Climate change forces Kenyan Maasai herders, famous for their culture and love for barbequed beef, to embrace fish
Among the Maasai and other pastoralists in Kenya and wider East Africa – like the Samburu, Somali and Borana – cattle are also a status symbol, a source of wealth and part of key cultural events like marriages as part of dowries.
Disempowerment: How postcolonial regimes turned Basoga, Baganda in Uganda and Luhyia in Kenya into serfs
Most writings on Busoga have created the impression that there was no Busoga before about 300 years ago. But Busoga is a water rich area with a large part of Lake Victoria within its territory, and the source of the longest river in the world – the Nile – which is mentioned in the Old Testament of the Bible (Amos 8:8: Will not the land tremble for this, and all who live in it mourn? The whole land will rise like the Nile; it will be stirred up and then sink like the river of Egypt.) has its source in Busoga. It is important to ask: Why should such an area at the source of the Nile not have a prehistory but Egypt at the mouth of the Nile has a prehistory?
Fall of Chwezi Kingdom is a tale of how Uganda’s traditional centres of power were killed to create Museveni Empire
For all intent and purposes, President Tibuhaburwa Museveni ruled like a king over a new kingdom called Uganda Kingdom. It was a new Chwezi dynasty in Uganda. He was glorified and worshiped. He promoted hereditary politics to service his new kingdom. The kingdom had laws and a judiciary but many laws were made by his word of mouth and what emanated from the judiciary as judgement often reflected what he wanted.
Sickly Pope Francis starts longest, farthest and most tedious trip to Asia with echoes in China
Francis loves gestures of interfaith fraternity and harmony, and there could be no better symbol of religious tolerance at the start of his trip than the underground “Tunnel of Friendship” linking Indonesia’s main Istiqlal mosque to the country’s Catholic cathedral.
In Senegal’s thriving hip-hop scene, female beatmaker insists women have a seat at the table
The question of accessibility looms over much of the House of Urban Culture’s work in Senegal. Amadou Fall Ba was the centre’s coordinator for 10 years, and now works with the city of Dakar on an initiative to create more public spaces for young people in an aim to make hip-hop more accessible.
Rising Catholics priest shortage linked to sex abuse scandals and loss of moral commitment in Vatican
There were 2,466 diocesan priests in Indonesia in 2022, up from 2,203 in 2017, according to Vatican statistics as of December 31, 2022, the last year for which data is available. That number is supplemented by even more religious order priests, such as Jesuits or Franciscans, whose numbers reached 3,437 in 2022.
Swedish pop group ABBA bans presidential candidate Trump from using their music
Campaigns don’t need an artist’s express permission to play their songs at rallies as long as the political organisation or the venue has gotten what’s known as a blanket licence from the performing rights organisations ASCAP and BMI.
Double tragedy for Grammy-winning singer Mariah Carey as she loses mother and sister
Mariah Carey mother, Patricia, was previously married to Alfred Roy Carey, the singer’s father. The parents divorced when the Vision of Love singer was 3. Carey grew up in Suffolk County on Long Island and lived primarily with her mother after her parents’ divorce. Her father died of cancer in 2002 at age 72.
Risks of Barcelona dream: ‘If you’re sick…aren’t you in danger? We take our chances, either we get there or we die’
Migrant boats that get lost or run into problems often vanish in the Atlantic, with some drifting across the ocean for months until they are found in the Caribbean and Latin America carrying only human remains.
Dealing with stress, Nigerian way: Swinging a sledgehammer in ‘rage room’ is the latest fad in Lagos
Times are tough in Nigeria, a country of about 250 million people where growing frustration among youths led to recent mass protests in which several people were killed by security forces. The inflation rate has reached a 28-year-high of 33.4 per cent, while the naira currency has fallen to record lows against the dollar.
