At least 48 people have been killed by a landslide at a massive garbage dump on the outskirts of Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa. On Saturday, piles of garbage collapsed onto waste pickers searching the Koshe landfill for food and goods to sell. It also covered dozens of homes built around the site.
Yesterday (March 7) US president Donald Trump spoke with Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta, his fourth phone call with an African leader since taking office.
While other African countries are banning the export of donkey skins, Kenya is doing a brisk trade in the commodity so sought after in China. Gelatin from the skins is used in traditional Chinese medicine ejiao. So far, five countries in the world, four of them in Africa, have barred sales of donkey products out of concern that demand from Asia will quickly outstrip local supply.
Facebook’s mission to bring internet access, as well as its platform, to millions of Africans is taking a new approach. This week the social media company said it will lay almost 500 miles of fiber cable in Uganda before the end of the year and partner with local telecoms to provide internet access, according to Recode.
After US president Donald Trump’s electoral victory in November, some Muslim women in America reported feeling scared to wear a hijab in public. Less than a month later, 19-year-old Halima Aden competed in the Miss Minnesota pageant wearing the head covering, as well as a burkini during the swimsuit portion.
In July 2015, former US president Barack Obama dangled the prospect of direct flights between Kenya and the US. Speaking in Kenya, Obama said American and Kenyan officials had met and that “real progress has been made.” Finally, this week Kenya’s transport ministry said that the country’s airlines have been given security and safety clearance by US authorities.
In the latest episode of Fox’s spy thriller, 24 Legacy, a counterintelligence agent briefs US authorities on the possibility of a terrorist attack by the show’s main villain. Footage of some of the criminal mastermind’s past work show masked gunmen stalking and shooting their victims in a mall, panicked crowds running for their lives, and parents trying to hide their children. In the episode, the agent says the attack was in Egypt where more than 200 people died, “including 18 Americans.”
When a car bomb ripped through a market in Mogadishu on Sunday, killing at least 30 people, China’s state broadcaster in Africa, quickly covered the story. But CGTN, the newly rebranded international version of CCTV, made one notable mistake. A map shown by CGTN Africa showed Somaliland, a breakaway region in northern Somalia, as a separate state.
Kenyan authorities may soon be monitoring the phone calls, text messages, and mobile money transactions of millions of its citizens. Regulators are ordering mobile phone operators including Safaricom, Airtel, and Orange to allow access, according to the Nation, a Kenyan paper that has obtained a letter from the Communications Authority of Kenya to one of these operators.
The government of Joseph Kabila has a new excuse for delaying the vote that would usher in a new president: Elections are expensive. Pierre Kangudia, budget minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo, has said that holding the previously agreed-on poll would cost $1.8 billion, money that he doubted the government would be able to mobilize this year. “At this stage, I prefer to keep a language of sincerity,” Kangudia said at a press conference this week.
Flying a drone will soon be legal in Kenya, which has effectively banned the use of unmanned aerial vehicles for anyone outside of the military for the past two years. A spokesperson for the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority (KCAA) said that draft regulations for the commercial use of drones had been approved by security officials. The agency said details of the law would be released soon.
In her Grammy performance on Sunday night, Beyonce styled herself as not one but at least two religious icons: Oshun, a Yoruba deity from West Africa, and the Virgin Mary. Beyonce, draped in yellow, recalled images of the Yoruba goddess of fertility and love. Her ornate gold headdress drew comparisons to the halo that frames depictions of Black Madonna.
When The Gambia’s former president Yahya Jammeh first came to power in 1994 as a 29-year old army lieutenant after a bloodless coup, few Gambians would have guessed that by the time he left office 22 years later it would be as a corrupt and delusional leader hanging onto power.
The world’s largest refugee camp is not somewhere in Europe, or on the Turkish-Syrian border, or in Iraq; it is the Dadaab camp in northeastern Kenya, home to more than 250,000 people, mainly Somalis. A high court in Kenya has blocked a government directive to close it, saying that it would be “an act of group persecution, illegal, discriminatory and therefore unconstitutional.”
Whenever Kampire Bahana, a Ugandan writer and DJ, walks into a salon the experience is the same. “They ask me what I’ve been doing with my hair, and no matter whether my hair is in braids or what, they tell me what I’m doing is wrong.”
Ashish Thakkar, the 35-year-old entrepreneur commonly referred to as Africa’s youngest billionaire, isn’t quite as successful as he would seem. A messy divorce is exposing his finances and attracting scrutiny into his business dealings.
An ancient lost continent is lying at the bottom of the Indian Ocean, underneath the island of Mauritius, according to a new study led by a geologist from South Africa’s University of the Witwatersrand.
Mobile phone ownership in Kenya, home of the world’s largest mobile money platform and one of Africa’s most mobile friendly economies, is a little lower than previously thought.
“No one leaves home unless/home is the mouth of a shark.” The line, by British Somali poet Warsan Shire, has become a rallying call for refugees and their advocates. Demonstrators at rallies this weekend against US president Donald Trump’s recent ban on citizens from Muslim-majority countries held up signs with lines from Shire’s poem, “Home.” A university instructor read it out loud at a protest in Omaha.
President Donald Trump’s travel ban on seven Muslim-majority countries, including three African countries—Somalia, Sudan, and Libya—has stranded doctors, students, athletes, and refugees who have waited years for resettlement in the US.
Zimbabwe’s cash-strapped government is getting desperate: The country’s administration under Robert Mugabe has offered to pay its workers with land instead of the usual annual bonuses they are paid in November and December.
The African continent is home to only one fully fledged democracy, Mauritius, according to a recently released index from the Economist Intelligence Unit. The list, which takes into account things like electoral procedures, civil liberties, and political participation, classified seven African countries as ”flawed democracies,” 13 as “hybrid regimes,” and 23 as authoritarian regimes.
African startups raised more than $129 million last year, according to a report from Disrupt Africa, a blog on technology and entrepreneurship on the continent. South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya were the most popular destinations, with north African countries catching up.
After 22 years as one of Africa’s most volatile autocrats, Gambian president Yahyah Jammeh managed to hang on to power for an extra 42 hours after the end of his term. But around 6pm local time today (Jan.20), the defeated president finally agreed to step down. It followed days of negotiations, defections from his own cabinet, and the presence of Senegalese troops in the country.
