Accra, Ghana | AFP | Ghana is a resource-rich west African country where worries about the economy are set to dominate Wednesday’s presidential election. Major producer of cocoa, gold Ghana is the world’s second biggest producer of cocoa after Ivory Coast and Africa’s second biggest gold producer after South Africa. …
Read More »AHF strengthens fight against HIV in Rwanda
By Susan Babijja AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) combines efforts with the ministry of health in the fight against HIV in Rwanda as well as controlling new infection that is becoming a challenge. Every 1st of December Rwanda joins the rest of the world in observing the World AIDS day. On …
Read More »Nana Akufo-Addo, Ghana’s veteran runner-up
Accra, Ghana | AFP | Ghana’s New Patriotic Party (NPP) candidate Nana Akufo-Addo is hoping it’ll be third time lucky when the country votes for a new president on December 7. Akufo-Addo, an erudite rights lawyer and former government minister with round tortoiseshell glasses, narrowly lost the 2008 and …
Read More »The snake-catchers’ cooperative saving lives in India
Chengalpattu, India | AFP | A small scythe, a crowbar and a bundle of canvas bags are all that Kali and Vedan carry when they venture into the fields of southern India to catch some of the world’s deadliest snakes. Their skills, passed from generation to generation of the Irula …
Read More »The Trump administration turning into club for the wealthy
Washington, United States | AFP | The US administration-in-waiting nominated by President-elect Donald Trump is a circle of multimillionaire businessmen and women the public may view as a cabinet whose wealth is unprecedented in US history. Himself a billionaire real estate developer, Trump could entrench this characteristic should he choose …
Read More »How lawyer turned fighter Castro turned Cuba into a thorn to US
Havana, Cuba | AFP | Guerrilla revolutionary and communist idol, Fidel Castro was a holdout against history who turned tiny Cuba into a thorn in the paw of the mighty capitalist United States. The former Cuban president, who died aged 90 on Friday, said he would never retire from politics. …
Read More »Tracksuited Thai junta chief leads workout for bureaucrats
Bangkok, Thailand | AFP | He’s a mercurial army general known for penning saccharine ballads and angry tirades against his critics. Now Thailand’s junta chief has launched a new eye-catching project: trimming the waistlines of the kingdom’s civil servants. Former army chief turned Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha ditched his fatigues …
Read More »In Somalia, voting under way but democracy delayed
Baidoa, Somalia | AFP | With its security-sealed plastic boxes and cardboard polling booths, Somalia’s election –- under way since last month and still ongoing –- has the trappings of democracy, but few of the functions. Last week in the western city of Baidoa, 51 handpicked representatives of the Reer …
Read More »FEATURE: DR Congo’s business dreams flatlined by violence
Butembo, DR Congo | AFP | The question is so absurd that Butembo’s deputy mayor misses a beat before answering. What is the town’s unemployment rate? “Unemployment is the norm around these parts,” says Godefroid Kambere Matimbya. “There aren’t any businesses.” Butembo is no ghost town, but a city of …
Read More »Engineer Dr. Dorothy Okello sparkles in male-dominated profession
In 1992 Dorothy Kabagaju Okello set a record as the first woman to attain a First class degree in a male dominated course – Electrical Engineering – from Makerere University in Kampala. And in May this year, Eng Okello still defied the odds to become the first female president of …
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