Solving the Real Challenge to South Africa’s Water Problems
Professor
Sue Harrison, from the University of Cape Town’s chemical engineering
department, is a pioneer of both bioprocess engineering (putting nature, often
in the form of algae or bacteria, to work in industry, cities, businesses and
elsewhere) and transdisciplinarity (she’s worked at the interface of chemistry,
engineering and the life sciences for more than 30 years). Now, as the director
of the Future Water Institute, UCT’s interdisciplinary research center, she is
taking both obsessions to their logical extremes in a quest to improve the
prognosis for water-starved South Africa, a country that, according to doomsday
predictions, could run out of water by 2030.
SOURCES: OZY
The African Hotel from Star Wars to be Demolished
Much of the shooting for the original Star Wars movies took
place in Tunisia, and legend has it that one local landmark made a powerful
impression on its creator, George Lucas. The influence of Hotel du Lac in
Tunis, shaped like an upside-down pyramid with serrated edges, would later be
seen in the fictional Sandcrawler vehicle used by the Jawas of the Tatooine
desert planet in the film. The brutalist hotel designed by Italian architect
Raffaele Contigiani features 416 rooms across ten floors of increasing width.
In February, architect and activist Sami Aloulou announced on a famous Tunisian
radio station that the hotel was scheduled for imminent demolition. Aloulou’s
statement prompted an outcry on social media from architecture lovers. A
petition was swiftly launched to save “one of Tunisia’s premier brutalist structures
– important to the country and to the world.
SOURCES: CNN
How to Develop a Skilled and Entrepreneurial Workforce in Africa
Africa’s schools are still prioritizing rote learning, theory
over practice, and outdated curricula that do not respond to the changing needs
of the job market, and few to no schools teach entrepreneurship to young
people. Across Africa, as the economies fail to create enough jobs for the over
10 million young people entering the workforce each year, enterprise
development remains the best pathway to creating employment and ensuring
sustainable livelihoods, yet few governments have mainstreamed entrepreneurship
education into their curricula. Across Africa, there is a growing trend of
programs promoting entrepreneurship as the silver bullet to many of the
continent’s challenges. Pitch competitions are many and varied, each one
targeting a different demographic or segment of industry: youth, women,
creatives, inventors, agro-processors and so on. The expectation and intention
is to identify, breed and groom young people who have developed ideas that can
have a catalytic impact on the continent, and to nurture their dreams and
businesses to scale.
SOURCES: FORBES
AFRICA
Ghana’s Pop-up Churches and Noise Pollution
In Accra, you are never far from religious sermons. According to
one estimate, there are approximately 10 churches per sq km, and open-air
preaching, whether on public transport, in bus terminals or at road
intersections, is commonplace. The population of Greater Accra was about 4
million in 2010, but the city’s rapid growth means that number is expected to
reach nearly 10 million by 2037. And as the population increases and the city
gets noisier, residents are becoming more willing to fight back – resulting in
a rise in noise complaints. According to the city’s Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA), about 70% of noise complaints are about churches. Authorities and
residents across Accra point to what are known locally as “one-man churches” –
small, independent evangelical churches with no organisational structure – as
the biggest offenders. They spring up in backyards, unfinished buildings, under
trees and on porches. And despite their small congregations, they often use
loudspeakers and musical instruments during worship.
SOURCES: THE
GUARDIAN
Africa’s Most Valuable Company makes Savvy International Bets
A long-held ambition of Naspers has been to narrow the margin
between its market value and the value of its wildly successful $32 million
investment for a 46.5% stake in Tencent, the Chinese internet company, back in
2011. With that stake now worth $134 billion—about 30% more valuable than
Naspers itself—CEO Bob van Dijk has been increasingly vocal about exploring
ways to close that gap, including courting a wider pool of investors beyond
South Africa’s capital markets where Naspers is currently listed. Naspers’
latest move is to form a NewCo, a new group comprising of its international
internet assets, which will be listed on Euronext, the European stock exchange
based in Amsterdam. Naspers will own approximately 75% of NewCo and will retain
its primary listing on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange after the proposed
listing scheduled for the second half of 2019.
SOURCES: QUARTZ
AFRICA
The Effect of Cyclone Idai on Health Services
Mozambique said five cases of cholera had been confirmed around
the badly damaged port city of Beira, after a powerful cyclone killed more than
700 people across a swath of Southern Africa. The relief focus has increasingly
turned to preventing or containing what many believe will be inevitable
outbreaks of diseases like malaria and cholera. Health workers were also
battling 2,700 cases of acute watery diarrhoea – which could be a symptom of
cholera. The World Health Organization is dispatching 900,000 doses of the oral
cholera vaccine to affected areas from a global stockpile. The shipment is
expected to be sent later this week.
SOURCES: AL
JAZEERA
This is what’s on the Minds of Africans
Nearly one in three people living in West and Central Africa
fear losing their homes and land in the next five years, according to a survey
of 33 countries, making it the region where people feel most insecure about
their property. More than two in five respondents from Burkina Faso and Liberia
worry their home could be taken away from them, revealed Prindex, a global
property rights index which gauges citizens’ views. In West Africa, “a
history of governments and investors seizing land for large projects has made
people more insecure,” said Malcolm Childress, executive director of the
Global Land Alliance, a Washington-based think tank that compiles the index.
Insecurity can lead to people struggling to plan for their futures, holding
back entire economies, Childress said. “In countries like Rwanda, however,
which are mapping and registering customary land, that uncertainty is much
lower,” adding that only 8 percent of the country’s respondents feared losing their
homes.
SOURCES: VOA
The Countdown for Bouteflika to Step Down Starts
The leader of Algeria’s ruling coalition partner RND party,
Ahmed Ouyahia, on Wednesday urged President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to
resign. “The Democratic National Rally recommends the resignation of
President Abdelaziz Bouteflika according to the fourth paragraph of the article
102 of the constitution,” a statement from the party said. Algeria’s
powerful army chief of staff called on Tuesday for a constitutional move
against Bouteflika, signalling an end to his 20-year rule.
Protesters rejected the army chief’s proposal to make a constitutional move
against President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, adding demonstrations will continue
until the political system changes. Over the years of his reign, Bouteflika
has won three elections, implemented several reforms and enjoyed the backing of
the army to help him govern the country. Bouteflika suffered a stroke in
2013, that has left him physically unable to address the nation, only speaking to
Algerians through letters.
SOURCES: AFRICA
NEWS
Countries Confirmed for Pope’s Africa Tour
Pope Francis will visit the African nations of Mozambique,
Madagascar and Mauritius in September. The Sept. 4-10 trip will take him to the
capitals of the three countries, Maputo, Antananarivo and Port Louis, the
Vatican spokesman said, without giving further details. Mozambique has been hit
by a devastating cyclone and floods that have killed hundreds of people. The
area around Beira has been the hardest hit.
SOURCES: REUTERS
AFRICA
Meet First Woman to Win the Kenya Motor Sport Federation Motor Sports Personality of the Year
As a rally navigator, Tuta Mionki helps drivers avoid obstacles
and win races. The human resources consultant spends most of her spare time
taking part in the sport and wants to encourage more women to enter motor
sports. Ms Mionki holds the Kenya Motor Sports Federation Awards for the best
co-driver of the season 2015 (division 3) and 2016 (2-wheel-drive). Motorsports
remains a predominantly male. In 2012, there were about 15 women involved in
rallying events, but that that number has decreased. A navigator’s job is to be
the drivers ‘eyes’. A day before the race, Tuta goes out to recce the route and
take notes so that on the day of the race, the driver knows what to expect.
“Even though the driver can see the road, it helps if they concentrate on the
driving,” she explains.
SOURCES: BBC