Author: Editorial Staff

WITH the first batch of Covid-19 vaccines having arrived in Ghana on February 242021 via the WHO’s Covax initiative, the race to inoculate the African continent is in full swing. With a stated objective of vaccinating 60 percent of sub-Saharan Africa’s population, Africa’s vaccine drive will require time and considerable stocks of Covid-19 vaccines, write Alexandre Raymakers, Eric Humphery-Smith and Aleix Montana. Assuming that each inoculation generally requires two jabs, regional governments will likely have to procure a total of around 1.3 billion doses. With African states almost completely dependent on foreign suppliers, China has been particularly eager to offer…

IT’S an exciting time for filmmakers and movie fans around the world: Academy Awards season is here. And with several African films up for official nominations, people across the continent will be paying close attention when those nominations are announced on Monday. ‘My Octopus Teacher,’ a South African documentary about a man who formed an unlikely bond with an octopus, is on the shortlist for the Documentary Feature category, while ‘The Man Who Sold His Skin’ – a Tunisian film about a Syrian man whose body is used by an artist as a canvas — is up for a nomination…

ARMED men stormed a college in northwest Nigeria in the early hours of Friday morning, opened fire and kidnapped an unknown number of students. A report by CNN says the students were abducted from the Federal College of Forestry Mechanisation, Mando, Kaduna. It is the third mass kidnapping from a school in northern Nigeria this year and police say they are working to rescue the students. ‘The police and the military are on top of the situation. We are trying to liaise with the school management to know the exact number of students that were abducted and then see the…

TANZANIA’S minister for legal affairs on Thursday threatened those spreading ‘nonsense’ rumours over the health of President John Magufuli with jail, without offering details of the leader’s whereabouts. Tanzania’s opposition leader Tundu Lissu has demanded information on where Magufuli is, suggesting the president is sick with Covid-19 and fuelling a storm of rumours on social media in recent days. Magufuli has not been seen in public since February 27, and much of the speculation has come from his unusual absence from two Sunday church services and his skipping a regional summit of heads of state. ‘The country’s leader is not…

CHARITIES in Africa criticised rich nations on Thursday for blocking efforts to waive patents for Covid-19 vaccines, saying this would prolong the pandemic for years in poorer nations and push millions across the continent deeper into poverty. More than 40 charities, including Amnesty International and Christian Aid, said Wednesday’s move by Western nations to prevent generic or other manufacturers making more vaccines in poorer nations was an ‘affront’ to  people’s right to health care. Peter Kamalingin, Oxfam International’s Africa director, said sub-Saharan Africa with 14 percent of the global population received only 0.2 percent of 300-million vaccine doses administered worldwide.…

AFRICA’S recovery from the coronavirus crisis could stretch into 2022 and beyond, its largest lender by assets Standard Bank, said on Thursday, but it also said this would not hold back its expansion on the continent over the coming years. The lender, which forecast a multi-year, non-linear recovery in its home market, South Africa, said possible problems with vaccine rollout and the threat of future waves of infection could also delay a continent-wide recovery. But the bank, which reported a 43 percent decline in full-year profit on Thursday, said it had kept its annual dividend 76 percent lower than 2019…

MOZAMBIQUE’S claims against shipbuilder Privinvest, at the centre of a $2bn debt scandal, fall under an ongoing arbitration process, Britain’s appeals court found on Thursday, in a blow to Mozambique’s efforts to remove its liability for part of the money. Mozambique is suing Privinvest, its billionaire CEO Iskandar Safa, and Credit Suisse in London’s high court over $2bn in government-guaranteed loans raised in 2013 and 2014, a hefty chunk of which went missing according to authorities. Privinvest, the sole contractor to a series of projects the money was ostensibly raised for, has separately launched arbitration proceedings against three state-owned companies…

AS Africa lags in its efforts to vaccinate 60 percent of its 1.3 billion people as quickly as possible, the continent must develop its capacity to produce Covid-19 vaccines, the director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday. At least five African countries appear to have the capacity to produce vaccines, said Dr. John Nkengasong in a press briefing, citing South Africa, Senegal, Tunisia, Morocco, and Egypt. Nkengasong had previously set the goal of vaccinating 60 percent of Africa’s population by the end of this year, but the target is now a year later: by the…

WOMEN’S rights could be rolled back 200 years in Egypt under a proposed law that would stop them signing their own marriage certificates, registering their child’s birth or travelling abroad without a man’s consent, rights activists say. The personal status bill, which was approved by the cabinet in January, would also give fathers priority in child custody – reversing the current law which favours mothers – and allow fathers to prevent mothers travelling with their children. ‘We completely reject this shocking draft law. It takes us back 200 years,’ said Nehad Abu El Komsan, head of the Egyptian Centre for…

UGANDA’S shutdown of social-media sites in January, right before a disputed election handed President Yoweri Museveni a sixth term, dealt a devastating blow to rice trader Elizabeth Nagunda: her sales slowed to a near-halt. ‘Before I would advertise, market my products on Facebook, WhatsApp, and even get customer orders’ via those platforms, she said in an interview in Kampala, the capital. ‘I can’t run any more adverts online. Even if I do, there are no people to view them.’ Facebook and Google are spending billions trying to get more people online in Africa, but the internet giants are now facing…