An innovative non-governmental organization is breaking some of the toughest barriers to attaining a university education imaginable – offering refugees living in Kiziba, a remote camp tucked away in far eastern Rwanda, access to degree courses. Read more.
In June, Mozambique dropped a colonial-era law criminalizing homosexual activities. The change passed relatively quietly in the southern African country. After all, no one had ever been convicted.
A few weeks later, Tony Andrea felt like he was coming down with malaria. The 22-year-old went to a government health clinic. Andrea is gay and, despite the recently overturned prohibition, had always felt safe being open about his sexuality. He certainly never suspected it might interfere with his ability to access malaria treatment.
Activists in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are locked in a battle with President Joseph Kabila’s administration over what they are describing as an attempt to extend his mandate beyond the official end of his second – and final – term in November. In the process, political organizers are drawing on a deep well of support among university students. Read more.
Despite some progress, the nearly yearlong Burundian refugee crisis — in which more than 250,000 people have fled the country’s ongoing political instability — continues to threaten to overwhelm the East African region amid scant signs the situation will improve soon. Read more.
Nigeria's government has promised to provide health coverage to millions of citizens, but experts are not convinced it will happen based on the country's track record. Read more.
Zimbabwe's worst drought in three decades has caused food shortages in large swathes of the country and worries are building about increasing child malnutrition rates. Read more.
Farming is easily the most common occupation in this East African country. Much of it is small scale – scratching out just enough cassava, beans or maize to get by. And the vast majority of the people doing it are women – 80 percent according to some estimates. That means they are also the ones suffering most from the effects of climate change, whose impacts – changing weather patterns, intermittent floods and droughts and devastating landslides – can wipe out entire harvests and put families on the brink of starvation. Read more.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, one of the most prominent U.S. allies in East Africa, routed his opponents in the country’s presidential election, but Thursday’s vote was dogged by international criticism and concerns about the repeated detention of the main opposition leader. Read more.
With a devastating attack last month on an army base in southwestern Somalia housing Kenyan soldiers, the militant group al-Shabab once again signaled its strength, despite the years-long regional effort to wipe it out. Dozens of Kenyan soldiers were slaughtered in the assault, which raised questions about Nairobi’s role in the ongoing campaign against the Islamic extremists. But Kenya President Uhuru Kenyatta insists his government is committed to vanquishing al-Shabab—even as it does everything it can to silence any domestic debate over Kenya’s continued involvement in that effort. Read more.
Police arrested Uganda’s leading opposition presidential candidate Thursday, just as results started to trickle in from an election that focused on whether the country’s ruler would extend his 30-year grip on power. Read more.
Museveni’s unexpected appearance at a presidential debate over the weekend, just days before Ugandans head to the polls on Feb. 18, came as a shock to the country’s political chattering class. Up until the moment he appeared on stage, journalists and pundits were predicting he’d skip the event — just as he had the inaugural debate in January, which he dismissed as an activity fit for “school children.” Though he has been in power for 30 years, Uganda’s cagy president rarely opens himself up to public interrogation — especially by his political rivals.
Yet there he was on stage, linking hands with his challengers in prayer and then, for more than three hours, withstanding polite questioning from the moderators and far less polite jabs from the men and women who wish to replace him.
It’s the Zika virus — which has infected tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people in the Americas in recent months and may be linked to a spate of children born with underdeveloped brains in Brazil — that’s now bringing Ugandan epidemiologists unexpected attention. Uganda Virus Research Institute scientists first discovered Zika in the blood of a rhesus monkey back in 1947. And while Uganda has never had an outbreak of the virus, the country’s unique approach to monitoring the spread of similar diseases could hold the key to stopping future epidemics in their tracks.
The shuttering of foreign bureaus has given freelancers a bigger role in covering international news, but when it comes to negotiating ethical gray areas like this, they are largely on their own. And though these relationships with NGOs and the UN are often restrictive, they are also potentially profitable and entirely necessary to safely and affordably report important stories. By working closely with these organizations, journalists may cede too much control to the humanitarian community. But if they refuse any humanitarian support, vital stories will go untold.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni is treating his country’s election later this month as a coronation, not a contest, happy to cultivate the impression that the five-year extension to his already 30-year rule is all but a done deal. But the arrest this past weekend of a prominent general turned regime critic is the latest sign that Museveni’s camp is more worried about the vote—and its aftermath—than they are letting on. Read more.
Mozambique has set ambitious targets for getting more people with HIV on treatment, and it is testing innovative ways to help them stay on the life-saving drugs. Read more.