CONTINENTAL DRIFT

Egypt’s ancient cat trove

Archeologists in Egypt have recently discovered dozens of cat mummies and about 100 gilded wooden cat statues in 6 000-year-old Pharaonic Age tombs — more proof that humans have been admiring their feline friends long before cat videos on YouTube. The country’s antiquities ministry announced the discovery last Saturday, partly in an effort to attract visitors to Egypt’s heritage sites.

‘Magnanimous’ release

A prominent Cameroonian TV reporter who has drawn attention to the crisis in the country’s Anglophone regions, where armed groups are fighting for independence, has been released from detention. She had been charged with “publishing and propagating information that infringes on the territorial integrity of the Republic of Cameroon”. Mimi Mefo was arrested after she tweeted that an American missionary had been killed by soldiers. The charges against her were dropped as “a gesture of magnanimity” from President Paul Biya.

Military corruption bust

The former head of the Ethiopian army’s commercial wing, Metec, was arrested as part of a corruption investigation. Kinfe Dagnew, who is also a brigadier general in the army, was flown in handcuffs to Addis Ababa on Tuesday. His arrest, along with several colleagues, was described by Amnesty International as “an important first step towards ensuring full accountability for the abuses that have dogged the country for several decades”.

Soundtrack to immorality