insert_link Environment Medicinal plants help keep children healthy in South Africa: 61 species were recorded By Tshepiso Ndhlovu, University of Mpumalanga; Abiodun Olusola Omotayo, North-West University; Adeyemi Oladapo Aremu, North-West University, and Wilfred Otang-Mbeng, University of Mpumalanga In 2021, almost 33 of every 1,000 South African children under five years old died. This under-five mortality rate is far worse than in similar middle-income countries such as Brazil (14.4 per 1,000 births), Cuba (5 per 1,000), India (30.6), Indonesia (22.2) and Egypt (19.0). […] today13 February, 2024
insert_link Africa Morocco dinosaur discovery gives clues on why they went extinct By Nicholas R. Longrich, University of Bath 66 million years ago, the last dinosaurs vanished from Earth. We’re still trying to understand why. New fossils of abelisaurs – distant relatives of the tyrannosaurs – from north Africa suggest that African dinosaurs remained diverse up to the very end. And that suggests their demise came suddenly, with the impact of a giant asteroid. The causes of the mass […] today13 February, 2024
insert_link Business / Economics Bank of Namibia expected to cut repo rate by 25bps as inflation cooling By Josef Kefas Sheehama At its first Monetary Policy Committee meeting of 2024, on the 14 February 2024, the Bank of Namibia is expected to cut its Repo Rate by 25 basis points. All of Namibian’s banks now expect the Bank of Namibia to cut its Repo Rate target by 0.25 basis points on the 14 February 2024, which would bring its key lending rate to 7.50%. This […] today13 February, 2024
insert_link Lifestyle Migrating animals face collapsing numbers – major new UN report By Joseph Ogutu, University of Hohenheim The world’s travelling animals – marine turtles, whales, sharks, elephants, reptiles, wild cats, birds, and even insects – have entered a period of sharp decline, new research has found. The first ever State of the World’s Migratory Species report, released today by the United Nations Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals, showed that the conservation status of […] today13 February, 2024
insert_link Africa The San people of southern Africa: where ethics codes for researching indigenous people could fail them By Stasja Koot, Wageningen University There is a long and often complicated history of researchers studying Indigenous people. In 1999, the education scholar Linda Tuhiwai-Smith, in her book Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, emphasised the colonial character of much research. She warned that it brings with it a new wave of exploration, discovery, exploitation and appropriation. Well into the 20th century, researchers depicted groups like the […] today13 February, 2024
insert_link Lifestyle University rankings are unscientific and bad for education: experts point out the flaws By Sharon Fonn, University of the Witwatersrand We rank almost everything. The top 10 restaurants in our vicinity, the best cities to visit, the best movies to watch. To understand whether the rankings were any good you’d want know who was doing the ranking. And what it was they were looking for. These are exactly the same questions that are worth asking when looking at the international ranking […] today13 February, 2024
Africa Kenya’s sex workers have solutions to their problems, but international NGOs aren’t hearing them By Lise Woensdregt, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam In Kenya, rights organisations run by sex workers have gone into numerous partnerships with international organisations over the past decade. In recent research, I set out to understand whether these relationships worked in favour of the sex workers and their organisations. My research focused on an organisation in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, that supports male sex workers. Kenya’s laws punish activities related to […] today13 February, 2024
insert_link Entertainment 100 years of radio in Africa: from propaganda to people’s power By Sisanda Nkoala, University of the Western Cape; Christina Chan-Meetoo, University of Mauritius; Jacinta Mwende Maweu, University of Nairobi; Marissa J. Moorman, Indiana University; Modestus Fosu, Ghana Institute of Journalism, and Stanley Tsarwe, University of Namibia Radio is thriving across Africa. Exact figures are difficult to come by because audience research differs across countries. But studies estimate radio listenership to be between 60% and 80% of the continent’s […] today13 February, 2024
insert_link Opinion Pieces Even with a 30% quota in place, Indonesian women face an uphill battle running for office By Sally White, Australian National University In the 2019 general election, Indonesians voted more women into the national parliament than ever before. After the first election of the post-authoritarian period in 1999, women’s representation was a paltry 8.8%, so the rise to 20.9% in 2019 seemed worth celebrating. Indeed, women activists had worked long and hard to reach this point. Disappointed with the results of the first […] today9 February, 2024
