Africa’s vast mineral resources have always pointed to its potential as a market maker – and a global player in consumer goods. But division has kept producers and markets weak. An agreement between Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia shows how to change that, according to a new report. SPECIAL …

BERLIN | Xinhua |  Drawing lessons from the riots and attacks on emergency services that occurred on New Year’s Eve 2023, Germany’s emergency services are preparing to be present in large numbers during the year-end festivities across the country, appealing to the public to be peaceful as the sale of …

Rwakitura, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | President Yoweri Museveni has revealed that First Lady Janet Museveni is self-isolating at home after a positive test for COVID-19. The tests were done after she reportedly felt weak, with headache and irritation in the throat. “On Christmas day, after a family lunch, Maama Janet …

COMMENT | ROBERT SKIDELSKY |   A little over a year ago, the San Francisco-based OpenAI released its chatbot, ChatGPT, triggering an artificial-intelligence gold rush and reigniting the age-old debate about the effects of automation on human welfare. The fear of displacement by machines can be traced back to the nineteenth-century Industrial …

LUSAKA | Xinhua | Zambian health authorities on Thursday announced that measures have been heightened to contain the outbreak of cholera which has now spread to 12 districts in the country. Minister of Health Sylvia Masebo said a multisectoral approach headed by the Disaster Management and Mitigation Unit has been …

TEHRAN | Xinhua | The funeral for senior Iranian commander Seyyed Razi Mousavi, who was recently assassinated in an Israeli attack in Syria, was held in Iran’s capital Tehran on Thursday. A number of people including Iranian officials took part in the ceremony to bid farewell to the veteran member …

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The Director General of the Uganda Investment Authority (UIA), Robert Mukiza, has affirmed that the progress of establishing the Industrial Park in Kisoro district remains on track. The Kisoro district authorities allocated 620 acres of Kibaya land in Bunagana and Rukundo Town councils to …

COMMENT | Jan-Werner Mueller |  More than two months after the decisive victory of pro-democracy parties in Poland’s general election, opposition leader Donald Tusk has finally been sworn in as prime minister. Initially, Mateusz Morawiecki, his predecessor from the right-wing populist Law and Justice (PiS) party, had been reappointed by President Andrzej Duda, beholden to PiS, under the …

COMMENT | PEPE JULIAN ONZIEMA | In the 1990s, as a 15-year-old high-school student in Uganda, I was a member of a “writers’ club” that would summarize for our fellow students key articles from the lone copy of the local newspaper our school received each day. One day, I was …

Gulu, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Chief Justice Alfonse Owiny-Dollo Chigamoi has blamed the cases of famine and poverty among households in the Acholi Sub-region on extreme alcoholism coupled with laziness among abled men and women. Justice Owiny-Dollo notes that the majority of the abled-bodied Acholi community members have resorted …