Footage of police beating protesters at a demonstration in Nairobi has outraged the Kenyan public and raised the specter of election violence ahead of the country’s presidential and parliamentary elections in 2017.
A member of a Zimbabwean opposition party has called for all Chinese nationals to be kicked out of the southern African country.
A year of drought has left 10.2 million Ethiopians, almost a tenth of the population, without enough food. Now, heavy rains are flooding the country, displacing thousands and killing already weakened livestock needed to feed Africa’s second most populous country.
Acquiring a botcho, Ivorian slang for “vast rear end”, connotes wealth and health. It’s something that’s becoming more coveted among the emerging middle class in Ivory Coast, a country that has been one of the Africa’s most successful growth stories.
Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni was sworn in today (May 12) for his fifth term amid military jets, congratulatory African leaders, and his coterie of supporters. One thing that wasn’t present was the flow of comments and photos on social media during the inauguration.
Kenya may be sitting on more oil than previously believed. Following a new discovery, the Canadian energy group Africa Oil added 150 million more barrels of oil to its reserves in the Lokichar Basin in the country’s north—24% more than earlier estimates. According to the results of an independent survey, Africa Oil’s reserves now stand at a total of 766 million barrels.
Kenya is threatening to close the world’s largest refugee camp and send some 600,000 people back to the wars, drought, or famine from which they fled. Citing the ”very heavy economic, security and environmental burdens” it has borne on behalf of the region and international community, Kenya said its time “hosting refugees has come to an end” in a statement late last week.
Malawi’s first female president, Joyce Banda, says that African women should not follow the “Western route” of assertiveness and confrontation as a way to gain a voice in politics.
A well-known Kenyan businessman and outspoken critic of the government, Jacob Juma, was found dead in Nairobi last week, shot by unknown assailants and left in his car on a busy highway. Three days after his death, a new investigative unit has taken over the case but police have not yet established any suspects.
Zimbabwe is introducing its own version of US dollars to deal with its worsening cash crunch. John Mangudya, governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, said the bank will introduce “bond notes” of $2, $5, $10, and $20, which will hold the same value as their US dollar counterparts, according to a statement (pdf) yesterday.
An event marking World Press Freedom yesterday was, strangely, the venue that Kenya’s media regulator chose to announce progress in its efforts to censor a music video promoting gay rights, a Kenyan remix of the Macklemore song Same Love.
The United States has spent $1.4 billion over the last decade on promoting abstinence in Africa as a way to slow the spread of HIV. It hasn’t helped, according to a study published this week in Health Affairs, and may be causing more harm than good.
Kenyan authorities have stopped an “East African terror network” from launching a biological attack on the country. According to a police statement on May 3, three people have been arrested—Mohammed Abdi Ali, a medical student at a hospital in eastern Kenya, his wife, and another woman who has been detained in Uganda.
Oscar-winning actress Lupita Nyong’o has opened up about why she turned down bigger Hollywood projects to star in Eclipsed, a Broadway production about women during Liberia’s brutal civil war. Writing in Lena Dunham’s newsletter Lenny ahead of the Tony Award nominations, Nyong’o recounted a recent question from a reporter, “‘Why would such a big star choose to do such a small play?'”
Chaos and flooding in Kenya over the weekend caused by heavy rains set off a blame game over corruption and public safety. In the capital Nairobi, a building collapsed, killing 23 people. Across the country, farmers were swept away, and crops and homes destroyed.
Rains pounded the Kenyan capital of Nairobi over the weekend, exposing the city’s sorely lacking infrastructure. A six-story house that should have been demolished years ago collapsed on Friday (April 29th), killing at least 21 residents and injuring 135 people. Rescue efforts that have continued through today, are unlikely to yield any more survivors, according to Kenya Red Cross.
Kenya set fire to 11 pyres of ivory in Nairobi National Park today (April 30), a symbol of the country’s fight against poaching. Because ivory doesn’t burn well, more than 10,000 liters of diesel mixed with kerosene were injected into the stacks of ivory through pressurized pipes underground. It will take days to burn all 105 tonnes of tusks.
The Islamic State may be gaining a foothold in East Africa. The militant group took responsibility for an IED attack on a convoy of African Union peacekeepers traveling outside of Somalia’s capital of Mogadishu on April 25.
The most dangerous time to walk on Nairobi’s streets is on a Friday, around 7am, particularly in the southeast, along one of the city’s main arteries, Mombasa Road. That’s according to new analysis based on data collected by Ma3Route, a Nairobi-based startup that crowdsources traffic and accident reports.
When Zimbabwean architect Maxwell Mutanda set out to make life easier for street hawkers in his hometown of Harare, he realized his guidance wasn’t all that needed. ”We thought, ‘Okay let’s design for them.’ But as we entered that space we realized that they usually design for themselves,” Mutanda says.
Atlas Mara, an investment vehicle founded by ex-Barclays boss Bob Diamond, has confirmed that it is exploring a bid for Barclays’ stake in its Africa operation.
Former Barclays chief executive Bob Diamond is preparing a bid for the African operations of his past employer, according to multiple reports. Atlas Merchant Capital, Diamond’s New York-based investment vehicle, is teaming up with the private equity firm Carlyle Group to make a bid for Barclays’ stake in Barclays Africa Group, Sky News first reported, citing unnamed sources.
A matter of intense speculation has finally been decided. For years, landlocked Uganda has tried to decide who to partner with for getting oil from its the western Hoima disrict—home to some 1.7 billion barrels of oil, one of East Africa’s largest reserves—to the Indian Ocean for trade: Tanzania or Kenya.
Forty-five Taiwanese nationals who were deported from Kenya to China earlier this month have confessed to committing cybercrime and will face trial on the mainland, according to Chinese state news agency Xinhua.
