Contributed, Author at Future Media News

China’s demand for Africa’s donkeys is rising. Why it’s time to control the trade

Women walk with their donkeys in Ethiopia’s Amhara region. Buena Vista Images/GettyImages Lauren Johnston, South African Institute of International Affairs In recent years, there’s been a huge, rising demand for donkey hides in China, where they are used to make an ancient health-related product called ejiao. Ejiao is made from collagen that’s been extracted from donkey hides mixed with herbs and other ingredients to create medicinal and health consumer products. […]

20 February, 2024

Africa

What are Sabaki languages? How people formed ethnic groups along the coast of east Africa

By Daren Ray, Brigham Young University A new book called Ethnicity, Identity and Conceptualizing Community in Indian Ocean East Africa tracks the history of the coastal communities of east Africa and how the Sabaki family of Bantu languages was formed, shaped in part by the sea and the arrival of visitors from other shores and within the continent. We asked historian Daren Ray to tell us […]

20 February, 2024

Africa

Sudan Armed Forces are on a path to self-destruction – risking state collapse

By Harry Verhoeven, Columbia University It is now 10 months since the outbreak of civil war in Sudan in April 2023, pitting the Sudan Armed Forces against the Rapid Support Forces, a powerful paramilitary group. The war, which erupted after relations between the two wings of Sudan’s security apparatus broke down, rapidly spread beyond the capital, Khartoum. More recently, the Sudan Armed Forces have suffered numerous setbacks […]

20 February, 2024

Environment

In Brazil’s soy belt, community seed banks offer hope for the Amazon

By Ana Ionova Not too long ago, the plot of land that Maria Ivonete de Souza inherited was barren, the soil hardened by years of cattle ranching. When the family had arrived to the Amazon from southern Brazil four decades earlier, her father had swiftly cleared the dense rainforest to make way for pasture. “He razed it all by hand, with a saw and an ax,” Souza […]

20 February, 2024

Business / Economics

Jobs in South Africa: the labour market is recovering from COVID – but unskilled and less educated people are still being left behind

By Derek Yu, University of the Western Cape For more than three decades the South African economy has had very high rates of joblessness. The country’s economy has been unable to create enough jobs for its growing army of workers. This has partly been because of the stagnant economic growth rate of only 1.7% during the 2010s (it was even lower at 0.9% in 2015-2019). Another factor […]

20 February, 2024

Africa

Nervous Conditions: on translating one of Zimbabwe’s most famous novels into Shona

By Tinashe Mushakavanhu, University of Oxford The publishing journey of Zimbabwean writer and film-maker Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions wasn’t easy. Yet the novel is today considered by many as one of Africa’s 100 best books of the 20th century and is studied at universities around the world. When she submitted the manuscript to publishing houses in Zimbabwe in the early 1980s, they all turned it down. Dangarembga […]

20 February, 2024

South Africa

Green Point “Tent City”: Homeless camp’s days are numbered

People have been occupying this site in Green Point for more than five years. It sprung up during the Covid pandemic when many people lost their jobs. Text by Matthew Hirsch and photos by Ashraf Hendricks via GroundUp For weeks the homeless community in the tent camp near the tennis courts in Green Point have been holding their breath, awaiting eviction. At one time there were about a hundred people living […]

20 February, 2024

Health / Medical

The Powerful Constraints on Medical Care in Catholic Hospitals Across America

Jennifer Chin, an OB-GYN at UW Medicine in Seattle, has treated patients turned away by Catholic hospitals. “We had many instances where people would have to get in their car to drive to us while they were bleeding, or patients who had had their water bags broken for up to five days or even up to a week,” Chin says. (DAN DELONG FOR KFF HEALTH NEWS) By Rachana Pradhan and Hannah Recht via KFF […]

20 February, 2024

World

Aid Cuts Are Not Criticized as Violence Against Women, but They Should Be

By Marissa Conway Britain has cut its international aid several times since 2020 and, by the government’s own admission, the well-being of women around the world has been substantially impacted. The 2021 cut to UNFPA, the UN Population Fund, is a prime example. If the £130 million (approximately $164 million) in funding had been maintained, it would have helped prevent a quarter of a million child and maternal deaths, 14 […]

20 February, 2024