One of the world's largest foundations will spend $1.3 billion over the next three years to acquire and deliver COVID-19 vaccines for more than 50 million people in Africa. It's a first-of-its-kind effort for a Western nonprofit to bolster Africa's lagging vaccination campaign amid widespread fears of a third wave of infections on the continent.The Tuesday announcement from the Toronto-based Mastercard Foundation, which has more than $39 billion in assets,…
By any measure, the number of those being vaccinated against COVID-19 in Africa are running behind the rest of the world. Health experts warn that failure to inoculate the 1.3 billion people on the continent will have a huge impact on its health care systems and economies. More than a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, most African countries have vaccinated only a tiny fraction of their populations.Nigeria, the most populous…
The U.N. refugee agency says survivors of the Saturday massacre in a Burkina Faso village are in desperate need of humanitarian aid. Unidentified gunmen attacked the village of Solhan in Burkina Faso’s northeast Sahel region on June 5. They reportedly stormed the village in the middle of the night, executing at least 138 civilians, seriously injuring nearly 40 other people and setting houses and a market ablaze. The U.N. refugee…
The U.N. refugee agency says survivors of the Saturday massacre in a Burkina Faso village are in desperate need of humanitarian aid. Unidentified gunmen attacked the village of Solhan in Burkina Faso’s northeast Sahel region on June 5. They reportedly stormed the village in the middle of the night, executing at least 138 civilians, seriously injuring nearly 40 other people and setting houses and a market ablaze. The U.N. refugee…
WASHINGTON - In September 2019, Simon Marks moved to Ethiopia, drawn by the rapid changes following its shift in leadership and declaration of peace with neighboring Eritrea after a war and decades of tensions. Since then, he has reported on the widespread optimism after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed came to power and won the Nobel Peace Prize, and the human cost of the war in Tigray.But on May 20, Ethiopia expelled…
WASHINGTON - In September 2019, Simon Marks moved to Ethiopia, drawn by the rapid changes following its shift in leadership and declaration of peace with neighboring Eritrea after a war and decades of tensions. Since then, he has reported on the widespread optimism after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed came to power and won the Nobel Peace Prize, and the human cost of the war in Tigray.But on May 20, Ethiopia expelled…
Fifteen-year-old Beriha lost one eye in the war and was permanently blinded in the other. And like many of the children hospitalized in Mekelle, the capital of Ethiopia's Tigray region, she traveled for weeks to get here. Children in the ward had been shot, knifed or hit by shrapnel from heavy artillery. Some lost limbs from stepping on landmines. "She and her cousin went out to play in the yard,"…
Western military experts are assessing whether an autonomous drone operated by artificial intelligence, or AI, killed people — in Libya last year — for the first time without a human controller directing it remotely to do so. A report by a United Nations panel of experts issued last week that concluded an advanced drone deployed in Libya “hunted down and remotely engaged” soldiers fighting for Libyan general Khalifa Haftar has…
