Features

Johnstown, United States | AFP | Pundits and pollsters say the bottom may be falling out of Donald Trump’s White House run, but diehard supporters in the western Pennsylvania city of Johnstown strongly disagree. A few hours’ drive north and west from liberal Washington, Johnstown — the beating heart of …

Quito, Ecuador | AFP | For Ecuador, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has become the worst kind of guest: he makes messes he doesn’t clean up, he spills secrets, he meddles, and there’s no telling when he will leave. Four years after Assange sought refuge in the Ecuadoran embassy in London, …

Myko Ouma self-effacingly dismisses it when I tell him he is considered by many people to be one of the best guitarists in the country. “About best guitarist, I don’t know,” he says. In reality, he is a renowned jazz and contemporary world music artiste who plays more than ten …

Washington, United States | AFP |  World economic leaders gathered in Washington this week to defend globalization, delivering a single message in unison: Protectionism will not save you. But this glosses over the plight of Africa, which is sinking further into poverty despite years of free trade. According to the …

Kampala, Uganda | AFP | Michael O’HAGAN A Ugandan policeman has turned to rap and breakdancing to win over a sceptical public in a popular music video extolling the virtues of the police service. Inspector Samuel Ojobira, known as “O.J”, is making waves with his hit song “Physically Fit”, although some …

Washington, United States | AFP | The American presidential election falls this year on November 8. The quadrennial exercise always takes place on the Tuesday following the first Monday in November, as prescribed by the US Constitution. How the voting system works The vote, by universal suffrage, is conducted in a …

Kampala, Uganda | AFP |  Michael O’HAGAN | Standing on a drab side-street next to an open sewer in the Ugandan capital Kampala, Brian Mugabi points to the site of his former family home and reflects on how much the game of chess has changed their lives. Ten years ago Mugabi …

Lagos, Nigeria | AFP |  Balogun Shakirat woke up with a start at 3:00 am and put on the light in her workshop in a crowded working class district of Nigeria’s commercial capital, Lagos. In the following three hours, she was able to sew shirts, trousers and a jacket. Then …

Darmstadt, Germany | AFP | Europe’s ground-breaking quest to unravel the Solar System’s mysteries concludes Friday with the Rosetta comet chaser crashlanding onto the cosmic wanderer’s rocky surface. The mission, summarised in numbers: 1: Rosetta became the first spacecraft, in August 2014, to enter the orbit of a comet. In …

Stockholm, Sweden | AFP | It’s serendipity: from America to Viagra, history is full of great discoveries helped along by chance, as more than a century of Nobel prizes can attest. Among the chance discoveries that have been honoured with the prestigious prize are X-rays (physics, 1901), penicillin (medicine, 1945), …