July, 2020 - The African Mirror

Jul

2020

Why rural electrification won’t fix deforestation in Zimbabwe

ELLEN FUNGISAI CHIPANGO, Postdoctoral research fellow, University of Johannesburg RELIANCE on biomass such as fuelwood for energy in rural areas has a strong bearing on Zimbabwe’s environment. Rural communities in Zimbabwe meet 94% of their cooking energy requirements by using traditional fuels, mainly fuelwood, and 20% of urban households use wood as the main cooking fuel. For this reason, unsustainable fuelwood use patterns are driving deforestation. Estimates are that deforestation has been high in the country, peaking at 330,000 hectares of forests destroyed between 2010 and 2014. Policymakers attribute deforestation to human activities such as the clearing of land for…

Jul

2020

By The African Mirror

Africa waited for solutions to past health crises: will it be different for COVID-19?

COVID-19

HAILAY GESESEW, NHMRC Research Fellow (Public Health), Flinders University The World Health Organisation (WHO) recently noted that “researchers are working at break-neck speed” to understand SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes coronavirus disease (COVID-19). They are also working to develop potential vaccines, medicines and other technologies that are affordable and equitable. By June 2020 – six months since it was first identified – thousands of therapeutic trials and dozens of vaccine development studies were underway, including one vaccine study each in South Africa and Nigeria. As a public health specialist and infectious diseases epidemiologist, I am very happy and impressed to…

Jul

2020

By The African Mirror

Ghana minister resigns after breaching coronavirus measures

NEWS

GHANA’s deputy trade and industry minister Carlos Kingsley Ahenkorah has resigned for violating coronavirus self-isolation measures after testing positive for the virus, President Nana Akufo-Addo said in a statement. "This follows the admission by the deputy minister of his breach of the COVID-19 protocols, when, as a person certified to be positive of the virus, he visited a registration centre in his constituency before the period of self-isolation was complete," President Akufo-Addo said. The West African nation has recorded one of the highest number of coronavirus cases in the continent since the outbreak at 18,134, with 117 deaths. Last month,…

Jul

2020

By The African Mirror

Botswana top vet defends probe into mysterious death of at least 275 elephants

NEWS

BRIAN BENZA and ALEXANDER WINNING BOTSWANA’S top wildlife vet has dismissed accusations from some conservationists that the government had not moved quickly enough to investigate the unexplained deaths of at least 275 elephants. Authorities said they were still trying to find out what killed the elephants around two months after the first carcasses were spotted in the Okavango Panhandle region. Widely-published pictures of the bodies triggered an international outcry, and some campaign groups raised questions about why tests results had not come through. "A government investigating team has been on the ground since the first cases were reported," Mmadi Reuben,…

Jul

2020

By The African Mirror

Why the African Union has failed to ‘silence the guns’. And some solutions

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

CHRIS CHANGWE NSHIMBI, Director & Research Fellow, University of Pretoria SEVEN years ago African leaders committed themselves to work towards an end to armed conflict. As they marked the 50th anniversary of the founding of the African Union they swore to ensure lasting peace on the continent. They pledged not to bequeath the burden of conflicts to the next generation of Africans. The pledge was followed by the adoption in 2016 of the Lusaka Road Map to end the conflict by 2020. The document outlined 54 practical steps that needed to be taken. They focused on political, economic, social, environmental…

Jul

2020

By The African Mirror

Nigeria’s slave descendants hope race protests help end discrimination

HUMAN RIGHTS

ADAOBI TRICIA NWAUBANI WHEN Barack Obama was elected the first Black U.S. president in 2008, Anthony Uzoije noticed less contempt towards descendants of slaves like him in his south-eastern Nigeria community. Uzoije, from Ogbaru in Anambra state, now hopes Black Lives Matter protests globally will inspire similar change for him and the Igbo people, one of the largest ethnic groups in Africa and principal group enslaved during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. It is estimated that between 10 and 20% of Igbos - amounting to many millions of people - are descendants of slaves and still face significant discrimination, which has…

Jul

2020

By The African Mirror

EXCLUSIVE: Health woes, outrage, and toxins near Ethiopia gold mine

HEALTH

TOM GARDNER IN THE villages around Shakiso, children have been born with deformities, and women have had so many miscarriages they believe they are cursed; the bones of cattle have snapped like twigs, and men’s bodies have crumbled and collapsed without warning. Residents who live near Ethiopia’s largest gold mine, Lega Dembi, say that for the past 15 years or so, life-threatening illnesses, disabilities, and mysterious ailments have become so widespread that almost no household has been left untouched. “We are the walking dead,” Dembela Megersa told The New Humanitarian, describing the unaccountable pain in his back that has afflicted…

Jul

2020

By The African Mirror

Hit the brakes on reform, say Kampala’s transport workers

AFRICITIES

LIAM TAYLOR IN NORMAL times, the Old Taxi Park is a maelstrom of minibuses, touts, hawkers and passengers at the heart of Kampala, the Ugandan capital. But today it is a barren sweep of stones and earth, boarded off to all except construction crews and their heavy-duty machines. The Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) has used the country's coronavirus lockdown to begin a long-awaited redevelopment of the park, including the installation of shelters, lighting and a tarmac surface. It is the most visible plank in a raft of reforms which the KCCA hopes will finally bring order to Kampala's chaotic…

Jul

2020

By The African Mirror

South African man dragged naked from shack sparks legal action against evictions

NEWS

KIM HARRISBERG RESPONDING to outrage over South African police dragging a naked man from his shack to demolish it, a government watchdog said on Thursday that it will go to court to challenge such evictions. In a video that went viral, four policemen grappled with Bulelani Qholani and pushed him to the ground as they destroyed his tiny home while he was bathing on Wednesday in Cape Town's Khayelitsha township. The officers have been suspended. "We plan to act fast to take this matter to court and stop further evictions from taking place under lockdown," Tseliso Thipanyane, head of the…

Jul

2020

By The African Mirror

Two killed as Ethiopians bury hero musician

NEWS

DAWIT ENDESHAW and KUMERRA GUMECHU TWO people were killed on Thursday as Ethiopian security forces scuffled with mourners trying to attend the stadium funeral of a singer whose shooting this week sparked protests in which more than 80 people died, hospital officials said. Haacaaluu Hundeessaa, 36, a member of the Oromo, Ethiopia's largest ethnic group, was shot dead in Addis Ababa on Monday by unknown gunmen. He was buried on Thursday at a church in Ambo, his home town about 100 km (60 miles) west of the capital. Haacaaluu's songs were a soundtrack to a generation of Oromo protesters whose…