Technology and the future of jobs in Africa

https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/global_kenya_electronics_manufacturing_manager.jpg?w=259 Rapid tech­no­log­i­cal advances are bring­ing major changes to work­places around the world. In the U.S., this has been a source of both joy—for those able to work from home thanks to advanced video tech­nol­o­gy and the inter­net of things (IoT)—and sor­row for those who lost their job due to advanced robot­ics. Pre­dict­ing the impact…

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U.S. Allows Hunters to Import Some Elephant Trophies From African Countries

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2022/04/01/science/01trophies/01trophies-moth.jpg After set­tling a law­suit filed dur­ing the Trump admin­is­tra­tion, the Fish and Wildlife Ser­vice grant­ed six per­mits to bring ele­phant parts into the coun­try. It may approve more in the com­ing months. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Ser­vice informed some hunters last month that it would allow the import of six ele­phant tro­phies into…

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African refugees see racial bias as US welcomes Ukrainians — WXYZ

(AP) — African refugees say the recent deci­sion to grant refugee sta­tus and oth­er human­i­tar­i­an pro­tec­tions to Ukraini­ans flee­ing war under­scores the racial bias inher­ent in Amer­i­can immi­gra­tion pol­i­cy. Wil­fred Tebah says he and oth­er immi­grants from Cameroon have long been deserv­ing of sim­i­lar human­i­tar­i­an con­sid­er­a­tions. They also argue that Con­go and Ethiopia should qual­i­fy because of their ongo­ing con­flicts, as should Mau­ri­ta­nia. The Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty said it con­tin­ues “mon­i­tor­ing con­di­tions in var­i­ous coun­tries.” Pres­i­dent Joe Biden recent­ly announced the U.S. would take in 100,000 Ukrain­ian refugees and grant Tem­po­rary Pro­tect­ed Sta­tus to anoth­er 30,000 already in the country.

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African countries respond to global inflation [Business Africa] | Africanews

In Africa, gov­ern­ments are step­ping up their efforts to mit­i­gate the impact of the Rus­sia-Ukraine cri­sis on their cit­i­zens’ wal­lets. Accord­ing to UNCTAD data, no less than 25 African coun­tries import more than a third of their wheat from Rus­sia and Ukraine; 15 import more than half and two coun­tries, Benin and Soma­lia, import 100%. So how is Africa try­ing to lim­it the impacts of this crisis?
Ghana presents robust dig­i­tal econ­o­myGhana has recent­ly embarked on the trans­for­ma­tion of sev­er­al pub­lic ser­vices. An iden­ti­ty card serves as a bio­met­ric pass­port and tax iden­ti­fi­ca­tion num­ber. In this way, the coun­try intends to mobilise domes­tic rev­enue and pros­e­cute all those who evade tax­es before the end of the year. This dig­i­tal pol­i­cy, which affects all sec­tors, should be a response to finan­cial exclu­sion and the pre­dom­i­nance of the infor­mal sector.
Burun­di cof­fee sec­tor strug­gles to rebound­In Burun­di, cof­fee accounts for near­ly 40% of export resources, and sup­ports 8 mil­lion Burun­di­ans. With the fail­ure of the pri­vati­sa­tion of the sec­tor, the state has been run­ning the sec­tor since 2019, but pro­duc­tion fig­ures remain low, drop­ping from 34,000 to 6,000 tonnes for the 2021–2022 grow­ing sea­son. Cof­fee grow­ers’ dis­con­tent is grow­ing, as well as the lack of trace­abil­i­ty of all actors involved in the sector.

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Kenya’s Supreme Court Rejects President’s Plan to Amend Constitution

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2022/03/31/world/31kenya-court01/31kenya-court01-moth.jpg Civ­il soci­ety groups had crit­i­cized the pro­pos­al as an attempt to expand pres­i­den­tial pow­er and strength­en the elite’s grip on nation­al pol­i­tics. NAIROBI, Kenya — Kenya’s top court on Thurs­day quashed an ini­tia­tive by the pres­i­dent to amend the Con­sti­tu­tion, deal­ing a major blow to a plan that could have cement­ed his abil­i­ty to shape…

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‘I can fight with a keyboard’: How one Ukrainian IT specialist exposed a notorious Russian ransomware gang

As Russ­ian artillery began rain­ing down on his home­land last month, one Ukrain­ian com­put­er researcher decid­ed to fight back the best way he knew how — by sab­o­tag­ing one of the most for­mi­da­ble ran­somware gangs in Rus­sia. Four days into Rus­si­a’s inva­sion, the researcher began pub­lish­ing the biggest leak ever of files and data from Con­ti, a syndicate…

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