Going bananas for sustainable research - scientists create fuel from African crop waste
Bananas are a staple crop of Rwanda. The fruit is eaten raw, fried
and baked — it even produces banana beer and wine. Around 2 million
tons are grown each year but the fruit is only a small percentage of
what the plant produces. The rest — skins, leaves and stems — is
left to rot as waste.
Now scientists at The University of Nottingham are looking at ways
to use that waste to produce fuel, developing simple methods of
producing banana briquettes that could be burnt for cooking and
heating. PhD student Joel Chaney in the Faculty of Engineering has
developed a method of producing the briquettes using minimal tools
and technology, which could be used in communities all over Africa.
First, the banana skins and leaves are mashed to a pulp in a
hand-operated domestic meat mincer. This pulp is mixed with sawdust
to create a mouldable material — in Rwanda it would be mixed with
sun dried banana stems, ensuring the whole plant is used. Then, the
pulp mix is compressed into briquette shapes and baked in an oven at
105 degrees. Again, in Africa the fuel would be left for a few days
to dry in the sun.
Once dried, the briquettes form an ideal fuel, burning with a
consistent steady heat suitable for cooking. Joel has tested this
himself by cooking fried banana fritters, which is similar to
"red-red" a popular Ghanaian dish.
"A big problem in the developing world is firewood," said Joel.
"Huge areas of land are deforested every year, which leads to the
land being eroded. People need fuel to cook and stay warm but they
can't afford the more expensive types, like gas. "As well as the
environmental damage this causes, it also takes a lot of time. Women
can spend four or five hours a day just collecting firewood. If an
alternative fuel could be found they could spend this time doing
other things — even generating an income.
"Using waste to create fuel is key to sustainable development, and
this method could be easily transferred across Africa." Joel's
supervisor Dr Mike Clifford, Associate Professor in the Faculty of
Engineering, is working on a number of sustainable materials and
technologies including yak wool, recycled banknotes, waste cardboard
and vernonia oil — a naturally occurring resin found in Ethiopian
plants.
"Joel's work on biomass briquetting is very interesting. We've been
able to turn all sorts of waste materials into fuel and to predict
how well different mixtures of materials will burn. I'm looking
forward to some sunny weather so I can try the banana briquettes out
at home on my barbeque!"
To see how Joel makes his banana briquettes, watch the video at
www.test-tube.org.uk/videos/pages_joel_bananas.htm
Dr. Mike Clifford, University of Nottingham
mike.clifford@nottingham.ac.uk
Male circumcision reduces HIV risk: No
further evidence needed
Three recent African trials support male
circumcision for reducing the risk of contracting HIV in
heterosexual men. After including new data from these trials in
their review, Cochrane Researchers have changed their previous
conclusions that there was insufficient evidence to recommend
circumcision as an intervention to prevent HIV infection in
heterosexual men.
“Research on the effectiveness of male circumcision for preventing
HIV in heterosexual men is conclusive. No further trials are
required to establish that HIV infection rates are reduced in
heterosexual men for at least the first two years after
circumcision,” says lead researcher Nandi Siegfried, Co-director of
the South African Cochrane Centre at the South African Medical
Research Council.
“Policy makers can consider implementing circumcision as an
additional measure into HIV prevention programmes.” Circumcision may
help to protect against HIV by removing cells in the foreskin to
which the virus is specifically attracted. Called Langerhans cells,
they display receptors that enable HIV entry. Previous non-randomised
studies investigated the association between circumcision and HIV,
but until now, Cochrane researchers have been unable to make strong
recommendations for the intervention due to a lack of high quality
evidence gained from randomised clinical trials.
The clinical trials included in the review took place in South
Africa, Uganda, and Kenya between 2002 and 2006, and included a
total of 11,054 men. The results show that circumcision in
heterosexual men significantly reduces their risk of acquiring HIV
by 54% over a two year period, compared with uncircumcised men. This
reduced risk is the best estimate of the average effect and the
researchers report that the true risk will be reduced by between 38
to 66%. Further research, however, is required to establish whether
male circumcision offers any benefit to women partners of
circumcised men and homosexual men.
The researchers warn that policy makers also need to think about the
culture and environment in which circumcision is carried out. “In
many countries, male circumcision is practiced as part of the rites
of initiation by traditional healers who are not trained in aseptic
surgical techniques. So adverse events following traditional
circumcisions can be high,” says Siegfried. – MRC
Reference: Siegfried N, Muller M, Deeks JJ, Volmink J. Male
circumcision for prevention of heterosexual acquisition of HIV in
men. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2009, Issue 2. Art.
No.: CD003362. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD003362.pub2.
www.mrc.ac.za
‘Barcoding’ DNA to identify menacing
mosquitoes
For years scientists have examined DNA fragments of animals and
insects for biodiversity preservation, but researchers from the
University of Ghana for the first time are using DNA "barcoding" -
examining a small fraction of an organism's DNA sequence - for
disease control. "We wanted to answer the question of how barcoding
can go beyond identification and tell us what type of mosquitoes are
deadly and where they live," said the study's lead researcher Daniel
Boakye.
Researchers have used DNA to identify mosquito species since 2003,
but Boakye told IRIN that up to now sequencing had not been used for
disease control. He said epidemics require that science be
fast-forwarded. "It would take at least five years to examine the
entire genome of a single Anopheles mosquito, which includes 278
million DNA base pairs." Mosquito barcoding examines only a small
portion of the entire DNA chain, which scientists in Canada in 2003
showed was LINK sufficient for identifying an organism.
With a US$200,000 grant from the US-based JRS Biodiversity
Foundation, Boakye has researched for the past two years how
mosquitoes spread lymphatic filariasis (LF), also known as
elephantiasis because of the extreme swelling it causes.
According to World Health Organization (WHO), 120 million people
worldwide are infected with LF, of whom one-third are permanently
disfigured. Spread through mosquito bites, the disease is most
common in rural areas of Africa and Asia. Boakye said his team
microscopically examined mosquitoes to find ones infected with LF,
took DNA samples from more than 100 mosquitoes and identified 10
species that transmitted LF. "Our research allows us to find places
of high infection, which helps target insecticide spraying," he
said.
Blanket spraying of insecticide can lead to drug resistance and
ecosystem damage without reducing debilitating LF infections,
according to JRS Foundation. It has been difficult to know which
mosquitoes spread the disease and where, said James L. Edwards, JRS
Foundation board president. "These mosquitoes would otherwise have
been undetected because their morphology [structure] is very
similar." Edwards added that studying mosquitoes' entire genome
takes too long and is too expensive. "For such deadly diseases, we
do not have much time." Ghanaian researcher Boakye said he would
like next to barcode flies that spread onchocerciasis, or river
blindness, and leishmaniases, which result in blindness and
permanent scarring, respectively.
Kenya's Orange says to invest $99 million
Orange Kenya plans to spend 8 billion shillings ($99 million) this
year to develop its network, the company's deputy chief executive
said on Friday. Orange, formerly state-owned Telkom Kenya, operates
the sole fixed telephone network in the country. It also runs a
mobile service and offers broadband to customers.
France Telecom invested close to 10 billion shillings in
infrastructure developments on the network in 2008, after taking
over the company from the government. "We anticipate that in 2009 we
will make a further investment in this line to the tune of
approximately 8 billion shillings," Peter Reinartz told Reuters.
The funds will be used in a range of investments, including
optimisation of its CDMA and GSM networks and broadband. "We are
investing in rebuilding our fixed network infrastructure
countrywide, which was heavily plagued by vandalism," he said.
Reinartz said the firm would borrow the money but declined to
elaborate.
Kenya's top mobile operator Safaricom, said on Friday it was
planning to borrow up to 12 billion shillings to fund expansion.
(Source: Reuters)
ZTE’s stake in Congo Chine Telecom up for grabs
Following a denial by MTN last month that it was close to sealing a
deal to acquire ZTE’s 51% stake in Congolese cellco Congo Chine
Telecom (CCT), a spokesperson for the Kinshasa-based network
operator has confirmed that the South African giant is indeed among
‘several suitors’ vying for the stake. According to CCT’s Kang Linghua negotiations to sell the 51% stake, valued at about USD400 million, may stretch into 2010 because of the financial crisis. Morocco’s Maroc Telecom has also held talks about a possible purchase, Linghua said.
CCT was established in 2000 as a 51/49 joint venture between ZTE and the state-owned local fixed line incumbent OCPT. The joint venture launched GSM-900/1800 services on 31 December 2001 in Katanga in the east of the country. It has since rolled out services to Kinshasa, Bas-Congo, Bandundu and the two provinces of Kasai, giving it coverage of 40 cities. The CCT network has a capacity for 150,000 customers, with a single switch in Kinshasa. The company uses a Belgacom earth station for its international gateway.
At the end of 2008 CCT was the smallest of DRC’s four wireless network operators, with just over 115,00 customers or 1% of the total subscriber base. It competes with Vodacom (with 47% market share at the same date), Zain (38%) and Millicom International Cellular’s Oasis (Tigo, 12%). At the end of December there were 8.5 million wireless subscribers in DRC, an increase of 37.3% year-on-year, translating into a wireless penetration rate of 13.6%.
MTN Ghana CEO complains about permit times for new base stations
Brett Goshen, CEO of MTN, Ghana, said last Tuesday the company had
all the resources and expertise to deal adequately with network
challenges. However, hesaid that the slow pace at which permits were
delivered for the building of cell sites posed a challenge to the
company's efforts.
He told the Ghana News Agency that agencies in charge of issuing
permits were too slow. Goshen explained that before a telecom
operator could mount a cell site, they needed to obtain separate
permits from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Ghana Civil
Aviation Authority (GCAA), District, Metropolitan and Municipal
Assemblies and the Ghana National Fire Service.
He noted that the agencies had not been able to keep up with the
fast rate at which the telecom industry was developing possibly
because they were understaffed, saying, this partially accounted for
the congestion particularly on the networks of huge operators like
MTN. Goshen said "The rate of growth of the industry might have
overwhelmed the staff of the permit agencies and for that they are
not able to keep up with the pace in terms of the demand for permits
by the various operators,".
He said before MTN took over from Areeba, the latter used to install
about 50 cell sites in a year but currently MTN was installing twice
that number in a month and that could be overwhelming for the
largely understaffed permit agencies.
Goshen said one base transmitter station (BTS) could only take
between 2,500 and 3,000 calls at a time, adding that with almost
seven million subscribers, MTN required more base stations
particularly within the densely populated communities to ensure
quality call. "Hundreds of our requests for permits to mount cell
sites to increase capacity and improve call quality are still
outstanding and we are not alone. Other operators are facing similar
challenges but the problem becomes bigger with MTN because of our
relatively huge subscriber base," he said.
Goshen said there was no reason why MTN equipment should be sitting
in warehouses for months while permit agencies were taking a minimum
of six months to issue a single permit. He noted that issues with
residents of densely populated communities, particularly in the
cities, were also a militating factor to operators' efforts at
installing infrastructure to increase capacity and improve service
delivery quality.
Goshen said "The EPA, for instance, will not issue a permit even if
an individual is opposed to the mounting of a cell site close to
their house on grounds of health, noise and other concerns." He
assured subscribers that MTN was working around the clock to provide
the "highest call quality", saying that owing to challenges of
obtaining permits in good time MTN was vigorously championing
co-location deals with other operators to enable more than one
network to share cell sites.
"Co-location is very close to our hearts and we are getting on very
well with the other operators in reaching co-location deals to
enable us to provide better services to our teaming customers," Mr
Goshen said. He said operators have so far agreed on hundreds of
cell sites to co-locate their infrastructure. Mr Goshen said "MTN
has provided the list of all its existing and proposed future cell
sites to our competitors but some have still not reciprocated our
gesture."
He said MTN was pursuing co-location deals beyond just the sharing
of cell sites to even agreements on how to share fibre routes,
adding that talks were under way with the National Fibre Optics
Backbone Company to agree on sharing fibre optics routes and paths.
"It is our belief that the networks can come to an agreement on how
our fibre routes can serve as backups for each other," Goshen said.
He assured MTN subscribers that the company would go to every extent
to ensure that they had good quality service, saying that this year
alone MTN planned to spend half a billion dollars on network
infrastructure.
GNA
Burkina Faso’s Onatel Raises US$60 million in IPO
The Burkinabé government has raised 29 billion CFA francs (US$59.6
million) from the sale of a 20% stake in fixed-line incumbent Onatel
through an initial public offering (IPO), according to Reuters. The
IPO closed on 31 January 2009 and shares are due to be listed on the
Bourse Regionale des Valeurs Mobilieres (BRVM), the regional stock
exchange in Abidjan (Côte d'Ivoire), on 1 May 2009. The
International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private-sector arm of
the World Bank, announced that it plans to purchase up to a 5% stake
in Onatel by buying any shares not subscribed to in the offering.
The IFC says that its participation is designed to not displace any
private investors. If all 20% is sold, then the government plans to
sell an additional 3% stake to the IFC at the offer price. This follows the government's sale of a 51% stake in Onatel to Maroc Telecom in January 2008 for 220 million euro, which gave Maroc Telecom some 400,000 mobile users (39% of the market) and over 100,000 fixed-line customers at the time. The government has been looking to privatise the operator since at least 2003.
Defeating drug counterfeiters with SMS in Ghana
Pharmaceutical drug counterfeiters can foil even the most
sophisticated technology if consumers cannot personally verify their
medication's safety, according to Ghanaian entrepreneurs who will
soon introduce in West Africa verification via cell phone text. Consumers who purchase certain medications will be able to send the label code via free cell phone text message and within seconds receive a text response from the drug manufacturer of whether the drug is legitimate and comes from a safe batch. The UN World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that up to 30 percent of pharmaceutical drugs sold in developing countries are fake.
Co-founder of the anti-counterfeit technology company mPedigree, Bright Simons, told IRIN that until now anti-counterfeit tactics have not empowered the consumer. "Consumers are the final decision-makers as to what medication they take, but they have not had a way to verify their medication's safety." He said existing nano-particle tags, ultraviolet-sensitive labels and holograms do little to enable consumers to protect their health because counterfeiters can reproduce them.
"But if you have more consumer vigilance," said Simons, "That will be harder to get around." Simons co-founded mPedigree, which was named a 2009 Technology Pioneer by World Economic Forum, with Ashifi Gogo in 2007. Working with anti-counterfeit experts, mPedigree recruited a local drug manufacturer in Ghana to label 3,500 boxes of its anti-malarial medication. According to the Ministry of Health, 40 percent of the medication in Ghana is locally manufactured and 65 percent of patient consultations are for malaria.
From January to March 2008, some 3,000 customers sent text messages to check their medication. Within an average of three seconds, they received an "OK, quality assured, genuine product" message on their cell phones, said Simons. Asked whether Africa's mobile networks would be able to handle the increased text traffic, Simons said the infrastructure is sound. "It is the voice band that is overloaded. Data services are more efficient." He said there are 10 million cell phone subscribers in Ghana.
West African Cable System signs financing agreement
The long-awaited construction and maintenance agreement, to build
the $640 million West African Cable System (WACS), has been signed
at Vodacom's head office, in Johannesburg. The signing of the
agreement has been put off several times already, with the last
scheduled date having been 11 March. The contractor to construct the
cable is Alcatel-Lucent. WACS grew out of the need to replace the Telkom-controlled SAT-3 cable, which is running out of capacity, and to break the telecommunications company's grip on international connectivity. The new system will operate on open access and non-discriminatory pricing principles but it will be a traditional type of telecoms shareholder model linking capacity to the amount of money each company puts in.
“A big difference from the SAT-3 model is that, while the shareholders will build and operate the landing stations in their own countries, they will have to give other shareholders equal access. So the 'key-to-the-door' situation, as we have with Telkom, will not exist,” a source says. WACS shareholders are Telkom, Vodacom, MTN, Broadband Infraco and Neotel from SA. Telecoms companies from Namibia, Botswana and Angola will also have stakes, as will Vodafone (Spain) and British-owned Cable & Wireless.
It is believed the cable has been oversubscribed, with last minute attempts made – as late as the day before the signing – by potential investors that were rejected. Sources close to the project say that it will be completed by the end of 2010 and that existing cables will be able to handle anticipated demand during the World Cup.
ITWeb
Yahsat to launch satellites in Africa for cheaper broadband
The United Arab Emirates is increasing its stake in Africa's telecommunications market with Al Yah Satellite Communications' move, announced last week, to launch two satellites dedicated to providing cheap bandwidth. The company, also known widely as Yahsat, will provide cheap options for many businesses and rural communities in Africa, said Kevin Viret, Yahsat regional director-Africa.
The "YahClick" service will be available in 2010 and the Yahsat 1B, a second satellite, will be launched in mid 2011, said Viret. Equipment to receive the satellite signal including VSAT dish, modem and cables will cost about $350 compared to $2,500 charged today, and a 512KB link will cost $30 per month. The launch of the satellites will consolidate the investments from the UAE led by Etisalat, which owns a 20 percent stake in The East Africa Marine System (TEAMS) fiber-optic cable.
Etisalat is a major player in Africa's mobile phone market supporting voice, data and value added services in Niger, the Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Benin, Gabon, Burkina Faso, Togo and the Central Africa Republic. Yahsat is a subsidiary of the government's Mubadala Development Company and will provide C-band and Ka-band coverage over the Middle East, Africa and Europe with a single beam.
"The service is well equipped to offer cost effective communication links for applications such as corporate data networks, Internet trunking and GSM backhauling," said Salma Al Mansouri, communications manager at Yahsat. ‘YahLink’ will be offered to a diverse customer base including telecom and cellular operators, ISPs, banks and financial institutions, oil and gas enterprises, construction companies, and government agencies, the company said. Last year, Mohammed Omran, Etisalat's chairman, said he expects operations in Africa to account for at least 25 percent of revenue within four years as 4 million customers are added in West Africa by the end of 2010.
Computerworld Kenya.
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