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By Francis Kinyua*
NAIROBI (IDN) – After being closed for nine months, schools in Kenya reopened to start a new term and resume the school year that was disrupted in 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. On the morning of January 4, the streets were swarmed with elated children wearing colourful uniforms marching to their schools.
Interview by Kester Kenn Klomegah*
MOSCOW (IDN) – The power industry in South Africa is faced with huge challenges. Knox Msebenzi, Managing Director of the Nuclear Industry Association of South Africa (NIASA), discusses the impact of challenges on the country's economy and a way out of the power generation difficulties in South Africa.
The Nuclear Industry Association of South Africa is a body committed to promoting the highest standards in the development and application of nuclear technology in South Africa. NIASA is composed of organisations, groups, and individuals, from not only the established nuclear sector but also any entities involved in any technology endeavour related to the development and operation of nuclear technology.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) – The gavel came down on January 22 on billionaire Israeli-French tycoon Beny Steinmetz who, a criminal court in Geneva ruled, bribed government officials in Guinea, West Africa, to enrich himself and his mining company with valuable assets of the African country.
The ruling caps a seven-year investigation into the shady and complex world of corrupt practices employed with near impunity by foreign corporations which harm poor people in resource-rich countries.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) – Time marches on but murderous crimes committed during war may demand an apology regardless of the number of years that elapsed since the crimes took place.
Such is the current case presented by Algerians who have renewed their demand for an apology for colonialization and the crimes against humanity that took place during Algeria’s war of independence from 1954-1962. This follows the much-anticipated release of a government-sponsored report by the historian Benjamin Stora.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) – The coronavirus is reaping a “grim harvest” in Zimbabwe. Those were the words of President Emmerson Mnangagwa acknowledging the deadly reach of the virus in the nation’s highest ranks of government.
Zimbabwe’s transport and foreign ministers both succumbed to the coronavirus less than two days of each other. Four ministers have died so far, with several more reportedly fighting for their lives in hospital.
Viewpoint by Azu Ishiekwene
The writer is the Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief of The Interview magazine based in Abuja, Nigeria.
ABUJA (IDN) – Whether Jean-Jacques Rousseau miscredited the words to Marie Antoinette in Confessions or not, Nigeria is happy to supply a modern-day princess who has earned the title of Her Royal Spite-tress without controversy.
And unlike Antoinette reputed to have tossed the infamous pate, “Let them eat cake”, out her window when the mass of ordinary people in France was dying for breadcrumbs, her Nigerian cousin travelled thousands of miles to find her groove.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) – A call to action endorsed by over 500 organizations and individuals in South Africa is aiming to unite millions of the nation’s citizens in order to acquire 40 to 80 million doses of vaccine to defeat the coronavirus pandemic.
“The pandemic is wreaking havoc,” organizers proclaimed in a recent letter published in the Mail&Guardian. “Vaccinating a significant part of the population is the only way to defeat the pandemic.”
By Yossef Ben-Meir, President, High Atlas Foundation
MARRAKECH (IDN) – On World Religion Day, January 17, the High Atlas Foundation (HAF) celebrates its interfaith fruit tree nurseries, which are built on land lent in-kind by the Moroccan Jewish community and are enhancing livelihoods for Muslim farming families around Morocco. These nurseries champion the notion that Morocco’s multicultural past and present, and the preservation of it, should necessarily advance the sustainable development of the country by providing a tangible and vital pathway for the social and economic benefit of generations of Moroccans to come, said HAF in a media release.
Viewpoint by Kudzai Chimhangwa*
HARARE (IDN) – Edwin Moyo takes a stroll through his maize field, smiling as the lush green leaves of his crop brush against each other in response to the breeze. Busy amid the serenity of his two-hectare farm in the west of Zimbabwe, his patient tending looks likely to pay off, as the rainy season did not disappoint. The thick maize cobs spread out across the field are now the envy of his neighbours.
Viewpoint by Azu Ishiekwene
The writer is the Managing Director/Editor-In-Chief of The Interview magazine based in Abuja, Nigeria.
ABUJA (IDN) – US President Donald Trump may have lost re-election but he would be escorted out of the White House on January 19 night with a special prize: Africa’s worst friend in modern times.
Not that it matters one way or the other to Trump. We can only hope that after four years of spite, insults and hostilities, he might yet, in a fleeting moment of sanity, ask himself whether going out of his way to annoy or denigrate the continent was worth all the trouble.
IDN-InDepthNews offers news analyses, features, reports and viewpoints that impact the world and its peoples. It has been online since 2009. Its network spans countries around the world.