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South Africa’s power cuts widen digital divide and wealth gaps

South Africa’s power cuts widen digital divide and wealth gaps

KIM HARRISBERG LIKE many students preparing for exams, Lindokuhle Mdlalose has been revising in the early hours of the morning and losing out on sleep. However, the 21-year-old's midnight study sessions are by necessity, not choice, as power cuts cripple South Africa. The country's worst electricity blackouts in more than two years, intended to take pressure off the creaking power grid after worker strikes and years of poor maintenance, have left households struggling during several hours of darkness each day. Those that can afford extra internet data, generators and solar panels are managing to cope, but for many, their studies,…
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South Africans battle to bridge digital divide

South Africans battle to bridge digital divide

KIM HARRISBERG WHEN Esther Dhlamini went to collect her pension in Johannesburg's Soweto township, she was surprised to find a local bishop on hand to soothe her fears about COVID-19 vaccination and register her for the jab on his mobile phone. Community "foot soldiers" like the bishop are among numerous initiatives being scrambled across South Africa to tackle a digital divide that threatens to hit vaccine take-up among people without internet access - including many pensioners. "I was afraid to get vaccinated and didn't know how to," said Dhlamini, 71, outside the Boxer supermarket where she goes each month to…
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India’s COVID-19 meltdown exposes new front in digital divide

India’s COVID-19 meltdown exposes new front in digital divide

SAURABH SHARMA and ROLI SRIVASTAVA AS India's daily coronavirus cases set global records, people desperately searching for hospital beds and oxygen cylinders are finding help on social media. But for others like Ruby Yadav, who has never heard of Twitter, time and hope is running out. Travelling by rickshaw, Yadav and her mother - who is seriously ill with COVID-19 - have been turned away by nearly a dozen public hospitals in the northern city of Lucknow this week as the country's health system crumbles. "I'm losing hope. We know what will happen next, but I can't bear to watch…
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