Electric cars pile up at European ports as Chinese firms struggle to find buyers

By Tom Stacey, Anglia Ruskin University China’s automotive industry has revolutionised over the past decade, from producing basic western clones to making cars that equal the world’s best. As the manufacturing powerhouse of the world, China is also producing them in huge volumes. However, Chinese cars are facing difficulties in finding buyers in Europe. Imported cars, many of which are Chinese electric vehicles, are piling up at […]

April 30, 2024 20

Environment

Gum arabic from Africa’s acacia trees in the Sahel is used in hundreds of products: what’s worth knowing

By Asgar Ali, University of Nottingham The conflict in Sudan has turned attention to a rarely discussed commodity: gum arabic. This product, the dried sap of certain species of acacia trees, is used mainly as an additive in the soft drinks industry. Sudan accounts for about 70% of global gum arabic exports. Asgar Ali, an expert in sustainable food systems, answers questions about the commodity and its […]

April 30, 2024 44

Africa

Young middle-class Nigerians are desperate to leave the country: insights into why

By Jing Jing Liu, MacEwan University Since the 1980s, migration has been a part of the Nigerian middle-class psyche, catalysed by the usual suspects: high unemployment, security concerns, infrastructure gaps, and poor governance. Migrants tends to be middle-class since one needs resources to migrate. For many young Nigerians, the bloodshed that ended the 2020 #EndSARS protests against police brutality proved to be a decisive factor. Their desire […]

April 30, 2024 8

Africa

Uganda’s tax system isn’t bringing in enough revenue but is targeting small business the answer?

By Maria Jouste, United Nations University Uganda, with a fiscal deficit of 5.6% in 2023, has increasingly turned to local resources to make up for its revenue shortfall since the World Bank suspended its funding on 8 August 2023 over the country’s anti-homosexuality law. In early April 2024, traders in downtown Kampala protested against what they saw as high taxes and harsh enforcement tactics of the […]

April 29, 2024 8

Africa

Sudan’s civil war is rooted in its historical favouritism of Arab and Islamic identity

By Hamdy A. Hassan, Zayed University The current civil war in Sudan goes beyond a simple power struggle between two generals. It reflects a deep-rooted crisis within the country’s governing structure that’s been present since it gained independence from the British in 1956. Since independence, the Sudanese have experienced 35 coups and attempted coups, more than any other African country. In the country’s southern region a 56-year […]

April 29, 2024 5

Africa

Margaret Busby: how a pioneering Ghanaian publisher put African women’s writing on the map

By Phillippa Yaa de Villiers, University of the Witwatersrand Published in 1992, Daughters of Africa is a groundbreaking volume of writing by women of African descent. It was followed by an expanded second edition, New Daughters of Africa, in 2019. The mind behind the books is pioneering Ghanaian-born publisher, writer and editor Margaret Busby. She became the first Black female publisher in the UK at 20 when […]

April 29, 2024 15

South Africa

How the Mandela myth helped win the battle for democracy in South Africa

By Jonny Steinberg, Yale University Political history scholar Jonny Steinberg’s 2023 book Winnie & Nelson: Portrait of a Marriage is a double biography of South Africa’s most famous political figures – Nelson Mandela and Winnie Madikizela Mandela – and their role in the country’s struggle for democracy. It’s also a book that shatters countless myths about the couple and the liberation struggle that have been formed in popular […]

April 29, 2024 21

Africa

Kenyan doctors’ strike: the government keeps failing to hold up its end of the bargain

By Kahura Mundia, University of Nairobi At least 4,000 doctors are employed in Kenya’s public healthcare sector. Almost all of them went on strike on 14 March 2024, demanding the implementation of a labour agreement signed with the government in 2017. The agreement promised higher salaries, better working conditions and the recruitment of doctors. The Kenyan government said it didn’t have the money to honour the agreement, […]

April 29, 2024 13

South Africa

Owning a gun in South Africa offers some safety, but risks run high for users and society – expert

By Guy Lamb, Stellenbosch University South Africa has one of the highest homicide rates in the world, eclipsed only by Honduras and a handful of Caribbean island states. Furthermore, South African police crime data shows that South Africans experience above average levels of robbery, assault and rape. The 2022/23 Victims of Crime survey, which surveyed a representative sample of 42,746 South Africans, showed that the population had […]

April 29, 2024 14

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