Britain plans to surrender its last colony in Africa – Chagos Islands – to Mauritius in Indian Ocean
Could the protracted dispute over the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean finally be drawing to a close? Britain steadfastly insisted for decades that it was the rightful owner of what it called the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT). But it did an apparent about-turn on November 3, 2022, when...
Report: Drought has killed 11 million livestock and over 6,000 iconic wildlife species in East Africa
Surrounded by kilometres of dried land and what remains of his famished livestock, Daniel Lepaine is a worried man. Dozens of his goats in Ngong, a town in southern Kenya, have died after three years of harrowing drought in East and Horn of Africa. The rest are on the verge...
South Sudan president meets deputy in capital Juba as fears of slide back into civil war resurface
South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir and his first deputy, Riek Machar met on Friday (today) at the State House in the capital, Juba, to discuss the recent dismissal of Defence Minister Angelina Teny. The eagerly anticipated meeting happens a week after Kiir unilaterally sacked the Defence and Veterans Affairs minister...
Congress sub-committee on health told NIH allowed American entities to ‘conduct risky research on novel coronaviruses’
National security chair of the subcommittee Brad Wenstrup (Republican-Ohio), notes that the Wuhan Institute has a poor track record when it comes to biosafety and was conducting this research at only a level two lab (BSL2 lab) – “described as the ‘Wild West’ by Dr Jeremy Farrar, a virologist from...
Revelations: ‘No doubt’ US National Institutes of Health funded research that resulted in creation of Covid
Dr Robert Redfield, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), on Wednesday said he has “no doubt” the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Dr Anthony Fauci funded gain-of-function research that likely resulted in the creation of Covid-19 and its subsequent leak. Redfield made the statement...
US Congress puts virologists on the defence on why they did not to seriously consider Covid lab leak theory
The virologists behind the “proximal origin” article have strongly denounced accusations that they were improperly swayed by the participation of influential funders of scientific research. They have asserted that they seriously considered the lab leak theory but that evidence accumulated in favour of a natural origin, assuaging their earlier concerns...
Email leaks: How senior US, British scientists coerced virologists to write influential article to deny Covid was manufactured
Virologists who worked to squelch consideration of a lab origin of Covid-19 in early 2020 worked in tandem with leaders in scientific research funding, according to their private emails. Leaders of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the US and the Wellcome Trust in the UK played an undisclosed...
UN Security Council votes to retain arms embargo imposed on Sudan over violence in Darfur region
The UN Security Council on Wednesday approved a resolution to renew an arms embargo and other sanctions imposed over violence in Sudan’s western Darfur region that began in 2004. Thirteen of the 15 council members voted for the resolution. Russia and China abstained, arguing that the Darfur conflict is largely...
Tanzania President Hassan pitches political tolerance as she marks UN Women’s Day
Tanzania’s President Samia Suluhu Hassan has said that as the East African country’s first female leader, she has brought a new level of political tolerance to the nation. Hassan spoke at a rally for International Women’s Day, which had been organised by an opposition party. More than 3,000 women were...
43 African defence chiefs meet US counterparts in Rome to discuss causes, indicators and vectors of instability
Forty-three African defence chiefs and senior military leaders attended the annual African Chiefs of Defence conference hosted by the United States-Africa Command in Rome to “enhance relationships and discuss shared visions for future multinational co-ordination” on the continent. US Marine Corps General Michael Langley, who hosted the four day event,...
