Alcohol may play a greater role in death from numerous types of cancers in the United States than previously known, according to a new study.

“While it’s true that overall cancer mortality has declined, we found the percentage of cancer deaths proportionally attributable to alcohol rose over 58% in people 20 and older over the last 33 years,” said the study’s first author Dr. Chinmay Jani.

The increased risk of death applies to breast, prostate, colon, rectum, stomach, pancreatic and liver cancers, as well as cancers of the head and neck, the research found.

“Overall, we know alcohol is closely related to liver cancer mortality,” said Jani, chief clinical fellow in hematology and oncology at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center of the University of Miami.

“Notably, among adults aged 20 to 54, colorectal cancer was the leading cause of alcohol-attributable cancer mortality in men and the second leading cause in women, surpassing liver cancer in both groups,” he said. “In women, the leading cause was alcohol-related breast cancer.”

It didn’t take much alcohol to raise one’s risk — about one standard drink a day, every day, Jani said. In the US, a standard drink is 12 ounces of regular beer, 5 ounces of wine or 1.5 ounces of 80-proof liquor.

For decades, federal guidelines have recommended that Americans limit their drinking to two standard drinks a day for men and one drink a day for women. In January, the Trump administration removed those limits, instead suggesting that people should “consume less alcohol for better overall health.”

While having a cocktail each evening was once considered to be an acceptable part of daily life, studies today show that’s an outdated belief, said cardiologist Dr. Andrew Freeman, director of cardiovascular prevention and wellness at National Jewish Health in Denver.

“What we used to think about alcohol continues to be eroded as modern science has shown us that there is no safe amount of alcohol consumption,” said Freeman, who was not involved with the new research. “This study in concert with several others suggests that the risks associated with consumption need much wider recognition.”

The Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, which represents the industry, told CNN in an email that the claim “there is ‘no safe level’ of alcohol consumption is not supported by this study.”

“It misrepresents the body of scientific evidence and the complex relationship between alcohol and health,” said Amanda Berger, senior vice president of science and research for the Council.

How alcohol contributes to cancer growth

Alcohol contributes to cancer growth in several ways, according to the National Cancer Institute, or NCI. Alcohol alters levels of hormones, including estrogen, a key reason for the link between drinking and breast cancer.

Alcohol is ethanol or ethyl alcohol, which is broken down by the liver into acetaldehyde, a “probable human carcinogen,” the NCI states on its website.

While the liver will further break down acetaldehyde into a harmless molecule called acetate, the process isn’t foolproof: acetaldehyde may damage DNA and interfere with DNA repair before conversion into acetate is complete.

Alcohol also contributes to oxidative stress, which damages DNA, proteins and cell function and creates inflammation. Drinking alcohol also weakens the cells in the mouth and throat, making them more susceptible to carcinogens. That’s even more likely to occur with smoking cigarettes, a major source of acetaldehyde.

In addition, alcohol interferes with the break down and absorption of key nutrients thought to decrease cancer risk — vitamins A, C, D and E as well as folates in the vitamin B complex, according to NCI.

Effects may differ by age and sex

The study, which was published Monday, August 31 in The Lancet Regional Health – Americas journal, analyzed more than three decades of US data gathered for the Global Burden of Disease Study.

The GBD study is a massive scientific effort to measure health, mortality and disabilities from hundreds of risk factors, diseases and conditions in more than 200 countries and territories.

Between 1990 and 2023, the total number of yearly alcohol-linked cancer deaths more than doubled, rising from 11,361 to 23,126 in the US.

Men and adults age 55 and older experienced the greatest impact; alcohol-related cancer mortality rate in older males climbed nearly 24% over the 33-year period. For men, liver cancer deaths showed the strongest link to alcohol, followed by esophageal and colorectal cancers. For women 55 and older, breast cancer was the top killer, followed by liver and colorectal cancers.

For women of any age, and for men younger than age 55, it takes less alcohol to raise of risk of cancer compared with men older than 55, according to Jani. “If the same proportion of alcohol is taken by a female or by a younger male or female, it’s considered a much higher risk potential for cancer development,” he said.

Of the 10 cancers the study examined, the smallest increases in alcohol-linked deaths were in prostate, pancreatic and stomach cancers, but even those went up over time, Jani said.

Alcohol played a major role in deaths from malignant tumors in the head and neck, including lip, oral cavity, pharynx, larynx and cancer of the esophagus. Up to one-fourth of head and neck cancers have alcohol as a risk factor, “which obviously could be prevented,” Jani said.

“While our study does not have the data to show you should completely stop drinking alcohol, the message we want to deliver is that lowering your alcohol use to the lowest possible level will be best for your health.”

CNN Health

Five years into Tunisian President Kais Saied’s increasingly authoritarian rule, rights groups warn that the country’s once vibrant civil society is being silenced.

“Most civil society organizations are in a state of shock today,” Messaoud Romdhani, a Tunisian human rights activist told DW. “Those who criticize the authorities or situation in Tunisia face widespread repression,” he explained, adding that “most have been accused of money laundering, which leads to the suspension of their activities.”

Another Tunisian activist, who spoke with DW on condition of anonymity, also said that increasingly people were thinking twice before speaking in public or even choosing to work on sensitive issues. “What worries me most is the chilling effect: When organizations face suspension and activists face prosecution or detention, the uncertainty itself becomes a form of pressure,” he said.

Human Rights Watch has also raised the alarm. In its latest report, published Wednesday morning, September 2, the international rights watchdog concludes that Saied is attempting to shutter Tunisia’s civil society entirely.

“It is clear that the authorities are abusing every tool at their disposal to close the space for civil society in Tunisia,” the report reads. The watchdog also points out that civil society groups in Tunisia have played a key role in holding power to account, delivering essential services and advocating for people’s human rights.

“The government has used abusive, arbitrary prosecutions, detentions, financial investigations and suspension of organizations in an attempt to stifle these voices,” Bassam Khawaja, a deputy director in the Middle East and North Africa Division at Human Rights Watch and editor of the report, told DW.

He added that it was clear the idea was to shut down all opposition and independent voices in the country. “This amounts to a total crackdown on civil society in Tunisia,” he said.

Saied was elected president democratically in 2019. But in July 2021, he dissolved parliament and launched a power grab. Since then, he has dismantled most democratic bodies, repressed political dissent and arrested opposition figures.

For Anthony Dworkin, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations who focuses on human rights and democracy, Saied’s goals remain unchanged. “They have been the same for the last five years, namely to consolidate power and remove potential checks on and critics of his rule,” he told DW.

Saied has rejected accusations that he is an authoritarian ruler and argued that his measures are necessary to tackle corruption and uphold democracy. He has accused critics of receiving foreign funding to stir unrest and undermine Tunisia’s national interests. DW reached out to the Tunisian presidency for comment but had not received a response by the time of publication.

Growing discontent prompts calls for Saied’s resignation

Despite the widespread crackdown on dissent, some people still dare criticize the government. On July 25, the fifth anniversary of the president’s power grab, thousands took to the streets of the capital, Tunis, to protest worsening living conditions, democratic backsliding and the government’s handling of basic services.

The demonstrations came amid widespread water and electricity outages, which Saied has described as “premeditated acts aimed at inflaming the situation by all means and spreading lies and rumors to sow confusion.”

In late August, protesters once again called on the president to step down by chanting “The people want the fall of the regime,” a popular slogan from the 2010-2011 Arab Spring uprising.

The demonstration was initiated by Nafas, a new citizen-led umbrella initiative that was launched in May. Mohamed Hawel, a university teacher and member of the Nafas collective, told the news agency AP that Nafas was created to unite people around basic necessities, including water, electricity and food.

Growing gap between older, younger Tunisians

Despite some unity at these protests, according to an Arab Barometersurvey there is an emerging generational divide in Tunisia. A report published in July on the basis of a survey conducted in the fall of 2025 found that older and less educated people had vastly different views on the country’s economic and political conditions from younger, better educated people.

The survey showed that the older generation saw the current political and economic situation in the most positive light since the Arab Spring and had more trust in the government than over the past decade.

In comparison, younger Tunisians were more pessimistic about the country’s economic and political development. They also remained more skeptical of state institutions while maintaining a high trust in civil society organizations: 49% of people between the ages of 18-39 expressed trust in these, compared with only 32% of those aged 40 and older.

“What really stands out in Tunisia is that the recent decline in trust in civil society is almost entirely a story about older Tunisians. Two years prior, there was almost no generational gap between citizens,” Michael Robbins, the director of Arab Barometer, told DW.

“Since then, trust in civil society among Tunisians 40 and older has fallen quite sharply, while it has not changed meaningfully among those who are aged 18-39.”

Tunisia has a population of approximately 12 million people. People aged 18–39 account for roughly 30% of the population, while those aged 40 and older account for approximately 43%.

“I think the notion of a divided society is overstated,” said Dworkin. “Moreover, the recent demonstrations are not large enough to pose a serious threat to Kais Saied,” he added, while admitting that Saied had lost considerable public support over his failure to improve the country’s economy.

“But there are no attractive political alternatives and people are also tired of political upheaval.” In his view, many Tunisians are just trying to get by with daily life, while many others are looking to emigrate.

DW

DEBORAH COLE

Austrian police are hunting two men alleged to have stolen a 200-carat platinum necklace encrusted with 673 diamonds that was on loan to a museum in Vienna and once belonged to Egyptian royalty.

Authorities in the capital released pictures of the suspects captured by security cameras during the heist at the Museum of Applied Arts (MAK), amid a rash of spectacular smash-and-grab thefts from European cultural institutions.

The unmasked men bought tickets to the exhibition before shattering a glass display case with a hammer during opening hours on Thursday afternoon and making off with the diamond necklace.

In an appeal for information from the public, police said: “The perpetrators fled with the jewelry in an unknown direction.”

Officers fanned out through the city center and deployed a police tracking dog to search for the suspects. The Kronen newspaper said investigators believed the men were probably carrying out a “contract job” on behalf of a criminal gang.

MAK said the piece had been snatched from a jewelry exhibition that had been on display since June, featuring more than 300 works by the French designers Van Cleef & Arpels. No one was hurt, although there were several witnesses in the room at the time.

Documentation for the show said the necklace once belonged to Queen Consort Nazli of Egypt, who wore it at the 1939 wedding of her daughter Fawzia to Iran’s then crown prince, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who later became shah. The necklace was sold by Sotheby’s in New York in 2015 for $4.3m.

The MAK said the exhibition brought together about 200 “unique and rarely seen objects” from its own collection and pieces spanning the 120-year history of the Parisian jewelry house, from the Van Cleef & Arpels patrimonial collection.

A guided tour planned for Friday August 28 afternoon was listed as “cancelled” on the museum website and the exhibition, which was due to end on 27 September, was temporarily closed.

European museums have been hit by a string of high-profile heists since thieves broke into the Louvre museum in Paris during the day last October and escaped within minutes with crown jewels worth €88m.

In Spain on Thursday, August 27, thieves raided the Treasure of Villena, a collection of bronze age gold artefacts described as one of Europe’s most important prehistoric hoards.

Last month, four of the most important works by the 15th-century Renaissance master Antonello da Messina were stolen during a national holiday from a museum in the Sicilian port city of Messina.

Two days earlier, Italian police said they had recovered three paintings by the French masters Paul Cézanne, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Henri Matisse that were taken this year from a private museum near the northern city of Parma.

A report by Europol this month found that robberies at European museums are becoming increasingly violent, with thieves sometimes brandishing guns, assaulting staff and using sledgehammers, axes and even explosives to smash their way to targeted loot.

The Guardian

If you’re looking for a place to grab a quick drink in Rwanda, you might find yourself sitting at a bar with a tall cold glass … of milk.

Milk bars are a popular part of daily life in Kigali, the country’s capital. The idea was born out of a need for fresh milk as many Rwandans moved to the city from rural areas in the past decade and lost their easy access to dairy cows.

The beverage carries cultural significance — cows are revered — but has become a challenge for health officials in the country. They’d like to see more moderate levels of milk drinking.

In the bustling Nyamirambo sector of Kigali, customers at Moses Sansiman’s milk bar are spilling out into the street holding large glass mugs full of the creamy white drink.

The 52-year-old is dressed in a lab coat and serves cold whole milk from a large storage tank with a faucet on one end. It is pasteurized. “I like to keep it simple,” he says.

He says some milk bars offer options like hot milk with a dollop of honey, fermented milk or milk flavored with chocolate or strawberry or vanilla as well as low fat and skim. Most of his customers are picky about their milk. They’ll either drink it at the bar or fresh from a cow — never from a container at the grocery store.

“I can’t drink milk in a box. No way,” says JP Sagahutu, who consumes about four 8-ounce glasses of milk a day. He tries to think of the best adjective to describe the beverage. “I don’t know the wording in English, but it’s something sacré,” he says — using the French word for sacred.

Many Rwandans speak the language because the country was a Belgian colony until 1962. Other customers nod in agreement: Milk is holy. In fact, as a sign of respect you must only drink it while sitting down.

Bovines are a blessing

The sentiment comes from the respect people here have for cows, seen for many generations as providers of sustenance and prosperity. “A very long time ago, there was no currency. To see if someone is rich, they were counting cows. If you have 10 cows, it means you are rich,” Sagahutu says.

So precious is the cow, that in Rwandan culture, when you want to wish someone well, you say “may you have a cow” — kajirinka in the local language of Kinyarwandan.

Taste test

When I visit Sansiman’s shop, he brings over a glass the size of an Oktoberfest stein. After I take a sip, my first thought is that this milk would make fantastic vanilla ice cream. It’s creamy, well-rounded, with a subtle floral aroma and very fresh.

Some of the customers say they prefer milk over tea or coffee or even water because they believe it’s much more nutritious. “I don’t think I ever saw my grandfather drink anything other than milk,” says Gilles Bertrand Niyomwungeri.

Just say no to more moo juice

One important person in the country’s government is trying to modify this cultural habit. “In [Rwandan] society, they think milk is everything,” says Dr. Sabin Nsanzimana, Rwanda’s health minister.

Nsanzimana says excessive consumption of milk has become part of a variety of new health challenges that come with urban lifestyle changes.

“Now we’re seeing more people going to hospital for chronic diseases that could have [been] prevented by less milk drinking, less alcohol drinking, [by] exercising,” he says. He acknowledges that milk has important nutrients, like protein and calcium, but stresses that more is not better.

Studies have shown that too much milk can lead to obesity and even cardiovascular disease and can have adverse effects on overall mortality. Nsanzimana wants people to drink less milk and more water. I ask him how many cups of milk a day he recommends to people, and he picks up a 16-ounce water bottle.

“I mean, I would say maybe half of this,” he says. That’s about a cup. But “it’s been a difficult shift in communication,” he observes.

“If I go to my own family and start to talk about [how] too much milk is not good or how water is important, they will start to think that I probably went into the wrong medicine,” he says with a laugh.

NPR

The soil beneath Oumarou Compaoré’s boots is sandy and stony. It’s hardly the lush setting usually needed to support growing pineapples. But this farm in landlocked Burkina Faso is part of national efforts to reduce overall reliance on imports and adapt to an ever-harsher climate in the dry heat of Africa’s Sahel region.

Pineapples have long been seen as exotic fruit grown by richer coastal neighbors, and more expensive than the mangoes that grow outside many Burkinabe homes.

“People told us that here we could only grow cotton, maize or sorghum,” Compaoré said at the farm he founded in 2018 outside the western city of Bobo-Dioulasso, where he drives around in a van with an inscription that reads, “Pioneer in pineapple production in the Sahel.”

His pineapple initiative, inspired in part by border closures during the COVID-19 pandemic, is one of the more unusual projects challenging the idea that people in Burkina Faso must rely on neighbors for much of what they eat.

“Because the fruit was in short supply, we were able to sell it easily,” said Compaoré, who also had been growing papayas with little profit. Now his pineapple field has grown to about 50 hectares (124 acres).

The country’s military leaders have taken note. Their economic growth plan is tied heavily to agriculture. Pineapples are now part of the government’s formal development plan as it seeks to boost food self-sufficiency for the country of 24 million people.

While there are no available government data on pineapple production, farmers say more of them are venturing into it.

As of November, pineapple fields had expanded to around 100 hectares (248 acres) in the administrative region that includes Compaoré’s farm, the regional director of agriculture, Adanabou Eric Pascal, told local media at the time.

Kola Jean, the agricultural engineer at Compaoré’s farm who helps to train others on pineapple farming, estimated that over 100 farmers are now getting into production.

Food production is called a sovereignty issue

Under Capt. Ibrahim Traoré, who took power after a coup in 2022, Burkina Faso has presented food production as a sovereignty issue. It suspended rice imports in April this year with a stated goal of facilitating local production. It inaugurated two factories for tomato paste, a local staple, in 2024.

And at a major supermarket in the capital, Ouagadougou, there is a section dedicated to locally grown food — like shea butter, corn and cassava flour and drinks like mango juice — labeled, “Let’s consume what we produce.”

All are steps toward shaking off the dependence on imports that for decades has exposed millions of people to shifting transport costs and other price shocks.

Hunger remains widespread. A decadelong security crisis that has left jihadis in control of large swathes of territory has disrupted access to farmland and markets. Many people have been displaced. U.N. agencies have said some 2.7 million people face acute food insecurity during the annual lean season when stocks from the previous harvest run low and market prices peak.

Other farmers are being inspired

Mdme Kaba Séré, a pineapple farmer in Houet Province, said she used to work in the nonprofit sector but switched to farming in 2023 following international aid cuts.

She recalled being told at a young age that pineapples cannot grow in the Sahel, the dry strip of land south of the Sahara. Then she was trained on pineapple cultivation by Compaoré. “We saw what Oumarou was doing and thought: It is possible, why not?” said Séré, who has expanded her farm to about 60,000 seedlings.

“With pineapple, there is profit,” she said. “It has impacted my entire family because thanks to this I have been able to support them.” Because pineapples had long been seen as rare in Burkina Faso, farmers say the business is lucrative because it’s easy to find buyers even before the fruit hits the market.

But hurdles include investments in everything from fertilizer to irrigation and reliable transport. Pineapples require a lengthy growing period of up to two years, plus reliable access to water. Compaoré said he irrigates part of his land from a well, but digging wells is an investment many farmers cannot afford.

The climate can be problematic, too. Farmers are finding ways to adapt, including by irrigating with cool water in the evening during intense heat, said Pascal Bazongo, a professor of soil science and natural resource management at Burkina Faso’s University of Fada N’Gourma and an expert involved with Compaoré’s farm.

Compaoré is upbeat about future innovations and better yields. On recently acquired plots, about 30 workers moved through the field as music played from a loudspeaker. Their goal that day, he said, was to plant roughly 60,000 pineapple seedlings.

He expects the new fields to produce between 60 and 75 metric tons (66-83 tons) of pineapples, with a projected revenue of about 35 million CFA francs, or roughly $62,000. “We could even make the country self-sufficient in this fruit,” he said.

AP

The Paramount Chief of the Bongo Traditional Area, Naba Salifu Atamale Lemyaarum, has expressed concern about teenage pregnancy, arguing that increased exposure of children to sexual content on television and social media is influencing their behavior.

Speaking on Bolga FM’s Timaaga Sanga program, the chief said young people now have easier access to content he considers inappropriate for their age, which he believes is contributing to teenage pregnancies in communities.

“Teenage pregnancy is increasing rapidly because our children are constantly exposed to sexual content on television and social media. What they watch is shaping their behavior at a very young age,” Naba Salifu Atamale Lemyaarum said.

The Paramount Chief also raised concerns about what he described as a decline in the involvement of parents, teachers and other community members in correcting inappropriate behavior among children.

He argued that concerns about children’s rights have made some parents and teachers reluctant to discipline young people.

“Today, parents and teachers are unable to discipline children when they do wrong because of human rights. This has created a lot of problems in our society,” he stated.

Naba Salifu Atamale Lemyaarum contrasted the situation with his experience growing up, when he said responsibility for guiding children extended beyond their immediate families.

“In the olden days, if a child did something wrong, any community member could correct or discipline that child. Today, if you discipline someone’s child, the parent may come and confront or even fight you,” he added.

He called for greater collaboration among parents, teachers, traditional leaders and communities to guide and mentor young people while ensuring that discipline is carried out lawfully and responsibly.

A1 Radio

Kenyan President William Ruto withdrew a century-old concession for Indian behemoth Tata Group to mine soda ash in an area inhabited by Maasai herders near Tanzania, arguing the conglomerate hasn’t built any processing facilities that benefit the nation.

Residents of the villages around Lake Magadi, Africa’s biggest for the trona mineral that’s converted into soda ash, are split on whether Tata should stay on or leave.

The company’s chemicals unit bankrolls four schools in the poverty-stricken county of Kajiado, staffs a hospital and supplies fresh water used in Magadi town.

Its private railway replenishes cattle-watering points along a 145km line for free and it also operates a train service charging people from the community a mere US$0.30 for long distances.

For Ruto, this isn’t enough: he told the Mumbai-based firm “to pack and go” because it has been exporting soda ash made from minerals extracted from the lake instead of processing it locally to make glass, cleaning products and batteries for electric vehicles.

The president’s tiff with Tata — whose 32 companies generated combined revenue of about US$185 billion in the year through March and make everything from salt to steel and cars — highlights the tensions between communities, governments and investors over exploiting natural wealth while avoiding a phenomenon economists call “the resource curse”, or the failure to translate that bounty into better living standards.

By shipping the soda ash to India — the world’s fastest-growing major economy and where Tata provides the mineral for one in every five beverage bottles — Kenya is missing out on the economic benefits of that trade, government officials argue.

That amounts to “exporting potential factories, potential jobs, technology and opportunities for our engineers, chemists, technicians, transporters, entrepreneurs and young people,” Principal Secretary for Industrialization Juma Mukhwana said. “No strategic raw material should leave Africa without first asking whether we can competitively transform it here.”

Tata Chemicals Magadi Ltd has responded to the matters raised by the Kenyan government, including providing information on its compliance with regulatory requirements, and is awaiting the mines ministry’s review and further direction, it said in response to questions.

Even in India and the US, where Tata Chemicals Ltd has soda-ash manufacturing plants, it does not have downstream manufacturing facilities such as glass, it said.

Tata should be given an opportunity to continue operations, said Rose Saroni, a community mobiliser in Magadi. “Let’s sit down and talk about the community grievances and how they can be addressed,” she said, adding that access to clean water will be compromised if Tata leaves.

Other leaders support the president’s move. “We are entitled by law to get benefits” such as a share of royalties, said Isaac Keses Kiresian, a local-government lawmaker representing the ward where Tata’s mines are located. “Unfortunately, it has been push and pull with the company.”

The opposition Democracy for the Citizens Party sees the move as a decoy to push Tata out of a region with “huge deposits” of lithium and oil, it said in a statement. Lake Magadi falls within Block 14T, an onshore oil-exploration area belonging to state-owned National Oil Corp.

But the shallow, pink-tinted lake isn’t a money spinner. Last year, Tata’s operation exported about US$57 million of soda ash. It’s the sole domestic producer of the chemical used by water utilities including the firm that serves Nairobi, the capital, to regulate the acidity and alkalinity of drinking water.

Kenya is the fourth-ranked producer of natural soda ash, accounting for 1% of global production. Tata is also embroiled in a dispute with Kajiado county’s government, which is demanding 12.2 billion shillings in historical unpaid land rates.

The case is at the Supreme Court and Tata sees the dispute as “an external risk”, according to its latest annual report.

Kenya’s government in July ordered Tata to suspend operations, citing its failure to make royalty payments and meet other regulatory requirements.

Tata said it had provided a comprehensive response to the matters raised by Kenya’s mining ministry, including information regarding its compliance with applicable regulatory requirements. “We await the ministry’s review of our submissions and its further direction.”

Bloomberg

Oyo Nyimba, a Ugandan ⁠king who became ​the world’s youngest reigning monarch when he took the crown in 1995, has died aged ​34, the prime minister of his kingdom announced on Thursday August 27 evening, local time.

While Uganda is a republic ruled by a single, elected head of state, it has several traditional monarchies that  preside over their respective kingdoms as they ​were constituted ‌during the pre-colonial period. Their political power is largely symbolic, but ⁠they wield enormous cultural and social influence.

Oyo Nyimba Kabamba Iguru Rukidi IV was the King of Tooro, a small kingdom ‌in Uganda’s west near the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo.

“It is ⁠with profound sadness and a heavy heart that I announce the passing of His Majesty the Omukama of Tooro, King Oyo Nyimba Kabamba Iguru Rukidi ​IV,” the kingdom’s prime minister, Calvin Armstrong Rwomiire Akiiki, said ‌in a post on X, late.

The king died at around 10:00pm local time on Thursday, Akiiki said, without revealing the cause of death. Rukidi IV was crowned at ‌just three years old on September 12, 1995 after the death of his father, Rukirabasaija Patrick David Matthew Kaboyo Olimi ​III.

Balaam Barugahara, a minister in the government of President Yoweri Museveni, said shortly before the announcement of the king’s death, that he was receiving treatment in the US.

“This is ​an immeasurable loss,” the prime minister said, adding that the king – who was unmarried – had ​left an heir and that “continuity of the Crown is ​assured.” His death triggered an outpouring of grief across social media platforms in Uganda and widespread media coverage nationally.

“Most devastating news! May ​His Majesty the King’s soul rest in eternal peace,” Bobi Wine, Ugandan pop star-turned-politician who is the country’s leading opposition leader, said in a post on X.

In April, in a message to celebrate the King’s birthday, Tooro’s prime minister said: “Our King is not distant from the ⁠realities of his people; he is part of this generation, part of this ecosystem, growing, learning, and ⁠leading…

His youth is ​not a limitation; it is a strength. It brings energy, fresh perspective, and the courage to imagine a different future for Tooro.”

France 24

It’s a heated historic rivalry across West Africa: Which country makes the best jollof rice? Cooks across both Nigeria and Ghana have long claimed to make the best. But chefs in Senegal argue that it originated there in the 14th century — so it must be the best!

No fewer than 10 countries offer their own version of the dish: a rich, fragrant rice cooked down with spices, tomatoes and meat. Last month, 2,000 people stood in line near Washington, D.C.’s Union Market for a yellow box of six color-coded taster cups.

The organizers of the Jollof Festival have traveled across the United States to put this debate to the test, gathering thousands of people for blind tastings of regional jollof prepared by local chefs. Friends Julie Agbasi and Shakesha Coleman came out to sample the variety and compared notes as they tried each one.

“It bites you at the end!” Agbasi said after trying one. “It’s very slow — it builds up and then at the end you’re like, woo!” “My heritage is Nigerian, so we used to eat jollof rice almost all the time,” Agbasi said. “It’s delicious, but there are other regions that I’m really looking forward to.”

The rice samples ranged from a bright red to a brighter yellow jollof, flecked with herbs. Some patrons felt confident they could guess the country of provenance for each one — others simply enjoyed learning the diversity of jollof possibilities.

“You know when you have good jollof, and you know when you don’t have good jollof!” laughed Maggie Duncan August, an attendee with Ghanaian heritage. “My favorite jollof is spicy, smoky. It has good meat in it. Ghana always stands out as the No. 1!”

The samples were prepared by chefs from the D.C. metro area hailing from six countries: Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Liberia and — for the first time since the competition began in 2017 — the United States.

Many visitors enjoyed the samples but doubled down on their preferences for the jollof of their spouses, neighbors or childhoods. “My sister-in-law is Nigerian, so every holiday we have, she brings her jollof rice.

So, I’m comparing them all to hers!” said Carla Shelton, who was visiting from Phoenix. D.C. resident Virginia Richards, 26, wore a red-and-cream-printed Liberian blouse to proudly display her heritage as she stood in line with a group of friends.

“Liberia has the best jollof, and I feel like because we’re such a small country, we don’t get the hype we deserve. We’re a very understated people,” Richards said. “There’s meat, there’s veggies, there’s flavor and a little bit of spice. We’re not afraid to make it more than just rice with tomato sauce!”

The chefs watched and waited, including 27-year-old chef Mamadou Koité, who looked out the window of his food truck.

Koité and his mother were the chefs behind Senegal’s submission to the festival; the family also runs a restaurant in Silver Spring, Md., called the Koité Grill. The team started cooking at 5 a.m., grilling the lamb and chicken and preparing tomatoes and peppers for the sauce.

“The secret is love. When you make it, you want to be happy, you want to be joyful,” Koité said. “People are going to taste that.” Koité says the festival is not about winning or losing. It’s more about bringing people together to appreciate West African food.

“It feels like we’re really putting ourselves out there, as Africans,” Koité said. “I feel like people are really getting in tune with … what it means to be African, and what it means to know the food and know the culture.”

After a six-hour tasting, festival organizers gathered onstage to crown Ghanaian chef Kafui Attakpah as the D.C. festival’s winner.

It was the third win in a row for Attakpah, and attendees cheered loudly as he accepted a trophy adorned with a small pot of jollof rice. Attakpah is a co-owner of the Calabash African Cuisine & Bar in Alexandria, Va.

Jermaine Foreman-Marshall, who runs a catering company called The Maine Course, represented the United States and won second place. In a day-after Instagram post, he thanked the team for letting an “American cousin” enter the competition.

“They didn’t know who cooked it. They didn’t know an American was behind the pot. They just knew that GREEN CUP was hitting!” he wrote. “I came to show my love for the culture, represent respectfully, and prove I’ve been paying attention all these years.”

The Jollof Festival continues on to Atlanta, North Carolina Central University, Dallas and Houston this fall. If you’re too far away to join the party, you can celebrate at home on World Jollof Day on Aug. 22.

The best jollof is the one you grew up with

There are as many recipes for jollof rice as there are stars in the sky. But after careful research, it appears that the world’s best jollof is the one that was made by someone who cares about you.

When my editor asked for a recipe for this post, I reached out to Maigalisa Yohanna, one of my flat mates when I was a freelance journalist in Istanbul.

Yohanna would cook Nigerian jollof rice for us, putting a warm bowl of it on my desk when I’d be scrambling on a deadline. This particular recipe is a combination of two that were shared with us by his sisters, although they don’t contain meat.

Yohanna and his wife, photojournalist Danielle Villasana, are now living in Texas with their family. Every time I eat jollof, wherever I am, I think of them.

Ingredients

White rice 1 1/2 cups

Vegetable oil 1/3 cup

3 medium tomatoes

1 large red bell pepper

1 scotch bonnet pepper (adjust to taste)

1 medium onion

2 tablespoons tomato paste

2 1/4 cups chicken stock (or water)

Smoked fish (if desired)

1 small knob ginger, minced (about 1/2 teaspoon)

1 clove garlic, minced (about 1/2 a teaspoon)

Seasoning mix:

3/4 tsp curry powder

1/2 tsp thyme

1 1/2 bouillon cubes (chicken or beef)

1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary

1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds

1 bay leaf

Dried chili pepper flakes, to taste

3/4 teaspoon salt

Additional salt, to taste

Directions

1.    Optional first step: For a smokier taste, toss the tomato, bell pepper, and onion in a little bit of oil and roast in an oven at 425 degrees for about 15 minutes.

 2.   Use a blender to puree the tomatoes, bell pepper, scotch bonnet, and half of the onion. Blend until smooth and set aside.

3    Slice the remaining half of the onion.

4    Wash the rice thoroughly with hot water and salt. Set aside. 

5    In a large skillet, heat the oil over medium heat. Sauté the onion until soft, for about two minutes.

 6   In the same pan, gently fry the tomato paste, ginger and garlic for about two minutes. Do not let it burn. 

7    Add the blended tomato and pepper mixture to the pan. Cook uncovered for 10 to 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. The mixture will thicken. Continue cooking until the acidity of the raw tomato has been cooked out of the sauce.

 8   Stir in the seasoning mix: curry powder, dry thyme, bouillon cubes, rosemary, fennel seeds, bay leaf, and chili pepper flakes.

9    Add the washed rice to the pan and mix thoroughly so the grains are coated with the sauce. Add chicken stock or water, if preferred. Bring to a boil.

10    When the rice has been brought to a boil, reduce the heat to very low and cover the pot tightly. Cook for approximately 25 to 30 minutes.

11    Avoid frequent stirring. If the rice becomes dry, add a few tablespoons of hot water or chicken stock to prevent it from burning.

12    When the rice is cooked and the liquid is gone, turn off the heat and leave the pot covered for five minutes. Gently fluff the rice and serve.

NPR

As AGRA turns 20, a new report exposes its worsening failure to double productivity and incomes and halve undernourishment in participating African nations as promised.

AGRA still failing Africa’s farmers

The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, now known simply as AGRA, was established in 2006. The multi-billion-dollar initiative, by the Gates and Rockefeller Foundations, has been pursued over the last twenty years in 13 focus countries.

After considerable evidence of failure became apparent, it abandoned its original ambitious goals in 2022, adopting AGRA 3.0, focusing on food systems and policy reforms.

It also ‘rebranded’ by changing its name to AGRA, removing its explicit association with the much criticized Green Revolution. Wise’s 2020 assessment of AGRA up to 2018 found progress on its own declared goals quite modest and uneven.

Wise’s latest review finds even slower productivity growth and worsening hunger under AGRA compared to before 2006. Its improved seeds and fertilizer promotion did not even achieve sustainable intensification, i.e., growing much more food on the same land.

Dubious progress

Increased food production and sales were supposed to reduce rural poverty and food insecurity. But yield growth has been slow and uneven. Productivity grew more slowly than before 2006 despite billions of dollars spent on subsidies for a few AGRA-favored crops.

High-yielding seeds and related agrochemicals were not widely adopted by most smallholders except when heavily subsidized.

But subsidies have encouraged planting favored crops on new farmland. Modest yield growth often failed to cover the costs of more expensive inputs, leaving farmers in debt.

Meanwhile, cultivation and yields of millet, a nutritious climate-resilient staple, has declined over the last two decades.

Instead of halving the number of hungry, undernourishment has risen by 58% in participating countries since 2006. Tragically, the number of hungry in the 13 AGRA countries nearly doubled over the last six years!

AGRA unmonitored

The African Union was induced to support AGRA by encouraging more government investments in food agriculture. In 2006, it launched the Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Program (CAADP).

CAADP called for dramatically raising government spending on agriculture to 10% of government budgets. However, most governments failed to provide the required funding.

But many governments, particularly in AGRA countries, have spent large shares of their scarce public resources on agriculture. Many have invested in Green Revolution programs.

Despite setting similar productivity, income, and hunger objectives, by 2025, no country met CAADP’s targets according to its rigorous biennial progress reports using more benchmarks.

High-yielding seeds and related agrochemicals were not widely adopted by most smallholders except when heavily subsidized.

AGRA’s main initiatives, involving input markets and industrial farming, are too costly for most small-scale farmers, benefiting wealthier farmers more.

For Wise, the poor outcomes are not solely or even primarily due to AGRA. Instead, he blames the Green Revolution approach, previously strongly supported by private foundations and now by the World Bank Group.

In contrast, Senegal, not one of the AGRA 13, has succeeded in halving hunger, with more diversified policies supporting a wider range of crops and farming methods.

What failure?

AGRA has never reported actual progress against its original goals of doubling productivity and incomes while halving hunger for 30 million farming households.

With fewer measurable goals, progress reports now focus on the number of commercial seeds produced, private financing generated, and enterprises launched.

Instead, AGRA claimed, “we directly reached 11 million farmers and indirectly reached 26 million farmers. This achievement significantly outstripped our initial targets to reach 30 million smallholder households.”

‘Reaching’ 37 million farmers, mostly ‘indirectly’, says little about its actual impacts on farmers. Unsurprisingly, most donors have cut support for AGRA.

Now, AGRA is influencing national and continent-wide policymaking to accelerate agricultural commercialization. Its new focus on food systems and policies shifts attention as its website now makes little mention of productivity or small-scale farmers.

Whither AGRA?

Yield growth has been slow and uneven, mainly for a few food crops prioritized by AGRA. Those modest yield gains often did not cover the costs of expensive inputs, leaving many farmers in debt.

Increased food production and sales were supposed to reduce rural poverty and hunger. Instead, malnutrition has risen in most AGRA countries, as dietary diversity has declined with crop diversity.

Asia’s Green Revolution offered far more support to farmers than Africa’s, although its achievements have been more mixed than typically claimed. Africa’s Green Revolution has offered much less, mainly improved commercial seeds.

AGRA still denies the failure of its earlier policies. Instead, it now pays lip service to low-input approaches including agroecology.

In 2025, AGRA president Agnes Kalibata acknowledged, as she stepped down from her post, “Part of why [AGRA] rebranded was that the Green Revolution ship has sailed. We can’t continue pursuing what’s not working for others.” After twenty years, AGRA should take heed of that advice.

IPS UN Bureau