Month: January 2024

Beekeepers in Kenya are turning away from traditional honey harvesting to tap into the growing market for bee venom, a substance gaining popularity in alternative medicine.

The non-lethal extraction process is revolutionizing the industry, providing a sustainable source of income for local beekeepers.

Using specialized bee venom collectors, beekeepers like Hamza Shabir stimulate bees to excrete venom without causing harm. This innovative approach ensures the bees’ survival while meeting the rising demand for apitoxin, commonly known as bee venom. Each bee contains only a few milligrams of venom, making the extraction process intricate and time-consuming.

Ezekiel Mumo, another beekeeper, highlights the potential of bee venom farming, stating, “Bee venom guarantees you daily income because you can harvest it every day as compared to other bee products, like conventional honey, which you have to wait for four months to harvest.”

The local market values a gram of bee venom at $30, while the international market sees prices soar to $100, emphasizing the economic potential for Kenyan beekeepers.

Alternative medicine practitioners, known as apitherapists, are increasingly incorporating bee venom into treatments. Patients, seeking relief from various ailments, are reporting positive outcomes. Apitherapist Stephen Kimani, trained in Romania, explains that bee venom triggers the production of beneficial antibodies in the body, drawing from ancient Chinese practices to target specific conditions.

Despite the positive reception of apitherapy in Kenya, there is currently no specific regulation for the practice. However, precautions, including allergy tests, are taken to minimize potential adverse reactions.

The bee venom industry’s rise highlights a harmonious balance between economic opportunity and ecological responsibility, as sustainable practices are employed to meet the surging demand for this unconventional yet valuable resource.

Zimbabwe’s main opposition leader said Thursday he has quit his party, accusing the country’s ruling party of hijacking the organization and causing the removal of dozens of his members of parliament and councilors.

Nelson Chamisa, 45, was President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s main rival in the 2018 and 2023 disputed elections. On Thursday, he accused Mnangagwa of decimating the opposition by authoritarian means.

In a 13-page statement on his social media platforms and on the party’s page on X, formerly Twitter, Chamisa criticized the economically and politically troubled southern African country’s record of authoritarianism.

“With immediate effect, I no longer have anything to do with CCC (Citizens Coalition for Change),” he said.

Chamisa said he would remain active in public service and told supporters “there are fresh things we need to do,” urging them “to rally behind fresh politics” as he prepares to announce his next step.

Chamisa formed the Citizens Coalition for Change party in 2022, breaking from the country’s longtime opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, or MDC, after the High Court in the capital, Harare, ruled that he was not the legitimate leader.

He contested last year’s elections that he later described as a “gigantic fraud, garnering 44% of the vote to Mnangagwa’s 52.6%. His party took control of all major cities and towns and also won enough parliamentary seats to deny the ruling ZANU-PF party a two-thirds majority. That would have allowed the ruling party to change the constitution to possibly allow a third term for Mnangagwa.

But the 45-year-old has struggled to hold his party together since the elections after a man claiming to be the party’s secretary-general began removing elected officials with support from parliamentary authorities, the government and the courts. Chamisa said his party didn’t even have a position of secretary-general and described the man, Sengezo Tshabangu, as an imposter and fraudster.

Tshabangu hasn’t been available for interviews with international media outlets but in interviews with local media he said he took over the post on an interim basis after Chamisa failed to create party positions.

Chamisa has been unsuccessful in stopping the recalls of MPs and councilors.

The courts have also repeatedly ruled to remove the fired officials from the ballot each time they have attempted to contest by-elections to reclaim their positions under the CCC name, resulting in ruling party candidates taking over seats in traditional urban opposition strongholds.

On Thursday, the charismatic lawyer and pastor said he has had enough.

“ZANU-PF can take everything that we sweated for, take the party and its name, take the money and whoever is a beneficiary of this fraud,” he said.

The ruling party has denied that it has a hand in the recalls, or that Mnangagwa is angling for a third term once he completes his second and final term in 2028, attributing the developments to opposition infighting instead.

The opposition and global and local human rights groups have in the past accused Mnangagwa, 81, of using violence, arrests, detentions and the judiciary to crush dissenting voices despite promising an end to repression that characterized his predecessor, the late long-ruling Robert Mugabe, who was in power for 37 years.

Mnangagwa replaced Mugabe after the army-backed 2017 coup with promises of democratic reforms. He won his first term, narrowly beating Chamisa in another disputed election in 2018 and is now being accused of being as repressive as his predecessor and mentor.

A former Mugabe ally, Mnangagwa denies allegations of clamping down on the opposition. He insists that his government has improved the political environment and human rights situation.

Two British museums are returning gold and silver artifacts to Ghana under a long-term loan arrangement — 150 years after the items were looted from the Asante people during Britain’s colonial battles in West Africa.

The British Museum and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, together with the Manhyia Palace Museum in Ghana, on Thursday announced the “important cultural’’ collaboration, which sidesteps U.K. laws that prohibit the return of cultural treasures to their countries of origin. Those laws have been used to prevent the British Museum from returning the Parthenon Marbles, also known as the Elgin Marbles, to Greece.

Some 17 items in total are involved in the loan arrangement, including 13 pieces of Asante royal regalia purchased by the V&A at auction in 1874. The items were acquired by the museums after they were looted by British troops during the Anglo-Asante wars of 1873-74 and 1895-96.

“These objects are of cultural, historical and spiritual significance to the Asante people,’’ the museums said in a statement. “They are also indelibly linked to British colonial history in West Africa, with many of them looted from Kumasi during the Anglo-Asante wars of the 19th century.”

The items covered by the loan agreement represent just a fraction of the Asante artifacts held by British museums and private collectors around the world. The British Museum alone says it has 239 items of Asante regalia in its collection.

Nana Oforiatta Ayim, special adviser to Ghana’s culture minister, said the deal was a “starting point,” given British laws that prohibit the return of cultural artifacts. But ultimately the regalia should be returned to its rightful owners, she told the BBC.

“I’ll give an analogy, if somebody came into your house and ransacked it and stole objects and then kept them in their house, and then a few years later said, ‘You know what, I’ll lend you your objects back,’ how would you feel about that?” she said.

Morocco coach Walid Regragui was given a four-game ban  with two suspended  on Wednesday in response to heated scenes Sunday at the end of the team’s Africa Cup of Nations game against Congo.

The Confederation of African Football also imposed fines of $20,000 each on the soccer federations of Morocco and Congo, plus $5,000 on Regragui.

CAF’s statement also said it fined the Moroccan federation an additional $10,000 “for the use of smoke bombs by its supporters during the match,” with half the amount suspended.

The Moroccan federation said it will appeal CAF’s “unjust decision” to ban Regragui because the coach “did not commit any behavio r that violates the spirit of sportsmanship.”

Regragui watched from the stands as Morocco beat Zambia 1-0 in their final group game late Wednesday.

Regragui and Congo captain Chancel Mbemba had a heated exchange after their team’s match ended 1-1 in San Pedro on Sunday. It led to a melee between players and officials from both teams that continued as they went down the players’ tunnel.

Mbemba implied to journalists after the game that Regragui insulted him, but the Morocco coach on Tuesday denied making any racist comments.

Mbemba’s Instagram account was subjected to a stream of racist abuse, while Regragui said he received death threats in the fallout.

TV replays showed Regragui seeking Mbemba after the game when the player was on his knees giving thanks in a personal moment. Mbemba took Regragui’s hand and clapped him on the back. But Regragui kept hold of Mbemba’s hand and carried on talking. He appeared to be saying, “Look at me.” The player angrily pulled his hand away and gestured for the video referee before players from both sides jumped in.

An unregulated gold mine collapsed late last week in Mali, killing more than 70 people, an official said Wednesday, and a search continued amid fears that the toll could rise.

Karim Berthé, a senior official at the government’s National Geology and Mining Directorate, confirmed the details to The Associated Press and called it an accident.

There were around 100 people in the mine at the time of the collapse, according to Abdoulaye Pona, president of the Mali Chamber of Mines, who was at the scene.

The cause of the collapse, which happened in Kangaba district in the southwestern Koulikoro region on Friday, was under investigation. It was first reported on Tuesday in a Ministry of Mines statement that estimated “several” miners dead.

Such tragedies are common in Mali, Africa’s No. 3 gold producer. Artisanal miners — small-scale, informal ones — are often accused of ignoring safety measures, especially in remote areas.

“The state must bring order to this artisanal mining sector to avoid these kinds of accidents in the future,” Berthé said.

The Ministry of Mines statement “deeply regretted” the collapse, and urged miners and communities living near mining sites to “comply with safety requirements.”

In recent years, there have been concerns that profits from unregulated mining in northern Mali could benefit extremists active in that part of the country.

The region of this latest collapse, however, is far to the south of that and closer to the capital, Bamako.

“Gold is by far Mali’s most important export, comprising more than 80% of total exports in 2021,” according to the International Trade Administration with the U.S. Department of Commerce. It says more than 2 million people, or more than 10% of Mali’s population, depend on the mining sector for income.

Artisanal gold mining is estimated to produce around 30 tons of gold a year and represents 6% of Mali’s annual gold production.

The Ministry of Mines has estimated that the country has 800 tons in gold deposits. The country also has an estimated 2 million gold miners operating in around 300 artisanal mining sites, Pona said.