NEW YORK | KAMPALA – The Ugandan manufacturers of a solar-powered bus are showing off their creation at a stadium in Kampala. A 35-seater, it uses two batteries and the direct rays of an equatorial sun.
Solar panels attached to the roof power the 35-seater. Hopefully, partners will be found to help manufacture the bus for the mass market.
The brainchild of Kiira Motors Corporation (KMC) of Uganda, the bus was dubbed ‘Kayoola’ – loosely translated as ‘mass carrier’.
NEW YORK | ABUJA – Tumbling oil prices have been a gift to some but they’ve blown a huge hole in Nigeria’s balance sheet which some fear may set the once promising African economy into a tail spin.
What could be worse than finding you have a trillion dollar budget gap and an insurgent group that threatens to hit whatever oil wells remain?
Nigeria startled the finance markets by announcing plans to ask the World Bank and the African Development Bank for a $3.5 billion loan.
NEW YORK | NAIROBI – Africa appears to be registering lower AIDS infection rates around the continent but with some exceptions. A new pediatric study has found that 19,000 children in Homa Bay county, Kenya, are infected with HIV.
While HIV is rarely a page one story these days, the virus is particularly rampant in Kenya where one in every four people in the county of Homa Bay, bordering Lake Victoria, lives with HIV. The area contributes the highest number of new infections in the country, recording 15,000 new HIV infections in 2013 alone, according to the Kenya HIV Prevention Revolution Road Map 2014.
By Ronald Joshua | IDN-InDepthNews Analysis
ADDIS ABABA (IDN) – Africa’s veteran, though highly controversial leader, President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe has reiterated the call for reforms of the UN Security Council saying the continent should have the same powers as the five permanent members – Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States.
In his opening address to the 26th African Union (AU) Summit on January 30-31 – as outgoing chairperson of the bloc – he repeated the African leaders’ demand who have been pushing for the continent to have at least two permanent seats in the Security Council, with equal veto power.
NEW YORK | TUNIS – Thousands of Tunisian police rallied for pay raises on January 25, joining a growing movement of Tunisian citizens turning up the heat on Prime Minister Habib Essid with demands for “work, freedom and dignity”.
Once hailed as the success story of the Arab Spring for its democratic progress, Tunisia has become a poster child for the dangers in ignoring economic malaise, alienation and frustrations of North African youth.
Five years ago, a college graduate turned fruit vendor, Mohamed Bouazizi, ended his life after he faced abuse from police. On January 24, a copycat suicide ended the life of Ridha Yahyaoui who was refused a job. His action sparked riots in some of the same impoverished towns that brought down the previous regime.
NEW YORK – China has received a green light from Djibouti to build its first overseas military base in that Horn of Africa nation. The question is: will they get a welcome basket from neighbors France, Japan and the U.S.? All three have military bases there as well.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hong Lei said the new facility will give logistical support to China’s fleet that performs escort duties in the Gulf of Aden and off the Somali coast.
NEW YORK | ACCRA – Compassion was not in the hearts of Ghana’s religious leaders for two detainees flown to freedom this month (January) after 14 years in Guantanamo prison behind bars.
The Rev. Joseph Osei Bonsu, President of the Catholic Bishops Conference, scolded President John Dramani Mahama, saying the two Yemeni ex-detainees did not deserve any compassion from Ghanaians.
NEW YORK | MAPUTO – At the Centro Cultural Americano in the Mozambican capital of Maputo, there is a trove of books in the Martin Luther King library that tell the American story with some offerings touting a mythological tolerance, belied however by the fierce struggles in the U.S. over race, religion and immigration.
Materials provided by the U.S. Embassy to the Centro Cultural include an article titled ‘Unity Through Diversity: The American Identity’. In it, DC-based author Samier Mansur writes: “American’s capital pays homage to the intellectual achievements of Muslims… The U.S. is not only a nation born of diversity, but one that thrives because of diversity. And this is not by accident, but by design.”
NEW YORK – Ghana’s abundant resource in gold produced $23 billion in earnings from 2013 to 2016 but only $1.7 billion for the country’s coffers, according to a newly-released report by the African Centre for Energy Policy in Ghana
Titled ‘Golden Days for Newmont’, the report said the U.S.-based Newmont Mining Corporation paid less than $500 million (US) in taxes to the government of Ghana from 2003 to 2012.
The yawning gap between export earnings and royalties to the government was documented as far back as 2008. Gold accounted for 40% of exports in that year, with a value of $2.2 billion, whereas government received only $116 million in taxes and royalties from mining firms, which is less than 4% of the country’s total tax take, according to The Economist news magazine.
NEW YORK – Children as young as seven haul cobalt for foreign companies operating in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The mineral ends up in smartphones, cars and computers made by such brands as Apple, Microsoft and Vodafone, according to claims by Amnesty International in a new report.
Children carrying back-breaking loads and working in intense heat receive between one or two dollars a day. They work without face masks or gloves, the investigators reported, and are beaten by security guards employed by mining companies.
Begin typing your search term above and press enter to search. Press ESC to cancel.
