Hong Kong, China | AFP | As millions of people in Asia choke under polluted skies, authorities have turned to water-dispersing drones and outdoor air purifiers to improve air quality, while companies have tried to cash in by selling everything from canned air to lung-purifying teas. According to the World …

Mumbai, India | AFP | Transgender mystic Zoya Lobo turns over three oracle cards, studies them for a minute and looks up. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will definitely win India’s general election this summer, she proclaims. Clairvoyant Larra Shah also predicts a victory for Modi owing to his “extremely powerful …

Johannesburg, South Africa | AFP |  Defending champions Cameroon are among 21 countries hoping to fill one of 10 places up for grabs this weekend in the final 2019 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers. The Indomitable Lions will be among the 24 finalists in Egypt this June provided they avoid …

San Francisco, United States | AFP | After finding that exposure to the weedkiller Roundup was a “substantial factor” in one man’s cancer, jurors in California must now grapple with the question of just how culpable the product’s manufacturer, agriculture giant Monsanto, was in his illness. “It’s not a popularity …

Jinja, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | President Yoweri Museveni has commissioned the Isimba Hydro-Power station, adding 183 Megawats of electricity to the National Grid and bringing Uganda’s total installed Power Capacity from the current 955MW to 1138MW. Uganda Electricity Generation Company (UEGCL) has reassured the country that Isimba will generate …

Lusaka, Zambia | AFP |  Authorities in Zambia have banned an energy drink after laboratory results showed that it contained the active ingredient of the anti-impotence drug Viagra. SX Energy Natural Power drink, produced by Revin Zambia, is exported around the region including to Uganda, where a consumer recently complained …

In Israel: ➡ 90% of the water used is reused ➡ 38% of the country’s agriculture uses water from sewage to water crops ➡ 90% of the country’s agriculture depends on reused water Entebbe, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Israel is a desert country, but it is one of the leading producers of …

Nairobi, Kenya | AFP |  Three teenage schoolgirls in Burundi have been sent to prison to await trial for scribbling on a picture of President Pierre Nkurunziza in textbooks, activists said Thursday. The girls, aged 15, 16 and 17, face up to five years in prison for insulting the head …

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The presentation of a poem that prosecution says is loutish and allegedly written to insult the person of the president, received mixed reactions as the trial of researcher Dr Stella Nyanzi kicked off at Buganda Road Court Wednesday. The poem was posted on Stella …

Entebbe, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The Deputy Attorney General Mwesigwa Rukutana has said all political parties under the Inter-Party Organisation for Dialogue (iPod) should participate in the National Dialogue. Meeting members of the Inter-Party Organization for Dialogue-iPod at Golf View Hotel on Wednesday, Rukutana said that the leaders of …