While Americans hotly debate the subject of “fake news,” Africans and others around the world marked a day for reflection on press freedoms in theory and in practice. The theme for this year’s event launched by the U.N. agency UNESCO was “Journalism without fear or favor”. The state of journalism in most parts of the…

Pounding rains over the last two months have set off catastrophic flooding of biblical proportions, surging over the weekend into some 20 of the 47 Kenyan counties bordering Lake Victoria – a massive trans-boundary body of water shared by Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. Some 23 rivers empty water into the lake. “These floods are the…

While the rate of fatalities in Africa is still much below that of developed countries, every life lost is a library gone, according to the saying. Here are three noted Africans who passed this year just as thousands of lives were tragically lost to a virus worldwide. Dr. Mansour Khalid, a prolific author in both…

It was inevitable during a lockdown that sales of Kenya’s flower exports would dry up as buyers make fewer impulse purchases of carnations, roses and other blossoms. According to data from the Kenya Flower Council, sales of cut flowers in overseas markets have fallen below 35 percent of what is expected this time of the…

Journalists who step out of their high-floor offices or manage to escape from their coronavirus confinement sometimes find a great story right on the street below. Such was the story discovered by Kevin Phillips Momanyi, a reporter with Kenya’s Tuko news channel. His piece, titled the “Unsung Heroes such as of the Majengo slums,” profiled…

A climate justice movement of over 100 major organizations in Africa and abroad has joined hands to press the African Development Bank (AfDB) to drop its support of an “exceptionally high-risk project” that threatens the livelihoods of millions of people in East Africa. In a letter to the Bank President, leaders of environmental and social…

Saudi Arabia has deported close to 3,000 Ethiopian migrant workers to Addis Ababa, over the objections of the United Nations migration agency. An internal U.N. memo seen by Reuters said the Saudis were expecting to deport 200,000 Ethiopians in total. Other Gulf Arab states, Kenya and other neighboring countries are also expected to repatriate migrants…

A small team of China medical specialists headed for Nigeria is meeting stiff opposition from Nigerian medical groups who call the visit “an embarrassment” to hard-working doctors in the country. The visit by the Chinese specialists was announced last Friday by the Nigerian Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire. He said they were coming to…

An unexpected “urgent request” from the USAID relief agency has popped up where least expected – on the desks of aid groups around the world that work with refugees and poor people. The U.S. agency asked them to find medical supplies and personal protective gear against the coronavirus that could be made available to the…

During a debate on drug testing on French TV, Jean-Paul Mira, head of intensive care at a Parisian hospital said: “If I can be provocative, shouldn’t we be doing this vaccine trial in Africa, where there are no masks, no treatments, no resuscitation”? He continued: “It’s a little bit like it’s been done for certain…