Staggering rebound of coronavirus infections in India puzzles scientists
The coronavirus pandemic is sweeping through India at a pace that has staggered scientists. Daily case numbers have exploded since early March. The government reported 273,810 new infections nationally on April 18. High numbers in India have also helped drive global cases to a daily high of 854,855 in the...
Forest fires burn down historic South African library and plant collection
Forest fires raging in South Africa’s Table Mountain National Park have reached the University of Cape Town (UCT) and gutted the reading room of its main library, which houses irreplaceable documents and records from the country’s past. Amid apocalyptic scenes on April 18, fire tore through part of the 200-year-old...
Inaugural IUCN Africa protected areas congress relaunched in Rwanda
Rwanda will in March 2022 host the inaugural IUCN Africa Protected Areas Congress (APAC) to discuss conservation of the continent’s protected areas, the global conservation body, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), has announced. The announcement follows the relaunch of APAC in Kigali, Rwanda on April 20, 2021. The...
Mars lift off: First flight on another planet as Ingenuity drone takes off
NASA has pulled off the first powered flight on another world. Ingenuity, the robot rotorcraft that is part of the agency’s Perseverance mission, lifted off from the surface of Mars on April 19, in a 39.1-second flight that is a landmark in interplanetary aviation. “We can now say that human...
Oil pipeline: Uganda, Tanzania have new policies to protect national interests
Facts and truth can be stubborn for those who believe foreign aid, begging and immigration to Europe should be the only way out for African youth. Of course, these jobs won’t all last forever. Many of them will involve construction or related activities, and these will naturally come to an...
Greenpeace, Western anti-Africa energy groups wrong on EA crude oil pipeline
If someone were to put me on the spot and ask me to name an environmentalist group, I’d probably blurt out the first thing that comes to mind, Greenpeace. There are obvious reasons for this: Greenpeace has been around for more than 50 years, and it has done a masterful...
Is British supermodel Naomi Campbell preparing to resettle in Kenya?
Away from the madding bigotry in what should be their native countries, Black people in diaspora are gradually but determinedly retracing their ancestors’ footsteps back to Africa. In the words of African-America film actress Mia Speight, there is a growing desire to live among people who look like them. Is...
Ukrainian women and children detained in Syria need consular support
Regional authorities in northeast Syria are unlawfully detaining an estimated 40 Ukrainian women and children in inhuman and degrading conditions in camps. Investigations by Human Rights Watch revealed that the women and children are among more than 43,000 foreigners that have been linked to the extremist armed group Islamic State...
We owe early HIV fighters gratitude for changing how we respond to health crises
It’s been just over a year since the World Health Organisation declared a worldwide pandemic – on March 11, 2020 – and only a few months since Pfizer and BioNTech released data showing their vaccine was highly effective at preventing Covid-19, with other companies following soon after. Merely weeks after...
Driving while under influence of drugs, like alcohol, has become pervasive
As drug abuse has become prevalent, so, too, has the crime of driving while under the influence of drugs. Today, a police officer who observes someone driving erratically but finds no alcohol in their breath must decide if the putative offender is ill, tired, distressed or whether they are under...
