29 June 2022
Zimbabwe: The country’s new parliament 18 km north-west of the capital Harare is ready for use. China-funded and -built, it is estimated to have cost 140m USD. Inside it are the national assembly (seats for 350 MPs in circular style) and the upper house (100 senators).
Ethiopia: Four bomb explosions have rocked the north-western regional capital of Bahir Dar (Amhara region). No information are available yet about casualties.
BBC Africa Live 29 June 2022. 8:42
Cameroon/Germany: Oh, how very generous! The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation has promised to return the sacred statue of Ngonnso, a female figure, to the Nso community in Cameroon’s north-west. The statue had been stolen by a colonial officer at the very beginning of the 20th century (Cameroon was a German colony up to the 1st World War).
BBC Africa Live 29 June 2022. 5:09
Nigeria: Cross River state governor Ben Ayade had dethroned two traditional chiefs for “failing to rein in their subjects”. In their communities, there had – again – been violence over land disputes with “massive destruction of homes and farmland”. In Nigeria, political authorities “have the power to remove traditional rulers.”
BBC Africa Live 29 June 2022. 4:36
28 June 2022
Cesária Évora/Film: A documentary about the Cabo Verdean morna singer, combining “director and journalist Fonseca’s storytelling and editor Cláudia Rita Oliveira’s organisation of myriad archival resources” following the ‘barefoot diva’ from her humble beginnings in Mindelo on São Vicente island to international fame until her death in 2011 at the age of 70.
https://theconversation.com/film-review-falling-in-love-with-cabo-verdean-singer-cesaria-evora-all-over-again-185787
Cameroon: In Bakinjaw village (Akwaya area/South West region), clashes over land between neighbouring communities – the Oliti and the Messaga Ekol – have killed at least 30 on Saturday and Sunday. Apparently, this fighting has nothing to do with the civil war in South West and North West regions which has killed more than 6,000 over the past few years.
BBC Africa Live 28 June 2022. 4:44
“The same water that makes the yam soft makes the egg hard”
BBC Africa Live 28 June 2022. 4:31. Proverb of the day. Sent by “Greater Sugar” to BBC News Pidgin.
Senegal: Yesterday, opposition MP Dethie Fall got a six-month suspended sentence because he participated in banned protests ten days earlier. Today, opposition politician Guy Marius Sagna faces court for the same issue. Opposition leader Ousmane Sonko had demanded his and other activists’ release. “He has threatened to mobilise his supporters to ‘come and get them’ if they are not freed by the government.” In spite of a ban on gatherings of the opposition, Sonko has called for further protests for tomorrow Wednesday.
BBC Africa Live 28 June 2022. 7:39
Nigeria: The country produces around 2.5 million tonnes of plastic waste annually – 88% of which is NOT recycled. Though there has not been much research into the question, it is clear that water sachets and shopping bags are the major contributors, with schools, markets and households the major conduits.
https://theconversation.com/plastic-pollution-in-nigeria-is-poorly-studied-but-enough-is-known-to-urge-action-184591
Abortion: US policies can have disastrous effects on African women – now that the global gag rule (imposed by Trump, abolished by Biden) is gone, the US Supreme Court has overturned the landmark Roe v Wade decision of 1973 which had given American women the right to an abortion. Beyond its effect on abortion in countries that look to the US for guidance and funding, this could encourage “national and international opposition to sexual and reproductive health services such as family planning (…) and comprehensive sexuality education”. Everyone knows that forbidding or restricting abortion does not reduce it but only makes it more dangerous. Already, at least 77% of African abortions are unsafe. And it is the poor and marginalised women and girls that are most at risk – the better-off can more easily find solutions.
https://theconversation.com/how-us-policy-on-abortion-affects-women-in-africa-182525
Polio: While the cases of “wild poliovirus” have come to almost zero in the world, there is also the vaccine-derived poliovirus which comes from the use of oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV) which uses weakened poliovirus to produce an immune response. “(I)n rare cases, this weakened poliovirus can change to a more dangerous strain of the virus that can cause disease.” OPV has proven very effective and has brought about the near eradication of poliovirus world-wide and it remains widely used though there is a safer alternative: the (chemically) inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV) – Britain, for example, has switched from OPV to IPV in 2004. But for producing IPV, lots of infectious poliovirus must be produced in order to be inactivated – there being a risk of breach of biocontainment should the infectious virus “get out” and infect people. There is potentially an alternative that avoids the risks of both OPV and IPV: virus-like particles (VLPs), a sort of empty shell similar to the virus which prompts the immune system to react and triggers a protective immune memory response without the danger of infection in use or in production. On top of that, this VLP can be produced with yeast – which is very cost-effective.
https://theconversation.com/polio-were-developing-a-safer-vaccine-that-uses-no-genetic-material-from-the-virus-185721
South Africa: Power utility Eskom is increasing “load shedding” (power cuts) to up to 6 hours a day as the strike of its workers demanding a 10% pay rise continues.
BBC Africa Live 28 June 2022. 14:25