Namibia celebrates its 31st independence day this month [https://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/namibia-gains-independence]. But Namibians are not in a festive mood. A 2019 survey [http://www.afrobarometer.org/press/trust-political-institutions-decline-namibia-afrobarometer-survey-shows] by Afrobarometer, the independent African research network, showed a significant loss of trust in the country’s governance. Worse: 2020 became “a year like no other [https://ippr.org.na/publication/namibia-q

Over the past 10 years, Indian television series have become a feature in many households across Ghana as they’ve become available on cable and satellite channels. Romantic dramas (such as Til the End of Time) and historical dramas (such as Razia Sultan), have gained popularity. One show loosely based on Jane Austen’s classic novel Sense and Sensibility called Kumkum Bhagya has even been dubbed in Twi [http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh/handle/123456789/22658], an Akan language spoken in southern and ce

Fashion is rarely just about utility. It’s also a means of self-expression and a way to communicate status and identity. With lots of shoppers today seeking ways to signal these attributes in the digital world as much as the physical one, it’s created an opportunity for fashion to go virtual. Some of the industry’s top luxury brands are ready, and one market they’re likely to break into is non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, the blockchain-backed unique digital assets that have been selling for start

Lights, cameras, cops. These are among the new safety measures [https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-56410943] the British government introduced this week, amid the clamor for safer streets after the abduction and murder [https://qz.com/1983879/london-police-criticized-for-arresting-women-at-everard-vigil/] of Sarah Everard, 33, this month. The plan includes investing £45 million ($62 million) for additional street lights and video surveillance cameras, and placing more undercover police in bars and n

The US, home to more oil refineries than any other country, lost its title to China as the world’s largest refiner of raw crude oil in 2020. China began refining more crude oil into gasoline and other products for the first time during the pandemic, according to new data [https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/weekly/?src=email] from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), and it has largely remained in the lead. The upset is largely due to the pandemic-related drop in demand for gasoline and je

LeBron James has already amassed one of, if not the most, impressive on-court careers of any great basketball player. James, a 16-time all-star and four-time champion, has led three separate franchises to National Basketball Association championship glory and amassed an enviable net worth. James’s exact wealth is hard to pin down, but in 2018 Forbes estimated it to be about $450 million [https://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2018/11/20/how-lebron-james-built-a-net-worth-of-450-million/?sh

Shares in gas-guzzling car makers from Volkswagen to General Motors are soaring as they talk up their plans for electric vehicles. While they are light years from catching up to the market value of Tesla, the gains suggest growing faith from investors that companies from Detroit to Deutschland can reinvent themselves. Volkswagen, the world’s second-biggest car seller, has risen more than 50% in the stock market this year, according to FactSet data. GM stock has rallied 46%, while shares of Toky

As the Communist Party’s crackdown on Hong Kong merges with its crackdown on Jack Ma’s tech empire, it’s sparking intense worry about the future of the city’s 117-year-old newspaper of record. When Ma’s Alibaba Group acquired the South China Morning Post in 2015 from a Malaysian tycoon, amid increasing signs that Beijing was tightening control of Hong Kong, fears swirled that the new ownership would undermine the English-language broadsheet’s editorial independence. But Ma and Gary Liu, CEO of

The global economy needs to go electric. Most economists agree that the quickest, lowest-cost way [https://www.princeton.edu/news/2020/12/15/big-affordable-effort-needed-america-reach-net-zero-emissions-2050-princeton-study] to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions is to plug everything that now burns fossil fuels—vehicles, buildings, factories—into a clean electricity grid. How much strain will that put on the grid? By 2050, the US will demand nearly 90% more power than it did in 2018, in a sce

The Zulu dynasty has almost been felled numerous times by trials [https://www.britannica.com/event/Anglo-Zulu-War], trysts [https://www.news24.com/news24/mynews24/queen-nandi-a-remarkable-woman-20140829] and tragedies [https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/origins-battle-blood-river-1838], but has stood steady through the centuries. The largest ethnic group [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zulu_people] and nation in South Africa today, counting in excess of 10 million people, the Zulus have a fami

In April 2016, when American electric carmaker Tesla first opened pre-bookings for its Model 3 sedan for Indians, a bunch of prominent tech entrepreneurs [https://qz.com/india/652561/indias-entrepreneurs-are-already-pre-ordering-teslas-model-3-even-though-they-have-no-idea-how-much-itll-cost/] immediately shelled out—and flaunted—the $1,000 (Rs72,000) needed to get into the queue. These people neither knew how much Tesla Model 3 would cost in India nor had any idea about when it would be ready

Nike is straining to get its shoes and clothes into the US from the overseas factories that produce them [https://qz.com/1274044/nike-and-adidas-are-steadily-ditching-china-for-vietnam-to-make-their-sneakers/] , dragging down sales in its largest market. The company said today its quarterly sales in North America fell 10.4% [https://investors.nike.com/investors/news-events-and-reports/investor-news/investor-news-details/2021/NIKE-Inc.-Reports-Fiscal-2021-Third-Quarter-Results/default.aspx] com

When I received a text from England’s National Health Service (NHS) informing me that I could sign up to get a Covid-19 vaccine, I clicked on the link and found an available slot just one hour later that same day. All that was left was to pick one of three possible vaccination centers close to where I live. The second option caught my eye: Westminster Abbey, where every British monarch [https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryMagazine/DestinationsUK/Westminster-Abbey/#:~:text=Situated%20in%20the%20gr

The pandemic has hit ride-hailing companies hard, but ride-sharing appears to be healing. Lyft says its ridesharing business last week was at its busiest since the pandemic started. And on March 17, for the first time in a year, daily rides volume for the ridesharing business was higher than the same day last year. Lyft says it expects year-over-year daily rides growth to start doubling next week as it comes upon the first anniversary of the deepest one-week shock to its business amid lockdown

More than a decade before today’s surge of space SPACs [https://qz.com/1979846/virgin-galactic-launched-a-wave-of-space-spacs/], one satellite company proved that a merger with a blank check company can indeed succeed. That firm is Iridium, the satellite telecom valued at more than $5 billion. In 2020, its revenue grew to a record $583 million, and the company announced its first stock buyback plan. It’s been a lot of work to get there—and the circumstances might provide a word of warning to in

Eighteen founders and CEOs released a letter today [http://www.businessagainstdeathpenalty.org] calling for an international end to the death penalty, and asked fellow business leaders to join them in a campaign to abolish the practice in countries including the US and Egypt. The signatories include Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group and leader of the CEO campaign; Ariana Huffington, co-founder of the Huffington Post and founder and CEO of Thrive Global; and Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenf