07 August 2021
Egypt: The Great Boat of King Khufu, more than 4,500 years old and discovered virtually intact in 1954, originally “built to allow the pharaoh to sail across the skies after his death”, has been moved to the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza which is due to open in 2021 near the Pyramids. BBC has taken pictures of the move.
BBC Africa 07 August 2021. 17:48
https://www.bbc.com/news/in-pictures-58088867
06 August 2021
South Africa: The country’s communist party in 2021 celebrates its centenary. The article is a short summary of the author’s book “Red Road to Freedom: A History of the South African Communist Party 1921-2021” and gives an overview of what the party has achieved and how it was important in the past (it had, for example, a pioneering role in bringing women into leadership) – and till the present day, where we find it “in a tripartite governing alliance with the ANC and the Congress of South African Trade Unions, the labour federation”, though the party has not been able to do much against the neo-liberal leanings of successive governments.
https://theconversation.com/how-communists-have-shaped-south-africas-history-over-100-years-165556
Nigeria: “Teaching of history should be compulsory from primary to tertiary education levels”. In 2009, the government removed history from the school curriculum. Over a decade later, it has reversed the decision: from the 2020/21 academic year onward, history is to be taught as a standalone subject. The article gives some reasons why historical knowledge is important.
https://theconversation.com/what-studying-history-at-school-can-do-for-nigerians-165339
Sudan: Six members of paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been sentenced to death for the killing of six protesters (including four schoolchildren) against fuel and food shortages in 2019 – they had “used unnecessary and excessive force”.
BBC Africa Live 06 August 2021. 12:40
Burkina Faso: In the country’s north, 30 people have been killed in Islamist militants’ attacks on villages close to the border with Niger.
BBC Africa Live 06 August 2021. 11:44