Latest news with #Ethiopia
Yahoo
9 hours ago
- Science
- Yahoo
'Pulsing, like a heartbeat': Rhythmic mantle plume rising beneath Ethiopia is creating a new ocean
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Rhythmic pulses of molten rock are rising beneath eastern Africa, according to a new study. The pulsing plume of hot mantle beneath Ethiopia, driven by plate tectonics, is slowly pulling the region apart and forming a new ocean near the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, researchers reported June 25 in the journal Nature Geoscience. "We have found that the evolution of deep mantle upwellings is intimately tied to the motion of the plates above," Derek Keir, an Earth scientist at the University of Southampton and the University of Florence, said in a statement. "This has profound implications for how we interpret surface volcanism, earthquake activity, and the process of continental breakup." The mantle plume lies under Ethiopia's Afar region, at the intersection of three tectonic plates. All of the rifts between these plates are different ages, and they are changing at different rates; some are in the process of forming new oceans, while others are pulling apart the crust beneath Africa. But the structure and motion of the plume, as well as the forces driving these movements, aren't well understood. To investigate the structure of the crust and the mantle plume beneath it, the scientists studied the chemical compositions of more than 130 samples of volcanic rocks from the Afar region. These samples provided information about the depth and composition of melted rock beneath the surface. The team also used computer models to determine how the region might respond to different kinds of mantle plumes and compared those responses to existing geological data. A single mantle plume lies beneath all three rifts, the researchers found, but its chemical composition is not uniform. Further, the molten rock surges upward rhythmically, leaving behind distinct chemical signatures. "The chemical striping suggests the plume is pulsing, like a heartbeat," Tom Gernon, an Earth scientist at the University of Southampton, said in the statement. "These pulses appear to behave differently depending on the thickness of the plate, and how fast it's pulling apart. In faster-spreading rifts like the Red Sea, the pulses travel more efficiently and regularly like a pulse through a narrow artery." RELATED STORIES —Study reveals 'flawed argument' in debate over when plate tectonics began —There's a 'ghost' plume lurking beneath the Middle East — and it might explain how India wound up where it is today —Africa is being torn apart by a 'superplume' of hot rock from deep within Earth, study suggests Varying spacing between the stripes in different rifts suggests that the mantle plume responds differently depending on the tectonic plates above. In places where the lithosphere — the crust and upper mantle — is thicker, the mantle flow is impeded, and the striping is more condensed. Under a thinner lithosphere, the stripes are more spread out. The findings could help scientists understand volcanic activity at the surface. "The work shows that deep mantle upwellings can flow beneath the base of tectonic plates and help to focus volcanic activity to where the tectonic plate is thinnest," Keir said in the statement. Future work in the Afar region could involve investigating the rate of mantle flow beneath the various plates, Keir added.
Yahoo
12 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Self-Taught Ethiopian Developer Raises $5M For ‘The Best Authentication Tool' Better Auth
Ethiopian startup Better Auth is being labeled the 'best authentication tool' after its creator, Bereket Engida, raised roughly $5 million in seed funding from top investors, TechCrunch reports. Better Auth is an app providing an open-source framework, committed to simplifying how developers manage user authentication. Engida, a self-taught developer from the African nation, raised the hefty amount for his startup from Peak XV, formerly known as Sequoia India and Southeast Asia, Y Combinator, P1 Ventures, and Chapter One. The beauty behind Engida's genius is that the app was created in Ethiopia before he set foot in the U.S. It all started at 18, when he began programming after a friend declined to assist him in building an e-commerce search app. However, after landing numerous software jobs and building a web analytics platform that enables developers to monitor website user behavior, he continued to notice that authentication was a problem. In the world of apps, each one has to be able to manage how users sign in and out of the system and reset passwords. After realizing that existing tools had extensive limitations or were too expensive to scale, allowing administrators to handle permissions and user roles, Engida took matters into his own hands. 'I remember needing an organization feature. It's a very common use case for most SaaS applications, but it wasn't available from these providers,' the developer said. 'So I had to build it from scratch. It took me about two weeks, and I remember thinking, 'This is crazy; there has to be a better way to solve this.'' Engida and Co-Founder Kinfe Michael Tariku believed from the start that developers should be able to own their authentication systems rather than being committed to expensive platforms. It's one of the various reasons why investors are celebrating it. The Addis Ababa native started working on a TypeScript-based authentication framework, making it fool-proof for developers to build secure login, verification, and session management workflows without overthinking efforts, according to Addis Insight. Peak XV partner Arnav Sahu said the product is the 'next generation of AI startups.' With their investment, Better Auth is the firm's first direct investment from an African founder. 'We first heard about the product from numerous startups we've worked with,' Sahu, who is a former principal at Y Combinator, said. 'Their auth product has seen phenomenal adoption among the next generation of AI startups.' As a recent graduate of YC's spring batch of startups, Engida is still thinking of ways to improve the free app. With Better Auth being the third Ethiopian startup to pass through the accelerator, the developer is focusing on ways to improve its core features and implement a paid enterprise infrastructure to plug into the open-source base. He also wants to scale the startup without getting rid of the community-built feel of the product. Building a team is also on the radar, as Engida is currently writing most of the code himself. 'Building this feels important not just because people love the product, but because of what it represents,' he said. 'There aren't many Ethiopian founders building global products. For many, it feels almost impossible. So seeing that traction gives hope for other people to try to be more ambitious.' RELATED CONTENT:
Yahoo
16 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Bob Geldof praises Paula Yates for key role in Live Aid
Bob Geldof has praised his late ex-wife Paula Yates for being instrumental in Live Aid. The Boomtown Rats frontman assembled a host of famous performers at the time for 1984's Band Aid charity single Do They Know It's Christmas?, which then led to the huge global concert series the following summer, but he admitted he wouldn't have been able to bring the line-up together without the help of his then-partner, who was co-host of music show The Tube. Speaking in upcoming documentary Live Aid At 40: When Rock 'n' Roll Took On The World, Bob said: 'All I had the power to do was write tunes. But the Boomtown Rats were not guaranteed to have hits any more. All these new guys had come along with beautiful suits and coiffed hair. 'And I understood this new thing because my wife had befriended all these people on the show that she was host of, The Tube. 'So I called Paula and I asked who was on the show that night and she said, 'Ultravox'. I said, 'Put Midge Ure on' and he just said, 'What do you want to do?'.' And even setting up an initiative to ease Ethiopian famine was the brainchild of Paula when she and Bob were watching an infamous news report on the situation with their daughter Fifi, who was two at the time. Bob, now 73, said: "My partner Paula couldn't stand watching it, she didn't want our child to watch it. She clearly associated what she was seeing with our child. She just grabbed her and went upstairs, but I stayed, transfixed. 'I came down the next morning and there was a green bowl on the table in the kitchen, and Paula had put a note in there saying, 'Anyone who comes to this house must put a pound or five pounds into this bowl'. I thought, 'That's not adequate'.' Several of the musicians who took part in Band Aid praised Paula' - who died in 2000 aged 41 - for her calming presence during recording. U2's Bono said: 'There was a lot of male egos in the room, not enough women.' Gary Kemp noted: 'Paula Yates was really the lovely glue, carrying her child around, Fifi, and their dog, Growler. They're a great family.' And Midge added: 'Everybody knew Paula, we all knew Bob through Paula. 'She was funny and witty and highly intelligent, and she kept everyone entertained, walking around chatting to them.' Live Aid At 40: When Rock 'n' Roll Took On The World airs on BBC Two next week.
Telegraph
16 hours ago
- Politics
- Telegraph
Migrant can stay after judge confused his Somali clan with Hawaii
An African asylum seeker has won a reprieve to remain in the UK after an immigration judge confused his Somali clan with the island of Hawaii. The mix-up between the US state and the Hawiye people was one of a catalogue of 'errors' in a judgment denying the man's claim to stay in in the UK. The decision also wrongly stated that the asylum seeker's children were born in Egypt instead of Ethiopia, and made a 'bizarre reference to a kookaburra farm', a new ruling has revealed. The kookaburra is a bird native to Australia and New Guinea. The man, who was given anonymity by the asylum tribunal, will now have his case reheard after it was concluded that Sureta Chana, the judge responsible for the mistakes, showed an 'absence of care'. The case, disclosed in court papers, is the latest example uncovered by The Telegraph in which illegal migrants or convicted foreign criminals have been able to remain in the UK or halt their removal. 'Significant number of errors' The African asylum seeker's claim was initially rejected by a First-Tier Tribunal. He had claimed to be originally from Somalia, where he said he was at risk of persecution by the Hawiye clan, one of the largest tribes in the country. He told the Home Office that he had lived unlawfully in Ethiopia for a number of years before he left because of mistreatment by the Oromo tribe, which makes up more than a third of the population. British officials believed he was from Ethiopia, not Somalia and the First-Tier Tribunal rejected his claim on the basis that he would be entitled to Ethiopian citizenship. He appealed and an Upper-Tier Tribunal found there had a 'a significant number of typographical and factual errors' in the judgment, which demonstrated a 'failure to exercise anxious scrutiny'. First there was the reference to the 'Hawaii' rather than Hawiye clan. It also wrongly stated that the [asylum seeker]'s children were born in Egypt instead of Ethiopia. There was the 'bizarre reference to a 'kookaburra farm'', while the Lower Tribunal had miscalculated 'the length of the [asylum seeker]'s residence in Ethiopia'. It stated that the appeal had been heard on Jan 1 this year, a date on which the First-Tier Tribunal does not sit. It dated the decision as 28 March 2017, several years before the asylum claim was made. 'Absence of care' It also found that the judge had made findings about Ethiopian nationality law when the evidence showed he had no right to naturalise as an Ethiopian citizen. The judge also misquoted a previous case and was 'wrongly conflating the [asylum seeker]'s fear of the Oromo tribe in Ethiopia with his fear of the Hawiye clan in Somalia'. Upper Tribunal Judge Leonie Hirst said: 'The First-Tier Tribunal's decision displays throughout an absence of care, evidenced by the numerous typographical and factual errors identified in the [asylum seeker]'s grounds of appeal. That however is not the only material error in the decision. 'On the issue of the [asylum seeker]'s nationality, which was central to the appeal, the judge appears to have taken judicial notice of Ethiopian nationality law without evidence or submissions on that point. 'Her conclusion that the [asylum seeker] was entitled to Ethiopian citizenship was unsupported by the evidence before her and her reasoning was insufficient to explain how she reached her conclusions.'
Zawya
21 hours ago
- Health
- Zawya
Africa Unites to Take Stock of Disease Burden and Financial Needs towards Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD)s Elimination by 2030
Fifty African Union Member States have endorsed a ground-breaking digital micro-planning portal co-created by Africa CDC to accelerate the elimination of Neglected Tropical Diseases — a diverse group of infectious diseases that primarily affect impoverished communities in tropical and subtropical areas. This innovative platform developed with inputs from Member States, World Health Organization (WHO), END Fund, and other technical partners will track resource utilisation, advocate for sustainable financing and domestic resource mobilisation, and drive Africa-owned solutions to end these diseases of poverty by 2030. Each Member State shared a country-specific micro-plan for the top six high-burden NTDs guided by existing national Masterplans. This continental NTD microplanning workshop, held from 17 to 20 June occurred in the context of the recent reduction in funding from key global partners, which has disrupted essential NTD programmes and exposed the vulnerabilities in current financing models. 'Public health efforts across Africa are under threat, funding is among the challenges, noting that this makes the continued engagement and energy around NTD elimination even more commendable,' said Dr Raji Tajudeen, Africa CDC Acting Deputy Director General and Head, Division of Public Health Institutes and Research. Dr Dereje Duguma Gemeda, Ethiopian State Minister for Health said the workshop will help countries have a practical and data driven NTDs plan that will improve efforts to accelerate elimination efforts. Currently, 'The African Region is endemic for 20 of the 21-priority neglected tropical diseases; affecting over 565 million people and comprising 35 per cent of the global disease burden,' said Dr Ibrahima Soce Fall – Global NTD Director at the WHO. These diseases lead to significant morbidity, including physical and visual impairments, severe malnutrition, chronic pain, disfigurement, stigma and mental health issues, and death,' he said. Common NTDs include Intestinal worms, lymphatic filariasis, river blindness, Schistosomiasis, trachoma, and Visceral leishmaniasis. This new approach of micro-planning is designed to drive integrated country and regional planning, streamline resource mobilisation, and enhance budget efficiency—minimising duplication and maximising impact—to accelerate the elimination of NTDs. 'This situation underscores the urgent need for sustainable, country-owned solutions that leverage existing national capacities, optimize domestic resources, and identify key areas requiring targeted external investment,' said Dr states and partners over the 4 days immersed opportunity for cross country experience sharing and planning are keen to find a financial solution for integrated multi-sectoral NTD elimination. 'We stand at a critical juncture, not just for NTD elimination, but for rethinking health financing in Africa. Traditional reliance on foreign aid has demonstrated its limits. It's time for collaborative, country-led financing strategies that harness catalytic opportunities from residual foreign assistance while boosting efficiency in programming and domestic resource mobilization,' said Dr Solomon Zewdu, CEO, The END fund. 'This approach will drive the needed long-term sustainability and resilience. The END Fund is committed to being a trusted partner in this transformation, supporting governments and partners in developing co-financing models that deliver results and leave no community behind,' said Dr Zewdu. The meeting ensured countries have a comprehensive and costed country, and regional specific microplan for NTDs, identified country-specific technical assistance needs and detailed existing resources and partners within each member state to enhance collaboration and resource sharing. 'The elimination of NTDs is more than a public health objective: it is a lever for development and a decisive step towards achieving the African Union's Agenda 2063,' said Professor Julio Rakotonirina, Director for Health and Humanitarian Affairs, African Union Commission. 'The development of the micro-plan is only the first step. Success will lie in national ownership, resource mobilization, and, above all, operationalization on the ground.'Africa CDC, The END Fund and partners solidified their partnership with the micro-planning platform to accelerate ending NTD's by 2030. Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC).
