Priya Sippy

Fintechs enable SACCOs to offer faster, better, secure services

Wanuri Kahiu's "Look Both Ways" is currently ranked second on the top 10 movies on Netflix globally, while it is the number one film in 61 countries

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED)—the largest dictionary of the English language—has added 200 new and revised entries from East African English, which are primarily used in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda.

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Pfizer, one of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies, has announced that it will be providing nearly two dozen of its patented products at not-for-profit prices to 45 lower-income countries, home to 1.2 billion people.

Scottish-Rwandan actor, Ncuti Gatwa, has been announced as the new Doctor Who—the leading role in a beloved UK BBC television series. He becomes the first Black and African-born actor to officially play the iconic role.

The Horn of Africa is in the grip of one of the worst droughts in decades as it faces an unprecedented fourth consecutive failed rainy season, thought to be caused by La Nina weather patterns and climate change. The UN has warned it could tip 20 million people into extreme hunger—and at worst lead to starvation—across Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia.

Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover has been met with mixed reactions from South Africa – the country where Musk was born. The news sent Twitter users in South Africa into a frenzy, with the hashtags #twittertakeover #elonmusk #spacex and #apartheid trending in the country.

The British government is trying to solve its issues with migration with a £120 million plan to relocate asylum seekers arriving in the UK to Rwanda.

Trade in eastern Africa is set for a boost after officially welcoming its seventh member, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), into the East Africa Community (EAC) today (March 29). Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda are the other members.

Kenya’s tennis prodigy, Angella Okutoyi, 17, made history at this year’s Australian Open by being the first Kenyan woman to win a match at a junior grand slam tournament.

Africa’s biggest football tournament is well under way. After a competitive start, the continent’s finest teams are now battling it out in Cameroon for a spot in the quarter-finals.

The pharmaceutical industry has repeatedly claimed that only a few companies worldwide are able manufacture covid-19 vaccines. But as the world grapples with omicron, a recent report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) says that more than 100 firms can produce the required mRNA shots, including eight companies in Africa—in Egypt, Morocco, Senegal, South Africa, and Tunisia.

In a hauntingly memorable closing scene for the film La noire de…, by the “father of African cinema” Ousmane Sembene, a young Senegalese boy hides behind a ceremonial mask as he follows a white man through the streets of Dakar in a newly-independent Senegal. The white man hastens his pace, eventually running, but the young boy, unperturbed, keeps pace with him, always there, always watching.

Nearly two weeks after South Africa raised the flag over the new omicron variant, African leaders have called the newly imposed travel bans on African countries discriminatory and unjust.

At the beginning of COP26, over 25 African leaders spoke in Glasgow to demand climate justice. Despite calls for climate finance, funding for adaptation, and drastic emission cuts from rich nations, few of their requests feature in the final agreement, announced on 13 November.

During the first two opening days of COP26 in Scotland, over 25 African leaders took center stage to demand climate justice and greater support from richer nations.

The 2021 Nobel prize in Literature has been awarded to Zanzibar-born novelist, Abdulrazak Gurnah. He is the first writer from the semi-autonomous island in modern day Tanzania to win the prestigious award and the first Black African writer to receive the prize since Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka in 1986.

A little over one month since Tanzania started its Covid-19 vaccination drive, the country has seen slow progress, with the campaign marred by conspiracy theories and myths around the safety of the jab.

A new government levy on mobile money introduced last month in Tanzania has sparked outrage from citizens due to the significant increase in costs. With 26 million people, almost half the country’s population, using mobile money the surge in prices has been felt widely.

It is the high season across east Africa’s national parks. But for the second year in a row, the plains remain unusually quiet.

More than 100 years after its crimes as the colonial power in Namibia, the German government last week formally apologized for the genocide that took place under its watch. In a “gesture of reconciliation,” Germany will give $1.3 billion to Namibia in the form of financial aid.

Just two months into her presidency, Samia Suluhu Hassan has announced some of Tanzania’s strictest Covid-19 measures since the pandemic first hit the country in March last year.

On Wednesday (March 17), Tanzania’s vice-president, Samia Suluhu Hassan, announced the death of the president John Pombe Magufuli at age 61.