Johannesburg, South Africa | AFP |  Defending champions Cameroon are among 21 countries hoping to fill one of 10 places up for grabs this weekend in the final 2019 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers. The Indomitable Lions will be among the 24 finalists in Egypt this June provided they avoid …

San Francisco, United States | AFP | After finding that exposure to the weedkiller Roundup was a “substantial factor” in one man’s cancer, jurors in California must now grapple with the question of just how culpable the product’s manufacturer, agriculture giant Monsanto, was in his illness. “It’s not a popularity …

Jinja, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | President Yoweri Museveni has commissioned the Isimba Hydro-Power station, adding 183 Megawats of electricity to the National Grid and bringing Uganda’s total installed Power Capacity from the current 955MW to 1138MW. Uganda Electricity Generation Company (UEGCL) has reassured the country that Isimba will generate …

Lusaka, Zambia | AFP |  Authorities in Zambia have banned an energy drink after laboratory results showed that it contained the active ingredient of the anti-impotence drug Viagra. SX Energy Natural Power drink, produced by Revin Zambia, is exported around the region including to Uganda, where a consumer recently complained …

In Israel: ➡ 90% of the water used is reused ➡ 38% of the country’s agriculture uses water from sewage to water crops ➡ 90% of the country’s agriculture depends on reused water Entebbe, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Israel is a desert country, but it is one of the leading producers of …

Nairobi, Kenya | AFP |  Three teenage schoolgirls in Burundi have been sent to prison to await trial for scribbling on a picture of President Pierre Nkurunziza in textbooks, activists said Thursday. The girls, aged 15, 16 and 17, face up to five years in prison for insulting the head …

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The presentation of a poem that prosecution says is loutish and allegedly written to insult the person of the president, received mixed reactions as the trial of researcher Dr Stella Nyanzi kicked off at Buganda Road Court Wednesday. The poem was posted on Stella …

Entebbe, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The Deputy Attorney General Mwesigwa Rukutana has said all political parties under the Inter-Party Organisation for Dialogue (iPod) should participate in the National Dialogue. Meeting members of the Inter-Party Organization for Dialogue-iPod at Golf View Hotel on Wednesday, Rukutana said that the leaders of …

  Watamu, Kenya | AFP | Snake antivenoms have been around for 125 years, are effective and can be produced cheaply at scale. Yet Africa, with its abundance of deadly snakes, has an alarming shortage of the life-saving medicine. Experts and campaigners blame a combination of weak production capacity, feeble …

Tokyo, Japan | AFP | From bento boxes to individually wrapped bananas, plastic reigns supreme in Japan. But amid global concern about single-use waste, new legislation could help end the country’s love affair with plastic. The push comes ahead of the G20 summit, which Japan will host in Osaka in …