More than a 100 years ago, the British opened the “Lunatic Express,” a 600-mile railway running through Uganda and Kenya, to cement its colonial claims over rival European powers in East Africa. Today, Kenya has replaced that decrepit rail line with a new one, this time built by a new foreign power in the region.
A Google search for “Accra,” the capital of Ghana, returns its Wikipedia entry, travel advice from Lonely Planet and TripAdvisor, and a few news websites like the Guardian. Almost none of the search results come from pages hosted in Ghana, and though results come from six different countries, five of them are in the global north, as opposed to in Africa.
Villagers in the Gambia are accusing a Chinese company of polluting a local wildlife reserve. According to local media and environmentalists, a Chinese fish meal producer called Golden Leaf has been dumping waste and rotten fish into the waters of the Bolong Fenyo Community Wildlife Reserve along Gambia’s coast in the southwest, turning the water red and leaving scores of fish to wash up dead on the shore.
Moving around Africa is notoriously difficult for travelers with African passports. Only 10 out of 55 countries on the continent waive visas for all African visitors or grant visas on arrival. Meanwhile, Americans can travel to at least 20 African countries without restrictions.
Kenya has less than a day’s supply of corn, its most important food staple. The country now has 4,500 tonnes (4,960 tons) in its reserves, officials with the National Cereals and Produce Board told Bloomberg today. Kenya consumes about 260,000 tonnes of corn a month.
China’s campaign to build a massive network of land and sea links connecting Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa is expected to benefit the African countries along the route. Chinese officials pledged an extra $113 billion in funding for the project at a summit in Beijing over the last two days. In total, China will spend as much as $3 trillion on roads, ports, and other updates to infrastructure in more than 60 countries that make up the “One Belt, One Road.”
Africa is a hub of entrepreneurs and startups, but few companies from the continent have reached the elusive “unicorn” status—a valuation of at least $1 billion.
Nairobi, Kenya
Macau, the world’s largest casino hub, is expanding into Africa. Macau Legend, led by billionaire and former Macau legislator David Chow, is building a $275 million casino complex in Cape Verde, a set of islands off Africa’s west coast.
Johannesburg, South Africa
In less than 107 days, Kenya goes to the polls to elect a new president, 47 governors, 290 parliament seats, and 1,450 county level seats.
King Mswati III of Swaziland is Africa’s last absolute monarch. The 49-year old king who calls himself ngweyama, “the lion,” owns most of the country’s land and rules by decree, appointing all of the government’s top positions. Now he may make Swaziland the first country in Africa to outlaw divorce.
German-Iranian photographer Mahdi Ehsaei has spent the last three years documenting a lesser known community in his home country: Iranians of African heritage. His portraits, taken in Iran’s southern province of Hormozgan, document the country’s participation in the Indian Ocean slave trade until the practice was abolished in 1928. The photos appear in his recently published book, Afro-Iran, the Unknown Minority.
For most of the 20th century, France recruited, usually forcibly, men from its colonies in Africa fight its battles around the world. From the first world war in 1914 to the Indochina wars and Algeria’s fight for independence in the 1950s and 1960s, hundreds of thousands of Africans soldiers fought under the French flag. They were called tirailleurs, or “sharpshooters,” a name to mock their limited training.
Kenyan lawmakers have about 50 days to figure out a way to guarantee women’s representation in parliament. Earlier this month, Kenya’s high court ordered parliament to ensure that at least a third of seats are held by women, or risk dissolution.
By most appearances, Kenya seems to be doing pretty well. The East African economy is commonly sited as one of the few bright spots on a continent where some of the largest economies are struggling just to escape a commodity downturn.
African migrants trying to reach Europe by way of Libya are being auctioned off in car parks, garages, and as well as public squares, in what staff at the International Organization for Migration (IOM) has described as “slave markets.”
The US State Department has issued a travel warning to Americans traveling to or living in Kenya ahead of the country’s general election in August.
More than half of business professionals around the world say corruption is widespread in their industries and even more are willing to justify it, according to a new survey on fraud conducted across Europe, the Middle East, India, and Africa.
Kenyan police reportedly killed two unarmed teenagers on Friday afternoon (March 31) on a busy avenue in Nairobi’s Eastleigh business district.
Kingsley Azieh Che, from Cameroon, is known around Guangzhou as the “King of suits.” He owns a mens suit factory as well as a paper factory. Emmy MacAnthony, from Nigeria, owns a restaurant but eventually wants to make movies in China. Favour Prosper, who lost her restaurant in a scam, now sells moi moi, a Nigerian bean snack, from a food stand in the African markets around the southern Chinese city.
Smartphones have been hailed in Africa for everything from improving emergency and rural health care to enabling e-commerce and better supply chains. But in some cases, their contribution to improving society may be debatable.
Kenyan citizens will soon be able to buy government bonds on their cell phones. Kenya’s Treasury said today that the M-Akiba bond, the world’s first mobile-only government bond, would go on sale on Thursday after a delay of almost two years.
The Nile River Delta, once known as the bread basket of the world, may soon be unable to support even the population of Egypt. According to a multi-year study published in the Geological Society of America this week, the area where the Nile river drains out to the sea is suffering from decreased water flow, rising sea levels, and salt water intrusion—all of which damage food production and fresh water supplies.
