Reminder of the information that matters

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Ronnie Spector: ‘Be My Baby,’ singer dies at 78. Spector who was the leader of the girl group The Ronettes and behind 60’s hits such as ‘Baby I Love You’ and ‘Walking in the Rain’ died on Wednesday after a brief battle with cancer. She and her bandmates grew to fame from singing and dancing in clubs as Ronnie and the Relatives and were popular for their dynamic use of eyeliner and mascara.

Nigeria lifts Twitter ban after six-month suspension. The government announced on Wednesday that it was lifting a Twitter ban from midnight after the social media platform agreed to meet all conditions set by the government including opening a local office. Twitter was suspended in Nigeria on June 4th last year after the platform removed a post from President Muhammadu Buhari which threatened citizens in the Southeast region.

Car bomb kills 8 in Mogadishu. The explosion which occurred on Wednesday before noon and on a road leading to the airport in Somalia’s capital also injured nine people and comes amidst the country’s battles with political infighting and a growing humanitarian crisis. Al Shabab claimed responsibility for the attack according to Somalia Memo, a news site affiliated with the militant group.

Il est temps de raconter le monde

📵 Razzia sur nos data. Nos données personnelles sont recueillies chaque jour par Facebook ou Google, mais aussi par des entreprises qui sont beaucoup plus proches de nous, comme Coop, Migros, la Poste ou les CFF. Que font ces sociétés de cette montagne d’informations? Où ces données sont-elles stockées? Jusqu’où peut aller cette curiosité pour nos comportements? Heidi.news a mené l’enquête.

On the radar today

German court to deliver judgment on Syrian landmark torture trial. The verdict on former colonel Anwar Raslan, who is the highest-ranking official to be tried for atrocities in Syria is expected to be delivered at a court in Koblenz, a southwestern German city today. Raslan is charged with crimes against humanity, rape, aggravated sexual assault, and murder during the al-Assad regime.

Biden to make voting rights pitch to Senate Democrats. The US president will today make a personal plea to Senate Democrats to unite to change the chamber’s rules to pass voting-rights reform. It comes just a day after the Senate’s top Republican launched an extreme attack on the initiative.

Malawi: Court to rule on mandatory Covid-19 vaccination. The case challenging government proposal to make Covid-19 vaccination mandatory was put forward by freelance journalist Mundango Nyirenda and the Center for Democracy and Economic Development Initiatives (CDEDI). Nyirenda and the CDEDI equally want the court to prevent private and public institutions from requiring Covid-19 vaccines from customers and employees.

The all-female garage shifting attitudes in northern Nigeria. The garage, a first in Sokoto state where only one in 20 girls finish secondary school, was started by an NGO Nana with an intention to increase the number of women in an industry controlled by men and usurp ideas of traditional gender roles in the conservative region that is also a hot spot for bandit attacks.

In the African lab

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African startups raised $1 million every two hours in 2021. That’s according to Briter Bridges’ 2021 Africa Investment Report which also revealed that only 0.95% of the funding raised by African startups in 2021 went to startups founded or led by a woman, that four countries, Nigeria, Egypt, South Africa, and Kenya received most of the funding, and that 62% of total funding went to Fintech startups

Coastal deforestation stokes more frequent storms in West Africa. Storms are hitting the densely populated coastal pocket of West Africa twice as frequently as 30 years ago, according to a new study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study explains that declining forest cover in the coastal regions of southern West Africa results in an increase between land and sea daytime temperature leading to stronger winds and fueling convective storms.

Ivorian e-commerce startup ANKA raises $6.2M pre-Series A. The round was led by French VC Investisseurs & Partenaires and participated in by Alibaba executive and billionaire, Joseph Tsai as well as the BESTSELLER Foundation. Previously known as Afrikrea, Anka was founded in 2016 and then rebranded in April 2021 to a SaaS platform for sellers that has recorded 700,000 visits from its buyers who have transacted over $35 million.

Sur Heidi.news aujourd’hui

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More effective and more expensive, the FFP2 mask must nevertheless remain disposable. The FFP2 mask arouses renewed interest with the discovery of the Omicron variant at the end of November and demand for the masks nationwide has been rising sharply for about six weeks. They cost more than surgical masks and are deemed to be more effective. Both of these factors can encourage reuse, but is it a good idea?

Shorter quarantines, longer restrictions: the Federal Council handles carrot and stick. On the one hand, the Federal Council shortens the duration of isolation and quarantine (5 days), but on the other hand, it wishes to extend the health measures in force from December 20 until the end of March. In addition to the proposal to extend the restrictions, the executive wants to further reduce the validity period of the Covid certificate to 270 days, against 365 currently.

Strong nursing care: training comes before better working conditions. This Wednesday, January 12, the Federal Council decided to seize the initiative on strong nursing care in two stages. As a first step, the council decided to recycle the proposals of the counter-project concerning the training offensive and direct invoicing. However, the section regarding the remuneration of care and the improvement of working conditions will require more time.

It may surprise you

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Hate crying as you peel onions? Well ‘Tearless onions’ are coming soon to the UK. The new tearless and less pungent variety called ‘Sunions’ was produced by scientists and will be available for purchase in British supermarkets from January 18th. Development for Sunions began 35 years ago in the United States and involved extensive crossbreeding with other varieties.

Reuse and recyle? Norway tells conscripts to return underwear after service. Recruits have been asked to take back underwear, bras, and socks after the end of their military service so that the next group of recruits can use them. The Norwegian military disclosed that partly due to the pandemic, they were struggling with reduced supplies of such items. Roughly 8,000 young men and women in Norway engage in military service each year.

This Israeli team trained a goldfish to drive. The researchers at Ben-Gurion University proved goldfish are capable of navigating on land by developing a fish-operated vehicle complete with a computer, camera, electric motors, and omni-wheels that gave the fish control of the vehicle. Six goldfish, each receiving around 10 driving lessons, took part in the study in which some goldfish were noted to be better drivers than others.