As Kenya mulls facial recognition technology, resistance builds up in Europe, US
In Belgrade’s Republic Square, dome-shaped cameras hang prominently on wall fixtures, silently scanning people walking across the central plaza.It is one of 800 locations in the city that Serbia’s government said last year it would monitor using cameras equipped with facial-recognition software, purchased from electronics firm Huawei in Shenzhen, China.The...
Puzzle of Kenya’s ‘mysteriously low Covid death toll’
One of the first large SARS‑CoV-2 antibody studies in Africa suggests that by mid-2020, the virus had infected four per cent of people in Kenya — a surprisingly high figure in view of Kenya’s small number of Covid-19 deaths.The presence of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 indicates a history of infection with...
Rhumba Big Bang: Franco and Verckys split that reshaped African industry music forever
A rebellion in Orchestra Oscar Kashama (OK) in 1968 gave Africa rich a cultural diversity that lives on to this day.It happened when OK – later renamed Orchestra Kinshasa – band leader Luambo Luanzo Makiadi (Francois) was away on a business trip in Europe and forever changed the course, tenor...
Islamic jihadists behead dozens in Mozambique
Mozambican police have confirmed that at least 50 people in the country’s northernmost province were beheaded this month by suspected Islamist militants.The horrific attacks in gas-rich Cabo Delgado province took place in three villages in the districts of Muidumbe and Macomia over a week, according to commander-general of Mozambique’s police,...
Trade: Synthetic alternatives to endangered wildlife products being developed
Roughly a million species are threatened with extinction, according to a major international study published last year. And trade and personal use by people is the second leading driver behind habitat destruction, the research established.Conservation agency, Cites (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora)...
CITES is a terminally ill patient in need of serious attention – conservationists
Customs officials in Singapore made a grisly discovery last April at a port on the island’s southern coast. Inside shipping containers supposedly transporting frozen beef from Nigeria to Vietnam, they found bloodstained sacks stuffed with 14 tonnes of scales stripped illegally from pangolins — scaly anteaters endemic to Africa and...
Taming Covid: Behind the frontlines of the Ebola wars
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus concentrates on a map of a long-forsaken war zone in the north-eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Ebola is gaining ground here and Tedros, the director-general of the World Health Organisation (WHO), needs to stop it.He huddles in a dim corner of a...
Life and times of former Ghana president Jerry Rawlings who died at 73
Former Ghana President John Jerry Rawlings has died. The curtains came down on Mr Rawling’s life on Thursday morning at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra.Mr Rawlings is remembered for leading a military junta until 1992, before he later served two terms as elected president of Ghana. He resigned from...
Uganda’s electricity regulator rated best in Africa
Uganda has for the third year running emerged as the top performer in Africa’s Electricity Regulatory Index Report published by the African Development Bank.The East African country, along with Namibia, Tanzania, Zambia and Kenya, the other top performers, have regulators with the authority to exert the necessary oversight on the...
How to stop restaurants, gyms from driving up coronavirus infections
In cities worldwide, coronavirus outbreaks have been linked to restaurants, cafes and gyms. Now, a new model using mobile-phone data to map people’s movements suggests that these venues could account for most Covid-19 infections in US cities.The model, published this week, also reveals how reducing occupancy in venues can significantly...
