Africans - The African Mirror

Apr

2024

Caribbean ambassador calls for global action to establish slavery tribunal

A high-level Caribbean ambassador said that it was crucial to establish a new international special tribunal to seek reparations for transatlantic slavery and its legacies in today's society. Reuters reported earlier this month that support was building among African and Caribbean nations for the creation of such a tribunal on atrocities dating to transatlantic slavery. For over four centuries at least 12.5 million Africans were kidnapped, forcibly transported thousands of kilometres by mainly European ships and merchants and sold into slavery. David Comissiong, the Barbados ambassador to the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and a well-known reparations advocate, said a tribunal was needed as…

Apr

2024

By BIRD NEWSROOM

Africans are triumphing in trail running; here are the 2023 African Trail Runners of the Year

ATHLETICS

FROM distance running and cross-country to short races, there is a long list of African athletes who have staged record-breaking performances in running. Today, the world’s fastest sprinters have their origins in West Africa, while the world’s greatest distance athletes live at high altitudes in the Great Rift Valley to the east of the continent. The continent is now producing some of the biggest names on the world stage in trail and mountain running—running on paths that are not surfaced, paved, sealed or asphalt roads. It involves running on rugged terrain. In particular, African athletes from the north and east…

Apr

2024

By STEPHEN GRANGER, SPNA

Africans showcase the continent’s athletic supremacy at the World Cross-Country Championships

ATHLETICS

IF you want to get a sense of the level to which African runners dominate distance running right now, look no further than the World Athletics Cross Country Championships, held this year in Belgrade, Serbia. From Kenya to South Africa, Uganda to Ethiopia, different cross-country athletes from the continent recorded remarkable performances. Formerly known as the International Cross Country Championships, the annual event is the most important competition in international cross-country running. This year’s edition was held in Belgrade on March 30. East African athletes continued their dominance in international cross-country, claiming all team and individual medals, bar one. Apart…

Mar

2024

By HORACI GARCIA and NGOUDA DIONE

Senegal’s fishermen head for Spain as fish stocks dwindle at home

NEWS

FISHERMAN Khalifa Ndour says Senegalese President Macky Sall is responsible for the plunge in his country's fish stocks that forced him to risk his life to seek work as a farmhand in northeastern Spain. Back home in Senegal, his wife Mariatou Mbodj misses her husband. She can't find work as a fish processor, and she and Ndour's three children wait anxiously in Bargny, on the coast south of the capital Dakar, for news of his progress in getting legalised in Spain. Ndour, 42, is one of tens of thousands of Africans, many former fishermen, making a perilous journey to Spain…

Jan

2024

By The African Mirror

Pope says Africans are ‘special case’ when it comes to LGBT blessings

NEWS

POPE Francis said in an interview published that Africans were a "special case" in the opposition of bishops and many other people in the continent to homosexuality. But he said he was confident that, except for Africans, critics of his decision to allow blessings for same-sex couples would eventually understand it. Blessings were allowed last month in a document called Fiducia Supplicans (Supplicating Trust), which has caused widespread debate in the Catholic Church, with particularly strong resistance coming from African bishops. "Those who protest vehemently belong to small ideological groups," Francis told Italian newspaper La Stampa. "A special case is Africans: for…

Jan

2024

By The African Mirror

Africans discovered dinosaur fossils long before the term ‘palaeontology’ existed

ENVIRONMENT

CREDIT for discovering the first dinosaur bones usually goes to British gentlemen for their finds between the 17th and 19th centuries in England. Robert Plot, an English natural history scholar, was the first of these to describe a dinosaur bone, in his 1676 book The Natural History of Oxfordshire. Over the next two centuries, dinosaur palaeontology would be dominated by numerous British natural scientists. JULIEN BENOIT, Senior Researcher in Vertebrate Palaeontology, University of the Witwatersrand CAMERON PENN-CLARKE, Senior Researcher, University of the Witwatersrand CHARLES HELM, Research Associate, African Centre for Coastal Palaeoscience, Nelson Mandela University However, our study shows that…

Dec

2023

By The African Mirror

Humiliation and violence in Kenya’s colonial days – when old men were called ‘boy’ and Africans were publicly beaten

SPECIAL FEATURES: ANALYSIS

WHEN King Charles visited Kenya in November 2023, many Kenyans renewed their demands for an official apology for atrocities committed by the British government during the colonial era. The widespread human rights abuses during the Mau Mau rebellion are the best-known of these atrocities. Yet we should not forget more mundane, everyday acts of domination. BRETT SHADLE, Professor, Virginia Tech I am a social historian who has studied race, violence, colonialism and white settlement in Kenya. From the start of colonialism in 1895 to the drawing down of the Union Jack on December 12 1963, black Kenyans were constantly subjected…

Nov

2023

By The African Mirror

Historic deal means affordable vaccines for Africans by Africans are a step closer to reality

NEWS

THE quest to produce an affordable vaccine suited to humans and animals in Africa has taken a gigantic step closer to realisation. This follows the historic signing of an agreement between Rubic One Health (ROH) and Afreximaxbank to fund the project preparatory facility for the manufacture of the vaccine. The vaccine initiative by Rubic One Health is the first of its own kind which is affordable and suited to African conditions. It is also structured to build scientific and manufacturing capacity in Africa. Dr Julian Naidoo the CEO of ROH said the facility serves as a catalyst to urgently complete…

Nov

2023

By The African Mirror

Visa-free travel for Africans: why Kenya and Rwanda have taken a step in the right direction

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

PRESIDENT William Ruto of Kenya recently announced that Kenya’s borders would be open to visitors from the entirety of Africa, with no visas required, by the end of 2023. He said When people cannot travel, business people cannot travel, entrepreneurs cannot travel, we all become net losers. ALAN HIRSCH, Research Fellow New South Institute, Emeritus Professor at The Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance, University of Cape Town A few days later, President Paul Kagame of Rwanda followed suit, saying all Africans would be able to enter Rwanda without visas. Neither Kenya nor Rwanda will be the first. By the…

May

2023

By The African Mirror

Media freedom and democracy: Africans in four countries weigh up thorny questions about state control

MEDIA FREEDOM

IN July 2022, BBC Africa Eye released a documentary on gang activity in northwestern Nigeria. The programme, The Bandit Warlords of Zamfara, examined the raids on villages, abductions and murders that have plagued swaths of the country. Notably, it included interviews with so-called bandits, who described their violent actions and laid out their grievances. Author JEFFREY CONROY-KRUTZ, Associate Professor of Political Science, Michigan State University The Nigerian government responded furiously to the documentary’s airing. The minister of information, Lai Mohamed, called it “a naked glorification of terrorism and banditry”. The National Broadcasting Commission, which regulates broadcasting, said it “undermines national…