Nairobi, Kenya | URN | Climate experts from Africa are meeting in neighbouring Kenya for the 10th Africa Carbon Forum which among others is discussing funding for Climate-related disasters. The Forum which opened this morning has brought together state and non-state actors in the areas of energy, agriculture and human …
Read More »Learning computer programming, with no teachers and no tuition
San Francisco, United States | AFP | Aspiring software engineers Kevin Yook and Becky Chen are hunched over a computer screen, fervently discussing lines of code indecipherable to the average person. The pair of twenty-somethings are students at the Holberton School in San Francisco, founded two years ago by French …
Read More »KIIRA EV: Cabinet approves Ugandan electric car commercialization
Kampala, Uganda | URN | Cabinet has approved the commercialization of KIIRA EV, an electric car developed out of an innovative research project by Students of Engineering at Makerere University. The two-seater vehicle that runs on rechargeable lithium batteries instead of petrol was built at a cost of USD 35,000 …
Read More »What social media platforms and search engines know about you
New York, United States | AFP | The Facebook scandal involving the harvesting of data from tens of millions of users has raised a lot of questions about social media and search engines. As Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies before the US Congress this week on protecting user data, …
Read More »Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook is not a monopoly
Washington, United States | AFP | Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg told lawmakers Tuesday that he does not believe his company is a monopoly. Zuckerberg rejected the suggestion in a Senate hearing that the social media giant, with over two billion users worldwide, has exclusive control over its market. “It …
Read More »Zuckerberg testimony to Congress: ‘My mistake, I’m sorry’
Washington, United States | AFP | Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg says he accepts responsibility for the social network’s failure to protect private data and prevent manipulation of the platform, according to testimony released Monday on the eve of his first Congressional appearance. “We didn’t take a broad enough view of …
Read More »Russian ships may be using underwater cables to spy
New York, United States | AFP | Russian ships are skulking around underwater communications cables, causing the US and its allies to worry the Kremlin might be taking information warfare to new depths. Is Moscow interested in cutting or tapping the cables? Does it want the West to worry it might? …
Read More »Facebook to verify identities, require labels for political ads
Washington, United States | AFP | Facebook announced Friday it will require political ads on its platform to state who is paying for the message and would verify the identity of the payer, in a bid to curb outside election interference. The social network, which is under fire for enabling manipulation …
Read More »Up to 2.7 million Europeans affected by Facebook data scandal: EU
Brussels, Belgium | AFP | Facebook has admitted it may have “improperly shared” the personal data of up to 2.7 million people in the European Union, the bloc announced Friday, saying it would demand further answers from the social media giant. The EU wrote to Facebook last week to ask …
Read More »US to update Saudi Arabia artillery for record $1.31 billion
Washington, United States | AFP | The United States on Thursday approved a contract to sell Saudi Arabia 180 self-propelled artillery systems for $1.31 billion, in the latest stage of perhaps the world’s biggest arms deal. When US President Donald Trump visited Riyadh last year he boasted that the desert …
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