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Public consultations recently closed on plans to impose an excise tax on e-cigarettes in South Africa, and the suggested policy proposals have already proven controversial. In particular, the South African government intends to introduce a new excise tax on e-cigarettes, applying the duty to both non-nicotine and nicotine solutions used…

Nearly all of the Starlink satellites launched last week from Kennedy Space Center in the United States will fall back to earth, or have already, because of a geomagnetic storm that interfered with their deployment. The satellites, a part of South Africa native Elon Musk’s plans to improve communications around…

Parts of West Africa can expect improved Internet access in the near future, following a deal between the Kenya-based Intersat and European provider Eutelsat. The delivery of Internet services will rely on the Eutelsat Konnect satellite, which was launched two years ago. The COVID-19 pandemic originally delayed progress on its…

Akinwumi Adesina, head of the African Development Bank (AfDB), says he was in the VIP lounge of Dakar’s Blaise-Diagne International Airport with Senegal’s economic minister this week when another African dignitary walked in. The surprise guest was Moussa Faki Mahamat, head of the African Union Commission. What followed, the AfDB…

Emergency management officials in Ghana say an enormous explosion in the community of Apiate has leveled it, with the death toll still unknown as responders search through collapsed buildings. Ghana Police Service said the blast happened when a vehicle carrying explosives used for mining was passing through the village, between…

In Côte d’Ivoire, authorities announced another step forward in boosting the economy through its transport sector. Beginning Monday, the company’s SOTRA bus services — working in partnership with Italian manufacturer IVECO —will start production of new minibuses. The government’s agreements with the private sector firms call for 1,000 of the…

President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced that South Africa will donate more than 2 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines to its African neighbors, in a show of unity worth more than US$18 million. “This donation embodies South Africa’s solidarity with our brothers and sisters on the continent…

Apple announced on Tuesday it has filed suit against an Israeli company that’s been closely monitored for its role in supplying spyware to foreign governments—a number of them on the African continent—and placed on a U.S. entity list for its development of Pegasus surveillance tools. “NSO Group creates sophisticated, state-sponsored…

Explosive allegations in an investigative report released Friday put former president Joseph Kabila and his associates at the center of embezzlement claims of at least US$138 million taken from the Democratic Republic of Congo’s state coffers. The “Congo Holdup” report, a product of European Investigative Collaborations (EIC), is based on…

BioNTech is moving forward with plans to build vaccine manufacturing facilities on the African continent, with an announcement Tuesday that Rwanda has been chosen for the first site. Dr. Daniel Ngamije, the health minister for Rwanda, said the first facility will be built at the Kigali Special Economic Zone (KSEZ),…

French oil major TotalEnergies is pushing back against detailed claims that its companies certainly knew of the threat of climate change by 1971, while proceeding to shift its defense of its products and its messaging across the decades. The 50-year description of Total’s engagement with climate change was published in…

Users of Facebook and its related services, Instagram and Whatsapp, reported global outages of the social media platforms on Monday. The services went down shortly before 7 p.m. in Kenya. South Africans and Egyptians said they were unable to access Facebook, even as users from India, Canada, the United States…