Voices from Africa: Policy committees of Kenyan universities are typically dominated by men, young female researchers are excluded
Some Kenyans have a tendency to equate quietness with being nice, says analytical environmental chemist Veronica Okello at Machakos University in Kenya. She urges young researchers to be less timid, air their views and approach their professors for professional opportunities. In this seventh article of eight describing the career experiences...
Dying in Haiti: A gangland where UN and International aid agencies hire armed criminal escorts to ferry food to the needy
United Nations relief organisations occasionally in Haiti employ armed escorts to cross gang-blocked roads, such as in Martissant. But getting commercial security companies to help train aid groups in hostile environments and driver safety in Haiti has been a challenge. Many firms have refused to work here, or charge exorbitant...
In Haiti, when nature is not violent it’s armed criminal gangs that dish out violence, render government irrelevant
Haiti’s surge in gang violence and kidnappings is forcing aid organisations to rethink shipment routes, staff risks, and security costs – and to consider the ethical and safety implications of trusting leaders of armed gangs who say they can help. This phenomenon isn’t unique to Haiti, and is notably prevalent...
35 years after nuclear leak, some animal and plant species in Russia seem to be faring well after adapting to the radiation
The debate n Chernobyl radiation accident in Russia is largely in the gray area in between: At what radiation levels does significant harm kick in, and for which species? Since different species may respond very differently to radiation, “it’s not black and white,” says radioecologist Christelle Adam-Guillermin of France’s Radioprotection...
Russian nuclear disaster: No matter the consequences of lingering radiation, there are massive benefits to people leaving
Some other research teams have not found significant radiation effects on the genetic diversity or abundance of certain animals around Chernobyl nuclear disaster scene. In one widely publicised 2015 survey of a Belarus area near the power plant, a team of scientists determined that the numbers of elk, roe deer...
Radiation at Chernobyl in Russia have fallen since initial accident, but scientists disagree on its impact on wildlife
Is Chernobyl a radioactive wasteland reeling from chronic radiation, or a post-nuclear paradise with thriving populations of animals and other life forms? Studies don’t always agree about levels of mutations and other ill effects. Thirty-five years after the meltdown at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in northern Ukraine, reports often...
Kenyan scholar: Right working culture pays dividends when juggling between academia and parenting in Africa
In the fifth instalment of an eight-part series about African women in science, Elizabeth Kimani-Murage, head of maternal and child well-being at the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC) in Nairobi, describes the importance of quiet hours to write as an early-career public-health researcher. After I earned my master’s...
African woman’s odyssey: How political mess at home sends continent’s younger generation into modern day slavery in America
On October 30, 2020, Julliana Essengue, a Cameroonian woman on the run from persecution at home, left the Border Patrol station where she’d been held. But when she arrived in Bradenton, Florida, in November, Dalmacy’s cousin was unable to house her, although he did put her up in a hotel....
Black odyssey: ‘As the baby was crying…one officer threw the bottle away and said the baby was too old to continue drinking milk
As their limited opportunities in Brazil and the discrimination against them in Mexico demonstrated, poor Black migrants like Julliana Essengue from Cameroon and Dalmacy from Haiti are at the bottom of a de facto migrant hierarchy. In their attempt to reach the United States, which is often still a safer...
Tale of daring Cameroonian woman who risks her life in Panamanian jungle where Colombian thugs call the shots to reach America
Hundreds of thousands of migrants to the United States of America have made the dangerous trip since 2010. According to a March 2021 report from Duke University, three-quarters of these migrants are from Cuba and Haiti, with increasing numbers coming from the Indian subcontinent and African countries, notably Eritrea, the...
