Author: Editorial Staff

KENYANS have begun getting inoculated with Russia’s Sputnik V vaccines for a fee after the nation’s authorities approved the shots for emergency purposes. A single shot costs KSh7,700 shillings ($70.30), according to Nairobi-based lawyer Donald Kipkorir, who got an injection Tuesday. ‘Sputnik V got high reviews from medical journals and that is comforting for me,’ another lawyer, Ahmednasir Abdullahi, said by text message. ‘The West is hoarding vaccine it doesn’t need, but Russia has made it available to poor Third World countries like Kenya.’ The Pharmacy and Poisons Board gave emergency use authorisation for AstraZeneca and Sputnik V vaccines ‘after…

IF you’re planning to travel to Ghana, here’s what you’ll need to know and expect if you want to visit during the global coronavirus pandemic. The basics Ghana reopened to international flights last September. However, land and sea borders remain closed. All visitors must have proof of a negative test and take a further test on arrival. What’s on offer Ghana may be blessed with some of West Africa’s finest beaches, but it’s so much more than a place to sunbathe. Its coastal forts offer an unflinching insight into the slave trade which was run by the British from these…

CHAD’S Idriss Deby Itno (pictured, centre), combining hardline tactics with political savvy, has sidelined his most viable challengers, leaving him on course for a sixth term as president after 30 years at the helm of his poor Sahel nation. As his next re-election bid looms on April 11, the 68-year-old has banned and violently put down peaceful marches for his ouster, with some of his potential challengers arrested, barred from the election or both. On the other hand he has openly wooed support from the moderate opposition, and political analysts reckon that his ruling clan has already paved the way…

A DEADLY assault by Islamic State-linked militants in Mozambique could delay plans by Total to build a massive liquefied natural gas facility, analysts warn, although the project is still likely to go forward. Dozens of civilians were killed in the assault and capture of the key northern town of Palma by militants, and thousands fled the area. Total, a French energy major, announced Saturday that it was suspending operations at the facility, located just a dozen kilometres from Palma. The announcement came just days after Total announced it was resuming construction, which had been suspended for months owing to previous…

SOLDIERS were arrested in Niger after an ‘attempted coup’ early Wednesday, a security source said after gunfire broke out in the capital Niamey, adding ‘the situation is under control.’ Residents reported hearing overnight bursts of gunfire near the presidency, just two days before Mohamed Bazoum (pictured) is due to take the helm of the coup-prone country. ‘There were some arrests among a few members of the army who are behind this attempted coup,’ said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity. ‘The Presidential Guard retaliated, preventing this group of soldiers from approaching the presidential palace,’ said the source. A resident…

THE International Criminal Court on Tuesday upheld the war crimes conviction and 30-year sentence imposed on a Congolese warlord dubbed the ‘Terminator.’ Rebel leader Bosco Ntaganda had appealed after he was found guilty by the ICC in 2019 of a reign of terror in the Democratic Republic of Congo in the early 2000s. Judges dismissed all of Ntaganda’s arguments against both the conviction and the sentence, the longest ever handed down by the Hague-based tribunal. Presiding Judge Howard Morrison said the ICC’s appeals chamber ‘confirms by a majority the conviction decision and rejects the defence and prosecution appeals.’ He added…

THE swift sacking of three Kenyan radio presenters who suggested women were to blame for gender-based violence should serve as a catalyst for change in the country’s often sexist media, women’s campaigners said on Monday. The three disc jockeys at Homeboyz Radio were fired at the weekend following outrage over their comments about an ongoing court case in which a man is accused of pushing a woman from the 12th floor of a building after she refused his advances. Women’s campaigners said misogynistic remarks remained commonplace in the Kenyan media, but they welcomed the decisive action taken, adding that it…

STAFF of a Tanzania state-run publication were suspended after they mistakenly printed an advert mourning the country’s new President Samia Suluhu Hassan (pictured), who was recently sworn in to replace the late President John Magufuli. The advert, sponsored by Tanzania’s Mining Corporation (STAMICO) was intended to congratulate President Samia Suluhu, 61, on her emergence as the country’s 6th president but instead offered condolences to citizens on her death. The ad appeared in Monday’s edition of the Daily News, a leading English newspaper in Tanzania, and read: ‘The Board of Directors, Management and Staff of State Mining Corporation (STAMICO) joins fellow…

NIGERIA’S President Muhammadu Buhari will travel to London for a ‘routine’ medical check-up two days before the country’s doctors go on strike over unpaid salaries. Buhari, 78, is set to leave the country Tuesday after meeting the nation’s security chiefs, spokesman Femi Adesina said in an emailed statement Monday. The trip will last until the second week of April. It’s Buhari’s first medical trip abroad since the pandemic, which stripped much of Africa’s elite of the option of flying to the UK, France or India to see a doctor. While Buhari consults with doctors in London, millions in Africa’s most…

THE Burkina Faso–Ghana rail interconnection project implementation is set to begin next year.  This was confirmed by the Ghanaian Minister of Railway Development, John Peter Amewu, during his two-day tour to Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso where he went to soak up the level of implementation of the project in question, as the new minister of the railway department. In order to respect the provisional timetable for the effective start of the implementation of the project, the two countries represented by the Ghanaian minister and Christophe Joseph Marie Dabiré, the Burkinabe Prime Minister, agreed to finalise a certain number of…