Africa braces for a digital storm as industries reset their operations

Africa braces for a digital storm as industries reset their operations

The coronavirus pandemic is accelerating the move to digital, as large proportions of the population work, learn and entertain themselves remotely, while others have trialled services such as remote healthcare for the first time. These were amongst the findings of a recent Amdocs survey of 1,000 consumers in the United...

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Pope’s drug trials: History of vaccination replete with tales of poisoning

Pope’s drug trials: History of vaccination replete with tales of poisoning

It was a time of contagion and quacks. A Machiavellian power-broker keen to protect his position defied tradition to sponsor controlled experiments on the most marginalised of people. Therefore, the fear and suspicion by black people and people of colour the world has witnessed over the past few weeks since...

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Biden at his inauguration: Politics doesn’t have to be a raging fire

Biden at his inauguration: Politics doesn’t have to be a raging fire

Joe Biden was sworn-in on Wednesday as the 46th president of the United States, marking the official start to an administration that must now turn its attention to the global coronavirus pandemic, economic turmoil and deep divisions about the state of American politics and leadership. Forty-eight years after he entered...

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Collapsing aquifers, flooding of low-lying lands to affect 1.6 billion people by 2040

Collapsing aquifers, flooding of low-lying lands to affect 1.6 billion people by 2040

As California’s economy skyrocketed during the 20th century, its land headed in the opposite direction. A booming agricultural industry in the state’s San Joaquin Valley, combined with punishing droughts led to the over-extraction of water from aquifers. Like huge, empty water bottles, the aquifers crumpled, a phenomenon geologists call subsidence....

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Republicans: An angry mob will not get veto power over the rule of law in our nation

Republicans: An angry mob will not get veto power over the rule of law in our nation

President Donald Trump helped provoke the swarms of his supporters who stormed the US Capitol, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Tuesday. The damning remarks on the Senate floor came as the Kentucky Republican and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (Democratic-New York), worked to hash out details on Trump’s...

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Bright side of Covid: Carbon emissions dipped in 2020 as energy use dropped

Bright side of Covid: Carbon emissions dipped in 2020 as energy use dropped

After rising steadily for decades, global carbon dioxide emissions fell by 6.4 per cent or 2.3 billion tonnes in 2020 as the Covid-19 pandemic squelched economic and social activities worldwide, according to new data on daily fossil fuel emissions. The decline is significant – roughly double Japan’s yearly emissions –...

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Private sector invests in new ideas only after regimes make risky investments

Private sector invests in new ideas only after regimes make risky investments

The World Health Organisation appointed economist Mariana Mazzucato to head its Council on the Economics of Health for All in 2020. Ms Mazzucato is one of the architects of the biggest international research-funding scheme in the world, Horizon Europe, which launched this month. Her book Mission Economy is a timely...

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How police, spies and hackers get around your smartphone’s encryption

How police, spies and hackers get around your smartphone’s encryption

Lawmakers and law enforcement agencies around the world, including in the United States, have increasingly called for backdoors in the encryption schemes that protect your data, arguing that national security is at stake. But new research indicates governments already have methods and tools that, for better or worse, let them...

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Honey laundering is one of the mega food trades in the world today

Honey laundering is one of the mega food trades in the world today

In 2020, 13 honeys were subjected to another battery of tests. Nine of the products contained psicose, the rare sugar which would not typically be found in honey. Ten of the 13 honeys tested positive for the presence of enzymes indicating that they may be “adulterated with syrup”. All of...

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Google’s new workers’ union is already addressing political and racism issues

Google’s new workers’ union is already addressing political and racism issues

The Alphabet Workers Union is not seeking better pay and benefits. It wants to influence the company’s policies on social and other issues. On January 4, a group of workers at Google parent company Alphabet said they had formed a union to influence the company’s approach to political and social...

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