ on being gay in Kenya

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The young star of Peter Murimi’s intimate documentary is as poor, religious and conservative as his peers – and fearful of a violent backlash, he says

Samuel Asilikwa grew up in rural Kenya. There was a strict template for masculinity, informed by centuries of tradition – and intolerance. In a new documentary about his life, we see his father, a pastor, question Asilikwa about why he is yet to find a wife. We then watch as he relocates to Nairobi in search of work and adventure. He finds community, friendship and intense romance with a man called Alex.

Peter Murimi’s film I Am Samuel, shot verité-style over the course of five years, is at its most powerful contrasting city and countryside. Kenya’s farmland, clay roads, shrubbery and corn fields are evidence of a still, yet cyclical, pattern of life compared with the infinite noise and claustrophobia of Nairobi. But it is also a film about a shifting political landscape, where “carnal knowledge against the order of nature” is punishable by 14 years’ imprisonment.

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Germany agrees to pay Namibia €1.1bn over historical Herero-Nama genocide

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It is understood the text of the joint declaration will call German atrocities ‘genocide’ but omit the words ‘reparations’ or ‘compensation’

Germany has to agreed to pay Namibia €1.1bn (£940m) to fund projects among communities affected by the Herero-Nama genocide at the start of the 20th century, in what Angela Merkel’s government says amounts to a gesture of reconciliation but not legally binding reparations.

Tens of thousands of men, women and children were shot, tortured or driven into the Kalahari desert to starve by German troops between 1904 and 1908 after the Herero and Nama tribes rebelled against colonial rule in what was then named German South West Africa and is now Namibia.

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