International

An ancient writing system confounding myths about Africa

Published

11 months ago

June 8, 2025

A wooden hunters’ toolbox inscribed with an ancient writing system from Zambia has been making waves on social media.

“We’ve grown up being told that Africans didn’t know how to read and write,” says Samba Yonga, one of the founders of the virtual Women’s History Museum of Zambia.

“But we had our own way of writing and transmitting knowledge that has been completely side-lined and overlooked,” she tells the BBC.

It was one of the artefacts that launched an online campaign to highlight women’s roles in pre-colonial communities – and revive cultural heritages almost erased by colonialism.

Another intriguing object is an intricately decorated leather cloak not seen in Zambia for more than 100 years.

“The artefacts signify a history that matters – and a history that is largely unknown,” says Yonga.

“Our relationship with our cultural heritage has been disrupted and obscured by the colonial experience.

“It’s also shocking just how much the role of women has been deliberately removed.”

Women’s History Museum Zambia Samba Yonga from Women's History Museum of Zambia holds up a frame showing a photo of a wooden hunters' toolbox inscribed with an ancient writing system. She has long braids, pink eyeshadow, red nail varnish on her nails and is wearing yellow, orange, black and blue African print dress. She is pictured against a purple and black African print design backdrop. — Samba Yonga holding the wooden hunters’ toolbox in one of the beautifully photographed images posted on social media for the Frame project

But, says Yonga, “there’s a resurgence, a need and a hunger to connect with our cultural heritage – and reclaim who we are, whether through fashion, music or academic studies”.

“We had our own language of love, of beauty,” she says. “We had ways that we took care of our health and our environment. We had prosperity, union, respect, intellect.”

A total of 50 objects have been posted on social media – alongside information about their significance and purpose that shows that women were often at the heart of a society’s belief systems and understanding of the natural world.

The images of the objects are presented inside a frame – playing on the idea that a surround can influence how you look at and perceive a picture. In the same way that British colonialism distorted Zambian histories – through the systematic silencing and destruction of local wisdom and practices.

The Frame project is using social media to push back against the still-common idea that African societies did not have their own knowledge systems.

The objects were mostly collected during the colonial era and kept in storage in museums all over the world, including Sweden – where the journey for this current social media project began in 2019.

Yonga was visiting the capital, Stockholm, and a friend suggested that she meet Michael Barrett, one of the curators of the National Museums of World Cultures in Sweden.

She did – and when he asked her what country she was from, Yonga was surprised to hear him say that the museum had a lot of Zambian artefacts.

“It really blew my mind, so I asked: ‘How come a country that did not have a colonial past in Zambia had so many artefacts from Zambia in its collection?'”

In the 19th and early 20th Centuries Swedish explorers, ethnographers and botanists would pay to travel on British ships to Cape Town and then make their way inland by rail and foot.

There are close to 650 Zambian cultural objects in the museum, collected over the course of a century – as well as about 300 historical photographs.

Women’s History Museum Zambia Mulenga Kapwepwe, from Women's History Museum of Zambia wearing a green, purple and yellow African print headwrap, cream long-sleeved shirt and blue latex gloves, bends over at a Swedish museum to examine the intricate patterns of Batwe cloaks. — Mulenga Kapwepwe looks at one of 20 pristine leather cloaks in the Swedish archive collected during an expedition between 1911 and 1912

When Yonga and her virtual museum co-founder Mulenga Kapwepwe explored the archives, they were astonished to find the Swedish collectors had travelled far and wide – some of the artefacts come from areas of Zambia that are still remote and hard to reach.

The collection includes reed fishing baskets, ceremonial masks, pots, a waist belt of cowry shells – and 20 leather cloaks in pristine condition collected during a 1911-1912 expedition.

They are made from the skin of a lechwe antelope by the Batwa men and worn by the women or used by the women to protect their babies from the elements.

On the fur outside are “geometric patterns, meticulously, delicately and beautifully designed”, Yonga says.

There are pictures of the women wearing the cloaks, and a 300-page notebook written by the person who brought the cloaks to Sweden – ethnographer Eric Van Rosen.

He also drew illustrations showing how the cloaks were designed and took photographs of women wearing the cloaks in different ways.

“He took great pains to show the cloak being designed, all the angles and the tools that were used, and [the] geography and location of the region where it came from.”

The Swedish museum had not done any research on the cloaks – and the National Museums Board of Zambia was not even aware they existed.

So Yonga and Kapwepwe went to find out more from the community in the Bengweulu region in north-east of the country where the cloaks came from.

“There’s no memory of it,” says Yonga. “Everybody who held that knowledge of creating that particular textile – that leather cloak – or understood that history was no longer there.

“So it only existed in this frozen time, in this Swedish museum.”

Women’s History Museum Zambia Samba Yonga, wearing a beige linen top hemmed with gold-coloured trim, holds up a frame showing an archive photo from the Swedish collection of three women in a field in what is modern-day Zambia, with their backs to the camera, wearing leather cloaks - two children are under the cloaks of two of the women. — The Swedish collection includes 300 historical photographs, including this one of women wearing leather cloaks

One of Yonga’s personal favourites in the Frame project is Sona or Tusona, an ancient, sophisticated and now rarely used writing system.

It comes from the Chokwe, Luchazi and Luvale people, who live in the borderlands of Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Yonga’s own north-western region of Zambia.

Geometric patterns were made in the sand, on cloth and on people’s bodies. Or carved into furniture, wooden masks used in the Makishi ancestral masquerade – and a wooden box used to store tools when people were out hunting.

The patterns and symbols carry mathematical principles, references to the cosmos, messages about nature and the environment – as well as instructions on community life.

The original custodians and teachers of Sona were women – and there are still community elders alive who remember how it works.

They are a huge source of knowledge for Yonga’s ongoing corroboration of research done on Sona by scholars like Marcus Matthe and Paulus Gerdes.

“Sona’s been one of the most popular social media posts – with people expressing surprise and huge excitement, exclaiming: ‘Like, what, what? How is this possible?'”

The Queens in Code: Symbols of Women’s Power post includes a photograph of a woman from the Tonga community in southern Zambia.

She has her hands on a mealie grinder, a stone used to grind grain.

National Museums of World Cultures An archive photo showing a kneeling pregnant Tonga woman leaning on a mealie grinder and looking down at a young child standing by her side with their hand on her waist. They are both smiling, pictured in front of a wood and mud structure. — This archive photo shows a grinding stone used by Tonga women that would go on to used as a gravestone

Researchers from the Women’s History Museum of Zambia discovered during a field trip that the grinding stone was more than just a kitchen tool.

It belonged only to the woman who used it – it was not passed down to her daughters. Instead, it was placed on her grave as a tombstone out of respect for the contribution the woman had made to the community’s food security.

“What might look like just a grinding stone is in fact a symbol of women’s power,” Yonga says.

The Women’s History Museum of Zambia was set up in 2016 to document and archive women’s histories and indigenous knowledge.

It is conducting research in communities and creating an online archive of items that have been taken out of Zambia.

“We’re trying to put together a jigsaw without even having all the pieces yet – we’re on a treasure hunt.”

A treasure hunt that has changed Yonga’s life – in a way that she hopes the Frame social media project will also do for other people.

“Having a sense of my community and understanding the context of who I am historically, politically, socially, emotionally – that has changed the way I interact in the world.”

Penny Dale is a freelance journalist, podcast and documentary-maker based in London.

bbc.com

International

VIDEO: Ontario Police Bust International Car Theft Ring Including Ghanaian With 306 Stolen Vehicles Recovered

Published

4 months ago

December 22, 2025

AladdynKing

Canadian authorities have dismantled a sophisticated transnational vehicle theft and export syndicate after a two-year investigation that led to the recovery of 306 stolen vehicles valued at about 25 million Canadian dollars. Many of the vehicles were bound for markets in West Africa and the Middle East.

The operation, dubbed Project CHICKADEE, was led by the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) through its Provincial Auto Theft and Towing (PATT) Team, working closely with the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) and several other law enforcement agencies.

Investigators say the probe uncovered a highly organised criminal enterprise that extended well beyond street-level car theft. The network involved freight forwarders, drivers, falsified shipping documents and complex international export routes.

Investigation began in 2023

Project CHICKADEE was launched in August 2023 after police recovered four stolen vehicles in the Greater Toronto Area. While the initial recovery appeared routine, further checks revealed links to a broader export operation.

Investigators found that stolen vehicles were being re-identified using altered Vehicle Identification Numbers (VINs). These vehicles were matched with forged documents and packed into shipping containers for export through major Canadian ports.

As intelligence developed, authorities uncovered links to transnational organised crime groups, suggesting Ontario had become a key supply hub in a global auto theft network.

Interception at ports nationwide

As the investigation widened, officers from the OPP PATT Team, the Organised Crime Enforcement Bureau and CBSA intelligence units began intercepting containers both in transit and at major ports in Montréal, Vancouver and Halifax.

Police said intervention at ports became critical, as recovery of stolen vehicles becomes extremely difficult once they leave Canada.

Several agencies, including the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), Halton Regional Police and the Équité Association, supported the operation, underscoring the scale and complexity of the criminal network.

Raids and seizures

The first major enforcement action occurred on October 16, 2025, when police executed search warrants in Toronto, Vaughan, Woodbridge and Etobicoke. Items seized included cash, a re-VINed vehicle, electronic key programmers and licence plates. One suspect was arrested, while two others fled but were later captured.

A second, larger operation followed on November 27. Police searched 23 residential and industrial locations and seized 13 vehicles across communities, including Brampton, Scarborough, Waterloo, Milton and Saint-Eustache in Québec.

Tactical units, emergency response teams, canine units and intelligence officers were deployed during what police described as a highly coordinated, multi-agency effort.

Scope of the network revealed

By the conclusion of Project CHICKADEE, authorities reported the seizure of:

306 stolen vehicles recovered in Canada
Three firearms
Hundreds of licence plates, keys and key fobs
Fraudulent shipping and export documents
Forklifts and tractor-trailer cabs used in vehicle logistics
Over 190,000 Canadian dollars and 32,000 US dollars in cash
Mobile phones, computers, hard drives and financial records

Arrests and charges

In total, 20 suspects were arrested and charged with 134 offences under Canada’s Criminal Code, the Customs Act and the Cannabis Act.

Among those charged is Bismark Owusu-Ansah, a 64-year-old Ghanaian national living in Brampton, Ontario. He faces five charges, including conspiracy to traffic stolen property, exporting property obtained through crime and possession of stolen property valued above 5,000 Canadian dollars.

Authorities stressed that all accused persons are presumed innocent until proven guilty in court.

Financial intelligence key to operation

Police said financial intelligence from FINTRAC, Canada’s financial transactions watchdog, was crucial in tracing the proceeds of crime. The OPP’s Provincial Asset Forfeiture Unit has also begun moves to seize assets believed to be linked to the syndicate.

Police warn of wider impact

OPP Commissioner Thomas Carrique said auto theft has far-reaching consequences.

“Auto theft is not a victimless crime. It fuels organised crime, violence and insecurity in our communities,” he said.

Another senior officer, Bryan Gast, noted that vehicle theft costs Canada more than one billion Canadian dollars each year, with proceeds often reinvested into illegal firearms, drugs and other criminal activity.

Shift in policing approach

Canadian law enforcement officials say Project CHICKADEE reflects a shift toward dismantling the entire criminal supply chain, from theft and falsified documentation to shipping and international export.

They say the operation sends a clear message that Canada will no longer serve as a source market for international vehicle theft syndicates.

myjoyonline.com

International

Nigeria: CSOs Oppose Akpabio’s Call To Restore Police Escorts For Lawmakers

Published

4 months ago

December 20, 2025

AladdynKing

Civil society groups in Nigeria have criticized a call by Senate President Godswill Akpabio for the return of police security personnel to members of the National Assembly and other senior public officials.

The criticism followed Mr. Akpabio’s appeal to President Bola Tinubu to review his recent directive withdrawing police operatives attached to Very Important Persons (VIPs). The president said the move was intended to redeploy officers to tackle wider security challenges across the country.

Speaking during President Tinubu’s presentation of the 2026 budget at a joint sitting of the National Assembly in Abuja, Mr. Akpabio warned that the decision had exposed federal lawmakers to security risks. He said some legislators feared they might be unable to return safely to their constituencies following the withdrawal of their police escorts.

“Some of the National Assembly members said I should let you know that they may not be able to go home today,” Mr. Akpabio told the president, while appealing for a review of the policy.

However, a coalition of civil society groups operating under the Support For Civil Society Organizations Initiative rejected the request, describing it as a misplaced priority and inconsistent with global democratic practice.

“In other democracies, legislators do not deploy large numbers of armed police officers while the wider population remains vulnerable to attacks,” the group said in a statement.

The group’s leader, Chief ‘Aare’ Oluwasegun Oyedijo, said public office holders should not be insulated from the realities faced by ordinary citizens.

According to the coalition, leaders who deliver on their mandates should not fear the people they represent or require special security arrangements. It argued that good governance and accountability, rather than armed protection, are what earn public trust.

The group said the withdrawal of police escorts could help reduce the growing gap between elected officials and their constituents, encouraging closer engagement and more effective representation. It also criticized what it described as the excessive use of state security resources to protect politicians, saying this had contributed to a culture of privilege and abuse of power.

The coalition added that the Nigeria Police Force should prioritize the protection of communities and public safety, rather than serving as personal guards for political office holders.

“We are not calling for a breakdown of law and order,” the statement said. “Leaders who serve well do not need to hide behind armed security. This step will strengthen democracy and compel the delivery of real dividends of governance.”

President Tinubu ordered the withdrawal of police officers attached to VIPs on 23 November, directing that those requiring armed protection should instead apply to the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps. The government says the policy is part of broader efforts to improve national security amid rising crime and limited policing resources.

During the same session, Mr. Akpabio praised President Tinubu’s economic reforms, saying they were beginning to yield results despite the hardship experienced by many Nigerians. He assured the president of the National Assembly of support for the reform agenda and the proposed 2026 budget.

thepressradio.com

International

Vietnam Floods Leave At Least 90 Dead, 12 Missing

Published

5 months ago

November 23, 2025

AladdynKing

At least 90 people have died and another 12 are missing after days of heavy rain in Vietnam led to flooding and landslides.

The Vietnamese government says 186,000 homes have been damaged across the country, with more than three million livestock swept away. Officials estimate there has been hundreds of millions of pounds worth of damage.

The mountainous province of Dak Lak has been severely impacted, recording more than 60 deaths since 16 November, according to news agency AFP.

The floods are the latest extreme weather event to hit Vietnam in recent months, after typhoons Kalmaegi and Bualoi hit the country within weeks of each other.

Some 258,000 people were without power on Sunday morning and sections of major motorways and train tracks were blocked, officials said.

Military and police resources have been mobilised to assist in the hardest hit areas.

The government said the most severe impacts had been observed in five provinces – Quang Ngai, Gia Lai, Dak Lak, Khanh Hoa, and Lam Dong – clustered in south and south-central Vietnam.

Mach Van Si, a farmer in Dak Lak, told AFP: “Our neighbourhood was completely destroyed. Nothing was left. Everything was covered in mud.”

Prime Minister Phạm Minh Chính chaired a virtual emergency meeting on Sunday morning from South Africa, where he had been attending the G20 summit.

Rainfall had exceeded 1.5m (5ft) in several areas leading up to Friday, with some areas surpassing a 5.2m level not seen since 1993. The rain is forecast to ease in the coming days.

Scientists say that Vietnam has been left more exposed to extreme weather events by human-driven climate change, which has made typhoons stronger and more frequent.

bbc.com