A network of giant internet-enabled balloons from Google's sister firm Loon is to provide internet access to remote areas of Kenya.

The project was announced two years ago but final sign-off from the Kenyan government has only just been given.

It is now being fast-tracked to help improve communications during the coronavirus pandemic.

The balloons' 4G internet service has been tested with 35,000 customers and will initially cover a region spanning 50,000 sq km (31,000 sq miles).

Eventually 35 solar-powered balloons will be in constant motion in the stratosphere above eastern Africa. They are launched in the US and make their way to Kenya using wind currents.

One field test of the service showed download speeds of 18.9Mbps (megabits per second) and upload speeds of 4.7Mbps.

Loon began as one of Google's so-called ''moonshot projects" in 2011.

In 2018, it teamed up with Telkom Kenya to provide a commercial service.

The Government of Liberia is working closely with development partners to undertake ambitious measures to rebuild its electricity infrastructure. Liberia’s civil war, which ended in 2003, destroyed much of the country’s power sector. At approximately 12%, Liberia has one of the lowest electricity access rates in the world. In the capital city of Monrovia, less than 20% of the population has access to electricity. By 2030, the Government of Liberia aims to meet an anticipated peak demand of 300 MW and serve 1 million customers, connecting 70% of the population in Monrovia and providing access to 35% of the rest of Liberia.

The kente cloth isn't as friendly a symbol to black people as Dems think. //

But as USA Today points out, the Democrats publicity stunt was likely a little less researched than they thought. As it turns out, the kente cloth they wore were actually tied to affluent Africans who got rich selling their fellow Africans in the slave trade. //

The left is currently tearing down statues if the person depicted was even a little racist in their past, or just racist by today’s standards. They vandalized abolitionist Matthias Baldwin and he was saying “black lives matter” long before any of these activists were, so you don’t even have to be racist at all.

Regardless, the Democrats are now guilty of wearing a symbol of a rich, slave-trading empire that made its money on the backs of enslaved Africans and passing it off as showing solidarity with the American black community. What the kente cloth represented might have been forgotten over time, but rest assured, this is its history.

Which is probably appropriate, seeing as how the Democrats have a long history of taking part in and defending slavery, even to the point of going to war over it. If they were looking to leave that image behind and be embraced as the party that protects and supports minorities, maybe they should get a different symbol.

The United States Mission to South Africa organized three flights to repatriate U.S. citizens who wished to depart South Africa. The first two flights departed on April 9, 2020, one from OR Tambo International Airport, and the second from Cape Town International Airport after first picking up passengers in Durban. The third flight will depart from Cape Town tomorrow, April 10, 2020. Visit za.usembassy.gov for more information.

Air Peace announced on Wednesday that its repatriation flight, scheduled to depart from Canada to Lagos on 14th May, has been postponed. The airline said in a statement that some logistic issues had prevented the Canadian government from allowing the flight to be operated. The Nigerian High Commission in Ottawa is in negotiations with the Canadian government to reschedule the flight to bring the Nigerian citizens home. //

“The argument our High Commissioner is making is that this is not a regular commercial flight, but instead an emergency evacuation flight. So negotiations are ongoing with the Canadian government.”

The special flight, APK 8711, had planned to bring more than 200 Nigerians home from Canada to Lagos.

Jonathan McDowell
@planet4589
·
May 12
Reports of a 12-m-long object crashing into the village of Mahounou in Cote d'Ivoire. It's directly on the CZ-5B reentry track, 2100 km downrange from the Space-Track reentry location. Possible that part of the stage could have sliced through the atmo that far (photo: Aminata24)

Scientists say the microbe - found in the wild near Lake Victoria - has enormous potential. //

100% depression if malaria in mosquitos

A photo on social media showing Africa's second-highest mountain from Nairobi made many Kenyans cry foul. But the photo — shot on a day free of pollution, because of COVID-19 restrictions — is real.

The key lessons for epidemic response are to act fast but act locally. That is what African countries should be doing.

Africa's health systems are already overstretched. Covid-19 demands an emergency response at scale and that begins with governments.

African hospitals need testing kits, basic materials for hygiene, personal protective equipment for the professional health workers, and equipment for assisted breathing.

African countries cannot close its fresh produce markets or people will starve. But market goers can readily work out how to reduce the risks of transmission, through measures such as better hygiene, crowd control, and physical barriers such as polythene sheeting at point of sale.

Another proposal is that each household should designate a single person to buy food, and the market authorities provide that person with an identifier such as a coloured bangle. The designated shopper would then be isolated from other household members on returning home. Some markets could be temporarily relocated to safer sites.

China has tried to downplay the reports but the videos of discrimination on social media mean it's evolving into a full-fledged race row

Thread by @rambletastic: My family and I took an @StateDept evacuation flight from Senegal to the US on Friday. I’d like to say a few things focusing on 1) The people who work for State (wonderful) & 2) The impression it left me about coordinated US…

Social distancing is impossible in much of Africa, and its economic consequences may lead to a famine that is worse than the pandemic. Prevention measures must consider the African context. //

Right now we are facing a choice between more or less drastic measures to slow the spread of COVID-19, a virus which, at time of writing, has yet to claim a life under 10, and claims very few lives under 30, with the risk rising exponentially with age. We are putting in place measures that will lead to malnutrition and starvation for millions of people, and for these horrors, children and especially infants are the most at risk. And very many of those infants are born, and will die, in Africa.

Yet there is little discussion of the consequences for human health of the measures we are taking. Nor is there discussion of how the major differences between Africa and America, Europe and Asia might matter. The World Health Organisation (WHO) website contains no technical guidance on how African governments should approach their considerably different contexts. The advice is the same globally, but the context is not.

Failure to recognise that one size does not fit all could have lethal consequences in this region, maybe even more lethal than those of the virus itself. //

the major components of the recommended public health measures – social distancing and hygiene – are extremely difficult to implement effectively in much of Africa. The net effect of measures that seek to enforce social distancing may thus be to prevent people from working, without actually achieving the distancing that would slow the spread of the virus. If that is true, then we must consider whether we would be better off without them. //

In Africa, it’s questionable whether leaders have a political choice, given intense pressure from an international community that isn’t thinking about the differences of the African context, and a WHO offering no region-specific technical advice.

Leaders need to be given the space to say shocking things, to be upfront about what might go wrong, to change their minds in the face of new evidence, and to pick the lesser of two evils.

The million-dollar trade in trafficked rosewood trees

The Rosewood tree is one of the most trafficked species on earth.

When it's cut it bleeds a blood red sap.

Having exhausted stocks elsewhere, Chinese traders have turned to West Africa.

BBC Africa Eye are in Senegal where it is illegal to fell or export a Rosewood tree. And yet, we can reveal they are been logged and smuggled at an alarming rate.

From the forests of Casamance, through the port of neighbouring Gambia and all the way onto China.

For a year BBC Africa Eye with Umaru Fofana has been investigating the million-dollar trade in trafficked rosewood.

Join BBC reporter Alastair Leithead and his team, travelling in 2018 from the Blue Nile's source to the sea - through Ethiopia and Sudan into Egypt.

This 360° video is a version of the first VR documentary series from BBC News.

A frontline village in Sierra Leone (Manonkoh, Port Loko District) affected by mining operations of London Mining CompanySIERRA LEONE - There is little doubt the West African sub-region is endowed with abundant natural resources. The region is home t

Energy IQ : Five insights into the future of energy for independent power producers – Part II

No. #3: Africa offers vast opportunities for power producersPace of Growth in Demand graph

Demand for electricity generation is forecasted to grow in Africa faster than any other region. A mix of factors including over half a billion people to join the continent’s urban population, increased access to electricity and expanding mineral extraction activities drive this demand.

Africa is also well positioned to find the fuels to fulfill this need. On the renewables side, Africa is solar rich, yet only less than 1% of the world’s installed solar capacity is in Africa, offering vast opportunities for power producers. When it comes to low carbon fuels, Africa benefitted from recent discoveries of gas deposits. In fact, 40% of global gas discoveries from 2010 to 2018 were in Africa.

Foreign ministers of three countries say they have reached an agreement on schedule to fill massive dam on Nile River.

For the 280 million people from 11 countries who live along the banks of the Nile, it symbolises life. For Ethiopia, a new dam holds the promise of much-needed electricity; for Egypt, the fear of a devastating water crisis.

Idris Elba has been given citizenship of his father's native Sierra Leone.

The British film star landed in the capital Freetown on Wednesday for his first visit to the country.

Elba told the BBC's Umaru Fofana that citizenship was "the biggest honour I could get from my country".

"I'm no stranger to Africa: I've been in Africa, I've made films in Africa, I've championed Africa," he said. "But Sierra Leone, it's a very different feeling because it's my parent's home."

"The son of the soil is coming back to fertilise the soil."