Airbnb may be growing in Africa, but not without scrutiny. Namibia has become the latest country that requires Airbnb hosts to register with the country’s tourism authority.
Crime is down by 1.8% in South Africa, but even the police agree that the country just doesn’t feel any safer.
Nearly 100 people have died from a plague outbreak on the island of Madagascar.
South Africa has suffered a massive data leak, and there’s nothing anyone can do about getting their personal information back. Millions of citizens’ identity numbers have been leaked on the internet, along with their genders, ethnicity and home ownership.
“Now I have visibly fairer skin, making me feel younger.”
In the last five years, more than 2 million people have found holiday accommodation in Africa through Airbnb which now has over 100,000 listings on the continent.African hosts earned $139 million in the last year, according to a new Airbnb study.
South Africans and Nigerians may not always agree, but the citizens of Africa’s largest economies now share a common confusion over a large bronze statue of president Jacob Zuma, unveiled in Nigeria’s Imo State.
Africans have always valued a good fable or a catchy proverb. Increasingly, however, those stories are under the control of professional tale weavers in the form of strategic communications agencies. It’s only in the last decade that the world’s public relations leaders have opened offices on the continent, and they are still trying to figure out how to handle this new market.
For too long, the Democratic Republic of Congo has known no competition in the cobalt market, to its detriment. The metal, which used to be just a byproduct of nickel and copper mining, is fast becoming one of the core ingredients of our technology-driven lifestyles. The instability in the DR Congo, however, is driving some investors to look to much smaller but more reliable cobalt sources.
The first Africa Architecture Awards will be held this month. It’s easy to be cynical about handing out trophies when so much development still needs to happen on the continent. Still, judging by the shortlist, the awards could help to identify what a uniquely African aesthetic is, while also highlighting the importance of incorporating environmental requirements and cultural identity. If anything, it’s also a welcome celebration of leaving behind colonial-era building.
There are more fictional African countries than real states on the continent.
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that IBM’s Watson would be used to analyse the data. IBM’s Internet of Things systems will assist the Wageningen University in analyzing the data collected.
Lesotho has become the first African country to grant a license for medicinal marijuana. The country’s health ministry licensed Verve Dynamics, a South African company that describes itself as “a vegan friendly manufacturer of highly purified botanical extracts and specialty ingredients.”
Walking through the American Museum of Natural History, Barnabas Veraa Katuuo found the bones of what could have been his ancestors, murdered in Germany’s first genocide. Katuuo has accused the famed New York City museum of storing the remains of Namibia’s ovaHerero and Nama peoples as part of their vast collection.
“Had Biko been alive today…,” is a refrain often repeated in South Africa, especially when the country finds itself struggling to meet its own ideals.
Not all publicity is good publicity—multinational public relations firm Bell Pottinger learned that the hard way.
A divisive decision by an activist to set a CFA note on fire in Senegal has reignited a debate on the common currency and the influence France still holds over francophone Africa.
There is no such place as Wakanda in Africa, or anywhere else in the real world for that matter.
The political rumor mill would have South Africans believe that the next man to lead the country is a sugar daddy, or locally known as a “blesser.”
Africa’s two largest economies are making a comeback: Nigeria’s economy is finally lifting its head after five consecutive quarters of recession, while South Africa clawed back from a technical recession after months of barely-there growth.
One of the UK’s largest public relations firms has been kicked out of the country’s industry body after it managed a campaign to stoke racial tension in South Africa.
Smartphones and chatbots have made services from banking to transportation more accessible across Africa. Now, aid agencies are hoping they can do the same with food.
“We want help. My brother, my brother, we are dead!”
Joseph Conrad sailed up the Congo River more than 100 years ago and yet the novella based on his experience remains the African guidebook for many contemporary writers.
