Category: International

World’s third penis transplant has been successfully performed on a 40-year-old man in South Africa by doctors from Stellenbosch University (SU) and the Tygerberg Academic Hospital in Cape Town.

This is the second successful penis transplant performed in South Africa after the first operation in December 2014 by the same team.

The 40-year-old recipient is reported to have lost his penis 17 years ago due to complications after traditional circumcision.

It took the doctors, led by Professor André van der Merwe, nine and a half hours to perform the transplant on April 21, local news portal Health24 reported.

“He is certainly one of the happiest patients we have seen in our ward. He is doing remarkably well … There are no signs of rejection and all the reconnected structures seem to be healing well,” Van der Merwe said.

Within six months, the recipient will regain full functions of his new organ which has a colour discrepancy because he is a black man and the donor is white.

“Unfortunately we could not find a donor of the same race. In this case the donor is white and the recipient is black,” one of the team members Dr Amir Zarrabi told Health24, adding that the colour discrepancy will be later corrected with medical tattooing.

He expressed confidence that they will perform more successful transplants in the future.

“The loss of a penis from traditional circumcision is big, and we want to create sustainable programmes to help these people,” he added.

The second penis transplant in the world was performed in May 2016 on a 64-year-old man at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston in the United States.

France has returned 26 of its national treasures to Benin. Works of art looted in the 19th century during the colonial era that had been exhibited at the Quai Branly Museum in Paris.

The restitution act was signed by the Ministers of Culture of both countries, to the applause of Emmanuel Macron and his Beninese counterpart Patrice Talon.

Among the works returned are totem statues from the ancient kingdom of Abomey and the throne of King Behanzin, looted by French troops in 1892.

In Benin, the works will first be displayed for three months at the presidency before being transferred to the historical sites of slavery and European colonization in the Gulf of Guinea.

Benin president Patrice Talon says “The restitution of the 26 works we are dedicating today is a step in the ambitious process of equity and restitution of the memorial heritage once extorted from the territory of the Kingdom of Benin by France. “

The restitution of works of art to the African continent was one of President Emmanuel Macron’s promises and also one of the axes of the new relationship that the French president intends to build with Africa.

In addition to Benin, six countries – Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Chad, Mali and Madagascar – have filed claims for the return of works of art to France.

According to experts, almost 90% of Africa’s heritage is outside the continent.

At age 15, she debuted internationally on Ethiopia’s junior squad at the 2001 world cross-country championships, where she placed fifth. She continued with junior-level silver medals in cross-country and on the track in 2002. She won the world junior cross-country title in 2003, set a 5,000-metre junior world record and won gold in the 5,000 metres at the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) world track and field championships, making her the youngest-ever world champion in her sport.

Her sister, Genzebe, is not doing badly in sports. Ejegayehu, who is their older sister, is also an Olympian who won silver from Athens. Their cousin, Derartu Tulu, was the first Black African woman to win Olympic gold in the 1992 games. She won another Olympic gold medal in Sydney in 2000.

“It’s not a stretch to say they are the world’s fastest family”, Ato Boldon, NBC’s track analyst, told Vogue in 2016. The sisters have remained a household name in Ethiopia, a country that has produced some of the world’s greatest runners, alongside Kenya.

The mother of the Dibaba sisters told Vogue that the siblings are successful thanks to the environment they were raised in, especially the ready supply of milk they get from the family cows. According to Vogue, author David Epstein has said that much of Ethiopia and Kenya lies in an altitude “sweet spot” high enough to cause physiological changes but not so high that the air is too thin for hard training.

The runners’ feat is also attributed to their diet — especially teff rich in iron and calcium — and their “small lightweight frame”. The Dibaba sisters have the body type good for sports, analysts say. Boldon said in 2016 that if one compares the sisters to a car, they would be a Ford Focus with a Ferrari engine.

The Dibabas are good at sports but they don’t really like watching sports. They prefer movies, especially Amharic films, said Tirunesh, who in 2008 married fellow track-and-field Olympic medalist Sileshi Sihine in a nationally televised wedding ceremony.

And just like other successful athletes, the Dibabas have invested their monies back into their communities. The sisters, alongside their in-laws, are real estate moguls owning several buildings in Addis Ababa. Still, the sisters continue to shine brightly in the sports world.

 

 

The African entertainment industry is dominated by men. More than likely, when you think African comedian, you may picture a male. This does not negate the fact that women can garner some hearty chuckles from audiences as well. Here are some African comediennes who deserve a mention.

 

Gina Obedapo Yashere

Yashere is a British-born stand-up comedian of Nigerian descent.  In 2007, Yashere appeared on The Last Comic Standing but was quickly eliminated.  In 2008, she became the first Briton to appear on Def Comedy Jam. She since has appeared on The Tonight Show With Conan O’ Brian, and Live at the Apollo. 

In 2017, Yashere became the British correspondent for The Daily Show.

 

Jo-Issa “Issa” Rae Diop

American-born Senegalese actress, comedian, producer, and web series developer.  She’s best known for her shows Insecure and Awkward Black Girl.  Rae has appeared on Essence Magazine’s 2015 “game changer” edition. In 2017, Rae also scored big by gaining two show development deals with HBO.

 

Anne Kansiime

Kansiime Kubiryaba Anne is a Ugandan comedian and actress.  She started honing her acting skills by joining the theatre group at Makerere University while studying to earn her degree.  She garnered more noticeability when she started posting YouTube videos and tapings of her Don’t Mess With Kansiime TV show. She’s appeared on BBC Focus on Africa.  Kansiime can be seen on stages in Lagos, London, and Harare.

 

Emanuella

Ten-year-old Emanuella Samuel was born in Nigeria.  She gained fame with her appearance on the Mark Angel comedy video My Real Face. Emanuella can be seen in numerous skits on Facebook and YouTube.

 

Lihle Lindzy Msimang

Msimang is a South-African comedian, actress, writer, and presenter. She began her career by doing stand-up routines in Nandos Comedy Festival (Johannesburg and Cape Town), Johannesburg International Comedy Festival, Blacks Only Comedy, HIFA Comedy Festival in Zimbabwe and Gaborone International Culture Week in Botswana. Msimang has performed in premiere circuits such as Comic Strip in New York and Top Secret in London.  She also appeared on MTV’s You Got Got

 

 

Binance: Watchdog clamps down on cryptocurrency exchange - BBC News

There’s a new generation of investors in town: they’re young, they get their tips on YouTube, and they’re armed with apps that make the stock markets more accessible than ever before. From Nigeria to India, Gen Z are flocking to homegrown investment apps.

Dahunsi Oyedele, Nigerian investor, shares his experience.

“You can get started, run your account and start trading in less than 10 minutes. It’s the same thing with several other apps like that. So, they make it easier for you. And again, especially for crypto-currencies, you can easily transact, you can easily make transactions overseas. So instead of having to go to the bank, and then queueing, they say maybe you want a domiciliary account, instead of all that, just get a crypto-currency exchange, open it, start using USDT and you can send money anywhere.”

– About eNaira –

The country’s economic hub Lagos has long been known for its hustle and celebration of success, but the weakness of the naira currency has put extra pressure on youths to make cash as the cost of living has rocketed.

Nigerians have flocked to local apps such as Trove and Risevest which allow them to invest in US stocks, widely seen as a means of protecting wealth as the naira nightmare continues.

Oyedele, Nigerian investor (male, 23 years old, English):

“There isn’t much use for that in Nigeria (eNaira, Nigeria’s new digital currency) because a CBDC (central bank-backed digital currencies, ed.) has to work on internet infrastructure and in a country where just a little over half of the population has access to stable internet, then your CBDC isn’t going to be useful… “ Dahunsi further added.

Worldwide, the new arrivals are largely young. India’s Upstox, an online stock trading says more than 80 percent of its users are 35 or under, a figure matched by Nigeria’s Bamboo (83 percent).”

Trading apps have lowered the barriers to entry for youngsters in part by offering fractional trade.

A share in Amazon, for instance, is currently worth more than $3,000 — unaffordable for the average Gen Z or slightly older millennial. But a small fraction of that share might be within reach, particularly on an app that charges zero commission.

Tigrayan rebels raped, robbed and beat up several women during an attack on a town in Ethiopia’s Amhara region, Amnesty International said on Wednesday, the latest disturbing testimony from the year-long conflict.

The investigation, which draws on interviews with 16 sexual assault survivors in the town of Nifas Mewcha, follows an earlier report by the rights group that documented the rape of hundreds of women and girls by Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers in the Tigray region.

Wednesday’s report focused on assaults that took place in August during an offensive by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), with 14 of the 16 women interviewed telling Amnesty they were gang-raped by the rebels, in some cases at gunpoint and with their children watching.

‘The testimonies we heard from survivors describe despicable acts by TPLF fighters that amount to war crimes, and potentially crimes against humanity,’ said Amnesty’s secretary general Agnes Callamard.

‘They defy morality or any iota of humanity.’

In one of the many horrific incidents detailed in the report, Gebeyanesh — not her real name — said TPLF fighters gang-raped her while her children, aged nine and 10, wept.

‘Three of them raped me while my children were crying,’ the 30-year-old food seller said.

‘They slapped me (and) kicked me. They were cocking their guns as if they are going to shoot me.’

Many of the rapists used ethnic slurs against their victims, with a 28-year-old mother-of-two telling Amnesty that one of the four men who assaulted her called her a donkey while her daughter watched.

‘He was saying: ‘Amhara is a donkey, Amhara has massacred our people, the Federal Defence forces have raped my wife, now we can rape you as we want.”

Another woman told Amnesty she fell unconscious after TPLF fighters raped her and beat her, using the butts of their guns. The men also stole her jewellery after assaulting her, she said.

Mass rapes, massacres

Amhara government officials told Amnesty more than 70 women reported rapes in Nifas Mewcha during the TPLF’s nine-day rule over the town.

The rights group said the vast majority of the women interviewed were suffering from health problems as a result of the sexual assaults but were unable to get the help they needed after Nifas Mewcha hospital was damaged in the TPLF offensive.

The war, which has ravaged northern Ethiopia since November 2020, has been punctuated by accounts of massacres and mass rapes, with thousands of people killed and two million displaced.

A joint investigation by the office of UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet and the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) published last week found evidence of ‘serious abuses’ by all sides in the conflict, saying some of the violations may amount to crimes against humanity.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sent troops into Tigray in November 2020 to topple the TPLF and vowed a swift victory, but the rebels recaptured most of Tigray by June before expanding into the neighbouring regions of Amhara and Afar.

The TPLF and its allies have claimed several victories in recent weeks, taking towns about 400 kilometres (250 miles) from the capital, and have not ruled out marching on Addis Ababa.

The government says the rebels are greatly exaggerating their gains.