How safe city tech turned 8 African countries, including Kenya and Senegal, into ‘Chinese data colonies’
Chinese technology firms have been peddling “safe city” and “smart city” packages of technology in Africa for years. Suites of interconnected products and services include surveillance equipment, communications tools and digital municipal management systems. Billed as public safety tools, the programmes are increasingly used to control the population and crack...
Burundi: Ethnic violence never used to be a problem, differences in class were less about Hutus and Tutsis
In September 2020, I met Jean Marie, a young man who was patiently exhuming a grave in southern Burundi’s Makamba province, where I was born. He told me the events of 1972 had trapped his family in decades of hardship. His grandfather – the main breadwinner – was killed during...
Demand for exotic pets and human-wildlife conflict driving cheetah numbers in eastern Africa to extinction
Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) has warned that the cheetah population in the Horn of Africa is hurtling towards extinction as demand for the big cats rises in the Middle East and human-wildlife conflict escalate in source countries in Eastern Africa. Data tallied by CCF show that 300 cheetah cubs were...
Kenyan president moves offices as pressure to ditch ex-PM, pick former finance minister to succeed him piles
Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta’s kitchen cabinet is reportedly divided on who should succeed him, with concerns growing that the president’s choice of Raila Odinga will hand Deputy President William Ruto a rollercoaster run to the helm. With family and community interests at stake, President Kenyatta is said to be re-evaluating...
Kenyan clergymen land from Paradise, find president and deputy ‘talking in tongues’
Some religious leaders have been sojourning in Mars – or even further in the outer space! They touched down in Kenya from Wonderland aboard Savannah Galactica only to find that their President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Deputy William Ruto are speaking at cross-purposes mostly of late. As they say in...
Burundi: On his way to execution, a well-known Hutu priest and philosopher sang hymns saying, ‘We are going to our father’s house’
In 1972, they blocked journalists who tried to investigate the killings, they prevented people from mourning the dead Burundian reporter’s notebook: On his way to execution, a well-known Hutu priest and philosopher, kept chanting hymns saying ‘We are going to our father’s house’ I learned about what happened from my...
Burundian reporter’s notebook: I feel sorrow for the death of my father, but joy at finally seeing his remains
Editor’s note: The bouts of violence that have shaken Burundi since the 1960s received little attention compared to events in neighbouring Rwanda. So, when a truth and reconciliation commission began digging up mass graves to investigate atrocities, journalist Désiré Nimubona picked up his notebook. For more than a year, he...
Fears rise over Rwanda military in Mozambique after murder of exiled President Kagame critic
The murder of a prominent critic of Rwandan President Paul Kagame in Maputo on Monday may have confirmed fears of other Rwanda dissidents that the presence of Rwanda’s troops in Mozambique is helping it to get at its own political enemies. Prominent millionaire businessman Revocant Karemangingo was gunned down in...
How juggling between running business from home with children running in the house birthed garden office business
Like thousands of parents across the country, Kieron Summerhayes struggled to juggle running his business from home while his children were running around the house. The 43-year-old, from West London, who runs an events and exhibition company, was getting frustrated with having to do his paperwork in the kitchen –...
France vows to hunt other Sahel Islamic State chiefs after killing their leader in drone strike
French military forces have killed the leader of a West African affiliate of Islamic State by drone strike in a “decisive blow” against the group, and vowed to continue hunting down jihadist leaders to restore stability in the Sahel. Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi was the head of Islamic State in...
