Cassie Dummett Villagers in the Congo basin rely on the forest for food, medicine and spiritual wellbeing, but an auction of exploration rights could threaten that way of life West accused of double standards over oil and gas exploration in DRC “I have lived all my life in the forest; everything I do is in… Read More Sale of oil and gas permits casts shadow over world’s second-largest rainforest
Only breaking at midday to refuel on peanuts and palm wine, the village works methodically as a unit to grow fonio – a precious grain crucial to their diets that only takes days to germinate and can be harvested in as little as six weeks. Though laborious, growing fonio, one of Africa’s oldest cultivated grains,… Read More ‘Fonio just grows naturally’: could ancient indigenous crops ensure food security for Africa?
Two wealthy Indian-born business brothers who were allegedly at the centre of a massive web of state corruption in South Africa have been arrested in Dubai, Pretoria announced on Monday. The arrests came as an investigation was concluded into massive plundering of state institutions during former president Jacob Zuma’s era. South Africa’s justice ministry “confirms that… Read More Gupta brothers arrested in Dubai over alleged corruption in South Africa
The African continent is responsible for only 2–3% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions from energy and industrial sources. But it’s alarmingly suffering from the effects of the climate crisis, as reports from the UN and others show. On the positive side, Africa has a huge potential for climate mitigation, especially thanks to its tropical rainforests. The Congo Basin’s rainforests in central Africa… Read More Literature from the Congo Basin offers ways to address the climate crisis
Early in the morning of 17 December 2004, I woke up to a phone call from a Western diplomat. She asked me what I had heard about Deyda Hydara, a journalist and a mutual friend. “No, I am just back from an overseas trip and I have not yet spoken to him,” I replied. “Anything the… Read More How I remember my friend, the brave journalist Deyda Hydara
It’s been 27 years since geologist David Roberts identified some of the oldest footprints of our species ever discovered. The trackway of three footprints was found on the surface of a cemented sand dune (called an aeolianite) near Langebaan on South Africa’s west coast. The tracks were later dated to 117,000 years and were attributed to Homo… Read More Charles Helm – Ancient human tracks on South Africa’s west coast: 3 reasons they are an exciting find
Journalist, photographer, author and professor Howard W. French’s Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War, is the most recent in a long career of thoughtful and significant literary and journalistic interventions. It demands an account of modernity that reckons with Africa as central to the… Read More Book review: how Africa was central to the making of the modern world
Tomdispatch.com – If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality – Archbishop Desmond Tutu The world lost a great moral leader this Christmas… Read More LIZ THEOHARIS: Which Way America? Confronting Christian Nationalism in the Spirit of Desmond Tutu
In my first class on an archaeology course at Lund University in Sweden, I stood out more than usual. It was not just that it was full of blond and blue-eyed students, more than in any other class I had ever attended – it was that archaeology is not a field that many migrants study.… Read More Sada Mire: Africa’s heritage is humanity’s – and it’s been overlooked for too long
The Arch is dead. Desmond Mpilo Tutu, archbishop emeritus of the Anglican church and Nobel Peace Prize winner who fought a long battle with cancer died on December 26 , 11 weeks after his 90Ath birthday. His work within and after South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) reinforced his position as an international icon,… Read More Desmond Mpilo Tutu 1931-2021. A Tribute by Terry Bell
After the truth-shower 