This Week: April 18th Edition

1. Twenty years after the end of apartheid, Johannesburg is reinventing itself as one of Africa’s most hip, dynamic and innovative cities.

2. Why are most marathon winners from East Africa? Hard to answer this one without wading into genetics and race theory.

[blockquote source=””]All six winners in [the Boston Marathon] are originally from the same corner of the world: east Africa. And that’s true of almost every major long-distance race, going back for years. So why is that? Why do runners from two or three medium-sized countries, none of which have much money or highly developed infrastructure, manage to outrun virtually the entire world —virtually every time they compete?

This is a question that scientists and journalists have been asking since the 1990s, when the trend began, a few years after African nutrition rates caught up with the rest of the world. But the question has never totally been answered, in part because merely asking it touches on some of the most sensitive issues in modern history: colonialism, slavery, and persistent racial inequality both in Africa and outside of it. [/blockquote]

3. Guinea, an Israeli billionaire and the new scramble for Africa. This week’s long read is from The New Yorker.

[blockquote source=””]A new scramble for Africa is under way. Bilateral trade between China and Africa, which in 2000 stood at ten billion dollars, is projected to top two hundred billion dollars this year. The U.S. now imports more oil from Africa than from the Persian Gulf.[/blockquote]

4. WATCH. Over a million Africans were shipped to Cuba in three centuries of slave trading. One Cuban community has traced their folk songs back to a specific village in Sierra Leone.

5.  Apparently OTT Africans, Hoity-Toity Heroes and Zero Wahala Communities are a thing.  It’s an interesting read on trends on the continent but part of us feels like saying ‘stop trying to make fetch happen!’

6. MTV Africa Music AWARDS are open for Voting. You have until June 4. Maybe next time more than 5 countries can be represented. We know South Africa and Nigeria are battling it out for ‘Oga at theTop’ status, but come ‘on.

7. E-Cash is a real thing on the continent and Africa is first in this area. Dayo Olopade unpacks it.

8. How is it that for just $157 million, the Bretton Woods institutions can still dictate the fiscal policy of a country like Malawi in 2013? Over at Africa is a Country, Malawi’s Joyce Banda has problems much bigger than Madonna.

9. And this week in Mugabe news, we find out that he makes $4000 a month. Alrighty then. And we learn how his arch nemesis scored a rare foreign press interview with His Excellency.

10. And finally, this is FIERCE, but someone tell these people that A is for Azonto!