Google announced a US$1 billion commitment to the continent’s digital transformation during the company’s first-ever Google for Africa livestream event on Wednesday. The investment, planned across the next five years, will support several initiatives. They include completion of Equiano, an undersea cable meant to improve Internet speeds and drive down…
President Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya is among world leaders whose financial dealings are detailed in the new “Pandora Papers” investigative report released Sunday. The report, billed as the largest investigation in journalism history, involves more than 600 journalists from 150 news outlets around the world, according to the International Consortium…
Zambia’s overall debt on loans made by Chinese entities is nearly double what was reported by the former administration under Edgar Lungu, according to a new report from the China Africa Research Initiative (CARI) in the United States. The report puts the actual figure at US$6.6 billion in August 2021….
More than US$73 million has gone missing from the coffers in South Sudan in just the last two years, according to a new Commission on Human Rights report. That money was diverted by the country’s ruling elites, the United Nations rights agency said, and is a fraction of the total…
A new World Bank report on climate migration begins, in part, in Morocco. The authors of “Groundswell” point to water challenges in the life of a village teen who thinks of moving to Rabat because the decreasing water supply is putting too much pressure on his family farm. These are…
How much worse will it get? That’s a climate change question that serves as a theme for a new report released Tuesday by Chatham House, the London-based policy institute focused on global affairs. It looks at impacts that may well be “locked in” by 2040 or 2050, assuming there is…
China reaffirmed its commitment to the African continent on Monday, with foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin citing an increase in direct investment, and advances in medicine and other sectors. “Over the past 20 years, the flow of China’s direct investment in Africa has been growing by more than 25 percent…
Weapons from Serbia and other European nations are being used by extremists in the Sahel and supporting armed conflict, according to a new Amnesty International report. The global NGO said it reviewed more than 400 pieces of digital media from Burkina Faso and Mali, including verified photos and videos posted…
France’s Castel Group, one of the largest wine producers in the world, says it will launch an investigation into claims that it paid armed group members to provide security for its operations in the Central African Republic. The company’s announcement follows an investigation by The Sentry, a human rights and…
South Africa and the other members of the G20 Environment Ministers issued a final communiqué following their meeting in Italy, but they’ve failed to come to terms on a global coal phaseout. The meeting, which in some respects signals what to expect ahead of the COP26 climate meeting in Scotland…
Health officials say a slight overall dip in COVID cases on the African continent is welcome, but it doesn’t reflect the reality in many nations that are seeing a surge. New case numbers were down by 1.8 percent during the week ending July 18, according to numbers cited Friday by…
On July 1st, Togo began systematically enforcing a comprehensive fiscal marking system which will allow authorities to track a wide range of consumer goods, from fruit juices to alcoholic beverages. Distributors and local points of sale who have so far sold their wares under the table in an attempt to…
The government of Botswana issued a travel advisory for South Africa on Tuesday because of violent protests that followed former president Jacob Zuma’s surrender to authorities and subsequent imprisonment. Zuma, long entangled by corruption inquiries and investigations, was sentenced last week to 15 months on contempt of court charges for…
The newly announced agreement to establish a global minimum corporate tax rate is supported by 130 countries, but not all African neighbors are on board. The deal, a decade in the making, was made a priority of last month’s G7 meeting in the United Kingdom. It is advanced by the…
The clock is ticking on former South African president Jacob Zuma, who was given five days to report to police after he was sentenced to 15 months in prison on Tuesday for contempt of court. But he’s filing an appeal of the Constitutional Court decision, and supporters say it’s unlikely…