Sudanese military fires live bullets at protestors marching on presidential palace in capital Khartoum
Hundreds of thousands of Sudanese protesters rallied Sunday for a civilian-led transition to democracy, three years since the start of mass demonstrations that led to the ouster of veteran strongman Omar al-Bashir. Security forces fired tear gas and live rounds into the air to try to disperse protesters near the...
Covid wasn’t doom and gloom after all; some Kenyans who lost jobs turned to farming and are loving it
If the coronavirus pandemic had not happened, it is likely Jack Onyango would still be living alone, working in Kenya’s capital Nairobi and sending money back to his wife and children in his faraway rural home. Like so many Kenyans, he moved to Nairobi as a young man, believing that...
How Covid abetted poaching: Tourists provide funds to guard parks, their extra eyes and ears keep poachers at bay
Authorities in Zimbabwe caught four smugglers trying to ship 26 great apes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to South Africa. In Zambia, the slaughter of animals for bushmeat skyrocketed. In Botswana, lawmakers debated whether to arm park rangers to defend themselves from poachers. In Uganda, a poacher desperate...
Kenya’s order of armoured personnel carriers to be delivered in seven months, Turkish maker confirms
Kenya will start to receive the 118 Hizir armoured personnel carriers (APCs) it ordered from Turkey’s Katmerciler in early 2022. In July, Katmerciler said the contract, signed with the Kenyan Ministry of Defence, will see the vehicles delivered between 2022 and 2023. It is the company’s single largest export deal....
Kinshasa’s smuggler-in-chief Albert Yuma makes it look like all DRC mineral wealth belongs to him
When a top American diplomat was sent to meet with Albert Yuma at his home in Kinshasa to make clear that the United States strongly objected to the plan, according to an interview with the diplomat, J. Peter Pham. After pulling out a bottle of Cristal Champagne, Yuma talked with...
Irony of DR Congo owning world’s largest mineral deposits, yet ranks among poorest nations on Earth
The huge mining agency where Albert Yuma Mulimbi is chairman was nationalised and renamed under President Mobutu Sese Seko after Congo gained independence from Belgium in 1960. Gécamines once had a monopoly on copper and cobalt mining and, by the 1980s, was among the top copper producers in the world....
How unregulated artisanal mining attracts trespassers who often scavenge on DR Congo’s mineral wealth
Players in the clean energy revolution are increasingly caught in a cycle of exploitation and greed over resources. At the centre of it is the quest for a prized metal: cobalt, a key ingredient in electric cars. It’s a different story for the artisanal sector, where Albert Yuma Mulimbi –...
Cash transfers: Poverty isn’t just about the lack of money, it’s about the lack of opportunity, basic services
A basic-income experiment carried out by Finland in 2017-18 found that recipients felt more economically secure than a control group. Scores for days of employment, life satisfaction and self-reported depression were also slightly better for recipients than for controls. Since 2017, Niehaus has been part of a team of researchers...
Astronomers discover another Earth-sized exoplanet in ‘habitable zone’ that’s closest yet to our world
Astronomers have discovered a world only a little bit bigger than Earth, whirling around a bright star about 31 parsecs from our planet. The world, known as TOI 700 d, orbits in its star’s ‘habitable zone’ – the region in which liquid water could exist. Astronomers know of only a...
Reviving Sudan’s moribund economy is PM Hamdok’s primary goal, but winning over donors is a major challenge
Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok’s administration is struggling with a mountainous in-tray of problems inherited from the 30-year rule of al-Bashir. Behind the scenes, the military resisted moves to hold them accountable for the deaths of civilian protesters, and the equally sensitive matter of liquidating the network of opaque business activities...
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