Africa leads growth in solar energy as demand spreads beyond traditional markets, report says A report shows that Africa has emerged as the world's fastest-growing solar market even as global growth slowed last year, driven by a 60% surge in imports of solar panels from China.

Solar exploded across Africa in 2025:

apnews.com/article/sola...

The Continent Issue 228 Cover

1/ Issue 228 of The Continent is out: Wagner’s info warriors, post-Prigozhin. Leaked docs reveal their influence in 22 African countries. We focus on South Africa, Mali, CAR, Niger & Angola.

🔴🇷🇺#Propaganda Machine: Secret documents reveal Russia’s foreign influence strategy across three continents.

@thecontinent.org @istories.bsky.social @opendemocracy.net @aeowinpact.bsky.social Dossier Center

This is the cover of The Continent, dated 31 January 2026, Issue 226. It is illustrated by Tanzanian satirist Gado. The background is deep blue and textured like a computer circuit board, with thin silver lines and nodes spreading across the page. At the centre is a microchip, tilted slightly. On the chip is the Kenyan flag — black, red, white, and green — with the national shield and spears in the middle. Beneath the flag, in bold white letters, are the words “MADE IN KENYA.” The chip is embedded into the circuitry, as if it is part of the system. Surrounding the chip are dark, shadowy silhouettes of large hands reaching inward from the top and bottom edges of the cover. The hands are not detailed — they appear almost like cut-out shadows. At the top, the newspaper’s name “The Continent” appears in large white letters. Along the very top edge, in smaller text, it reads “AFRICAN JOURNALISM | 31 JANUARY 2026 | ISSUE 226.” On the right-hand side, stacked in white text, is the headline: “The fight to save Kenya’s first microchip maker.”

All Protocol Observed

Welcome to Issue 226 of The Continent

The story of Kenya’s first semiconductor plant shows how quickly geopolitics can turn promise into collateral damage for the Global South.

bit.ly/226_TC

Lydia Namubiru: ‘Ik lees veel Afrika-verslaggeving waarbij de auteur er geen rekening mee hield dat iemand als ik die zou lezen’ Lydia Namubiru | hoofdredacteur The Continent Het pan-Afrikaanse blad The Continent positioneert zich nadrukkelijk als document dat het beeld van Afrika opnieuw ordent. Hoofdredacteur Lydia Namubiru z...

Met The Continent (@thecontinent.org) breekt Lydia Namubiru (@namlyd.bsky.social) bewust met de conventies van internationale verslaggeving.

Het blad werkt uitsluitend met journalisten met wortels in het continent zelf.

Must-read @nrc.nl⤵️

✨ #GIJC25 Spotlight ✨

Meet just a few of GIJC25's amazing speakers: Armel-Gilbert Bukeyeneza, @kuangkeng.bsky.social, Anuška Delić, Andy Lehren, @karolilagan.bsky.social, @marinawg.bsky.social, @namlyd.bsky.social & Hadi Al Khatib.

🗓️ Nov 20–24
📍 KL
🔗Register: https://twp.ai/9PWhYE

I’m a big deal now, I think.

Lydia Namubiru, editor of The Continent, on how to cover Sudan. The editor in chief of The Continent on how African writers cover Africa differently.

Lydia Namubiru @namlyd.bsky.social on How to Tell the Story of Sudan: The editor in chief of The Continent on how African writers cover Africa differently, with @moniango.bsky.social.
www.cjr.org/the-intervie...

In Kenya's capital, a new Rastafari temple shows the movement's endurance NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The rare event — opening a tabernacle made of wooden poles and roofed with iron sheets — illustrated the community’s expanding ranks in a country where until recently Rastafari…

The rare event — opening a tabernacle made of wooden poles and roofed with iron sheets — illustrated the community’s expanding ranks in a country where until recently Rastafari was not considered a legitimate religion.
religionnews.com/2025/08/20/i...

The cost of smelting copper in China is now -$45 a ton. This is historically very unusual. Mining companies normally pay to have their metals processed, now they get paid.

Hard to see how countries that plan to become wealthier by processing metals can compete with this.

This isn’t a hard man to track. The authorities could stop him if they wanted to.

Getting back into the swing of things after many moons of mostly academic writing with this fun piece on African women in the #wnba for @thecontinent.org.

(Rather than overload alt text, get the screen readable version here. It’s a free magazine sent to your phone wa.me/27738056068?...)

I HATE that this violence is happening in East Africa.

But I’m grateful for the independent, thorough, and fair reporting work being carried out by the folks over at The Continent (@thecontinent.org)

Thank you @hararereview.bsky.social for including me in this tribute to Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o for @thecontinent.org
www.thecontinent.org/_files/ugd/2...

Noticed a shift in the weather lately? You’re not the only one. A majority of Africans across 30 countries surveyed in 2024/2025 say the past decade has seen more severe droughts (55%). A similar proportion (54%) say crop failures have intensified. So this week, with World Environment Day (5 June) fresh in our minds, we’re asking: How have these and other consequences of climate change affected lifestyles and livelihoods on the continent? Asked about adaptations they and their families have had to make over the past five years, a third (33%) of respondents say they switched their water source or cut their level of consumption. Three in 10 say they adjusted outdoor workloads or schedules (30%) and altered their eating or crop-planting practices (30%). A quarter (26%) of those who keep livestock changed their grazing patterns or reduced their holdings. And nearly one in five (18%) physically moved homes. Climate change has hit the poor particularly hard: On every metric, they are between 12 and 15 percentage points more likely than the rich to have been forced to adapt their ways. #ClimateChange #TheContinent #Africa

Trying to weather the storm

Amid worsening drought and crop failure, Africans are adjusting their lives and habits to climate change.

Check out @afrobarometer.bsky.social’s latest survey in this week’s issue of The Continent: bit.ly/202_TC

Masterful writing. The #Continent is a fab innovation. Not just because it’s WhatsApp delivered. But because it’s African writers for African audiences. Sign up. @thecontinent.org @simonallison.bsky.social @siphok.bsky.social please tell author that this story is in-put-down able.

@wynonamutisi.bsky.social is one of my fav fav illustrators!

There’s still 36 million people here. That’s a lot of people to promote anything to. Is the app bad at promoting things outside one’s immediate following?

This is actually a selling point. I want to be in conversation with people (even on the internet) and that disappears above a certain follower count online. You became a “public intellectual” around whom people build camps and shout boos and ululations.

We gave ourselves, and the world, a new way to know Africa. Come celebrate our 200th issue. And of course get your weekly serving of excellent African journalism.

Tornado warnings delayed because of DOGE cuts At least 27 are dead in Missouri in Kentucky after severe weather alerts were delayed overnight because of DOGE cuts.

At least 27 are dead in Missouri in Kentucky after severe weather alerts were delayed overnight because of DOGE cuts.

www.mesoscalenews.com/p/tornado-wa...

An edition to read on a big screen because the photos of Algiers are achingly beautiful. Our first in a limited series of photo essays on African cities.

The cover of The Continent's Museum of Stolen History special edition shows a cabinet of historical artefacts which were looted from the African continent. It was illustrated by Wynona Mutisi. It shows Ngwi Ndem (‘Bangwa Queen’), The Golden Crown, The Rashid (Rosetta) Stone, The Lions of Tsavo, Okukor, The Cullinan Diamond, Kakuungu and Ekori.

All Protocol Observed

Welcome to The Museum of Stolen History.

This season, we profiled eight historical artefacts from every corner of Africa. We call it The Museum of Stolen History, in recognition of the fact that much of Africa’s history has been looted or erased.

Read it here: bit.ly/TCMoSH

But guys, why aren’t you sorting that Trump tariffs list before publishing it? Do you just want to see me run mad?

Whoah guys, 70s Lagos photos!!!

The cover of Issue 196 of The Continent is a photograph from the Abi Morocco Photo collection featuring a Lagosian wearing sunglasses, a short-sleeved shirt and trousers and reading a copy of Newsweek. The man has one leg propped up on a chair, bent at the knee, facing the photographer. The headline reads: "The lost Lagos photos"

All Protocol Observed

Welcome to Issue 196 of The Continent

Undeveloped photo films are gathering dust in studios all over Lagos. What is on those old camera rolls?

Find out here. bit.ly/Continent196

I published a story in this week's edition and, for the first time in my career, wondered: will this mean I won't get a visa for the United States?

"South Africa’s ruling party has already defeated one white supremacist state. Can it stand firm against another one?"

Screenshot of the Atlantic Signal exchanges, including Michael Waltz saying "the first target - their top missile guy - we had positive ID of him walking into his girlfriend's building and it's now collapsed".

Not to be a wide-eyed naïf about such things but... am I right in thinking that they levelled an entire building to get to one guy and *that* is not controversial to anyone in the American media or political class, only that this information was recklessly shared in an unsecured chat?

A chart labeled "Share of all deaths caused by HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa" between 2000 and 2021 shows a steady decline beginning in 2003, when the US launched its aid program to fund HIV/AIDS drugs

Several African nations could soon run out of HIV drugs following Washington’s freeze on foreign aid.

The US funding program for HIV drugs is credited with saving 26 million lives, and its potential closure threatens to “undo 20 years of progress,” the WHO chief said.