Author: Editorial Staff

ZIMBABWEAN Vice-President Kembo Mohadi resigned on Monday after local media reported that he had engaged in improper conduct. Mohadi, along with Constantino Chiwenga, was a deputy to President Emmerson Mnangagwa since 2018, but without a political power base, he was not seen as a potential successor to the president. In a rare move by a public official in Zimbabwe, Mohadi said he had taken the decision to step down ‘not as a matter of cowardice but as a sign of demonstrating great respect to the office of the president.’ Local online media service ZimLive has in the past two weeks…

ACTOR Idris Elba and model Naomi Campbell have joined 65 other British celebrities, designers and politicians in calling for Ghana’s president to engage with the country’s LGBT+ community in an open letter published on social media on Monday. A public outcry last week forced the country’s first LGBT+ community centre to temporarily close to protect its staff and visitors, just three weeks after it had opened. Church groups, politicians and anti-gay rights organisations have called on the government to shut the centre, run by local charity LGBT+ Rights Ghana, and arrest and prosecute those involved. ‘We see you and we…

APPLE Music today launches Africa to the World, a definitive collection of original and exclusive content from some of Africa’s biggest superstars including Burna Boy, Wizkid, Davido, Nasty C, Tiwa Savage and AKA, as well as the continent’s hottest emerging talents like Tems, Elaine, Fireboy DML, Sha Sha, Joeboy and Omah Lay. Apple Music has been championing the work of artists, songwriters, producers and DJs from all over Africa, with the goal of shining the global spotlight on the amazing creative talent across the continent. Africa to the World’s mission extends beyond music to art, with renowned South African illustrator…

GUNMEN have freed all 279 girls kidnapped from a boarding school in northwest Nigeria, the governor of Zamfara state said on Tuesday, as one of the victims told how their abductors had beaten her and her schoolmates with their weapons. According to earlier reports, 317 girls from the Government Girls Science Secondary School in the town of Jangebe were abducted by an armed gang at about 1am on Friday. Zamfara state spokesperson Sulaiman Tanau Anka said that some of the missing girls had run into the bush at the time of the assault, and the number of those kidnapped was…

THE inaugural Made in Africa Conference and Expo, a large virtual gathering and showcase for African buyers and sellers, will take place on April 13 and 14 2021. Hosted by Smart Procurement World and Sapics, two key role players in the procurement and supply chain management sphere, the event promises to bring together purchasing decision-makers, policymakers, investors and businesses from across the continent. Made in Africa will feature a two-day, high-impact online programme that will enable delegates to learn, engage and do business. Buy Africa for Africa Business leaders speaking at the launch of the inaugural Made in Africa conference,…

BITCOIN’S rally hit a speed bump as the world’s largest cryptocurrency witnessed its worst weekly decline in almost a year amid wider losses in risk assets. The digital token slumped 20 percent last week, the most since the pandemic-fuelled selloff last March. The wider Bloomberg Galaxy Crypto Index, tracking Bitcoin, Ether and three other cryptocurrencies, was down 23 percent for the same period. Bitcoin fell 5 percent to trade at $45,672 as of 5:00 p.m. on Friday in New York, according to consolidated pricing compiled by Bloomberg. ‘It is a market that was ridiculously overbought and will probably be so…

NIGERIA expects to take delivery of 3.92 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine on Tuesday, the third West African country to benefit from the Covax facility after Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire, the government’s coronavirus task force said on Sunday. Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country with some 200 million people, has reported fewer than 1 900 Covid-19 deaths so far, much better than had been widely predicted early in the pandemic. Last week, Nigerian drug regulator approved the Astrazeneca/Oxford Covid-19 vaccine use in Nigeria. The dispatch is part of an overall 16 million doses planned to be delivered to Nigeria in…

RELATIVES of more than 300 girls abducted by gunmen from their boarding school in northwest Nigeria endured an agonising wait for news amid rumours that they had been released, while security forces continued their search on Sunday. An armed gang kidnapped 317 girls from the Government Girls Science Secondary School in the town of Jangebe, in Zamfara state, at around 1 a.m. on Friday. The raid in Zamfara state was the second such kidnapping in little over a week in the northwest of the country, where schools have become targets for mass kidnappings for ransom. Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari on…

A LAWSUIT by South Africa’s two-times Olympic 800 metres champion Caster Semenya in the European Court of Human Rights that challenges restrictions of testosterone in female athletes is a ‘fight for all women’, her lawyer has said. Speaking to Al Jazeera, Gregory Nott said on Sunday a ruling by the governing body of athletics that prohibits Semenya from competing in certain track events due to her high natural testosterone is ‘a human rights violation’. ‘This is Caster’s fight but she believes it’s a fight for all woman who faced derogatory or prejudicial attacks upon themselves,” he said, speaking from Johannesburg.…

THE number of people without access to electricity in sub-Saharan Africa has declined for the first time in absolute terms in recent years, with countries such as Ethiopia, Kenya and Rwanda pave the way for their African counterparts. Moreover, Africa is ahead of the curve with distributed energy systems that can rapidly increase energy access in rural areas. This proves more cost effective than conventional grid extension solutions, driven by innovative business models and rapidly diminishing technology costs. Further, renewables are concurrently on the rise across the continent with considerable renewable generation capacities being added in countries such as Egypt,…