London, United Kingdom | AFP | Kenya’s Mary Keitany set the fastest time in a women-only marathon as she won a third London Marathon on Sunday in an unofficial 2hrs 17min 01sec. The 35-year-old, who also has three New York Marathon victories, beat Ethiopian track great Tirunesh Dibaba by almost …
Read More »Polythene bags: The menace of East Africa
Why a Rwanda-inspired bill to broaden ban on polythene bags across East Africa might drag on forever Plastic carrier bags could remain in use for the foreseeable future within the East African Community as debate on the East African Community Polythene Materials Control Bill, 2016 drags on in the East …
Read More »Anti-Mugabe election coalition takes shape in Zimbabwe
Harare, Zimbabwe | AFP | President Robert Mugabe’s grip on power has faced little recent threat from Zimbabwe’s splintered opposition, but efforts to forge a unified alliance in next year’s election could test his supremacy. Any opposition bloc would first have to overcome fierce rivalries within their various camps, and …
Read More »African Development Bank promises to help spur Uganda, Africa
African Development Bank President Akinwumi Adesina has spoken confidently about Africa’s enormous potential, and the bank’s ambitious development agenda, which he said was well underway. He said this, in an impassioned speech, delivered at the Center for Global Development in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, April 19. The High 5s …
Read More »At least 7 football fans electrocuted watching Man Utd on TV in Nigeria
Lagos, Nigeria | AFP | At least seven football fans were killed and 11 injured when an electric cable fell on a building where they were watching a Europa League match, Nigerian police said Friday. The incident happened in the southern port city of Calabar on Thursday during a quarter-final …
Read More »Rwandan court hands ex-Hutu militia leader life sentence
Kigali, Rwanda | AFP | Former Hutu militia leader Bernard Munyagishari was sentenced to life imprisonment by a court in Kigali Thursday for his role in the 1994 Rwanda genocide. The high court of Kigali judged Munyagishari guilty of “crimes of murder and genocide” but acquitted him of rape. He …
Read More »108 DAYS TO GO: Kenyatta warns against violence as Kenya poll fever rises
Nairobi, Kenya | AFP | Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta warned Thursday against violence as election season gets into full swing, with chaotic party primaries already leading to bloody scuffles. East Africa’s largest economy holds a general election on August 8, a decade after disputed poll results fuelled violence that left …
Read More »Spat over Kenyan electronic vote tender goes to court
Nairobi, Kenya | AFP | Six Kenyans urged a court Wednesday to suspend a controversial decision by election officials to scrap a tender process and directly procure an electronic voting system for the August polls. The petition is the umpteenth disruption to already chaotic election preparations, a sensitive process in …
Read More »South Sudan war strains Uganda’s generous refugee policy
Yumbe, Uganda | AFP | Michael O’Hagan Ugandan motorbike taxi driver Sadiq Agotre grumbles as he waits for a rare client among thousands of South Sudanese refugees hoping to receive food rations in the outskirts of his town. “Business is not good. These people don’t have money,” he says, gazing out …
Read More »Crop-killing armyworm caterpillar reaches Rwanda, Kenya
Kigali, Rwanda | AFP | Rwanda’s government announced on Wednesday it had discovered fall armyworm on its crops, making it the third east African country afflicted by the plant-eating pest also recently spotted in Kenya. Uganda confirmed last month that fall armyworm had entered its borders after devastating crops in …
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