Dr. Kwegyir Aggrey "Only the best is good enough for Africa."
Kwame Nkrumah "The independence of Ghana is meaningless unless it is linked up with the total liberation of Africa."
KOFI AYIM It takes an average of 10 hours – depending on tailwind – for a typical Boeing 767 aircraft to fly nonstop from New York City, U.S.A., to Accra, Ghana, for 5,111 miles. On arrival the ambient temperature contrast between the two cities is huge. While Accra is almost always warm and hot with […]
Gabon and Togo’s recent decision to join the Commonwealth seemed like a blow to France – but was it? PETER FABRICIUS On the face of it, France seems to be losing ground in Africa. It was forced out of Mali and appears to be losing popular support elsewhere in the Sahel. And then last week, […]
Silja Fröhlich Whistleblowers uncover corruption and help bring the truth to light, often benefiting society in the process. But in Africa they face dismissal, violence and murder. Extensive legislation seldom offers real protection. Babita Deokaran was shot dead in broad daylight outside her home in Johannesburg on August 23. She had just dropped her daughter […]
Numerous startups are creating synthetic palm oil in the lab, hoping to slow the loss of tropical forests to oil palm cultivation. But palm oil is the most widely used vegetable oil, and producing a synthetic version on a large scale remains a daunting challenge. JAMES DINNEEN Tom Jeffries and Tom Kelleher met at Rutgers […]
NATASHA ROBINSON & DAVID MILLS “China wasn’t my first option for a PhD. Honestly, in Ghana the perception about China or the Chinese system, Chinese products, Chinese whatever, it is not very positive.” Dr. Courage Simon Kofi Dogbe is one of the thousands of Ghanaians who recently got their PhDs from universities in China. In […]
IFEANYI NSOFOR I’m fully vaccinated. I want to travel to Europe. And fully vaccinated visitors are welcome. But I can’t get in. That’s because the vaccine I received is not on Europe’s list of four approved vaccines: Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and Oxford-AstraZeneca, but only the version manufactured in the United Kingdom or Europe […]
The road from Ras al-Ara to the port city of Aden, in southern Yemen, runs for almost 90 miles through barren, windswept desert. The landscape is scorched by the sun, and temperatures often teeter around 40°C. Reminders of Yemen’s complex six-year-old war abound: burned-out tanks litter the roadways and stern fighters man checkpoints. Occasionally, along […]
KEN SILVERSTEIN Solar energy conjures up images of rooftop panels. The depiction is especially true in Africa, where about 600 million people are without access to electricity — power to keep the lights on and power to keep the COVID-19 vaccine frozen. Africa’s economy has experienced solid growth at an average of 3.7% throughout the […]
KWABENA OPONG Illegal mining or galamsey (gather them and sell) has assumed epidemic proportions in Ghana. The success of the effort by former minister of lands and mineral resources, John P. Amewu to sanitize – not stop – the illegality and its attendant destruction was short-lived. As if by design, galamsey has resurfaced and, like […]
MARIA GODOY In early December, Christine Ghati Alfons taught a menstrual hygiene class to a group of girls, 10 to 15 years old, in the ethnic Kuria community in Migori County, an impoverished, rural area in southwest Kenya. Normally, she says, the class has 25 students. On this day, only 17 girls showed up. “We […]