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Le Français Clément Champoussin, vainqueur de la 20e étape du Tour d’Espagne, samedi 4 septembre. MIGUEL RIOPA / AFP Clément Champoussin a trouvé un ultime souffle, un ultime surplus d’énergie pour s’envoler vers la victoire, samedi 4septembre, sur la 20e et avant-dernière étape du Tour d’Espagne. Il a attaqué à moins de deux kilomètres de
The post Vuelta 2021 : Clément Champoussin remporte la 20e étape du Tour d’Espagne appeared first on Haiti24.
\t On Friday, internet and international calls were cut off across the West African nation in anticipation of the election results, according to locals and international observers in the capital, Conakry.
\t This was the third time that Conde matched-up against Diallo. Before the election, observers raised concerns that an electoral dispute could reignite ethnic tensions between Guinea's largest ethnic groups.
[The Conversation Africa] Almost a decade after the United Nations set aside November 2 as a day to reflect on ending impunity for crimes against journalists, crimes against media workers in Kenya are still widespread. The coverage of elections and corruption cases has typically prompted these attacks. But now the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed more of the state's intolerance towards journalists in their line of duty.
EVERY so often, a pandemic emerges that dramatically alters human society. The Black Death (1347-1351) was one; the Spanish flu of 1918 was another. Now there’s COVID-19. GUEST COLUMN: SHADRECK CHIRIKURE Archaeologists have long studied diseases in past populations. To do so, they consider a wide array of evidence: settlement layout, burials, funerary remains, and human skeletons. For example, because of archaeologists we know that the damaging impact of epidemics prompted the abandonment of settlements at Akrokrowa in Ghana during the early 14th century. About 76 infant burial sites at an abandoned settlement that now forms part of the Mapungubwe World Heritage site in the Limpopo Valley of South Africa suggest a pandemic hit the people living there after 1000 AD. Archaeological and historical insights also expose some of the strategies that societies adopted to deal with pandemics. These included burning settlements as a disinfectant and shifting settlements to new locations. Social distancing was practised by dispersing settlements. Archaeologists’ findings at Mwenezi in southern Zimbabwe also show that it was a taboo to touch or interfere with remains of the dead, lest diseases be transmitted in this way. In the late 1960s, some members of an archaeological dig excavating 13th century house floors in Phalaborwa, South Africa, refused to keep working after encountering burials they believed were sacred. They also worried that the burials were related to a disease outbreak. Social distancing and isolation have become watchwords during the COVID-19 pandemic. From archaeology, we know that the same practices formed a critical part of managing pandemics in historical African societies. In what is Zimbabwe today, the Shona people in the 17th and 18th centuries isolated those suffering from infectious diseases — such as leprosy — in temporary residential structures. This meant that very few people could come into contact with the sick. In some cases, corpses were burnt to avoid spreading the contagion. Humans have a propensity to relax and shift priorities once calamities are over. Data collected by archaeologists, that show how indigenous knowledge systems helped ancient societies in Africa deal with the shock of illness and pandemics, can help remind policymakers of different ways to prepare modern societies for the same issues. Social distancing and isolation Research at the early urban settlement of K2, part of the Mapungubwe World Heritage site, has thrown significant light on ancient pandemics. The inhabitants of K2 (which dates back to between 1 000AD and 1 200AD) thrived on crop agriculture, cattle raising, metallurgy, hunting and collecting food from the forest. They had well-developed local and regional economies that fed into international networks of exchange with the Indian Ocean rim. Swahili towns of East Africa acted as conduits. Archaeological work at K2 uncovered an unusually high number of burials (94), 76 of which belonged to infants in the 0-4 age category. This translated into a mortality rate of 5%
AS the impacts of climate change continue to accelerate, it is not always gloom for stakeholders, hence the need to explore the opportunities that come with climate change. GUEST COLUMN: PETER MAKWANYA The digital revolution will not only transform the communication landscape, but will also empower local farmers to overcome information gaps and communication boundaries in a highly mechanised and globalised society. The technological boom has taken everyone by storm and farmers are not left out as they seek to orient themselves with this new phenomenon. As this euphoria grips the world, farmers need not miss the value of using these gadgets. The versatile nature of the digital communication tools can allow them to be abused because of excitement leading to the farmers concentrating more on the trivial rather than the fundamental side of modernising farming, bringing positive results, realising resilience and achieving food security. The digital communication technologies which include the internet, tablets, mobile phones, IPads, laptops and other technologies of similar nature can facilitate the movement, storage and sharing of critical data for reference purposes. These interactive platforms can be used to bring farmers closer to each other and establish a highly collaborative and networked community. Farmers need to transform their mindsets and adapt to the new ways of exploring the farming landscapes using a broad network of new media technologies. These include online platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Newsfeed, WhatsApp, e-famer, YourFarm, YouTube. These social media networks are favourable to the farming cause. These digital tools and networks are there to educate farmers. How ready are farming communities to be digital compliant is another challenge. Good as this may sound, there are also associated challenges that can militate against the ease of doing farming. Farmers in remote areas can experience connectivity challenges, including access to data and they may be cut off from farming groups and markets. Being in possession of a mobile phone is one issue while its ability to provide required services may be another issue. Farmers need to keep in touch with groups and communities, including mechanisation companies to be abreast with the fast changes taking place in the farming world. These include new methods of farming, improved seed varieties, fertilisers, crop varieties, adaptable dairy breeds, hybrid small livestock, cheaper and accessible irrigation materials, including energy-saving and environmentally friendly equipment. Farmers also need to be informed and guard against unscrupulous and corrupt middle-persons, aiming to rip them off. The other issue is the nature and type of a mobile phone that one possesses, some mobile phones are for calling and receiving calls, and are not internet compliant. In this regard, such poor farmers would have challenges in staying up-to-date and keep in touch with other stakeholders. Furthermore, their remoteness and peripheral nature may not enable them to keep up-to-date
'Good morning, teacher,' a loud and clear chorus rings out as Pratibha Hilim, enters the veranda of her home in Maharashtra's Karhe village, in Palghar district, where an open-air class is underway. Hilim, a bilateral amputee, is a Zila Parishad (district body) school teacher, who has taken on the task of teaching the students of […]
[DW] Algerians head to the polls to vote on a revised constitution pushed by the president and the military to move forward from last year's pro-democracy protests. Critics called the vote an attempt to whitewash democracy.
Announcement - President Donald J. Trump, Sudanese Chairman of the Sovereignty Council Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke today to discuss Sudan’s historic progress towards democracy and opportunities to advance peace in the region.
Colonel Ruth Alice Lucas was the first African American woman in the Air Force to be promoted to the rank of colonel. At the time of her retirement, she was the highest-ranking African American woman in the Air Force. Lucas was born in Stamford, Connecticut, on November 28, 1920. After high school, she attended Tuskegee […]
By CHALIDA EKVITTHAYAVECHNUKUL Associated Press BANGKOK (AP) — Pro-democracy protesters in Thailand were confronted by riot police and sprayed by water cannons Sunday as they tried to approach Bangkok's Grand Palace to deliver letters about their political grievances addressed to the country's king. The pro-democracy movement has been pushing a bold challenge to reform the country's monarchy with almost daily demonstrations. Sunday marked the second time water cannons were used against them during several months of demonstrations. The protesters pushed aside one of several buses that along with barbed wire was serving as a barrier to marchers trying to approach […]
The post Thai police use water cannons on pro-democracy protesters appeared first on Black News Channel.
Dead trees and parched fields stretch as far as the eye can see.
On plains overlooking Agadir, in southwestern Morocco, water has become so rare that it is diverted from the agricultural land to households.
The region has been struggling with terrible droughts for the past three years and the local dam has run almost dry.
\"A lot of farmers stopped their activities after the water was cut off by the dam,\" said Ahmed Driouch, a Moroccan farmer. \"All the crops had dried up, the beans, the clementines, all of them dried up.\"
\"If there was water, I could cultivate my land, but there is no water,\" added Wahid Aguertite, another farmer from the area.
\"The cooperative has only one well and that is not enough for the 60 members. Everyone needs 10 hours of irrigation per day, and that's not enough: my land needs a lot of water.\"
With the drought, the authorities have had no other choice than to deprive farms of irrigation to provide a drinkable supply to nearly a million Moroccans.
The \"irrigation of golf courses and hotel gardens with drinkable water\" is also forbidden.
\"The last three years have been characterised by a very pronounced drought, which means that water reserves at the level of the dams today are at a very low level,\" Abdelhamid Aslikh, head of Agadir's water reserves agency, explained.
\"Historically, we have never seen such low levels on a basin scale, so this is worrying data.\"
Morocco's economy depends heavily on agriculture, which accounts for nearly 15 percent of its Gross Domestic Product, ahead of tourism and industry.
The drought spells disaster for citrus fruits and seasonal vegetables.
ODZI — While the land reform programme has been viewed through some negative lenses, for Philemon Matibe, it has become a game-changer with his farming activities that have brought another agriculture dimension to Odzi. BY KENNETH NYANGANI Matibe returned to the country early last year after living in the United States for 20 years.He said as a patriotic Zimbabwean, he had invested almost half a million United States dollars in farming projects. Matibe currently has projects on three farms he is leasing in Odzi.The farmer has also invested in tractors, graders, centre pivots and some irrigation equipment among other machinery. The farmer is focusing on various crops such as tobacco, wheat, maize and tomatoes among others.Further, he has secured two more farms under lease in Odzi, where he is set to expand his farming projects. NewsDay toured the farms last weekend and the workers were in high spirits, as they celebrated the first anniversary of the lease of the farms. In his first year of farming, he harvested several crops such tobacco and wheat. “I was in America for the past 20 years and as a family, we decided to come back. We looked around for derelict and underutilised farms. We decided to go ahead and invest in the rehabilitation of these farms since I was convinced of the sincerity of the new dispensation,” he said. “When you do farming, you need to be hands-on. This is the reason why I spent most of my time monitoring what will be happening at the farms. I invested almost half a million United States dollars in the farming projects. At the peak of the farming season, we employ almost 200 workers who are all on full salary.” Added Matibe: “My workers are happy and this is the reason you are seeing them smiling because we give them their salaries on time, and we also give them grocery hampers including mealie-meal, cooking oil, soap, sugar and other commodities.” The farmer narrated the challenges he is facing. “I think my main challenge is vandalism of my irrigation equipment, but we are trying to manage it by working 24 hours with my security team,” he said. Farm manager Manetsa Kamarizeni said he had vast experience in farming and that he started farming almost three decades ago. “Currently, we are working on three farms, all the three farms are about 1 300 hectares. We are targeting two more farms in the Odzi area,” Kamarizeni said. “We have a horticulture project where we are looking forward to put vast tracts of land under tomato, where we have already secured a ready market in Mozambique.” He said they employed as student interns such as Susan Fireyi, who is studying at Magamba Training Centre for a Diploma in General Agriculture. “I am on a 10-month attachment programmeand am happy because I have gained the much-needed experience,” she said. “I now have a vision to start my own farming projects when I finish my diploma at Magamba Training Centre,” Fireyi said. Enia Sithole (36) ,who has three children, said Matibe was a game-changer in their life. “We are happy at the farm because we are being paid our
The Ministries of Industry, Investment and Commerce (MIIC) and Agriculture and Fisheries will soon launch a programme targeted at workers operating informally in household services, agriculture and fisheries to aid their transition to the formal...
