Chart of the week: The European migrant crisis and Africa’s role
Some 185,000 people applied for asylum in an EU country in the first quarter of this year (pdf), a 90% jump from a year ago–a good number are from African countries like Eritrea and Somalia.
http://qz.com/432775
Three different Nigerian-born runners hold the 100m sprint records for Africa, Asia and Europe
What happens when personal ambition and natural-born ability collide with badly-managed athletics authorities?
http://qz.com/431083
Respecting culture could fix Ghana schools’ problems
After dropping to near-bottom of the OECD education rankings, professor John Boateng of University of Ghana asks if Ghanaian schools should go back to basics.
http://qz.com/434517
Small foreign-owned retailers in South Africa are more competitive than local rivals
Two months after xenophobic attacks shook South Africa, the country’s anti-trust regulator, finds small foreign-owned shops compete fair and square with their local rivals–but are much better.
http://qz.com/431733
Seeing the flags of racist African states on a killer‘s jacket is a wakeup call for America
Zimbabwean writer Tinashe Mushakavanhu on the pain of seeing the flag from his country’s racist past on Charleston shooter Dylann Roof’s jacket in American media last week.
http://qz.com/432836
African vultures are nearing extinction due to elephant ivory poachers
The rapid increase in elephant and rhino poaching throughout Africa has led to a substantial increase in vulture mortality. Poachers poison carcasses to eliminate vultures, whose overhead circling might signal their presence or the carcasses they leave behind.
http://qz.com/434020
Burundi’s journalists are using SoundCloud to get around a government shutdown of independent radio
A group of brave journalists–dubbed “SOS Medias”–has gone underground in Burundi to broadcast the only independent news available in the country via SoundCloud
http://qz.com/436195
Nigeria’s Andela has closed a large funding round led by an early Twitter investor
Andela, the software training and outsourcing platform started in Lagos, has raised over $10 million in Series A funding led by Boston-based venture capital firm Spark Capital.
http://qz.com/437124
How Rwanda’s clinics have gone off-grid and on to renewable energy
Rwanda has harnessed its untapped renewable energy generation potential to address the problem of how to get energy into remote parts of the country by developing a off-grid electricity systems.
http://qz.com/437436
Has Mandela’s chosen one scaled the last hurdle to be South Africa’s next president?
After the Marikana probe Sibusiso Tshabalala examines the tea leaves for South Africa’s deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa, a leadership favorite of late Nelson Mandela and now one of South Africa’s wealthiest men. The probe reminds us South Africa’s police have a tragic history of “structural violence”.
http://qz.com/438560
http://qz.com/439222
Other things we liked:
Slate captured the transatlantic journeys of more than 10 million slaves from various locations in Africa to the Americas between the 1545 and 1860 in this remarkable two-minute animated clip.
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_history_of_american_slavery/2015/06/animated_interactive_of_the_history_of_the_atlantic_slave_trade.html
The story of the invention that could revolutionize batteries—and maybe American manufacturing as well
Steve LeVine tells the story of Yet-Ming Chiang, a Taiwanese-American materials-science professor at MIT, who is trying to sell the world the ultimate super battery.
http://qz.com/433131
What Google searches reveal about Anglophone and Francophone Africans
According to the Economist, Anglophone Africans are interested in jobs, Francophones search for video games while Lusophones care about children-related themes.
http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21654650-what-internet-searches-reveal-about-anglophone-and-francophone-africans-work-or
This week, keep an eye on:
Burundi: Where people go to the polls this week despite the opposition’s boycott and weeks of protests over president Pierre Nkurunziza’s plan to seek a third term.