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Swiss banks have been synonymous with secrecy for decades, conjuring up visions of vast riches safely held in mountain vaults. It's a strong brand — one Switzerland's government does everything it can to protect. But what's good for the banks' wealthy clients can be bad for everyone else. When...

Originally published in 2019, we revisit this in light of recent happenings in Mauritius. Independence did not decolonise African countries and did not put an end to European exploitation. On November 22, the deadline by which the United Kingdom was supposed to return the occupied Chagos...

Amid the complex web of international trade, proving the authenticity of a product can be near-impossible. But one company is taking the search to the atomic level. Five years ago, the textile giant Welspun found itself mired in a scandal that hinged on a single word: “Egyptian”. At the time...

Big tech relies on the victims of economic collapse. A woman living in Kenya’s Dadaab, which is among the world’s largest refugee camps, wanders across the vast, dusty site to a central hut lined with computers. Like many others who have been brutally displaced and then warehoused at the...

Workers in the Nairobi office are among the lowest-paid for the platform Daniel Motaung, a former Facebook content moderator employed by Sama, photographed near his home in South Africa on Feb. 11, 2022. Motaung alleges Sama wrongfully terminated him in 2019 while he was attempting to start a...

Investigators had tracked the man to a town in Spain, and an image found online confirmed that the police were on the right track. An image taken from Google Street View was used to track down the Sicilian gangster Gioacchino Gammino. ROME — Ever since he broke out of Rome’s Rebibbia prison...

If you don’t get a window seat at a top London restaurant it could be because you’re too ugly and will put off other customers, a new documentary claims. Researchers on Channel 4 show Tricks of the Restaurant Trade discovered the best-looking diners were seated near windows to entice customers...

Burkinabe architect Diébédo Francis Kéré's studio has built a university in Burkina Faso, western Africa, which has walls made with locally sourced clay and screens of eucalyptus wood. The facility, named the Burkina Institute of Technology, forms part of Lycée Schorge Secondary School campus...

The African Development Bank (AfDB) recently put out an Africa Visa Openness report—the first of its kind—assessing how easy it is for African travelers to visit other countries on the continent. For me, this report could not have been more timely. I am a Kenyan citizen. At the time I was in...

I was engaged to an undercover police officer - everything in the relationship was a lie. Donna McLean: ‘My steady life has become a scattered jigsaw puzzle, so many pieces missing.’ To me, Carlo was the activist who swept me off my feet. Only years later did I discover that nothing he told...

Nairobi’s tag line might be the ‘green city in the sun’, but over the past year there has been a constant assault on the green part. The government of Kenya has cut at least 200 trees across the capital and plans to cull several more while building an elevated highway to connect the airport in...

The seedlings are ready. One hundred and fifty thousand shoots of drought-resistant acacia, hardy baobab and Moringa spill out of their black plastic casings. The ground has been prepared with scores of kilometer-long furrows leading to a horizon studded with skeletal thorn trees. It’s early...

The atypical nature of Iranian diplomacy can be seen in a story from June 2012, when two Iranian terrorists were arrested in Kenya and charged with possession of explosives. SAYED MOUSAVI (left) and Ahmad Mohammed stand during sentencing at the Kenyan High Court in Nairobi in May 2013. They...

Pretoria - In a victory judgment for “Please Call Me” (PCM) inventor Nkosana Makate the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria on Tuesday found he was shortchanged by Vodacom and that the cellphone giant must go back to the drawing board to come up with a suitable amount. A file picture of ’Please Call...

How Western states used maps to downplay size of continent On a typical world map, Canada is a vast nation. Home to six time zones, its endless plains spread from ocean to ocean, dominating great swathes of the northern half of the globe. But, in reality, three Canadas would comfortably fit...

The UAE rejects any involvement in illegal practices. African exporters say tons of their gold goes missing in Dubai every year. A small-scale gold milling business outside the town of Atbara in Sudan’s River Nile State on Oct 12. In the moon-like landscape of northern Sudan, informal gold...

Deep lake water cooling (DLWC) is used to cool over 100 buildings in Toronto. It saves enough electricity to power a town of 25,000 — and it’s so popular the city is pursuing an expansion. Inside Enwave’s deep lake water cooling system in Toronto. The power station, the largest of its kind...

The creation of the modern, interconnected world is generally credited to European pioneers. But Africa was the wellspring for almost everything they achieved – and African lives were the terrible cost It would be unusual for a story that begins in the wrong place to arrive at the right...

Researchers warn that as green spaces give way to buildings, temperatures will rise with dire health repercussions especially for the poor. Whichever side of Nairobi you are living in, you must have realised nights in the city have become outrageously warm over the recent months that you rarely...

South Africa under apartheid was the Israeli defense industry’s biggest customer and funded its most ambitious projects. The South Africans were in effect a “captive customer”: The South African army had huge funds at its disposal, but due to the sanctions regime, the West refused to supply it...