Facebook’s oversight board to decide whether to give Trump bullhorn back
In the wake of this month’s violent insurrection at the US Capitol, Facebook suspended the account of the inciter-in-chief Donald Trump. On January 7, citing the danger that the president’s posts might incite further violence, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company would keep Trump off the platform “indefinitely and for...
Decathlon named official licensee of US basketball league
Decathlon, one of the world’s largest sporting goods retailers, and the National Basketball Association (NBA) has announced a new multiyear merchandising partnership that makes it an official licensee of the NBA in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Latin America. The partnership marks Decathlon’s first partnership with a North...
African Free Trade Area now the largest free trade zone in the world ‘by participation’
The start of trading under the African Continental Free Trade Area (ACFTA) agreement on January 1 has created the largest free trade zone in the world by country following the ratification of the agreement by 34 countries. After years of haggling, suspicion and uncertainty the realisation ACFTA has been hailed...
Scientists grapple with what new coronavirus variants mean for schools
The emergence of fast-spreading coronavirus variants has once again put a spotlight on the role of children in the Covid-19 pandemic. Early data on one new variant had suggested that it was spreading more in children than in adults compared with other lineages. But researchers now suggest the variant is...
Africa braces for a digital storm as industries reset their operations
The coronavirus pandemic is accelerating the move to digital, as large proportions of the population work, learn and entertain themselves remotely, while others have trialled services such as remote healthcare for the first time. These were amongst the findings of a recent Amdocs survey of 1,000 consumers in the United...
Pope’s drug trials: History of vaccination replete with tales of poisoning
It was a time of contagion and quacks. A Machiavellian power-broker keen to protect his position defied tradition to sponsor controlled experiments on the most marginalised of people. Therefore, the fear and suspicion by black people and people of colour the world has witnessed over the past few weeks since...
Biden at his inauguration: Politics doesn’t have to be a raging fire
Joe Biden was sworn-in on Wednesday as the 46th president of the United States, marking the official start to an administration that must now turn its attention to the global coronavirus pandemic, economic turmoil and deep divisions about the state of American politics and leadership. Forty-eight years after he entered...
Collapsing aquifers, flooding of low-lying lands to affect 1.6 billion people by 2040
As California’s economy skyrocketed during the 20th century, its land headed in the opposite direction. A booming agricultural industry in the state’s San Joaquin Valley, combined with punishing droughts led to the over-extraction of water from aquifers. Like huge, empty water bottles, the aquifers crumpled, a phenomenon geologists call subsidence....
Republicans: An angry mob will not get veto power over the rule of law in our nation
President Donald Trump helped provoke the swarms of his supporters who stormed the US Capitol, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Tuesday. The damning remarks on the Senate floor came as the Kentucky Republican and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (Democratic-New York), worked to hash out details on Trump’s...
Bright side of Covid: Carbon emissions dipped in 2020 as energy use dropped
After rising steadily for decades, global carbon dioxide emissions fell by 6.4 per cent or 2.3 billion tonnes in 2020 as the Covid-19 pandemic squelched economic and social activities worldwide, according to new data on daily fossil fuel emissions. The decline is significant – roughly double Japan’s yearly emissions –...
