s inhabitants are online . While mobile phone usage is widespread at 72%, this masks regional differences. Eritrea's mobile penetration rate, for example, is just 5%. The internet's limited reach is compounded further because the language of the web is English and mobile connectivity is limited as only 18% of Africa's mobiles are smartphones . Organisations need to address these barriers and some are...
s been much criticism of the way the west covers the continent, but are African journalists doing a better job? The Kenyan writer and graduate student at Harvard Law School Nanjala Nyabola recently caused a bit of a stir with her Al Jazeera article asking "Why Do Western Media Get Africa Wrong?" Reading through the piece, which was both interesting and informative, I couldn't help but wonder: Just...
s biggest economy since 2003. It was expanded to include secondary schools under a new constitution three years ago. One of the UN's millennium development goals (MDGs) was to increase primary school enrolment by 2015, which would mainly be driven by free basic education. But in Kenya, as in many other sub-Saharan Africa countries, free education has rarely turned out to be exactly that. The story...
s president on charges he orchestrated violence after his country's 2007 elections. The court said it would instead hold a hearing on 5 February – the day Uhuru Kenyatta's trial was due to have started – into a request by prosecutors for a three-month adjournment in the case and a request by the president to have the case thrown out altogether. The delay is the latest setback in the case against Kenyatta,...
s leading literary figures, outed himself via a short story titled I am a Homosexual, Mum in which he imagined telling his mother on her deathbed that he was gay. "Nobody, nobody, ever in my life has heard this," Mr Wainaina wrote. "I did not trust you, mum." In a subsequent series of free-form YouTube videos , Mr Wainaina has explained how he was motivated to come out when a gay friend's family were...
s leading literary figures, outs himself in response to wave of homophobic laws across continent Read the full short story here Binyavanga Wainaina, one of Africa's leading literary figures, has responded to a wave of recent anti-gay laws on the continent by publicly outing himself in a short story. The Kenyan author and founder of the influential Nairobi-based literary journal Kwani said he would...
s hand. I am lifting her hand. Her hand will be swollen with diabetes. Her organs are failing. Hey mum. Ooooh. My mind sighs. My heart! I am whispering in her ear. She is awake, listening, soft calm loving, with my head right inside in her breathspace. She is so big – my mother, in this world, near the next world, each breath slow, but steady, as it should be. Inhale. She can carry everything. I will...
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t offer leaving most cancer cases undiagnosed Cancer accounts for approximately 18,000 deaths a year in Kenya , with up to 60% of fatalities occurring among people who are in the most productive years of their life . Men are most commonly diagnosed with prostate or esophageal cancer, and women are most frequently affected by breast and cervical cancer . A huge disparity exists in patient outcomes between...
s electricity by 2016. Construction of the plants, expected to cost $1.2bn (£73m), is set to begin this year and initial design stages are almost complete. The partnership between government and private companies will see the state contributing about 50% of the cost. Cliff Owiti, a senior administrator at the Kenya Renewable Energy Association, said the move will protect the environment and bring down...
s technology leaders to deal with today's climate and energy problems Much of my work involves the design and installation of clean and robust energy sources in remote parts of the world. On a recent trip to Kenya, my family had the opportunity to tour the Lake Naivasha region in Kenya. This region contains a treasure of wildlife and was a filming location for the movie " Out of Africa ." During a...
FBI believes gunmen died inside mall, contradicting earlier NYPD report that suggested some may have escaped ...
Kenyan military says dozens of terrorists were killed in its attack on a rebel meeting at a camp in southern Somalia The Kenyan military says it has killed at least 30 Islamist militants in an air strike on a camp in Somalia. A statement said fighter jets had attacked a gathering of rebels at the camp in Garbarahey in the Gedo region iof southern Somalia on Thursday. Major Emmanuel Chirchir said on...
fortress conservation' approach, which seeks to remove local people from their lands. As all pre-eminent conservation organisations now acknowledge, such an approach only ever makes the environmental situation worse, and adds a human rights disaster to the environmental crisis." According to the Nairobi-based UN Environment Programme, the rolling Cherangani hills are among the country...
s Lupita Nyong'o and two young Brits, George Mackay and Will Poulter • Video: Kill Your Darlings star Dane DeHaan • George MacKay interview The British Academy film awards has announced the shortlist for its public-vote Bafta gong, the Rising Star award, which goes to an actor deemed to "have demonstrated exceptional talent, and ... destined to be [a] bright star in the future of cinema". The five-strong...
s expanding cities. According to a UNEP study , the Aberdare fence, which cost £6.5m, provides benefits in "goods and services" worth £50m a year for 4 million people who live on the foothills and high slopes of the Aberdare range, where 30% of Kenya's tea and 70% of its coffee is produced. The number of charcoal kilns has greatly reduced and there are far fewer cattle in the forests, said Lambrechts....
s youth, and tailor their methods accordingly, has shown that – with invention and open-mindedness – it is not impossible to forge economic opportunities for a generation faced by massive unemployment. An estimated 17 million people are without work in Kenya , 70% of whom are between 15 and 34. Government measures have had little impact on these numbers, with President Uhuru Kenyatta's Uwezo Fund –...
Attack injuring 10 is labelled a terrorist act by authorities as country remains on edge after mall massacre by al-Shabaab ...
s poorest families "We're totally different from other charities," enthuses Paul Niehaus, co-founder of GiveDirectly , a small, California-based non-profit that uses mobile money technology to transfer cash directly from donors to some of east Africa's poorest people. "We're the most stripped down, simplified model of giving help to poor people." These are big claims but GiveDirectly – which first...
s first standup comedy gig was a disaster. In a half-empty club in London, her audience was as ill at ease with her jokes about Africa as she was delivering them. "I did one set. It was terrible," is how she sums up her first attempt to break into the comedy circuit. McGrath persevered, in part, because of her upbringing in Kenya. "When you grow up in Africa you see people in much, much more difficult...