Covid management: Too many projects on health and disease in Africa are pursued in silos
Africa’s Covid-19 management proved that building regional control and capability will be key to containing future disease outbreaks. This means strengthening national public-health institutions, such as the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and the Zambia National Public Health Institute in Lusaka. It also means strengthening and empowering the Africa CDC...
Health experts forecast: How Africa averted 70 million Covid infections, three million deaths
Africa’s achievements, especially in the early phase of the Covid-19 pandemic, are at least part of the reason the continent was able to mitigate the first and, to some degree, the second waves of the Covid-19 pandemic. As of December 13, 2021, around 8.9 million cases of Covid-19 and nearly...
As rest of world grapples with soaring numbers of Covid infections, Africa praised for coordinated response
In the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, Africa’s rapid and coordinated response, informed by emerging data, was remarkable. Now, in 2022, as vast vaccination campaigns have enabled the global north to gain some control over the pandemic, Africa lags behind. Since the 1960s, when many African countries gained independence,...
How Ethiopia’s decades-old Tigray conflict evolved into a sequel of human rights abuses and bitter legacy
Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) spokesman Getachew Reda has denied that formal Tigrayan forces were involved in the killings unarmed civilians, but said local Tigrayan militias may have committed abuses. Reda did not respond to queries about whether the TPLF would carry out investigations and punish those responsible. In his...
In Ethiopia war, new abuse charges turn spotlight on Tigrayan former rulers
In the dappled shadows of a glade of cypress and eucalyptus, a deacon of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church adjusted his roughly-spun cotton shawl and knelt by a white-washed grave. “He was my best friend,” Betsiha Derresse said. “We did everything together – sleep, work.” In August, civil war reached the...
Gold rush: UN experts say much of illegal gold exported from Congo is overseen by armed groups
Under US law, gold from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and its neighbours is considered a “conflict mineral,” meaning companies publicly traded in the US are required to report to the Securities Exchange Commission if they might be using gold mined in conflict areas, but there’s no sanction for...
Smuggled African gold: Is London Bullion Market Association a toothless dog or complicit in illicit trade?
In an unprecedented move, the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA), which regulates the world’s biggest gold market, last year threatened to bar its accredited refineries from sourcing metal from countries that didn’t meet its responsible sourcing standards. While it didn’t name any state, Bin Sulayem issued a rebuke on behalf...
Pandemic-induced gold leaks from Africa drive illicit markets as UAE is accused of trading in smuggled minerals
In the moon-like landscape of northern Sudan, informal gold miners toil with spades and pickaxes to extract their prize from shallow pits that pockmark the terrain. Mining ore in the sweltering heat of the Nubian desert is the first stage of an illicit network that has exploded in the past...
Desmond Tutu wanted to be remembered only as one who ‘loved, laughed, cried, was forgiven and forgave’
Desmond Tutu, South Africa’s Nobel Peace Prize-winning icon, an uncompromising foe of apartheid and a modern-day activist for racial justice and LGBT rights, died Sunday at 90. South Africans, world leaders and people around the globe mourned the death of the man viewed as the country’s moral conscience. Tutu worked...
Turkish government fiddling with Euphrates River water regime creates political crisis in Syria, Iraq
In addition to farming, Amer Meslet works as a brickmaker, which brings in 100,000 Syrian pounds a month (around $30). Without any harvest, that is all of his income, and Meslet says he now spends half of this on water, either for his family’s needs or to feed his animals....
