November 23, 2022
Africa: As U.S. Dollar Gets Stronger, African Countries Feel the Pain and Have Few Policy Options
The US dollar has been advancing rapidly in response to the Federal Reserve's resolve to keep raising policy rates for longer to regain control of stubbornly high inflation. This… Read more »
South Africa: Black Panther in the Classroom - How Afrofuturism in a Film Helped Trainee Teachers
Back in 2018 I joined the millions of people who flocked to cinemas worldwide to watch Ryan Coogler's Black Panther. The story of an ultra modern African society not shaped by… Read more »
Nigeria: People With Vitiligo Face Stigma - A Skin Doctor Calls for Better Support
Vitiligo - a disease which causes pale patches to develop on the skin and mucous membranes - can be psychologically devastating. The change in skin colour may even create doubts… Read more »
South Africa: Small-Scale Fishers Have Been Marginalised Since Apartheid - What Needs to Change
South Africa is home to tens of thousands of small-scale fishers and fishing households. Some fish purely for consumption and subsistence, while others make up a small commercial… Read more »
Africa: Just Because Someone Had Covid Before They Had a Heart Attack Doesn't Mean It Was the Cause
Last week ABC journalist and physician Norman Swan suggested the heart attacks of two high profile people over the past year were unlikely to be a coincidence. The suggestion was… Read more »
Congo-Kinshasa: M23 - Four Things You Should Know About the Rebel Group's Campaign in Rwanda-DRC Conflict
Fighting between the Democratic Republic of Congo's national army and the rebel group M23 has displaced thousands of people in the eastern border city of Goma. Formed 10 years ago,… Read more »
November 22, 2022
Africa: All Signs Point to Blowing Past the 1.5 Degrees Global Warming Limit - Here's What We Can Still Do #AfricaClimateCrisis
The world could still, theoretically, meet its goal of keeping global warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius, a level many scientists consider a dangerous threshold. Realistically,… Read more »
Africa: Scientists Uncovered the Structure of the Key Protein for a Future Hepatitis C Vaccine - Here's How They Did It
The hepatitis C virus, or HCV, causes a chronic liver infection that can lead to permanent liver scarring and, in dire cases, cancer. It affects around 71 million people worldwide… Read more »
Ghana: Ghana Digitised Its Address System - Its Failure Offers Lessons to Other African Countries Creating Smart Cities
Smart urbanism is about using digital technologies to address urban problems. Across the continent, digital technologies and smart initiatives have been applied in myriad ways,… Read more »
South Africa: Exquisite New Fossils From South Africa Offer a Glimpse Into a Thriving Ecosystem 266 Million Years Ago
South Africa is famous for its amazingly rich and diverse fossil record. The country's rocks document more than 3.5 billion years of life on Earth: ancient forms of bacterial life,… Read more »
Africa: The Era of the Megalopolis - How the World's Cities Are Merging
On November 15 2022, a baby girl named Vinice Mabansag, born at Dr Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital in Manila, Philippines, became - symbolically - the eight billionth person in the… Read more »
November 21, 2022
Africa: Thinking of Breaking Up With Twitter? Here's the Right Way to Do It
After a few chaotic weeks it's clear Elon Musk is intent on taking Twitter in a direction that's at odds with the prevailing cultures of the diverse users who call it home. Read more »
Africa: Intellectual Property Waiver for Covid Vaccines Should Be Expanded to Include Treatments and Tests
Global inequities in access to COVID vaccines have turned out to be a "catastrophic moral failure", just as the World Health Organization warned they would in January 2021. Yet it… Read more »
Africa: COP27's 'Loss and Damage' Fund for Developing Countries Could Be a Breakthrough - or Another Empty Climate Promise #AfricaClimateCrisis
Developing nations were justifiably jubilant at the close of COP27 as negotiators from wealthy countries around the world agreed for the first time to establish a dedicated "loss… Read more »
Tanzania: Pregnant Students May Stay in School Says New Ruling By African Child Rights Experts
The African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of Children recently made what experts call a landmark ruling. The committee is a regional quasi-judicial organ of the… Read more »
Africa: Monkeypox - Latest Data Reveals How the Virus Has Affected Women and Non-Binary People
Since May 2022, a global outbreak of human monkeypox infections has been reported in over 78,000 people. So far, infections have overwhelmingly occurred in sexually active men who… Read more »
South Africa: 16 Days of Activism - How South Africa's TV News Gets It Wrong
South Africa is a country that experiences a very high level of gender-based violence. During the UN's annual international 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence… Read more »
Uganda: Ebola - Schools Were Closed for Two Years During Covid, Now They Face More Closures - Something Must Change
Children in Uganda missed out on more school because of the COVID pandemic than their peers anywhere else in the world. An estimated 15 million pupils in the East African nation… Read more »
Africa: Tested Positive to Covid? Go Easy On Yourself - Try Not to Rush Back to Work or Exercise
With COVID isolation rules largely gone, some people feel pressured to rush back to work, school, or other activities after testing positive to COVID. Read more »
Africa: Less Burping, More Meat and Milk - How Livestock Farmers Can Help Tackle the Climate Crisis #AfricaClimateHope
Africa's livestock farmers are at the forefront of climate change. Images of parched landscapes littered with the carcasses of starved cattle are becoming all too familiar as… Read more »
Africa: COP27 Key Outcomes - Progress On Compensation for Developing Countries, but More Needed On Climate Justice and Equity
There were high expectations for COP27, the 27th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Read more »
Africa: FIFA's Clampdown On Rainbow Armbands Conflicts With Its Own Guidance On Human Rights
The 2022 men's World Cup host nation Qatar is known for its human rights abuses relating to women, migrant workers and those from the LGBTQ+ community. Same-sex relationships in… Read more »
November 20, 2022
Nigeria: Treatment of Wastewater in Oil Fields Is Failing, Raising the Risk of Health Hazards #AfricaClimateCrisis
People need both clean, safe water and sustainable energy. That means both resources must be properly managed. But when it comes to the oil and gas industries, there's a problem. Read more »
Somalia: Time for a New Strategy On Al-Shabaab
In October 2022, Somalia's capital Mogadishu suffered yet another massive suicidal attack. More than 100 people were killed. Hundreds more were wounded and thousands will have been… Read more »
November 18, 2022
Africa: What the World Would Lose With the Demise of Twitter
What do a cybersecurity researcher building a system to generate alerts for detecting security threats and vulnerabilities, a wildfire watcher who tracks the spread of forest… Read more »