Author: Agencies

Election observers keep watch over polls throughout the world. Their job is to support efforts to improve electoral quality and to provide transparency. In African countries, both local citizen and international observers have been deployed regularly since the 1990s. During several recent elections across the continent, however, questions have arisen about the competence and impartiality of observation missions. This has led to concerns about the future of observation, both in Africa and elsewhere. In 2023, more than 20 African countries are scheduled to go to the polls. It will be a busy year for observers who’ll be present at the majority of these elections.…

Activists in Paris Wednesday called out two banks involved in the financing of a controversial fossil fuel project in East Africa, part of a coordinated protest across a dozen cities worldwide. About 30 young campaigners from the Stop Total collective demonstrated in front of the French offices of Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) and Britain’s Standard Chartered. They demanded the banks pull back from the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), a 1,443-kilometre (900-mile) heated pipeline being jointly developed by France’s TotalEnergies and the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), along with the state oil companies of Uganda and…

Africa’s agriculture sector accounts for about 35% of the continent’s gross domestic product, and provides the livelihood of more than 50% of the continent’s population. These shares are more than double those of the world average and much higher than those of any other emerging region. Dependence on agriculture has declined in other emerging regions. For example, in Southeast Asia, agriculture’s share of GDP dropped from 30-35% in 1970 to 10-15% in 2019. In Africa it has remained unchanged for decades, according to World Bank data. At the same time, Africa’s agriculture sector is the world’s least developed, with the lowest levels of labour and land productivity.…

The human immune system is arguably the most complex system in the human body. But scientists have made a lot of progress in understanding how it functions. That’s important for understanding illnesses and how to manage them. For instance, it’s important to understand that an immune response takes several days to fully develop. This knowledge would hopefully prevent people from getting impatient and seeking inappropriate care. The immune system is made up of an intricate network of cells, tissues and molecules. These control the delicate balance between eliminating cancerous or infected cells, and not harming the body in the process.…

When Raquel Welch donned a deerskin bikini for a 1966 caveman screen epic, she became one of the hottest sex symbols of her time, a role she never felt able to escape. The film was mediocre, but the poster for “One Million Years BC” went round the world, taking her with it and making both of them an indelible part of cinema history. “With the release of that famous movie poster, in one fell swoop, everything in my life changed and everything about the real me was swept away,” Welch wrote in her 2010 autobiography Beyond the Cleavage. “All else would…

Sexual harassment in the workplace remains a big challenge for female journalists in Uganda. However, most women affected by it are silent about the vice. According to a 2021 study by WAN-IFRA Women in News and City, University of London, almost half of the women in newsrooms in Africa have experienced some form of sexual harassment, yet 30 per cent of sexual harassment cases were reported to management. Fear of reprisals is the most common driver behind the limited reporting. The study also found that a lack of faith in organisations’ management and awareness of reporting systems also plays a part in…

One of the issues that has generated great concern among voters in the run up to the Nigerian presidential elections is religion. Many Nigerians see the mixing of religion and politics as an impediment to progress and development. This idea can be traced to Europe. The Middle Ages were a time when religious authorities and political authorities clashed in European states, resulting in instability. The need to separate religion from politics thus became normalised in western political thought by the early 20th century. Over the years the idea found its way into other societies. Recent studies have shown that, in fact, the relationship between religion and…

The European Parliament voted on Tuesday, February 14, to approve a ban on new sales of carbon-emitting petrol and diesel cars by 2035, clearing a final legislative hurdle. EU member states have already approved the legislation and will now formally nod it into law, despite opposition from conservative MEPs, the parliament’s biggest group. Supporters of the bill had argued to that it would give European carmakers a clear timeframe in which switch production to zero-emission electric vehicles. This in turn will support the European Union’s ambitious plan to become a “climate neutral” economy by 2050, with net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.…

Russia will cut oil production from next month in response to a price cap imposed by western nations, the country’s top energy official has said, in the first sign Moscow is seeking to weaponise oil supplies after slashing natural gas exports to Europe last year. The cut of 500,000 barrels a day, the equivalent of almost 5 per cent of Russia’s production, or 0.5 per cent of world supply, was a response to the “destructive energy policy of the countries of the collective west”, Alexander Novak said on Friday. Christyan Malek, global head of energy strategy at JPMorgan, said Moscow’s…

From the recipient of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize, How to Stand Up to a Dictator is an impassioned and inspiring memoir of a career spent holding power to account. In 2021, Filipino journalist Maria Ressa won the Unesco Press Freedom Award, and was one of two journalists awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In her Nobel lecture, she said: “An invisible atom bomb exploded in our information ecosystem, and the world must act as it did after Hiroshima. Like that time, we need to create new institutions, like the United Nations, and new codes stating our values, like the universal…