During South Africa’s strict lockdown, groups of activists decided to distribute parcels of vegetables as wells as seedlings and gardening materials as well as to hundreds of vulnerable households
Photographs by Miora Rajaonary
Category Archives: Africa
Near-blind Ansell’s mole-rats detect magnetic cues with eyes, study shows
Research shows Zambian species with surgically removed eyes change nest-building habits but other behaviours remain intact
Near-blind, underground-burrowing, African Ansell’s mole-rats can sense magnetic fields with their eyes, a study has found.
Native to Zambia, the animals have eyes that span just 1.5mm in diameter, live in elaborate underground tunnel systems of up to 1.7 miles (2.8km) long and feed on plant tubers and roots.
Continue reading...More than 50 women in DRC allege abuse by WHO Ebola aid workers
Women say they were exploited by international workers in Democratic Republic of Congo
More than 50 women have accused aid workers from the World Health Organization and leading NGOs of sexual exploitation and abuse during efforts to fight Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
In interviews, 51 women – many of whose accounts were backed up by aid agency drivers and local NGO workers – recounted multiple incidents of abuse, mainly by men who said they were international workers, during the 2018 to 2020 Ebola crisis.
Continue reading...‘I felt unwanted’: Zodwa Nyoni on the immigration tales behind Nine Lives
The playwright’s monologue, staged at the Bridge theatre, reflects the anger and pain of refugees and asylum seekers
My family migrated from Zimbabwe to England in the late 90s. Most of my teens and all of my 20s were shaped by applying for residency. I spent a lot of time feeling unwanted despite giving back to communities and to the arts, representing the UK at international poetry festivals and exchanges, and contributing to the landscape of British theatre.
In 2014, I was commissioned to write a play for Leeds Playhouse and Glasgow’s Òran Mór as part of the series A Play, a Pie and a Pint. I wrote Nine Lives, a one-man show about Ishmael, a gay Zimbabwean asylum seeker who is dispersed to Leeds while he awaits the Home Office’s decision on his case.
Continue reading...How Tunisia’s shrinking economy and fish stocks put shark on the menu
A lack of awareness and ever-increasing competition among fishing boats threaten one of the sea’s most vital species
The temperature is cooling down in the fish market in Monastir, Tunisia. Still, the suffocating smell of the fish guts that have sat through the full force of the day’s heat hangs heavy in the air. The stallholders have left now, but on the floor amid the detritus is the unmistakable shape of a severed shark’s head.
Nearby, in a skip, the bodies of two guitarfish rays lie discarded, stripped of meat to the cartilage.
Continue reading...At least 11 people killed in attack on convoy in Nigeria
President urges greater checks for sabotage before displaced people are returned
Suspected Islamist militants have killed at least 11 people in north-eastern Nigeria in an attack on a security convoy that was taking people displaced by an insurgency back to their homes, police and security sources said on Saturday.
Islamic State, to whom a breakaway faction of Nigerian militant group Boko Haram pledged allegiance in 2016, said on its Amaq news agency that 30 police officers and soldiers were killed in the attack on Friday on a road leading to the strategic fishing town of Baga in Borno state.
Continue reading...Ugandan lawmakers reject plan for Murchison Falls hydropower dam
Activists praise decision to reject energy ministry’s proposal to dam the world-famous waterfall
Conservationists in Uganda have hailed a bipartisan decision to reject the government’s plan to construct a hydro-power dam at the country’s biggest tourist attraction.
Lawmakers unanimously adopted a report by the 28 member parliamentary committee on environment on Thursday, rejecting the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development proposal to build a 360MW at Uhuru Falls on Murchison Falls national park.
Continue reading...Chad halts lake’s world heritage status request over oil exploration
Exclusive: African state says it has agreements with oil companies in Lake Chad area
Chad has asked to suspend an application for world heritage site status for Lake Chad to explore oil and mining opportunities in the region, it can be revealed.
In a letter leaked to the Guardian, Chad’s tourism and culture minister wrote to Unesco, the body which awards the world heritage designation, asking to “postpone the process of registering Lake Chad on the world heritage list”.
Continue reading...Jerusalema: dance craze brings hope from Africa to the world amid Covid
South African music track and dance steps created in Angola have caught the imagination of politicians, priests and millions more
A song from South Africa that has gone around the world and been endorsed by presidents and priests has become the sound of the pandemic for millions across southern Africa.
Last week the Jerusalema dance challenge was endorsed by President Cyril Ramaphosa ahead of the country’s plan to open up to tourism on 1 October.
Continue reading...‘The great African novel of the 21st century’: Namwali Serpell wins Arthur C Clarke award
The Old Drift takes prestigious science fiction award with what judges called ‘an extraordinary saga that spans eras from Cecil Rhodes to Rhodes Must Fall’
Namwali Serpell has won the UK’s top prize for science fiction, the Arthur C Clarke award, for her first novel The Old Drift, which judges described as “stealth sci-fi”.
The Zambian author’s debut tells the stories of three families over three generations, moving from a colonial settlement by Victoria Falls at the turn of the 20th century, to the 1960s as Zambia attempts to send a woman to the moon, and into the near future. A mix of historical fiction, magical realism and sci-fi, Serpell saw off competition from authors including previous winner Adrian Tchaikovsky and Hugo best novel winner Arkady Martine to take the prize. Originally established by the author Arthur C Clarke with the aim of promoting science fiction in Britain, the award goes to the best sci-fi novel of the year.
Continue reading...Internal displacements reach 15m in 2020 with worst ‘still to come’ – report
Extreme weather, locust invasions and violence have forced people to flee their homes
Millions of people were uprooted from their homes by conflict, violence and natural disasters in the first six months of this year, research has found.
Nearly 15m new internal displacements were recorded in more than 120 countries between January and June by the Swiss-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC).
Continue reading...Number of new weekly coronavirus cases at record high, says WHO
Announcement comes as Covid deaths increased by 27% in Europe week on week
The weekly number of new recorded coronavirus infections worldwide was last week at its highest level to date, the World Health Organization has announced, as deaths from Covid-19 in Europe increased by more than a quarter week on week.
Almost 1 million people have now died from the coronavirus since it emerged in China at the beginning of the year.
Continue reading...We must increase lending to the world’s poorest countries now – or pay the price later
Larger economies have been flexible and creative coping with Covid’s impact – the same mindset needs to be applied to helping poorer countries
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicts Africa will suffer its worst recession since the 1970s. For the first time since the 1990s, extreme poverty will increase. The annual death toll from HIV, tuberculosis and malaria is set to double. We also fear a near doubling in the number of people facing starvation. Many girls out of school will never go back. Life expectancy will fall.
All this will fuel grievances, and in their wake conflict, instability and refugee flows, all giving succour to extremist groups and terrorists. The consequences will reach far and last long. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and G20 nations will feel the blowback just as some start to see light at the end of the Covid tunnel.
Continue reading...Botswana says it has solved mystery of mass elephant die-off
Elephants may have ingested toxins produced by bacteria found in waterholes
Hundreds of elephants died in Botswana earlier this year from ingesting toxins produced by cyanobacteria, according to government officials who say they will be testing waterholes for algal blooms next rainy season to reduce the risk of another mass die-off.
The mysterious death of 350 elephants in the Okavango delta between May and June baffled conservationists, with leading theories suggesting they were killed by a rodent virus known as EMC (encephalomyocarditis) or toxins from algal blooms.
Continue reading...Phages: the tiny viruses that could help beat superbugs
Bacteriophages were superseded by modern antibiotics, but scientists believe they could be key to conquering antimicrobial resistance
It is, say enthusiasts, the cure that the world forgot. An old therapy that could take on the new superbugs.
Discovered in 1917 by French Canadian biologist Félix d’Hérelle, phages – or bacteriophages – are tiny viruses that are natural predators of bacteria. In many countries they were supplanted during the second world war by antibiotics but continued to be used for decades in eastern Europe.
Continue reading...Global preparation: how different countries planned for the second wave of Covid-19
Lockdowns brought temporary relief to some but, everywhere, test and trace is key
The first wave of coronavirus swept through a world unprepared. Authorities struggled to test for the disease, and didn’t know how to slow the spread of Covid-19.
Lockdowns brought the virus under temporary control in some places, including the UK, buying a window for the revival of education and the economy, and time to prepare for future waves that epidemiologists said were almost inevitable.
Continue reading...So long, Southsea: last sultan of Zanzibar quits UK after 56 years in exile
Deposed royal who fled to UK after 1964 revolution finally reunited with family in Oman
After more than half a century of living in Southsea, Portsmouth, with its unpredictable British weather, shingle beaches and Victorian pier, relocation to the Gulf state of Oman might take some adjustment.
But for Jamshid bin Abdullah al-Said the 91-year-old last sultan of Zanzibar, it was the next best thing to going home.
Continue reading...Burglars beware: tech pioneers aim to make South Africa’s townships safer
Innovative community alarm system provides solution in places where violent crime and theft have become endemic
Ntsako Mgiba was sleeping at his aunt’s place in eMalahleni (previously known as Witbank) in Mpumalanga province when thieves broke in and stole hundreds of pounds worth of laptops, smartphones and other tech. The next morning Mgiba followed the burglars’ footprints – theirs was not the only home to be targeted. The police filed a report that afternoon, but any hope of tracking them down had gone.
Crime is a fact of life across South Africa. But while richer residents have access to one of the world’s largest private security industries – there are 2.57 security personnel for every police officer – poorer communities like that in eMalahleni, a town that leads the country in house break-ins, are left to fend for themselves. “In the townships you have burglar bars, dogs and lapsed alarm contracts,” says Mgiba, explaining that a couple of big security firms have tried and failed to enter the market.
Continue reading...How did a ‘cocktail of violence’ engulf Mozambique’s gemstone El Dorado?
Clashes between Isis-linked militants, government troops and mercenaries have displaced 200,000 in mineral-rich Cabo Delgado
For decades a forgotten corner of Mozambique, Cabo Delgado has now become the country’s El Dorado, promising billions in natural gas and gemstones but delivering its population only violence and displacement.
An insurgency in the province now threatens to become further entrenched – 50,000 people have fled their homes since March and Mozambique’s neighbours are currently debating sending in regional forces to help defeat militants who seized a strategic port in the town of Mocímboa da Praia last month.
Continue reading...Isis claims murder of French aid workers and their guides in Niger
Six NGO staff and two local guides were ambushed in a nature reserve in August
The Islamic State extremist group has claimed responsibility for the murder of six French aid workers and their two local guides while they were visiting a nature reserve in the west African country of Niger.
The six French humanitarian workers, aged between 25 and 30, their guide and their driver were killed on 9 August in the Kouré national park, a wildlife haven 37 miles (60km) from Niger’s capital, Niamey.
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