 Weekend Reads Francis Tapon/Wikimedia Commons license 🌍 For Pan African Review, Charles Onyango-Obbo traces the emergence and rise in the popularity of Toyota vehicles in Africa to the ideological shift in early independence days, the 1987 Chadian–Libyan War (pictured), and now the ongoing Sudan conflict. He notes that the Toyota brand became a symbol of power and prestige to the ruling elite, against other brands like Land Rovers and Peugeots. But they have also been preferred for their versatility and hardiness. 🇬🇭 Artisanal mining in Ghana — Africa’s largest gold producer — is wreaking havoc on the environment, writes Godfred Boafo in The Conversation. In a series of articles tracing the rise in illegal small-scale mining, Boafo notes that solutions to challenges in the sector that accounts for 40% of gold produced in Ghana could start with reforms so “the cost of formalizing operations aligned with the complex socio-economic realities of most miners.” 🇸🇳 Senegal’s President Bassirou Diomaye Faye’s move to dissolve Parliament last week is meant to allow him “to give substance to the systemic transformation” that he promised. Eromo Egbejule writes in The Guardian that Faye, who rose to power on an anti-establishment agenda, promised radical change and has blamed the opposition-led parliament for a failure to deliver his agenda. 🇷🇺 Russia’s anti-colonialism crusade in African countries is meant to advance its geopolitical agenda and may also be a ploy to “secure access to Africa’s vast natural resources,” Benjamin R. Young writes in Foreign Policy. Young notes that Moscow has projected itself as the spearhead of a new global anti-colonial movement on the continent. 🇰🇪 In an essay for The Elephant, Keith Ang’ana revisits the history of Nairobi, tracing it back 90 years to British colonial rule. In contrast to colonial Nairobi, Ang’ana notes that now the city’s population has ballooned to 5 million while it hasn’t developed in tandem with the rising population, leading to disorderliness. This, he argues, could have been avoided if new workers could be “attracted in large numbers to jobs in smaller urban centers and on prosperous farms,” or if other cities the size of present-day Nairobi would be built. 🗓️ Week Ahead Sept. 16 — Nigeria’s statistics office will release the latest inflation data. Sept. 17 — South Africa’s third largest insurer by value, OUTsurance, will report full-year results. Sept. 18-19 — Digital Media Africa 2024 will take place at The Aga Khan University in Nairobi. Sept. 17-20 — The International Fair Trade Summit will be held in Cape Town. | 
