The surveillance society in South Sudan is harnessed by the state in service of repression, according to a new report from Amnesty International that focuses on impacts to journalists and opposition groups critical of the government. The report, called “These Walls Have Ears” – The Chilling Effect of Surveillance in…
East Africans are now using an early warning tool powered by artificial intelligence (AI) to help farmers fight off locusts that have devastated crops and communities across the past year. The new tool from Selina Wamucii, a platform that connects farmers and markets across Africa, is called Kuzi, the Swahili…
Social media giant Facebook announced Tuesday that it has shut down three different groups behind the spread of disinformation in African nations, including one network the company traced to “individuals associated with French military.” Facebook said the violations for “coordinated inauthentic behavior on behalf of a foreign or government entity”…
The Urumuri robot helping to screen passengers at Rwanda’s Kigali International Airport is just one of more than 120 health technology innovations that Africans are using in the fight against COVID-19. That’s according to a new World Health Organization (WHO) analysis of 1,000 new or modified technologies developed around the…
Alexander Nix, a director of companies linked to the former Cambridge Analytica firm and its role in elections in Kenya, Nigeria and other nations, will serve a seven-year suspension from acting as any firm’s director without court permission. The decision announced Thursday by the British government follows a high-profile investigation…
Social media giant Facebook announced Friday a new office in Lagos, Nigeria, meant to support operations in sub-Saharan Africa. It is expected to be operational next year. The office will be home to several teams for sales, partnerships and communication, as well as becoming the first Facebook office on the…
Back in 2015, Liberia was among the highest-ranked countries in the world with citizens who said they think vaccines are safe, while Ethiopia was atop the list of those whose people said vaccines were important. Morocco, conversely, was among the lowest on both measures. But now, at a time when…
When extremists attacked a Côte d’Ivoire checkpoint last month at the border with Burkina Faso, killing several Ivorian military personnel, the incident underscored growing concern that the threat of West Africa’s armed groups was creeping into yet another nation. At least 30 suspected militants including Burkinabe leader Ali Sidibe were…
In Nigeria, the Gokada delivery service continues on despite the gruesome murder of CEO Fahim Saleh, whose body was discovered in New York City on Tuesday. “As painful as these last days have been for us, we at Gokada owe it to ourselves and to Fahim’s memory to act and…
Senegal’s capital Dakar is facing yet another water shortage, though this time concerns have been exacerbated by the ongoing Covid-19 epidemic and the greater need for personal hygiene. “How do you wash your hands during a coronavirus crisis when the heat is coming?” Papa Mbodj, the father of a 9-month-old…
Roughly 200 Iranian fishing boats operating illegally have been detected in waters off Somalia and Yemen, according to a new NGO investigation. Global Fishing Watch (GFW) and Trygg Mat Tracking (TMT) are partners in a study that relied on increasingly available tracking technology – used to help boats avoid collisions…
South Africa’s Telkom wasn’t the only service to suffer an outage on Monday, although the nationwide disruption in its 086 call center services and its 0800 toll-free numbers caused plenty of business disruption. In the United States, it seemed like every communications service was down as what many suspect was…
There’s a new tool in the fight against COVID-19, and it’s a tech tool from the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention that shows the impact of the coronavirus pandemic across the continent in one easy-to-use dashboard. The interactive COVID-19 dashboard linked here keeps real-time cumulative case totals for…
Egypt is advancing its goals in space, following approval last week of a 10-year development plan for the Egyptian Space Agency (EgSA) established in August. The agency launched its first communications satellite in November, as part of a plan to ensure mobile and Internet services for all of Egypt as…
When Nigeria discovered its first coronavirus patient – an Italian citizen who works in the country – public health officials weren’t the only ones who responded quickly. So did a group of scientists and researchers who got to work and sequenced the genome of the COVID-19 virus found in the…
Laureen is the editor of Africa Times