Washington, United States | AFP | Facebook acknowledged Monday that widespread use of social media can be harmful to democracy, while pledging to work to minimize these risks. The world’s biggest social network’s comments were the latest response to persistent criticism for its role in allowing the spread of misinformation, reinforcing …
Read More »
San Francisco, United States | AFP | Apple announced Wednesday it would pay some $38 billion in taxes — likely the largest payment of its kind — on profits repatriated from overseas as it boosts investments in the United States. The iPhone maker said in a statement it plans to use …
Read More »
THE LAST WORD: Why the tendency of African intellectuals to blame leaders for the failures of our nations is escapism THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | I recently had a Twitter debate with Prof. George Ayittey; the Ghanaian author of `Africa Unchained: the blueprint for development’ (Palgrave/MacMillan, 2004) …
Read More »
Las Vegas, United States | AFP | Consumer electronics titan LG on Monday proclaimed this year a “tipping point” for smart homes, pushing hard into artificial intelligence and building Google Assistant into a smart speaker. LG Electronics is developing technology designed to enable its appliances, televisions and other devices adapt to …
Read More »
Jakarta, Indonesia | AFP | Hundreds of Indonesian couples celebrated getting married in Jakarta on New Year’s Eve in a free mass wedding. The communal event, attended by 437 couples, was staged by authorities to ease residents’ struggles with bureaucracy. Many Jakartans cannot access public services because they have never …
Read More »
San Francisco, United States | AFP | Apple’s board has instructed chief executive Tim Cook to use only private aircraft “in the interests of security and efficiency” at the world’s most valuable company, regulatory documents show. A filing with securities regulators this week said the board determined that its CEO must …
Read More »
Accra, Ghana | AFP | Joseph Awuah-Darko sits on a stool at one of the world’s largest electronic waste dumps, watching polystyrene and insulation cables burn on the blackened ground. “It’s survival and dystopia,” says the 21-year-old British-born Ghanaian, surveying the stretch of wasteland around him as dense plumes of …
Read More »
Lagos, Nigeria | AFP | Mention Nigerian literature and the first names likely to spring to mind are Chinua Achebe, the author of “Things Fall Apart”, or the venerable Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka. But Africa’s most populous nation has a new crop of writers whose work is a far cry from …
Read More »
Lyon, France | AFP | The nearly intact skeleton of a woolly mammoth that lived at least 10,000 years ago was sold at auction for more than a half million euros Saturday in the southeastern French city of Lyon. The giant skeleton — mounted in a forward walking position with …
Read More »
San Francisco, United States | AFP | Target said Wednesday it was acquiring same-day grocery delivery service Shipt for $550 million, helping the US retail titan step up its challenge to Amazon and its recently acquired Whole Foods supermarket chain. The retailer said it planned to combine its network of stores …
Read More »
The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price