Author: Ewang Johnson

Ryan Coogler’s vampire epic “Sinners” dominated Oscar nominations on Thursday with a record 16 nods. The Academy also rewarded international films and handed a strong showing to Warner Bros. Source link

Nannie and her cohorts aren’t pleased to hear it: Tam has to flee on horseback with a crowd of screeching witches in hot pursuit, “Wi’ mony an eldritch skriech and hollo”. Luckily for him, witches can’t cross running water, and the River Doon is nearby. Tam manages to race over the bridge to safety, but Maggie the horse isn’t quite so fortunate. Nannie grabs hold of her tail just as she steps on to the Brig O’ Doon, and – spoiler alert – she is left with “scarce a stump”.Rude jokes and chilling imageryCarruthers calls it a “fairly hackneyed ghost…

ROME, Italy, 23 January 2026-/African Media Agency(AMA)/- Over two million people across Kenya are facing worsening food insecurity following one of the driest October to December 2025 rainy seasons on record. The prolonged drought has led to rising rates of malnutrition, increased risk of disease outbreaks, and disrupted access to essential health services. The 2025 short rains, which normally bring seasonal rainfall between October and December, delivered only 30 to 60 percent of the long-term average in most areas, producing the driest season recorded since 1981 in parts of eastern Kenya. The drought’s severe impacts are also being felt in…

Award-winning Malaysian author Tash Aw kicks off a sprawling family saga with coming-of-age novel “The South”. He tells us about returning to the Malaysia of the 1990s and reflects on a society within which homophobic laws existed, but small queer communities were relatively visible. We also talk about how climate change has been driving waves of migration in Southeast Asia and why embarking on an ambitious literary project is a risky but rewarding business. Source link

In today’s Oscar nominations, the biggest shock was that massive musical sequel Wicked: For Good, starring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, earned zero nods – despite its predecessor earning 10. It proved the perils of overstretching your material.The Oscar nominations had their usual share of snubs and surprises, with no best supporting actor nod for Paul Mescal, the co-star of Hamnet, and two different nods for Norway’s Sentimental Value in the best supporting actress category. The biggest surprise of all, though, is what might be called a multi-snub, or even an omni-snub: there were no nominations at all for Wicked:…

By Zwelethu Bashman, Managing Director, MSD South Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa, Marloes Kibacha, Managing Director, Africa Health Business, Cheyenne Braganza, Senior Project Associate, Africa Health Business JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, 22 January 2026 -/African Media Agency(AMA)/ –IntroductionCervical cancer remains one of the leading causes of cancer-related deaths among women globally, despite being almost entirely preventable. In Africa, it continues to claim lives not because science has failed, but because policy ambition has fallen short. Over 200 strains of human papillomavirus (HPV) exist, with 12 high-risk types responsible for most HPV-related cancers. [1] Although HPV vaccines can prevent almost 90% of cervical cancer, most…

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have announced the nominees for the 98th Academy Awards, with Ryan Coogler’s vampire horror “Sinners” leading the charge. Racking up a record 16 nominations in various categories, “Sinners” is followed by Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another”, on 13 nominations. FRANCE 24’s Olivia Salazar-Winspear takes us through the movies and the movie stars who could be in line for a gold statuette on March 15. Source link

“Big Brother is a very strong protest song,” Gaines tells the BBC. “He says ‘You’ve killed all our leaders… You’ve caused your own country to fail.'” Wonder was describing a US society that responded to the social movements of the 1960s with violence and a series of political assassinations. “He’s clearly questioning the legitimacy of the political order at that time,” says Gaines.The early 1970s was a disastrous era for African-American activists, with state crackdowns on the Black Panthers and the killing of Black Power leaders in Chicago, and Big Brother reflected those real events. On Wonder’s next album, Innervisions,…

Rome, Italy, 21 January 2026-/African Media Agency(AMA)/-The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and the European Union (EU) today officially handed over the country’s first humanitarian hub to the Government of Madagascar. Located in the eastern city of Manakara, the hub will strengthen the nation’s emergency preparedness and response to crises for the cyclone-prone eastern and southern coasts.“The humanitarian hub builds the capacity of the Government of Madagascar to prepare for and respond to crises like cyclones, storms and floods. By allowing food, medicine, and other vital supplies to be stored in advance, it helps speed up response times and…

I grew up on a steady diet of Star Wars long before I had words for genre or myth. I couldn’t have explained archetypes or Campbellian beats, but I understood the pull of it, the sense that something old and immense lay just under the adventure. Luke gazing at the twin suns on Tatooine felt like an ache I didn’t yet know how to name. As a child, Star Wars was simply the world I wanted to live in, a place where goodness and danger and mystery lived side by side across deserts and starships, quiet homesteads and impossible, far-off…