American venture capital and private equity is dominating Africa, but it’s mostly funding other white foreign founders as black entrepreneurs struggle to raise financing
“Sorry for asking, but do you understand that the money belongs to the company and is not your personal fund?”
When Jesse Ghansah saw this question in an email from a prominent white investor in San Francisco while fundraising for his first startup four years ago, he refused the deal.
Continue reading...New analysis finds economic shock of pandemic coupled with existing grievances makes widespread public uprisings ‘inevitable’
The economic impact of coronavirus is a “tinderbox” that will drive civil unrest and instability in developing countries in the second half of 2020, according to new analysis.
Highest risk countries facing a “perfect storm”, where protests driven by the pandemic’s economic fallout are likely to inflame existing grievances, include Nigeria, Iran, Bangladesh, Algeria and Ethiopia, the analysis said.
Continue reading...Wakaliwood’s Isaac Nabwana swapped directing shootouts to parody music videos to support rural projects hit by Covid-19
The helicopter and the bling are made of cardboard and the dollar bills carefully drawn on paper by local children. But the people are very real and the music is totally authentic.
A new video from Ugandan film director Isaac Nabwana is a move away from his previous output – movies heavy on blood and gore and ultra-low on budgets – which is gaining him an international cult following. And he says the pandemic’s impact in pushing film online, with the trend towards all-digital film festivals, has helped.
Continue reading...After 30 years under Omar al-Bashir, the country has abolished several discriminatory policies and banned FGM – in what activists have called ‘great first steps’ towards liberalisation
Sudan’s transitional government has been praised for its latest reforms, which decriminalise apostasy, ban female genital mutilation (FGM) and end the requirement for women to get travel permits.
The legislation makes major strides in pushing back against discrimination faced by women and minorities during the 30-year rule of Omar al-Bashir that came to an end in 2019, according to equality advocates.
Continue reading...Tiny west African country enjoys warm temperatures, which are cooler on its tourist-filled coast
As the smallest country on the African mainland – just 30 miles (50km) across at its widest point, and barely larger than Devon and Cornwall combined – you would not expect the Gambia to have a very varied climate. The low-lying nature of the country, which runs along the Gambia River, also means there is little or no altitudinal variation.
But there is a difference in temperature, and especially humidity, between the Atlantic coast in the west and places further upriver: inland sites are noticeably hotter and more humid, especially from March to June. Hence the vast majority of the holiday resorts are situated along the 50-mile coastline, where pleasantly warm winds also offer some relief from the heat.
Continue reading...Egypt fears hydroelectric project will restrict limited waters on which its population depends
Ethiopia has allowed a controversial dam built across the headwaters of the Nile to fill with rain water, raising tensions with Egypt and Sudan.
The huge hydroelectric project on the Blue Nile, known as the Grand Renaissance dam, is at the centre of Ethiopia’s plan to become Africa’s biggest power exporter, but Egypt fears already limited Nile waters, on which its population of more than 100 million people depends, might be restricted.
Continue reading...Al Hassan Ag Abdoul Aziz Ag Mohamed Ag Mahmoud accused of torture and extrajudicial punishments
The trial of a former Islamic militant who allegedly forced hundreds of women into sexual slavery has opened at the international criminal court, where he has been accused of crimes against humanity, war crimes, and in a first, persecution on the grounds of gender.
Al Hassan Ag Abdoul Aziz Ag Mohamed Ag Mahmoud, 42, was transferred to the court’s custody more than two years ago from Mali, where he had been held by local authorities for more than a year.
Continue reading...Cases rise by over 230,000 worldwide in 24 hours; Florida cases increase by record total for a US state; Brazil cases near 2m. Follow the latest updates
Mainland China reported eight new Covid-19 cases as of the end of 12 July, up from seven reported a day earlier, the Chinese national health authority said on Monday.
The National Health Commission said in a statement that all of the new cases were imported infection involving travellers from overseas, the same as the seven cases a day earlier. The capital city of Beijing reported no new confirmed cases for the seventh consecutive day.
The Commission also reported six new asymptomatic patients, those who are infected with the coronavirus but have no symptoms, compared with five a day earlier. China does not consider such patients as confirmed cases.
Total number of confirmed Covid-19 cases for mainland China now stands at 83,602, while the death toll remained unchanged at 4,634.
Hong Kong health authorities are continuing to battle its worst virus outbreak yet. It saw a rise in cases in March as people began returning from overseas, prompting increased social distancing measures and restrictions which had started to ease in recent weeks.
On Sunday another 38 new cases were confirmed, including 30 local transmissions. Of the 30, 13 have an unknown source.
Continue reading...Cases rise by over 230,000 worldwide in 24 hours; EU summit ‘may not agree Covid-19 recovery fund’; 130m ‘may go hungry in 2020 because of virus’
An entire hospital in Mexico’s southern Oaxaca state has been put in quarantine after 68% of its remaining staff tested positive, writes Analy Nuño in Guadalajara.
Doctors and nurses at the Macedonio Benítez Fuentes hospital in the town of Juchitán de Zaragoza held protests last week, calling for a lockdown after 120 of their colleagues were put under isolation after positive tests.
The hospital won’t close – we will still deal with urgent cases, and have already analysed our staffing requirements to attend to the community as our colleagues start to return to work.
China has stepped up a travel warning to Australia, telling its citizens of a risk of being searched “arbitrarily” by law enforcement authorities, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.
Tensions between the two countries have been escalating on various fronts after Beijing reacted with fury to calls for an independent investigation into the origins and spread of the pandemic, which first surfaced in central China last year.
We urge Australia to change its course and stop interfering in Hong Kong’s affairs and China’s internal affairs in any way, or risk further damage to China-Australia relations.
Continue reading...Infections are accelerating in largely untouched countries and those which hoped they had come through the worst. But there is hope
“Most of the world sort of sat by and watched with almost a sense of detachment and bemusement,” said Helen Clark, appointed to investigate the World Health Organization’s handling of the pandemic. The former New Zealand prime minister was describing the early weeks of the outbreak, and the sense that coronavirus was a problem “over there”. The failure to recognise our interconnection created complacency even as the death toll rose.
It took three months for the first million people to fall sick – but only a week to record the last million of the nearly 13 million cases now reported worldwide. As England emerges from lockdown at an unwary pace, Covid-19 is accelerating globally. The WHO has reported a record surge of a quarter of a million cases in a single day. The death toll is over half a million people and rising fast.
Continue reading...Exclusive: discovery of two ancient mummies filmed for Channel 5 documentary
She was the fabled queen of ancient Egypt, immortalised over thousands of years as a beautiful seductress. But, despite her fame, Cleopatra’s tomb is one of the great unsolved mysteries.
Some believe she was buried in Alexandria, where she was born and ruled from her royal palace, a city decimated by the tsunami of 365AD. Others suggest her final resting place could be about 30 miles away, in the ancient temple of Taposiris Magna, built by her Ptolemaic ancestors on the Nile Delta.
Continue reading...There is a schism between older African migrants – who think Australia is ‘the greatest country in the world’ – and those who came here young or grew up here
This is the fourth in a six-part series on life inside Melbourne’s high-rise public housing. Read the third part here.
Nor Shanino would get into big debates with his father, Idris, an Eritrean refugee, about the police and the country.
Continue reading...Indian cases pass 800,000; Johannesburg struggles to find vital equipment; Texas warns ‘worst is yet to come’
India reported a record spike in coronavirus cases on Saturday, taking the national total to more than 800,000 and pushing several states to bring back lockdowns, despite the punitive economic cost.
Now the world’s third-worst affected country by case load, it reported a spike of 27,114 cases on Saturday, although mortality rates have been lower than in other badly affected countries with confirmed death toll now 22,123.
Continue reading...Six more people were injured in incident at a church near Johannesburg
Police in South Africa said five people were killed and more than 40 arrested after an early-morning shooting involving hostages at a church near Johannesburg.
A statement said police and military personnel who responded to reports of a shooting at the International Pentecostal Holiness Church in Zuurbekom found four people “shot and burned to death in a car” and a security guard shot in another car. Six other people were injured.
Continue reading...Medical charity accused of shoring up colonialism and white supremacy in its work
The medical NGO Médecins Sans Frontières is institutionally racist and reinforces colonialism and white supremacy in its humanitarian work, according to an internal statement signed by 1,000 current and former members of staff.
The statement accused MSF of failing to acknowledge the extent of racism perpetuated by its policies, hiring practices, workplace culture and “dehumanising” programmes, run by a “privileged white minority” workforce.
Continue reading...Venezuelan Socialist party boss also tests positive; Brazil president Bolsonaro ‘in good health’; record new cases in Australian state of Victoria
Reuters is reporting that a clinical trial in Japan of Fujifilm Holdings Corp’s Avigan drug yielded inconclusive results as a treatment of Covid-19.
The drug, which has been shown to cause birth defects in animal studies, has already been approved as a Covid-19 treatment in Russia and India.
So, welcome to our coronavirus live coverage. For those of you wanting your news straight, here’s a summary of the top lines of the day, with link to key pieces for you to investigate further at your leisure:
The UK has rejected the chance to join the European Union’s coronavirus vaccine programme due to ministers’ concerns over “costly delays”, according to sources.
Continue reading...WHO reports worrying rise; second Venezuelan minister tests positive; Brazil records 1,200 more deaths
This blog is closed – keep following coronavirus news at our new live blog.
US prison officials have announced California will release up to 8,000 people from state prisons to curb the spread of Covid-19 throughout the institutions.
Officials on Friday announced three separate efforts, approved by the governor, Gavin Newsom, that they say will decrease the prison population by 8,ooo by the end of August. The measures mark the largest release efforts the state administration has taken since Covid-19 began to circulate among prison staff and incarcerated people.
Related: California to release up to 8,000 prisoners to curb spread of coronavirus
Continue reading...Revealed: Gangs abandoned trafficked Nigerian women without access to food or funds amid coronavirus pandemic
Thousands of Nigerian women forced into prostitution were left to starve by sex traffickers during the Covid-19 pandemic in Italy, the Guardian can reveal.
According to the UN’s International Office for Migration (IOM), more than 80% of the tens of thousands of Nigerian women who arrived in Italy from Libya in recent years were victims of highly organised sex trafficking gangs. The women are forced into prostitution to pay off debts of up to €40,000 (£36,000) and controlled through violence and fear of “juju” black magic rituals they are made to undergo before their journey to Europe.
Continue reading...Attacks by Islamist groups and rising ethnic tension in the Mopti region have led to life-threatening disruption to farming practices
A surge in fighting in central Mali has forced hundreds of villagers from farmland they depend on and could leave them without enough food to survive this year, according to a study of satellite imagery by the UN’s World Food Programme.
More than half the number of violent attacks by armed groups against Mali civilians last year were recorded in the Mopti region, largely targeting people who survive on land or livestock.
Continue reading...Human Rights Watch suggests involvement of security forces in deaths over recent months
At least 180 civilians have been killed in recent months in a single town in Burkina Faso, with evidence pointing towards the country’s often-accused security forces, according to a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW).
Between November 2019 and June this year, groups of dozens of dead bodies were found often tied and blindfolded, strewn along major highways, beneath bridges and across fields in the rural region, the report published on Thursday said. Most of the bodies were buried by residents while the remains of others were left unclaimed.
Continue reading...