Africa Daily BBC World Service

The Olympic Games officially open in Paris today.
Over three billion people around the globe are expected to watch the world’s best sportsmen and women compete for 329 gold medals in 32 sports over 18 days.
The continent will be fully represented with all 54 countries taking part. So, what can Africa expect from the games and who are the athletes to watch?
Peter Musembi has been finding out from Malawian swimmer Tayamika Chang’anamuno and Ugandan sports journalist Darren Darren Allan Kyeyune who’s covering the games.

An investigation by BBC Verify has revealed that over 2 million people in the northern part of Ethiopia are at risk of starvation due to drought. The need for food aid has forced many to remain in camps for displaced persons.
The Tigray region is still dealing with the aftermath of a bitter two-year war with the federal government that ended in 2022.
BBC reporter Girmay Gebru led the investigation and spoke about what he uncovered with Africa Daily’s Alan Kasujja.

“The initial investment is quite high, but looking long-term into many development projects, I think it is an investment worthwhile” – Professor Otlogetswe Totolo

Botswana is building its very first space satellite.

Known as Bot-Sat-1, it is being developed by scientists and engineers at Botswana International University of Science and Technology in the town of Palapye.

The southern African country is looking to use images produced by this technology in town planning, mining, farming and other areas of commerce.

Alan Kasujja sits down with Prof. Otlogetswe Totolo and Dr. Dimane Mpoeleng who are at the heart of the project.

He tries to understand if the satellite is worth the millions of dollars spent to develop it.

“That will be a miracle on its own because when I started taking ARVs I began with 20 tablets.”
In June, the US drug company Gilead announced that a trial of its HIV drug Lenacapavir had got a 100% success rate.
The drug - a twice-yearly injection – can be used to protect people from catching the virus, but also to treat those who have it.
But the question of pricing remains – with people in poor countries unable to afford the current price tag of $40,000 per person per year. One analysis has suggested it could be mass produced as a generic drug for about $40 per person per year.
In this episode of Africa Daily podcast Peter Musembi speaks to Dr Moupali Das who oversees the development of HIV prevention drugs at Gilead – and also gets reaction with two people living with HIV.

‘The Apartheid Killer’ is the latest investigation from the BBC Africa Eye team. Filmed over four years, it tells the story of Louis van Schoor, an ex-police officer turned security guard who in the late 1980's terrorised and killed at least 39 people in the South African city of East London. All of his victims were black and the youngest was just 12 years old.

He was finally arrested in 1991. But was released from prison after just over a decade in jail.

More than 30 of Louis van Schoor’s killings are still categorised as ‘justifiable homicides’ by police today. In his version of events, he’d caught the people he killed breaking into the white-owned businesses he was employed to protect and says he acted “within the law.”

In today’s episode, Mpho Lakaje speaks to Marlene Mvumbi, the sister of a man murdered by van Schoor and the co-director of ‘The Apartheid Killer’ freelance filmmaker and journalist Isa Jacobson.

“I have lived with HIV for 25 years out of 50. I just turned 50, and I was diagnosed in 1999 at the age of 25 with HIV.”
The HIV/AIDS epidemic has significantly impacted African countries south of the Sahara. By late 2001, over half of the world's HIV cases were in sub-Saharan Africa.
UNAIDS, the organisation advocating for accelerated and effective global action on the HIV pandemic, is leading efforts to eradicate the virus by 2030.
They will hold their 25th conference next week.
In today’s Africa Daily Alan Kasujja speaks to Friedel Dausab, a gay man living in Namibia who remembers a time when treatment was unavailable, that changed for him in 2002, and Winnie Byanyima, the Executive Director of UNAIDS.