Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta has signed into law a cap on commercial lending rates that economists, banking insiders, and other government officials say will only hurt the country. The law caps commercial bank lending at 4 percentage points above the central bank’s benchmark rate, which is currently 10.5%.
Feyisa Lilesa, the marathon runner who made an anti-government protest gesture during the Olympic Games, has not returned to Ethiopia. Reporters aboard the Ethiopian team’s return flight from Rio yesterday (Aug 24) said Lilesa was not on the plane.
Kenya has gone home from the Rio Olympics with six gold medals, six silver medals, and one bronze—marking the most wins of any African team at the 2016 Games as well as the best Olympic performance in Kenya’s history. Kenya came in 15th globally in medals, and was second only to the United States in track and field medals.
An Islamist fighter has pleaded guilty in the Hague for destroying parts of the fabled West African trading city of Timbuktu, in the International Criminal Court’s first case based on the destruction of cultural artifacts.
It hasn’t been a good week for internet freedom in Africa, with three countries imposing social media blackouts, according to the campaign Keep it On.
Jidi Majia, a writer from southwest China, once described himself as a Chinese poet with an “African complex.” He emulated writers like Senegal’s Leopold Sedar Senghor, Nigeria’s Chinua Achebe, or Kenya’s Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, cheered for the end of apartheid in South Africa, and cried when Nelson Mandela died.
This post has been updated.
Over the past two days, Kenya has won two gold medals. David Rudisha won the 800 meter race on Monday (Aug. 15), becoming only the second runner in history to retain the Olympic title. Jemima Sumgong dodged a protester during the women’s marathon on Sunday to finish nine seconds ahead of her closest rival, becoming the first Kenyan woman to win the Olympic marathon.
For five hours on Sunday (Aug 14), cars were banned from Rwanda’s capital of Kigali. Instead, the streets were filled with groups of Rwandans clad in sweats and sneakers, walking, jogging, or stretching. People gathered in Rwanda’s biggest stadium, the Amahoro Stadium, for free eye tests and general medical check ups.
With 50.3% of the national vote, Zambia’s incumbent president Edgar Lungu has won reelection by barely squeaking past a 50% threshold, according to the country’s election commission.
South African sprinter Wayde Van Niekerk ran the fastest 400-meter race in history at the Rio Olympics on Sunday (Aug. 14), breaking a 17-year-old world record and winning his country’s first 2016 gold medal. Niekerk completed the single lap in 43:03 seconds, beating the previous record set Michael Johnson by 0.15 seconds.
Ethiopian long-distance runner Almaz Ayana has set the world record in the women’s 10,000-meter race, finishing in 29 minutes and 17.45 seconds. In addition to winning the first gold medal for an African team in the 2016 Summer Olympics, Ayana beat the previous record, in place for the last 23 years, by a remarkable 14.46 seconds.
JadedAid—a Cards Against Humanity-inspired game for the thousands of aid workers and volunteers around the world—includes cards like “an educated angry African,” “coming to terms with the fact that your intervention is the problem,” “avoiding missionaries,” and other gems:
Zambia goes to the polls today (Aug 11) to choose a new president, as well as lawmakers, and local mayors. They’ll also vote on whether or not to approve a new bill of rights.
The government of Ivory Coast is seeking protected status over its popular cassava dish, attiéké. According to Bruno Kone, spokesman for the ministry of industry, the government has applied with the African Regional Intellectual Property Organisation for legal protections over the use of the name of the dish.
The recently launched African Union passport is finally being put to use, to celebrate the re-election of the president of Chad, who has already been in power for 26 years.
The party of Nelson Mandela was dealt a major blow during municipal elections in South Africa this week. Although the African National Congress is leading nationally, the ANC has conceded a major stronghold, the municipality of Nelson Mandela Bay.
Beijing has promised to help fund and construct a new parliament building for Zimbabwe. Chinese officials pledged $46 million for the new structure, to be built on a plot of farmland just outside the capital of Harare, according to local media
Zimbabwe’s president Robert Mugabe is facing a wave of public opposition that perhaps even he can’t put down. Hundreds took the streets yesterday (Aug. 3) to protest the introduction of new local bank notes—the government’s attempt to stem a cash shortage. In addition to using tear gas and water cannons, police charged on the demonstrators and beat them with batons until they dispersed.
There are high hopes for Kenya’s new rail project. The $13.8 billion standard-gauge railway, being built by a Chinese company, is meant to connect the port city of Mombasa to Nairobi and eventually the rest of East Africa. It should bring down transportation costs and cement Kenya’s status as the region’s largest economy. Most importantly, building it should create tens of thousands of jobs.
Uber is encountering some bumps in Nairobi, one of its biggest markets in Africa. After months of protest and attacks by taxi drivers hoping to intimidate drivers and customers of the taxi hailing app, the company is now facing strikes from its own Uber drivers over a fare cut announced last week. Protesters in Nairobi waved picket signs with critical statements including, ”we should not be Uber slaves in our country.”
Britain is working on sending former UBS trader Kweku Adoboli, convicted of losing the Swiss bank £1.4 billion ($2.2 billion) in unauthorized trading, back to Ghana where Adoboli was born.
America’s Black Lives Matter movement is taking root in Canada. This weekend, hundreds of protesters and mourners, including the mayor of Ottawa, laid to rest a black Somali immigrant who died last week after being beaten by Canadian police.
By the mid-1980s, globalization in the form of kung fu films starring the likes of Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, and Jet Li had reached Ghana. Communities gathered around mobile cinemas—a television monitor and VCR, run on a gas-powered generator set up in someone’s home or an open public square—to watch classics like Master of Shaolin, Exit the Dragon, or Hand of Death.
