Mariama Sonko is an unstoppable force who continued her work even when she was ostracised by her community in SenegalOutside Mariama Sonko’s home in the Casamance region of southern Senegal pink shells hang on improvised nets that will be placed in man…
Sudan coup attempt has failed, state media reports
Government and military sources say a group of officers had tried to occupy state media buildingA coup attempt in Sudan has failed, state media has reported, as the country grapples with a fragile transition since the 2019 ousting of the longtime presi…
Cartona gets $4.5M pre-Series A to connect retailers with suppliers in Egypt
Year-old startup Capiter announced last week that it raised a $33 million Series A to digitize Egypt’s traditional offline retail market. It’s looking to take a large pie in the budding e-commerce and retail play, where multiple startups are pulling their weight including Cartona, also a year-old startup out of Egypt. Today, Cartona is announcing that […]
Religious rehab centres fill gap as Nigeria grapples with soaring drug use
With poverty deepening, state services are failing to cope with rising rates of addictionKola* was in secondary school in Nigeria when he started smoking cigarettes. He soon graduated to cannabis, heroin and eventually to crack cocaine. Access to drugs…
Netflix launches free plan in Kenya to boost growth
Netflix said on Monday it is launching a free mobile plan in Kenya as the global streaming giant looks to tap the East African nation that is home to over 20 million internet users. The free plan, which will be rolled out to all users in Kenya in the coming weeks, won’t require them to […]
Rwandan court finds Hotel Rwanda hero guilty of terror-related charges
Paul Rusesabagina, an ex-hotel manager, featured in a Hollywood film about the 1994 genocideA Rwandan court has ruled that Paul Rusesabagina, a former hotel manager portrayed as a hero in a Hollywood film about the 1994 genocide, is guilty of terrorism…
Climate crisis leaving ‘millions at risk of trafficking and slavery’
Droughts and floods forcing workers from rural areas, leading to their exploitation in cities, report warnsMillions of people forced to leave their homes because of severe drought and powerful cyclones are at risk of modern slavery and human traffickin…
Coronavirus live news: Cambodia starts vaccinating six-year-olds; Africa jabs shortfall ‘raises risk of deadly variants’
Cambodia hopes to reopen schools closed for months; parts of Africa could be ‘breeding grounds for vaccine-resistant variants’, says WHONew Zealand extends Australia travel bubble pause as cases drop to 11Experts divided over Covid booster shots days a…
African genomics startup 54gene raises $25M to expand precision medicine capabilities
Less than 3% of genetic material used in global pharmaceutical research is from Africa. The staggering gap is quite surprising because Africans and people of African descent are reported to be more genetically diverse than any other population. Since launching in 2019, African genomics startup 54gene has been at the forefront of bridging this divide […]
Nigerian agritech startup Releaf secures $4.2M to scale its food processing technology
The distance between their farms and the nearest processor is key for smallholder farmers who need to process their crops. And though Nigeria’s food processing systems have a keen resemblance to the West with respect to big factories and huge economies of scale in high-demand cities, farmers still suffer from poor logistics networks. With distance […]