How Russian-shaped international order in Africa is likely to have destabilising impact on the continent
In April, Cameroon renewed a military cooperation agreement with Russia as Moscow intensified its offensive in Ukraine. The timing certainly supports Russia’s claim that its international isolation is relative. It also raises questions about Cameroon’s foreign policy at a time when African countries’ votes in the United Nations (UN) General...
How suspicion of espionage and sabotage have reduced scientific research collaborations between US and China
The number of scholars who declare affiliations in both China and the United States on research papers has dropped by more than 20 per cent over the past three years, an analysis has found. That slump seems to be part of a pattern of waning US-China collaboration that is starting...
Scientists keen on understanding if there’s a genetic basis for monkeypox’s unprecedented spread outside Africa
It’s been three weeks since public-health authorities confirmed a case of monkeypox in the United Kingdom. Since then, more than 400 confirmed or suspected cases have emerged in at least 20 non-African nations, including Canada, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom – the largest outbreak ever outside of Africa. The...
Encouraged by election of President Mohamud, Biden administration plans to redeploy troops in Somalia
The US has announced new plans to for a “persistent presence” in Somalia of up to “around 450” US soldiers, just over two years after former President Donald Trump ordered a withdrawal of 700 military personnel from the war-ravaged nation. The decision by President Joe Biden will reverse an earlier...
How climate change is key benchmark for financial markets to consider when pricing, investing in shares
In 2017, then-President Donald Trump withdrew the country from the landmark Paris Agreement; President Biden reversed this on his first day in office, enabling the US to rejoin earlier this year. In April this year, Biden also set new greenhouse gas reduction targets, pledging to reduce emissions by 50 percent...
Climate change: With floods, forest fires tormenting world, experts warn of hell as economies nosedive
The costs keep piling up: California’s 2018 fire season caused close to $150 billion in damages, and this year’s record-setting wildfires could prove just as dear. Rebuilding after Germany’s summer floods will probably cost more than $7.12 billion, the country’s finance minister says. And estimates place the damage from Hurricane...
Standard gauge railways: How theft of Kenya Railways prime land began, then fuelled by senior government officials
An attempt by two influential cabinet ministers in former President Mwai Kibaki and their sisters to acquire and sell houses belonging to the Kenya Railways Corporation in Nairobi’s Kileleshwa upmarket neighbourhood highlights the manner in which the struggling state corporation was bled dry by ruthless government functionaries and the relatives....
We’ve been away too long: World class ABBA pop music band reunites in London after 40-year ‘sabbatical’
Benny Andersson, Agnetha Fältskog, Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Björn Ulvaeus sent music lovers into a frenzy as they reunited for the first time in the UK for 40 years. The foursome walked the red carpet at the world premiere of their new Voyage show, featuring the foursome as digitally created younger...
Debt trap: How Kenya’s president slept on the job as China plotted to own SGR through deliberate flaw in contract
Kenyan railway engineer Lawson Kamau Mbugguss has launched a stinging criticism of the Kenyan government for openly and negligently signing infrastructure development contracts without paying attention to the finer details with the potential to cost the country an arm and a leg. Dr Kamau Mbugguss’s exposé comes on the back...
‘Belarusian security forces arrest refugees, set dogs on them, torture them with electric shocks, butts them with guns’
Human rights groups in Belarus have also documented abuses – including beatings and torture – carried out by local security forces. Khaled Mohebi, a 27-year-old from Afghanistan, reported that when the Polish border guards pushed him back to Belarus when he first attempted to cross last October, Belarusian security forces...
