Tag: Africa

Gambia to Vote on Repealing Ban on Female Genital Cutting

Gambian lawmakers are preparing to decide whether to revoke a ban on female genital cutting by removing legal protections for millions of girls, raising fears that other countries could follow suit. Members of Gambia’s national assembly plan to vote on whether to overturn the ban on Monday after the second reading of the bill. Human […]

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Xsolla debuts Xsolla Wallet and takes game payments to Africa

Xsolla, a game commerce company, announced Xsolla Wallet to simplify monetization and engagement challenges in games. It also launched digital game payments in Africa. The company said both ventures highlight its commitment to empowering the global creator economy within the video game industry. The Xsolla Wallet offers embedded finance options specifically designed for developers and […]

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“We offer another place for knowledge”

In the Dzaleka Refugee Camp in Malawi, Jospin Hassan didn’t have access to the education opportunities he sought. So, he decided to create his own.  Hassan knew the booming fields of data science and artificial intelligence could bring job opportunities to his community and help solve local challenges. After earning a spot in the 2020-21 […]

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Shaken by Grisly Killings of Women, Activists in Africa Demand Change

A wave of gruesome killings of women across several African countries in recent weeks has prompted outrage and indignation, triggered a wave of protests and precipitated calls for governments to take decisive action against gender-based violence. Kenyans were shocked when 31 women were killed in January after they were beaten, strangled or beheaded, activists and […]

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As a Son Risks His Life to Topple the King, His Father Guards the Throne

The riot police appeared out of nowhere, charging furiously toward the young protesters trying to oust King Mswati III, who has ruled over the nation of Eswatini for 38 years. The pop of gunfire ricocheted through the streets, and the demonstrators started running for their lives. Manqoba Motsa, a college student, and his fellow Communists […]

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‘NFL Africa’ Super Bowl Commercial Prompts Mixed Responses To League With No Black Majority Owners

NewsOne Featured Video A video board displays a logo for Super Bowl LVIII at Allegiant Stadium on February 1, 2024, in Las Vegas, Nevada. | Source: Ethan Miller / Getty Famous in part for its commercials, the Super Bowl’s annual telecast didn’t fail to produce any number of conversation-generating ads that ran throughout the NFL’s […]

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Dipping Into the World’s Most Stunning Hot Springs

Some hot springs look like palaces, others like holes in the ground. Some feel like parties, others like prayers. There are hot baths within cities, on remote islands, in the desert, inside thick forests. Thermal water can be green, orange, blue, yellow or turquoise. It can be milky and opaque, silty with sediment or as […]

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Tribal Marks Are Dying Out in Nigeria. Those With the Scars Are Split On It.

L to R: Amosu Shade, an influencer with tribal marks, and Skepta in costume while filming Tribal Marks. “My name is Mark – Tribal Mark,” Skepta tells the camera. The “Gas Me Up” rapper directs and stars in Tribal Mark, his first film, and his words are clearly reminiscent of James Bond. In the 26-minute short […]

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How Shrinking Populations Fuel Divisive Politics

In the 2000 film “Almost Famous,” Cameron Crowe’s comedy-drama about rock musicians in the 1970s, the character played by Zooey Deschanel at one point gives her younger brother some advice. “Listen to ‘Tommy’ with a candle burning, and you’ll see your whole future,” she says. I’m going to borrow that thought for today’s newsletter: Stare […]

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Projects investigating Swahili, global media win SHASS Humanities Awards

Two projects — the Global Mediations Lab led by Paul Roquet and the MIT Swahili Studies Initiative led by Per Urlaub — have won Humanities Awards from the MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences. The pilot program, launched in fall 2023, aims to support humanities-focused, collaborative projects that can have a broad impact within SHASS or […]

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New fellowship to help advance science journalism in Africa and the Middle East

The Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT has announced a new one-semester fellowship — the Fellowship for Advancing Science Journalism in Africa and the Middle East — that will start this year. The fellowship, developed through a generous gift from the global publishing company Springer Nature, was created in honor of the influential Egyptian science […]

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Blinken Touts U.S. Investments in Angola

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken wrapped up a four-nation tour through Africa on Thursday with a visit to Angola, an oil-rich former Cold War battleground that has become the site of a struggle for 21st-century economic influence. During his visit to the coastal capital, Luanda, Mr. Blinken spotlighted major American investments in Angola, including […]

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Entrepreneur creates career pathways with MIT OpenCourseWare

When June Odongo interviewed early-career electrical engineer Cynthia Wacheke for a software engineering position at her company, Wacheke lacked knowledge of computer science theory but showed potential in complex problem-solving. Determined to give Wacheke a shot, Odongo turned to MIT OpenCourseWare to create a six-month “bridging course” modeled after the classes she once took as […]

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Shipping Costs Soar in Wake of Red Sea Attacks

For about two months, a barrage of missile and drone attacks in the Red Sea by Houthi militants has posed a difficult choice to shippers using the Suez Canal: risk an airborne strike and pay sharply higher insurance rates, or forgo the canal and take the longer route around Africa, snarling schedules and entailing higher […]

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Remote African Hub Reopens for Migrants Headed Toward Europe

The bus station in Agadez, a remote city of low mud-brick buildings in the West African nation of Niger, is buzzing again. Every week, thousands of migrants from West and Central Africa leave from the station in this gateway city to the Sahara aboard a caravan of pickup trucks, traveling for days toward North Africa, […]

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Blinken, in Cape Verde, Signals U.S. Attention to Africa

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken touched down on a remote African island chain on Monday, kicking off a four-nation swing through the continent intended to show the Biden administration’s continued interest in Africa amid major conflicts in the Middle East and Europe. A cool Atlantic breeze blew across the dusty port in Praia, Cape […]

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The Rules of War

The Daily is made by Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Sydney Harper, Mike Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen, Marion […]

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A ‘Revolutionary’ Way to Feed the World That’s Very Old

“There are some interesting hints or nods in the right direction: the focus on crop diversity and nutrition, Indigenous knowledge, a focus on neglected crops,” said Bill Moseley, a professor at Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minn., who has worked on agriculture programs with the U.S. Agency for International Development and the World Bank. “What’s […]

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War Has Already Hurt the Economies of Israel’s Nearest Neighbors

In the Red Sea, attacks by Iranian-backed Houthi militants on commercial ships continue to disrupt a crucial trade route and raise shipping costs. The threat of escalation there and around flash points in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and now Iran and Pakistan ratchets up every day. Despite the staggering death toll and wrenching misery of […]

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With Harsh Anti-L.G.B.T.Q. Law, Uganda Risks a Health Crisis

For decades, Uganda’s campaign against H.I.V. was exemplary, slashing the country’s death rate by nearly 90 percent from 1990 to 2019. Now a sweeping law enacted last year, the Anti-Homosexuality Act, threatens to renew the epidemic as L.G.B.T.Q. citizens are denied, or are too afraid to seek out, necessary medical care. The law criminalizes consensual […]

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Baran Mensah: Savoring college life in a new country

MIT senior Baran Mensah recalls taking apart his toys as a child, curious to see how every piece worked. When his mother explained to him what an engineer was, he knew that’s what he wanted to be. Mensah wasn’t particularly familiar with the culture of MIT while growing up in Ghana. But for the last […]

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Blessing of Same-Sex Couples Rankles Africa’s Catholics

The Vatican’s recent declaration allowing the blessing of same-sex couples caused a stir around the globe, but perhaps most of all in Africa, a rising center of the Roman Catholic Church’s future. In one statement after the next, bishops in several countries spoke of the fear and confusion the declaration has caused among their flocks, […]

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After Niger Coup, U.S. Scrambles to Keep a Vital Air Base

On a barren swath of land in the Sahara, U.S. Air Base 201 stands far from public sight, on the outskirts of a remote city in one of the world’s poorest countries, its role more elusive than ever since its completion nearly six years ago. Most of the drones that once monitored jihadist activities in […]

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Out of Sight, Out of Mind No More

At last, we appear to be getting somewhere. Late on New Year’s Day, Mohamed Salah’s beaming face appeared on British television screens. Salah always has the slightly ruffled appearance of a man who has not slept desperately well, but he was in distinctly good cheer. His Liverpool team had just dismantled Newcastle United to move […]

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African Migration to the U.S. Soars as Europe Cracks Down

The young men from Guinea had decided it was time to leave their impoverished homeland in West Africa. But instead of seeking a new life in Europe, where so many African migrants have settled, they set out for what has become a far safer bet of late: the United States. “Getting into the United States […]

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Building technology that empowers city residents

Kwesi Afrifa came to MIT from his hometown of Accra, Ghana, in 2020 to pursue an interdisciplinary major in urban planning and computer science. Growing up amid the many moving parts of a large, densely populated city, he had often observed aspects of urban life that could be made more efficient. He decided to apply […]

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In Burkina Faso, Criticizing the Army Could Get You Drafted

One Friday earlier this month, just as Dr. Daouda Diallo stepped out of the passport office in the capital of the West African nation of Burkina Faso, four men grabbed him off the street, pushed him into a vehicle and drove off. Dr. Diallo, a pharmacist-turned-rights-activist who had recently been awarded a prestigious prize for […]

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We Need a Global Immune System to Stop Future Public Health Crises

The thing that has surprised me most since I began my job leading foreign assistance for global health at the U.S. Agency for International Development is how much emergencies have defined my work. The bureau I oversee focuses on reducing the global burden of mortality and disease and on protecting the United States from health […]

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A Thriving Border Town Undercuts South Africa’s Anti-Immigrant Mood

By 7 a.m., lines of customers snake down the block outside stores on the main commercial strip in Musina, a bustling South African border town where thousands of people arrive daily from neighboring Zimbabwe to buy food, clothes and other necessities that are hard to get back home. A few miles away, at the border, […]

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