On Wednesday, Eurythmics singer Annie Lennox was named the United Nations’ new AIDS Goodwill Ambassador.An outspoken activist against the spread of the deadly disease, Lennox, 55, has vowed to address the “daily brutality faced by millions of women and girls†inflicted with AIDS. “If we are to end the cycle of human devastation triggered by the [...]
Posts Tagged ‘southern Africa’
Many pregnant African women avoid HIV screening
November 20th, 2009 |
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A large number of pregnant women in Uganda, Africa deliberately avoid being tested for HIV, increasing the risk of mother-to-child transmission, says a study.
In a new paper, researchers discussed how mother-to-child transmission of HIV can be easily and cost-effectively prevented using a short course of antiretroviral therapy.
However, this is effective only if the mother [...]
Clinton urges fair Angola polls
August 9th, 2009 |
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US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has arrived in oil-rich Angola on her seven-nation tour of Africa.
During a one-day visit she is expected to seek a greater share in Angola’s oil market for the US and counter China’s growing influence.
Mrs Clinton is due to meet President Jose Eduardo dos Santos and oil industry executives on Sunday in the capital Luanda.
Last year, Angola overtook Saudi Arabia as China’s leading source of crude oil.
The US gets about 7% of its oil from the southern African country.
Although Angola vies with Nigeria as Africa’s biggest oil producer, two-thirds of its population survives on less than two dollars a day.
Mrs Clinton’s top Africa aide, Johnnie Carson, said the secretary of state was going to Angola "to strengthen that relationship with one of Southern Africa’s emerging countries, a country which has enormous economic potential".
He dismissed talk of US rivalry with China, describing it as a "Cold War paradigm".
Mrs Clinton travelled to Angola from South Africa where she held talks with President Jacob Zuma in Durban.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Matthew Kavanagh: African Activists Demand: Show Us the Money
July 27th, 2009 |
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At the International AIDS Society conference in Capetown South Africa this past week leading AIDS and human rights groups from the region launched an impressive…
Broadband ahoy
July 23rd, 2009 |
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The first of three undersea cables bringing high-speed internet to eastern Africa goes live on Thursday. The BBC’s Anne Waithera, in the Kenyan capital Nairobi, finds a nation impatient to join the broadband revolution.
In a busy cyber cafe in Nairobi dozens of people, mostly young, are hunched over computers surfing the net.
I try to strike up a conversation with one of them but he will not even look my way. Without looking up from the monitor he signals with his hand that I should wait until he is done.
"You’ll see a lot of YouTube and Facebook stuff now made for Africa by Africans"
Idd Salim
Symbiotic Media Consortium
This is perfectly understandable. It costs slightly less than $1 to surf for about an hour in a cyber-cafe in Nairobi and internet connection speeds are very slow.
But he is ready to talk after he pays his bill.
"It’s not good. It’s hanging and keeps wasting time and frustrating me," he says.
Another frustrated user complains: "I’ve spent more than 15 minutes instead of 10."
But things are about to change for these internet users.
The Seacom undersea fibre-optic cable goes live on Thursday, promising changes that will be felt right across eastern and southern Africa.
See map of Africa’s new fibre-optic cablesThe switch will take place simultaneously in the Kenyan port city of Mombasa, Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, Maputo in Mozambique and Mtunzini in South Africa.
The switchover from relying mainly on satellites to the submarine cable is expected to massively increase connection speeds.
One of the biggest setbacks of satellite connections is that a change in weather almost always leads to unstable connectivity.
It is hoped that cyber-cafe owners will transfer the benefits to their customers, as they will be making a huge savings on international links.
"When the fibre-optic cable goes live this means the speeds will be fantastic, we’ll have a higher turnover of clients and that translates to increased income," says Fred, a cyber-cafe manager.
These benefits will also be felt by millions of phone users, who will enjoy cheaper international connections and quicker voice transfers.
"The fibre-optic connection enables faster voice transfer unlike satellite, which has an average response time of 650 milliseconds, thus introducing some delays in our voice communication," says Mahmoud Noor, Seacom’s cable-station manager in Mombasa.
Mr Noor says the new service will reduce this to an average of 90 milliseconds for calls between Europe and eastern Africa, and an even faster response of less than six milliseconds between Dar es Salaam and Mombasa.
Potential squandered
In Kenya, various sectors of the economy are expecting a major boost following the launch of the undersea cable, and investors are anxious about it.
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"At the Nairobi stock exchange there is a possibility that things like day-trading will be introduced, where you make an order and in two minutes you will know if it has been sold or not," says Idd Salim of the Symbiotic Media Consortium, a software firm in Nairobi.
"That is not possible right now because you have to make an order today then wait for two or three days for it to clear."
Mr Salim says that Africa’s potential is being hindered by the absence of fast internet connectivity and this technological advance will open new avenues.
"For instance computer programmers cannot start a video service or a powerful website because the connection is slow," he says.
"You’ll see a lot of YouTube and Facebook stuff now made for Africa by Africans.
"Look at things like medicine – people will be able to be diagnosed from their homes because now we can have virtual hospitals."
The use of the undersea cable is expected to be immediate, save for some ISPs (Internet Service Providers) who may want to test it within their networks for a few days first.
Last month the Teams fibre-optic cable was launched in the coastal city of Mombasa, but it has yet to go live.
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This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Kenya seizes coffin-stashed ivory
July 14th, 2009 |
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Kenyan authorities have seized 300kg (660 lbs) of illegal ivory hidden in coffins on a plane bound for Laos.
The haul included 16 elephant tusks and black rhinoceros horns. Officials said the blood on the ivory suggested the animals had been killed very recently.
The flight – which stopped in Nairobi – originated in Mozambique and was bound for Thailand and then Laos.
The haul of ivory may have had a value of about one million dollars (£614,000,000), Reuters reports.
Officials from Kenya’s Wildlife Service said the ivory might have come from Tanzania or South Africa.
The black rhino is found only in eastern and southern Africa.
The international ivory trade has been banned since 1989. The sale of ivory is illegal if the ivory is not from pre-1989 stockpiles.
However, some countries have done little to enforce the ban. </p
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.