The development marks an important step in addressing the continent’s reliance on imported treatments and vaccines
The first Moroccan-produced tests to diagnose breast cancer and leukaemia will become commercially available within months, cutting costs and waiting times for patients in the country and across Africa.
Most of the diagnostic kits for cancer and other diseases in Africa are expensive imports from outside the continent, usually from Europe and the US.
Continue reading...Vessel that sank with more than 200 transported people onboard is being used to humanise the story of slavery
In 2015, a delegation from the Smithsonian Institution travelled to Mozambique to inform the Makua people of a singular and long-overdue discovery. Two hundred and twenty-one years after it sank in treacherous waters off Cape Town, claiming the lives of 212 enslaved people, the wreck of the Portuguese slave ship the São José Paquete D’Africa had been found. When told the news, a Makua leader responded with a gesture that no one on the delegation will ever forget.
“One of the chiefs took a vessel we had, filled it with soil and asked us to bring that vessel back to the site of the slave ship so that, for the first time since the 18th century, his people could sleep in their own land,” says Lonnie Bunch, now the secretary of the Smithsonian.
Continue reading...Volker Türk says investigation launched by government into deaths in mainly Fulani and Muslim area should be rapid and open
The head of the United Nations human rights office has called for a prompt, transparent investigation into the deaths of at least 28 people whose bodies were found in north-west Burkina Faso last month.
Volker Türk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, said it was encouraging that authorities had announced an investigation into the incident in Nouna town, a predominately ethnic Fulani and Muslim community.
Continue reading...Body of fashion designer and model Edwin Chiloba, 25, found in metal trunk left by roadside
Police investigating the death of an LGBTQ+ rights campaigner whose body was discovered stuffed in a metal trunk have arrested a suspect, they said.
Edwin Chiloba, a 25-year-old fashion designer and model, was found dead by the roadside earlier this week about 40km (25 miles) outside the Rift Valley town of Eldoret, media reports said.
Continue reading...Female workers tell of exploitation and sexual assault at frankincense warehouse supplying US essential oils company
“I’m not speaking metaphorically – a bottle of doTERRA essential oil can change the world,” says David Stirling, a mild, clean-cut, middle-aged man. His largely female audience cheers and whistles, as if for a celebrity. Stirling, then CEO and co-founder of doTERRA, a Utah-based multi-level marketing company that sells essential oils, is making his opening remarks in September 2021 to the packed Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City.
In a setting reminiscent of a megachurch, Stirling’s soft-spoken voice echoes. He reminds the audience that the world needs healers more than ever – “and that’s you”, he says, to raucous applause. He quotes CS Lewis, speaks of miracles and says he’s seen people turn to doTERRA in their lowest moments. People cry.
Continue reading...State broadcaster’s staff held on suspicion of disseminating the clip of Salva Kiir at official event
Six journalists have been detained by South Sudan security forces over viral footage of the country’s president apparently urinating on himself, a press freedom watchdog has reported.
The clip, filmed during an official event, shows South Sudanese leader Salva Kiir standing for the national anthem, initially oblivious as a stain spreads on his trousers and a pool forms at his feet. The camera abruptly turns away after Kiir and his entourage appear to notice what is happening.
Continue reading...Body of fashion designer and model Edwin Chiloba, 25, found stuffed in metal box by side of road, say reports
Kenyan police are investigating the death of an LGBTQ+ rights activist whose body was discovered stuffed in a metal box in a killing that has provoked national outrage.
Edwin Chiloba, a 25-year-old fashion designer and model, was found dead by the side of a road on Wednesday 25 miles (40km) outside the Rift Valley town of Eldoret in western Kenya, according to reports.
Continue reading...Concerns raised over health of Pape Alé Niang, detained since 20 December on charges of revealing confidential government information
Pressure is mounting on authorities in Senegal to release a journalist and human rights defender on hunger strike in detention, after reports of his deteriorating health.
Pape Alé Niang, director of the Dakar Matin news website, has refused food since he was imprisoned on 20 December and has been in hospital since 24 December. A request for his immediate conditional release was turned down on Tuesday.
Continue reading...In an election year, critics of the ruling Zanu-PF party are claiming political persecution over the continued incarceration of Job Sikhala
A Zimbabwean opposition politician who has spent more than 200 days in prison has been denied bail for the fifteenth time.
Job Sikhala, an outspoken lawyer for the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC), who was arrested in June 2022 for inciting violence when he allegedly threatened to avenge the murder of an opposition activist, is a victim of political persecution before a crucial election this year, say government critics.
Continue reading...Survivor says pushing began after fireworks outside Freedom City shopping mall in Kampala
At least nine people, some of them children, died in a crush as revellers rang in the new year at a shopping centre in Uganda’s capital, police said.
After fireworks outside the Freedom City mall in Kampala, “a stampede ensued, resulting in the instant deaths of five people and injuries to several others”, said Luke Owoyesigyire, a national police spokesperson.
Continue reading...Files show Downing Street felt former South African leader’s attempt to mediate was ‘unlikely to be helpful’
Downing Street believed Nelson Mandela’s attempt to play mediator between it and the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi over the question of compensation after the Lockerbie bombing was “unlikely to be helpful”, documents reveal.
But despite misgivings, No 10 aides did not rule out using Mandela “back against [Gaddafi] if Libya rejected a reasonable offer”, the documents released by the National Archives in the UK show.
Continue reading...Appeal for UK authorities to bring over mother who was left in France after smugglers departed shore with her three children
The Home Office is under pressure to reunite a family of Eritrean asylum seekers after smugglers forced three children, the youngest aged just five, to cross the Channel on a small boat before their mother could get on board with them.
The woman, 31, who was staying in northern France hoping to reach the UK, paid smugglers for places on a dinghy for herself and her three children, a boy aged 14 and two girls aged nine and five, to cross the Channel on 16 December. She said she believed the UK was the place where she would find safety and a respect for the human rights of her family.
Continue reading...On a continent that has long attracted western expeditions, a wave of young people are now exploring sites
A late morning in Khartoum. Inside a low, dusty building in the centre of the Sudanese capital, there are crates of artefacts, a 7ft replica of a 2,000-year-old stone statue of a Nubian god, and students rushing through the corridors. Outside is noisy traffic, blinding sunlight and both branches of the Nile.
Heading down one staircase are Sabrine Jamal, Nadia Musa, Athar Bela and Sabrine al-Sadiq, all studying archaeology at Khartoum University. Not one of them is older than 24 and they see themselves as pioneers, breaking new ground on a continent that has long attracted western expeditions, specialists and adventurers but whose own archaeologists have received less attention overseas.
Continue reading...Extradition of Abdullah al-Senussi over Lockerbie bombing would have closely followed that of Mohammed Abouagela Masud
The extradition to the US of Muammar Gaddafi’s most trusted and notorious aide was abruptly halted by Libya at the 11th hour this week for fear of public anger after the handover of another ex-senior Libyan intelligence operative, officials in Tripoli have told the Guardian.
Abdullah al-Senussi, a former intelligence chief and brother-in-law of Gaddafi, is blamed for a series of lethal bombings directed at western aviation as well as other targets.
Continue reading...Critics say President Salva Kiir is unfit to lead long-suffering nation while others decry mocking of ‘an elder’
Footage of the South Sudanese president Salva Kiir apparently urinating on himself at an official event has sparked an online debate across Africa about his ability to lead the country, and the ethics of sharing the incident on social media.
Standing for the national anthem while opening a new road last week, Kiir, 71, seemed at first unaware of what was happening. After a pool formed at his feet, some of his entourage noticed and the film crew that was broadcasting the event live abruptly pointed the camera away from the ceremony.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Volker Türk critical of scheme he considers ethically problematic and believes government must look again at how to deal with people-smuggling gangs and the treatment of refugees
The new UN human rights chief has urged the British government to reconsider its plans to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, warning that in the past similar “offshoring” schemes had led to “deeply inhuman” treatment of refugees.
In his first public comments on the controversy since taking office two months ago, Volker Türk rejected prime minister Rishi Sunak’s description of the £140m deal as “common sense”, saying that as well as being legally and ethically problematic it was also “very costly” and unlikely to work.
Continue reading...Artefacts looted in 19th century by UK soldiers and sold on, with many more still held by the British Museum
Twenty-one precious artefacts that were looted by British soldiers from the former west African kingdom of Benin 125 years ago have been handed over by Germany to Nigeria amid laughter, tears, and some audible frustration with the ongoing silence of the country that first stole them.
The objects from the haul of treasures known as the Benin bronzes, including a brass head of an oba (king), a ceremonial ada and a throne depicting a coiled-up python, were taken from the sacked city during a British punitive expedition in 1897 and later sold to German museums in Berlin, Hamburg, Stuttgart and Cologne.
Continue reading...Ghanaian photographer’s crowdfunded project won support of Humans of New York author and boasts more than 30,000 books
The largest photography library in Africa has opened in Ghana’s capital, Accra, showcasing the work of the continent and diaspora’s forgotten, established and emerging talent.
Founded by Ghanaian photographer and film-maker Paul Ninson, the Dikan Center houses more than 30,000 books he has collected. The first of its kind in Ghana, a photo studio and classrooms provide space for workshops while a fellowship programme is aimed at African documentarians and visual artists. An exhibition space will host regular shows, the first of which is Ahennie, a series by the late Ghanaian documentary photographer Emmanuel Bobbie (also known as Bob Pixel), who died in 2021.
Continue reading...The Democratic Republic of the Congo’s last-minute bid for additional funds was dismissed on a legal technicality
It was almost a special moment in the early hours of Monday morning in the Palais des congrès in Montreal. China and Canada, two squabbling adversaries, had united for the good of the planet to help the world at Cop15 forge a once-in-a-decade deal to halt the destruction of Earth’s ecosystems.
From the emphasis on indigenous rights to conserving 30% of Earth for nature, there is good reason to believe the Kunming-Montreal agreement could be a truly historic, hopeful turning point in humanity’s relationship with nature after decades of destruction and warnings of mass extinctions.
Continue reading...Democratic Republic of the Congo’s environment minister says country has not agreed to ‘30 by 30’ deal
The Democratic Republic of the Congo’s environment minister has said her country has not agreed to a deal to halt the destruction of the Earth’s ecosystems, prompting behind-the-scenes diplomatic efforts to keep the agreement alive just hours after it was adopted.
Ève Bazaiba, the DRC’s environment minister, said her country would be writing to the UN secretary general, António Guterres, and the Convention on Biological Diversity to express the DRC’s position on the final text. It comes after the Chinese Cop15 president, Huang Runqiu, appeared to force through the agreement in the final plenary just moments after the DRC negotiator had said did not support the deal, which is typically negotiated by consensus. His interventions prompted further objections from Uganda and Cameroon.
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