AFRICA

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia | AFP |  For delivery man Sisay Alebachew, the difference between a good and bad day depends on Ethio Telecom, Ethiopia’s monopoly telecoms provider. When the internet is down or too slow to use, customers struggle to place orders on the website of Deliver Addis, Sisay’s e-commerce employer, …

Kampala, Uganda | Julius Businge | Top world leaders in government and private sector want tangible solutions to heal world economies that have been hit by coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19). They were speaking during celebrations for Africa Day 2020 facilitated by United Bank for Africa (UBA). The event was screened live across …

Khartoum, Sudan | AFP |  Sudanese authorities said Wednesday that three former senior aides to ousted president Omar al-Bashir have caught the novel coronavirus in prison. Former officials Ali Othman Taha, Ahmed Mohamed Haroun and Abdulreheem Mohamed Hussein have been held in Khartoum’s Kober prison since Bashir’s military ouster in …

Tokyo, Japan | AFP | Imagine the body’s instruction manual, the genome: here words are genes, letters are DNA, and the equivalent of typos can have disastrous consequences. In recent years, scientists have grown increasingly fluent in the language of genome, but much remains mysterious, including the function of many of …

Abidjan, Ivory Coast | AFP | The president of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Akinwumi Adesina, hit back on Wednesday at accusations of corruption and vowed to continue working. In a press statement, Adesina slammed “unprecedented attempts by some to tarnish my reputation” and declared “I will… continue to work with …

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Pan-African lender, United Bank for Africa joined countries on the African continent to celebrate the African Day. Formally the African Freedom Day and African Liberation Day, Africa Day, is commemorated on May.25 annually as a foundation for the formation of the Organisation of African Unity …

Windhoek, Namibia | AFP | Namibia has killed 10 elephants over the past two months to prevent the freely roaming animals from trampling crops, the environment ministry said Tuesday. The southern African country is home to over 24,000 elephants, mostly concentrated in and around national parks near the northern border with Angola. The pachyderms are …

Nairobi, Kenya | THE INDEPENDENT |  The Board of Directors of Equity Group Holdings Plc, the largest bank on the Nairobi Securities Exchange by market capitalization, has withdrawn its recommendation of a Ksh. 9.5 billion ($88 million) dividend payout to its shareholders. According to a statement, Equity states that “the …

Abidjan, Ivory Coast | AFP |  Senegalese superstar Youssou N’Dour and Grammy-winner Angelique Kidjo were among a galaxy of African talent brought together for a virtual concert to raise awareness of the coronavirus pandemic. More than 100 artists and celebrities from across the continent and the diaspora took part in the …

Cairo, Egypt | AFP |  State surveillance is on the rise globally as governments such as Egypt’s take advantage of the coronavirus pandemic, warns exiled historian and intellectual Khaled Fahmy. Amid the COVID-19 crisis, states have used phone apps and other high-tech measures to monitor the spread of the disease, and …