Due to many obstacles – from security to air fares – local fans lose out as African artists tour overseas instead. But as western corporations invest, there are more worries besidesWhen a major African pop artist announces a world tour these days, you will see Paris, New York, Toronto and Amsterdam among the dates. You will see multiple nights at London’s O2 Arena – a venue that has become a regular hub for Nigerian pop supremacy. You will see grand, multimillion-dollar stage designs, towering LED screens and meticulously choreographed dancing as artists such as Burna Boy, Wizkid, Asake, Rema, Tyla and Tems have become global stars.What you will rarely see, however, is a comprehensive, interconnected list of dates in Accra, Nairobi, Johannesburg, Kigali or Luanda: the cities that birthed these acts. It is a central paradox of the current African music surge: the continent’s biggest cultural exports are struggling to perform consistently for audiences across the continent. Continue reading...

Exclusive: amid unrest, President William Ruto promised to give all Kenyans access to healthcare. But the algorithm favours the rich, an investigation has foundAn AI system used to predict how much Kenyans can afford to pay for access to healthcare, has systemically driven up costs for the poor, an investigation has found.The healthcare system being rolled out across the country, a key electoral promise of President William Ruto, was launched in October 2024 and intended to replace Kenya’s decades-old national insurance system. Continue reading...

Record-breaker says London Marathon win was ‘a victory for all of us’ as he is greeted by family and friends in EldoretHugged, cheered and adorned with garlands, the first man to run an official marathon in under two hours has returned as a hero to his home village in Kenya.Sabastian Sawe, who stunned the world when he clocked 1h 59m 30s in the London Marathon last weekend, flew in a Kenyan military plane normally reserved for special operations on Thursday to his home region of western Kenya. Continue reading...

The experience of a Kenyan politician who dared to have her babies abroad is far from unique, and laws are not enough to make digital spaces safe for womenIn March last year, soon after giving birth to her twins, Susan Kihika was subjected to a campaign of online abuse. Kihika, who is governor of Nakuru county in Kenya’s rift valley, was accused of abandoning her country because she took her maternity leave in the US after being treated there for a high-risk pregnancy.The criticism quickly escalatedto attacks and sexist smears. Soon social media commenters were accusing her of sleeping her way into politics. Her location was shared. Continue reading...

Meta paused work with Sama last month after allegations about staff viewing private scenes filmed by smart glassesMore than 1,000 low-paid workers in Kenya have been abruptly sacked by an outsourcing company contracted by Meta, in what activists said was a shocking move exposing the precariousness of tech jobs in the global south.Sama, a company based in Nairobi to which Meta outsourced content moderation and AI training work, announced on Thursday that the workers were being laid off after Meta terminated a contract. Continue reading...

Seven deaths and 15 injuries have been recorded in the past year as crocodiles move their habitats closer to human settlements• Warning: contains graphic descriptions of crocodile attacksNg’ikalei Loito was walking out of the warm waters of Lake Turkana on a sunny afternoon, having just finished swimming with her two sisters-in-law, when she suddenly felt the crushing force of a crocodile’s bite on her legs.In excruciating pain, she instinctively clung to a partially submerged tree that was within reach and screamed for help, as the crocodile tried to drag her under the water.Ng’ikalei Loito sits on her tricycle outside her house in Kalokol town in Turkana Continue reading...

More than 2,200 ants were found in Zhang Kequn’s luggage at Nairobi airport, with baggage destined for ChinaA Chinese national has been sentenced to a year in prison and fined by a Nairobi court for attempting to smuggle thousands of ants out of Kenya, a lucrative trade in east Africa that was exposed last year.The insects are mostly destined for China, the US and Europe, where they become pets and can be worth about $100 each. Continue reading...

For some, the impact is already being felt but others remain in limbo over their energy security and are hostage to an unlikely de-escalation• Don’t get The Long Wave delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereIt remains a confusing situation, but the strait of Hormuz now appears to have been closed twice. Once by Iran, and then by the US, which this week announced a blockade of its own on the reduced number of ships using Iranian ports. Higher fuel and energy costs for ordinary people across the world are the headlines, but as the war on Iran enters its sixth week, shipping restrictions and strikes on energy facilities in Gulf countries are affecting some of the poorest and most vulnerable economies in the world in more profound ways.I spoke to Dr. Zainab Usman, senior research scholar at the Centre on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, about how the war and its blockades are affecting some African countries. Continue reading...

Experts have been alarmed at the growth of deep misogyny dressed up as self-help on social media. We profile seven men from across the continent who are gaining tractionIt is not just Europe and the US that are grappling with a growing landscape of misogynistic influencers online. While Andrew Tate, Myron Gaines, Sneako and other voices grow in toxicity in the manosphere of the west, across Africa – which has more than 400 million people aged between 15 and 35 – several individuals are gaining traction.The manosphere is a loose network of communities that claim to address men’s struggles such as dating and fitness, but often promote harmful misogynistic attitudes. Sunita Caminha, who leads UN Women on ending violence against women and girls in east and southern Africa, first started noticing its presence in Africa about five years ago, and believes it is on the rise. “Research and data that keeps coming out is very consistent [in] showing this is an alarming issue in different countries and contexts across the continent.” Continue reading...

Harsh weather is nothing new in Kenya but the country’s climate is showing clear signs of getting hotter and drierThe day is hot and dry but the soil underfoot is soft. “After four months of drought, we received the first rains yesterday,” says Maasai elder Abraham Kampalei. “All we can do now is pray that they continue.”Kampalei has lived for more than 50 of his 70 years with his family and animals in Oldonyonyokie, a hamlet in southern Kenya’s Kajiado county. He has witnessed the slow decline of the pastures. “I came here because of the abundance of grass for my livestock to graze. Today, there is almost nothing left of it,” he says. Continue reading...

A huge rise in internet users under the age of 30 has fuelled an increase in online violence against women and girls with devastating real-life effects, activists sayActivists and lawyers in Africa are calling for urgent action to protect women, girls and boys as digital violence surges across the continent.A massive rise in internet users, coupled with huge numbers of people aged under 30, has fuelled an increase in gendered online violence across the continent, according to experts, by giving perpetrators new tools to control and silence women and girls, and influence boys. Continue reading...

Conserving the watershed of the Tana and improving farming methods is securing water supplies and livelihoods alike in a changing climateWhen in 2017 David Nyoro became one of the first farmers to partner with Africa’s first water fund to conserve the watershed of Kenya’s biggest river, he received 180 high-value avocado seedlings. The 67-year-old’s farming methods had been dominated by annual crops that left large sections of his five-acre piece of land bare, increasing soil erosion and contributing to river sedimentation. “We used to lose a lot of topsoil to the river. Such loss of soil nutrients and poor farming practices meant we had less farm produce,” he says.The avocado seedlings enabled him to grow his farm income to close to 2m Kenyan shillings (about £11,500 at today’s exchange rates), with each mature avocado tree yielding 70kg (154lbs) annually. He introduced cover crops to improve soil health and reduce soil erosion and sediment loads. Continue reading...

Two rivers have overflowed their banks in Kenya, flooding farms and displacing families as the death toll from the natural disaster this month rose to 88, according to the Kenyan government.The latest flooding occurred in western Kenya, where the Nyando River overflowed on Monday, submerging sections of the Ahero Bridge along the Kericho–Awasi–Kisumu road and disrupting transport in the region.The number of people displaced from their homes in flooding that started earlier in March is now more than 34,000 Continue reading...

For many on the continent and among the diaspora, navigating multiple identities via cultural attire is a birthright, but it can create some complications• Don’t get The Long Wave delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereGood afternoon to everyone, apart from the organisers of Afcon.Several weeks ago, the Ghanaian president, John Dramani Mahama, wore the traditional fugu, a patterned smock, on a state visit to Zambia. He came in for mockery from Zambians (some of it lighthearted) on social media, with some calling it a “blouse”. Continue reading...

No more Kenyans to be enlisted by Moscow; Starmer warns against fossil fuel ‘windfall for Putin’ during war on Iran. What we know on day 1,483Russia has agreed to stop recruiting Kenyan citizens to fight with its army in Ukraine, Kenya’s foreign minister said on Monday after talks with his Russian counterpart in Moscow. More than 1,780 citizens from 36 African countries are believed to be fighting alongside Russia in Ukraine, according to Ukraine’s estimates in February. Kenya’s intelligence services estimate more than 1,000 Kenyans have been sent to fight, according to a report seen by Agence France-Presse (AFP). “We have now agreed that Kenyans shall not be enlisted,” the Kenyan foreign minister, Musalia Mudavadi, told reporters, sitting alongside the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov.Since ordering troops into Ukraine in 2022, Russia has been widely accused of recruiting people from other nationalities to fight alongside its army. Lavrov said Kenyan citizens had voluntarily signed contracts to fight alongside the Russian army. Kenyan long-distance runner Evans Kibet – captured by Ukraine and held as a prisoner of war – told AFP in an interview from the facility where he was detained that he had been tricked into signing an army contract after going to Russia for a sporting event.Keir Starmer, who will host Volodymyr Zelenskyy for talks on Tuesday, has warned the US-Israeli war on Iran cannot be allowed to become a “windfall for Putin”. Russia has received €6bn (£5bn) from selling its fossil fuels in the fortnight since the start of the war, data suggests. Zelenskyy’s visit will come on the day of the government deadline for the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich to pay proceeds from his sale of Chelsea FC to victims of the Ukraine war, writes Jessica Elgot. Zelenskyy will visit Madrid on Wednesday for talks with Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez.Belgium’s prime minister, Bart De Wever, has been criticised for calling for the normalisation of relations with Russia to re-establish cheap energy supplies, Jennifer Rankin reports. De Wever said Europe had to rearm “and at the same time we must normalise relations with Russia and regain access to cheap energy. It is common sense. In private European leaders tell me I am right, but no one dares say it out loud.”Russia has taken control of 12 settlements in Ukraine in the first two weeks of March as part of advances along the frontline in eastern and southern Ukraine, according to Russian state-run news agencies, quoting top general Valery Gerasimov. Gerasimov said Russian forces were “actively moving towards Sloviansk,” a heavily defended town in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region long seen as one of Moscow’s major targets.Russian air defence units downed at least 67 Ukrainian drones headed for Moscow on Monday, according to data published by the city’s mayor, Sergei Sobyanin. Sobyanin also said on Telegram that air defence units had shot down about 250 Ukrainian drones approaching Moscow over the previous two days.Drone debris crashed on to the historic Maidan square in central Kyiv early on Monday during a rare daytime Russian attack on the Ukrainian capital, AFP journalists reported. The Ukrainian air force described the rush hour barrage as an “unusual” attack of “various types of strike drones”. It added that its air defence units had downed 194 Russian drones out of 211 launched overnight and into Monday. Three people were killed in the attacks overnight, officials said – one in the Zaporizhzhia region and two more in the Dnipropetrovsk region.A damaged Russian gas tanker that has been drifting in the Mediterranean without a crew for almost two weeks has 700 tonnes of fuel on board, Russia’s foreign ministry said Monday. A series of explosions rocked the Arctic Metagaz on 3 March, causing serious damage to the vessel and forcing its crew to evacuate. Russia said the ship, sanctioned by the US and the EU for being part of Moscow’s “shadow fleet”, was attacked by Ukrainian sea drones. Ukraine has not commented. Continue reading...

My friend Herbert Munk, who has died aged 94, was an electrical engineer who spent 40 years at GEC in Coventry, where his achievements in telecoms included working on the team that developed the UK’s first branch telephone exchange controlled by computer.Herbert was born in Vienna to an Austrian mother, Elly (nee Loewenbein), and a Czech father, Hans. Soon after his birth the family escaped to Zagreb in Yugoslavia, then to British-ruled Kenya, where his father ultimately became a coffee farmer. Continue reading...

The perpetrators were jailed for 15 years for robbery with violence in the east African country, where homophobic attacks are increasingThe sentencing of two people who attacked and robbed two gay men in Kenya has been hailed by LGBTQ+ rights advocates as a breakthrough and a sign of hope for the country’s queer community. “Abel Meli & Another” were sentenced to 15 years in prison for robbery with violence on 3 March at Milimani law courts in Nairobi.The ruling is a rare example of justice being served for the queer community in Kenya. Njeri Gateru, the executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, an independent human rights institution working towards equality for sexual and gender minorities in Kenya, said: “A lot is going against [the queer community] with the existence of the criminal laws and prevailing homophobic attitudes, but some of us still trust that we can find justice, so this case encourages us.” Continue reading...

Torrential downpours hit Kenyan capital city which has poor drainage systemsLate last week, torrential rain in Nairobi, Kenya, led to severe flooding. Heavy thunderstorms on Friday, in combination with poor drainage systems in parts of the city, led to at least eight flooding deaths and two deaths linked to electrocution, while more than 70 vehicles became trapped or stranded.The Kenya meteorological department had issued a moderate to heavy rainfall warning for much of the country from Tuesday 3 March to Monday 9 March, with the heaviest rainfall expected between Wednesday and Saturday. Continue reading...

Plastic, textiles, e-waste and more end up at the vast Dandora site, where waste pickers spend all hours sifting through toxic debris looking for recyclablesOn my journey documenting environmental stories in Kenya, I attended the Africa Climate Summit in 2023. It ignited a deeper exploration into the lives of waste pickers, revealing a glaring omission in global recycling narratives: the invisibility of these essential workers.Living and working in Nairobi, I immersed myself in Dandora, the largest dump in Kenya, spanning more than 12 hectares (30 acres) near the Nairobi River and receiving an estimated 2,000 tonnes of industrial and domestic waste daily. For months I witnessed first-hand how waste is devastating local ecosystems and human lives. Kenya’s waste streams are now overwhelmed by single-use plastics from companies shifting the burden on to informal workers.Pre-sorting has reduced the amount of recylables in the waste brought by truck to Dandora Continue reading...

At festival in Kenya, artists and writers discuss role arts can play in continent’s growing push for redress over colonial crimes• More than money: the logic of slavery reparationsOne afternoon last October, at a hotel in a forest in a Nairobi suburb, a few dozen people sat quietly in a room watching the 2020 documentary If Objects Could Speak, which explores restitution by tracing the roots of a Kenyan artefact stored in a German museum.The people were at the two-day Wakati Wetu (“Our Time” in Swahili) festival, aimed at sparking global conversations on reparative justice. Continue reading...