New tools for easing cross-border trade in Africa

African News Review, Brookings Institution, Business and Finance, Business and Investment, East Africa, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Mike Ogbalu, CEO of the Pan-African Pay­ment Set­tle­ment Sys­tem (PAPSS) at the African Export-Import Bank, dis­cuss­es PAPSS, a cross bor­der, finan­cial mar­ket infra­struc­ture enabling pay­ment trans­ac­tions across Africa. Relat­ed Con­tent Fore­sight Africa pod­cast is part of the Brook­ings Pod­cast Net­work. Sub­scribe and lis­ten on Apple, Spo­ti­fy, and wher­ev­er you lis­ten to pod­casts. Send feed­back email to podcasts@brookings.edu, and…

Harvard Creates Fund to Redress Its Ties to Slavery

Spotlight, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty is com­mit­ting $100 mil­lion to study and redress its ties to slav­ery, the university’s pres­i­dent announced Tues­day, and with that mon­ey will cre­ate an endowed “Lega­cy of Slav­ery Fund,” which will con­tin­ue research­ing and memo­ri­al­iz­ing that his­to­ry, work­ing with descen­dants of Black and Native Amer­i­can peo­ple enslaved at Har­vard, as well as their…

EMEA: Central African Republic Embraces Crypto | PYMNTS.com

African News Review, Business and Finance, Central Africa, UncategorizedLeave a comment

In today’s top Europe, Mid­dle East and Africa (EMEA) news, Cen­tral African Repub­lic Finance Min­is­ter Herve Ndo­ba said the use of cryp­tocur­ren­cies in the nation’s econ­o­my is com­ing, while London’s Tru­eLay­er has intro­duced vari­able recur­ring pay­ments (VRP). Plus, Face­book own­er Meta and Google pledged to per­mit only reg­is­tered finan­cial firms to adver­tise pro­mo­tions on their…

Elon Musk Is a Problem Masquerading as a Solution

Ethics, FactCheck, Fake News, UncategorizedLeave a comment

It is a per­fect mar­riage for an age of plu­toc­ra­cy: Twit­ter with its seri­ous prob­lems and Elon Musk, the embod­i­ment of those prob­lems. What hap­pens when the incar­na­tion of a prob­lem buys the right to decide what the prob­lem is and how to fix it? Twit­ter has a dis­in­for­ma­tion prob­lem — fake news about Covid vac­cines, cli­mate and more…

Widespread population immunity of Covid-19 observed in South Africa before Omicron wave

Covid-19, Spotlight, UncategorizedLeave a comment

1. Wide­spread under­ly­ing SARS-CoV­‑2 seropos­i­tiv­i­ty was observed in Gaut­eng province, South Africa, before the omi­cron wave.
2. Epi­demi­o­log­ic data demon­strat­ed a decou­pling of hos­pi­tal­iza­tions and deaths from infec­tions while omi­cron was circulating.
Evi­dence Rat­ing Lev­el: 2 (Good)
Study Run­down: The Omi­cron vari­ant was first iden­ti­fied in Novem­ber 2021 in Gaut­eng province, South Africa, and was des­ig­nat­ed as a vari­ant of con­cern due to its pre­dict­ed high trans­mis­si­bil­i­ty and its poten­tial to evade immu­ni­ty from neu­tral­iz­ing anti­bod­ies induced by vac­ci­na­tion or nat­ur­al infec­tion with wild-type virus. The omi­cron vari­ant out­com­pet­ed the delta vari­ant in Gaut­eng and was respon­si­ble for 98.4% of the cas­es sequenced in South Africa in Decem­ber 2021, and a pri­or pop­u­la­tion-wide sero­epi­de­mi­o­log­ic study demon­strate that 19.1% of the pop­u­la­tion was seropos­i­tive for Covid-19. How­ev­er, there is a gap in knowl­edge as to under­stand­ing the sero­preva­lence of Covid-19 before the omi­cron wave. This study found that there was wide­spread under­ly­ing SARS-CoV­‑2 seropos­i­tiv­i­ty in Gaut­eng before the omi­cron-dom­i­nant wave of Covid-19. This study was lim­it­ed by changes in the fre­quen­cy of test­ing over time which lim­it­ed head-to-head com­par­isons of case num­bers across waves, and the fourth omi­cron wave had not ful­ly sub­sided at the time of this analy­sis, which will result in a lag in the report­ing of data such as hos­pi­tal­iza­tions and deaths attrib­ut­able to this wave. Nev­er­the­less, these study’s find­ings are sig­nif­i­cant, as they demon­strate that there was wide­spread seropos­i­tiv­i­ty of Covid-19 in Gaut­eng pri­or to the omi­cron wave and that there was a decou­pling of hos­pi­tal­iza­tions and deaths from infec­tions while omi­cron was circulating.
Click to read the study in NEJM
Rel­e­vant Read­ing: Omi­cron — Decou­pling Infec­tion from Severe Disease
In-Depth [sero­epi­de­mi­o­log­ic sur­vey]: This sero­epi­de­mi­o­log­ic sur­vey was con­duct­ed from Octo­ber to Decem­ber 2021 in Gaut­eng province, South Africa, to deter­mine the sero­preva­lence of SARS-CoV­‑2 IgG, obtain­ing sam­ples from 7010 par­tic­i­pants, of whom 18.8% had received a Covid-19 vac­cine. Patients who live in the Gaut­eng province and were able to pro­vide writ­ten informed con­sent were eli­gi­ble for the study. Patients who resided out­side of the stud­ied province or declined to par­tic­i­pate were exclud­ed from the study. The pri­ma­ry out­come mea­sured was sero­preva­lence mea­sured with dried-blood-spot sam­ples and test­ed for IgG against SARS-CoV­‑2 spike pro­tein and nucle­o­cap­sid pro­tein. Out­comes in the pri­ma­ry analy­sis were assessed via unad­just­ed, uni­vari­able analy­ses for each risk fac­tor with gen­er­al­ized lin­ear mod­els with a log link to esti­mate risk ratios. Based on the analy­sis, the sero­preva­lence of SARS-CoV­‑2 IgG ranged from 56.2% among chil­dren younger than 12 years (95% Con­fi­dence Inter­val [CI], 52.6 to 59.7) to 79.7% among adults old­er than 50 years of age (95% CI, 77.6 to 81.5). 93.1% of vac­ci­nat­ed par­tic­i­pants were seropos­i­tive for SARS-CoV­‑2 while 68.4% of unvac­ci­nat­ed par­tic­i­pants were seropos­i­tive. Epi­demi­o­log­ic data also demon­strat­ed that the inci­dence of Covid-19 infec­tion increased and sub­se­quent­ly decreased more rapid­ly dur­ing the omi­cron wave than it had dur­ing the three pre­vi­ous waves. The inci­dence of infec­tion was decou­pled from the inci­dences of hos­pi­tal­iza­tion, record­ed death, and excess death dur­ing the fourth wave, as com­pared to the pro­por­tions seen in the pre­vi­ous three waves. Over­all, this study demon­strat­ed that there was wide­spread Covid-19 seropos­i­tiv­i­ty in the Gaut­eng province of South Africa before the omi­cron wave, show­ing that there was a decou­pling of hos­pi­tal­iza­tions and deaths from Covid-19 infec­tions while the omi­cron vari­ant was still circulating.
Image: PD
©2022 2 Minute Med­i­cine, Inc. All rights reserved. No works may be repro­duced with­out expressed writ­ten con­sent from 2 Minute Med­i­cine, Inc. Inquire about licens­ing here. No arti­cle should be con­strued as med­ical advice and is not intend­ed as such by the authors or by 2 Minute Med­i­cine, Inc.

‘Thanks, Putin’: Finnish and Swedish Lawmakers Aim for NATO Membership

Around the World, Foreign Policy Feed, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Finnish and Swedish oppo­si­tion lead­ers trav­eled to Wash­ing­ton this week to meet with U.S. offi­cials as their coun­tries kick-start debates on join­ing NATO in the wake of Russia’s inva­sion of Ukraine. Pet­teri Orpo, the chair of Finland’s cen­ter-right Nation­al Coali­tion Par­ty, and Ulf Kris­ters­son, the leader of the oppo­si­tion in Sweden’s par­lia­ment and head of…

Mwai Kibaki, Former President of Kenya, Dies at 90

African News Review, UncategorizedLeave a comment

He came to pow­er promis­ing to root out cor­rup­tion and improve gov­ern­ment trans­paren­cy. But his tenure was blight­ed by wide­spread graft and a vio­lent upheaval. NAIROBI, Kenya — Mwai Kiba­ki, who helped trans­form Kenya’s econ­o­my and ush­er in a new Con­sti­tu­tion as its third pres­i­dent, but whose tenure was marred by high-pro­­file cor­rup­tion cas­es and…

Symbiosis School of International Studies Launches MA in African Studies — News18

African News Review, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Sym­bio­sis School of Inter­na­tion­al Stud­ies (SSIS) has launched a mas­ters of arts in African stud­ies (geo-eco­nom­ics and for­eign pol­i­cy) that offers a holis­tic under­stand­ing of the African con­ti­nent and its rela­tion with major coun­tries in the world. The two year long mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary pro­gramme focus­es on the polit­i­cal, eco­nom­ic and socio-cul­tur­al envi­ron­ment of the con­ti­nent and its impact on glob­al affairs.Candidate should be a grad­u­ate from any statu­to­ry uni­ver­si­ty with a min­i­mum of 50 per cent marks (45 per cent for SC and ST) at the grad­u­a­tion lev­el. Can­di­dates appear­ing for the final year exam­i­na­tion can also apply, but their admis­sion will be sub­ject to obtain­ing a min­i­mum of 50 per cent marks (45 per cent for SC and ST) in the qual­i­fy­ing examination.
A can­di­date who has com­plet­ed qual­i­fy­ing qual­i­fi­ca­tion from any for­eign board/ uni­ver­si­ty must obtain an equiv­a­lence cer­tifi­cate from the Asso­ci­a­tion of Indi­an Uni­ver­si­ties (AIU) Sym­bio­sis School of Inter­na­tion­al Stud­ies (SSIS), a con­stituent of the Sym­bio­sis Inter­na­tion­al (Deemed Uni­ver­si­ty) was estab­lished in 2012 with the aim to bring a dis­course on inter­na­tion­al rela­tions through a well-designed aca­d­e­m­ic pro­gramme, con­fer­ences, sym­posia and exchanges with rel­e­vant stakeholders.
The MA African stud­ies cen­ters around the key areas of African econ­o­my, for­eign pol­i­cy, his­to­ry, cul­ture and iden­ti­ty. It also delves into the polit­i­cal process­es and insti­tu­tions, for a com­pre­hen­sive under­stand­ing of the upswing devel­op­ment tra­jec­to­ry of the region.
Along with empow­er­ing stu­dents to learn and under­stand the African con­ti­nent, the pro­gramme aims to strength­en ana­lyt­i­cal, crit­i­cal think­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills, includ­ing devel­op­ing a holis­tic under­stand­ing of the Unit­ed Nations’ Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goals. The pro­gramme will also help the stu­dent to work in a mul­ti­cul­tur­al environment.
Fur­ther, the third and fourth semes­ters offer elec­tives to help stu­dents deep-dive into the sub­ject around North, West and Cen­tral Africa and East­ern, South­ern Africa and Island nations. It also offers Ara­bic and French lan­guage learn­ing as part of its elec­tive courses.
The cur­ricu­lum includes a manda­to­ry intern­ship in the third semes­ter to help stu­dents imple­ment their the­o­ret­i­cal learn­ing with the real-world sce­nario. Post the com­ple­tion of pro­gramme, stu­dents can pur­sue a host of career paths across the cor­po­rates, the NGOs, the civ­il ser­vice, think tanks, the media hous­es and inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions or fur­ther, pur­sue doc­tor­al stud­ies in the domain.
Aspi­rants can apply for MA African Stud­ies (Geo-eco­nom­ics and For­eign Pol­i­cy) by vis­it­ing the offi­cial web­site of SSIS and reg­is­ter­ing for the pro­gramme. After suc­cess­ful online reg­is­tra­tion and pay­ment of fee, sub­ject to ful­fill­ment of admis­sion cri­te­ria, short­list­ed can­di­dates would be noti­fied for Per­son­al Inter­view (PI) via email.
The PI will be con­duct­ed vir­tu­al­ly and aspi­rants will have to book their pre­ferred slot for the same. Aspi­rants need to ensure unin­ter­rupt­ed con­nec­tiv­i­ty and a well-func­tion­ing mic to under­go the PI. The max­i­mum score for PI will be 100 marks and can cov­er gen­er­al aware­ness, clar­i­ty of thought and artic­u­la­tion, log­i­cal rea­son­ing, learn­ing ori­en­ta­tion, moti­va­tion, extracur­ric­u­lar activ­i­ties, spe­cif­ic field of inter­est, com­mu­ni­ca­tion and soft skills, and over­all personality.
Shiv­ali Lawale, Direc­tor, Sym­bio­sis School of Inter­na­tion­al Stud­ies said, “It brings us immense plea­sure to announce the launch of M.A in African Stud­ies focus­ing on Geo-eco­nom­ics and For­eign Pol­i­cy. With the launch of this pro­gramme, we are steadi­ly diver­si­fy­ing our plat­form for teach­ing and research in inter­na­tion­al rela­tions, with an empha­sis on India and its role in glob­al affairs. Through this pro­gramme, we hope to empow­er future lead­ers and cor­po­rates, who will strength­en the col­lab­o­ra­tions between India and Africa. We look for­ward to wel­com­ing our first batch of students.”
Read all the Lat­est News , Break­ing News and IPL 2022 Live Updates here.