Lowest recorded level of piracy and armed robbery in 18 years attributed to ‘vigorous action’
“Vigorous action” by authorities is cited as one reason for last year seeing the lowest recorded level of piracy and armed robbery at sea in 18 years. Notwithstanding, the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) urges seafarers to continue exercising caution and vigilance to ensure...
First pig-to-human heart transplant, if successful, regulators and ethicists will need to define eligibility for pig organ
The first person to receive a transplanted heart from a genetically modified pig is doing well after the procedure last week in Baltimore, Maryland. Transplant surgeons hope the advance will enable them to give more people animal organs, but many ethical and technical hurdles remain. “It’s been a long road...
How Danish authorities use ‘doctored’ reports to deny refugees residency permits, force them out
After Syrians began having their residency permits revoked, nearly every person the Danish Refugee Council (DRC) interviewed on the record for the report spoke out against it. Eight of the sources released a joint statement last March criticising the document as “flawed” and flagging their contributions as “underappreciated”. “I was...
Living in a limbo: Syrian refugees can’t be repatriated because Denmark has no diplomatic ties with Damascus
A week after the publication of the Country-of-Origin Information” (COI) report by the Danish Refugee Council (DRC), the Danish Immigration Service said it would start refusing to extend residency permits for refugees from Damascus. DRC criticised the decision, as it had the 2015 Danish law establishing temporary protection, which it...
Human rights: Denmark strips Syrian refugees of residency permits, orders them to return home
Denmark is the first European country to tell large numbers of Syrian refugees to go home. While it hasn’t begun deportations, nearly 400 Syrians from in and around the capital, Damascus, have been stripped of their residency permits and the right to work since 2019. Few of those affected have...
African giraffe populations grow reversing ‘a silent extinction’ of the gorgeous species in the wild
Giraffe numbers have increased across Africa, new research shows, a rare spot of good news in the conservation world. According to a recent analysis of survey data from across the African continent, the total giraffe population is now around 117,000, approximately 20 per cent higher than it was thought to...
There is growing volume of data that shows Covid vaccines safely protect pregnant women
Covid-19 can strike hard and fast – especially when you are pregnant. Alison Cahill, a specialist in maternal-foetal medicine at the Dell Medical School in Austin, Texas, vividly remembers a patient from the first wave of the pandemic who was 26 weeks pregnant and woke up one morning with a...
Massive port expansion priming Kenya as key staging ground for organised crime and terrorism – report
Kenya’s $3.6 billion ports masterplan is expected to transform the country’s sea, lake and dry ports over the next 30 years into thriving economic zones, according to an Institute for Security Studies Africa report released in the second week of January. The ISS Africa report says modern ports that comply...
Generous China slices headline lending to ravenous Africa by $40 billion, redirects credit to small businesses
From almost nothing 20 years ago, Chinese banks now make up about one-fifth of all lending to Africa, concentrated in a few strategic or resource-rich countries including Angola, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Zambia. Annual lending peaked at a whopping $29.5 billion in 2016, according to figures from the China-Africa Research...
Technology: British takes Internet blimps to Zanzibar in a fragile market where Google flopped, pulled out
The Tanzanian islands of Zanzibar and Pemba are about to become a test site for a mobile internet network its creators hope will not just revolutionise lives there, but possibly across sub-Saharan Africa and beyond. Only around 20 per cent of Tanzanians use the internet, according to the World Bank....
