By Hasya Nindita
A group of activists in Sagea village, North Maluku, Indonesia, have successfully pushed back against a nickel mining operation which would destroy spaces sacred to their religion and culture.
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By Tawanda Zininga, Lecturer and Researcher, Stellenbosch University
Malaria remains one of the world’s most devastating infectious diseases, claiming more than half a million lives each year. In Africa, the illness is mostly caused by a parasite carried by mosquitoes – Plasmodium falciparum.
When the parasite invades the human body, it faces a hostile environment: soaring fevers, attacks from the body’s immune system, and the stress…
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By Tanya Zack, Visiting senior lecturer, University of the Witwatersrand
Since its founding in 1886, Johannesburg, has been a city of migrants, internal and international. But the economic capital of South Africa has undergone big changes since 1994 when South Africa became a democracy. One such change involves migration into the city by people from other African countries.
A new book, The Chaos Precinct: Johannesburg as a port city, by Tanya Zack traces how migrant Ethiopians have shaped a trading post in Johannesburg’s inner city. Zack,…
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By Philippes Mbevo Fendoung, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS)
Yaoundé, the Cameroonian capital, is a vibrant, cosmopolitan city where green hills meet modern architecture, creating a harmonious blend of culture, history and urban dynamism. The city has expanded significantly over the years because of urbanisation – its population has grown from 59,000 in 1957 to nearly 4.1 million in 2020. Its expansion, however, has brought about a sharp decline in vegetation, turning the city into a collection of urban heat islands.
A…
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By Abotebuno Akolgo, Postdoctoral Fellow, Bard College Berlin; Bayreuth University
Bank lending is a major source of funding for businesses in Ghana. It helps pay for operational expenditure and investment in expansion of productive capacity. Therefore, it is important that there is substantial, affordable, and accessible financial credit for all businesses in the medium to long term. More than this, it matters which sectors of the country’s economy receive most of its bank credit.
In a recent study of the sectoral distribution of bank lending in Ghana, I found that for…
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By Eoin Daly, Lecturer Above The Bar, School of Law, University of Galway
Ireland is set to have a new president in the form of Catherine Connolly, an independent leftwing TD for Galway, and former deputy speaker of the Dáil.
The presidential election campaign was a colourful and eccentric spectacle. Since the Irish president isn’t an executive office with power over policy, the campaign focused on obscure ethical scandals around the two candidates, Connolly and Fine Gael candidate Heather Humphreys.
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By Helen Abnett, Research Fellow, University of Hertfordshire
Aimee Grant, Associate Professor in Public Health and Wellcome Trust Career Development Fellow, Swansea University
Kathryn Williams, PhD Candidate in Access to Healthcare for Autistic Adults, Cardiff University
Autism charities are important organisations. They provide essential services for autistic people, influence policy decisions, and often speak on behalf of autistic people.
This means that how these charities write about autistic people may influence how society understands…
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By Human Rights Watch
Click to expand Image Vietnam’s Deputy Defense Minister Hoang Xuan Chien. © 2023 Alexey Filippov/Sputnik via AP Photo The Vietnamese government has a poor record of dealing with allegations of sexual harassment by senior officials. In the latest reported incident, a South Korean civil servant accused Deputy Defense Minister Hoang Xuan Chien of “inappropriate touching” at a banquet on September 11 during the Vietnam–Republic of Korea Defense Dialogue in Seoul.South Korea’s defense ministry summoned the Vietnamese defense attaché on September 19 and lodged a formal…
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By Shelley Mitchell, Senior Extension Specialist, Horticulture and Landscape Architecture, Oklahoma State University
October in much of the U.S. brings cooler weather, vibrant fall colors and, of course, pumpkin-spiced everything. This is peak pumpkin season, with most of the American pumpkin crop harvested in October.
With the pumpkin spice craze fully underway, I find myself thinking more about pumpkins. As an extension specialist working at Oklahoma State University’s botanic garden, I educate the people pouring…
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By Kate Spencer, Professor of Environmental Geochemistry, Queen Mary University of London
Nan Wu, Ecological modeller, Postdoctoral Researcher, British Antarctic Survey; Queen Mary University of London
Think of ocean plastic and you may picture bottles and bags bobbing on the waves, slowly drifting out to sea. Yet the reality is more complex and far more persistent.
Even if we stopped all plastic pollution today, our new research shows that fragments of buoyant plastic would continue to pollute the ocean’s surface for more than a century. These fragments break down slowly, releasing microplastics that sink through the water column at a glacial pace. The result is a “natural conveyor belt” of pollution…
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