Middle East’s investment in renewable energy has reduced cost to $0.1 per kilowatt hour – lowest in the world
According to International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) data from 2020, Middle East produces less than four per cent of its electricity from renewable sources, compared to a figure of 28 per cent worldwide. In the short term, the data by IRENA shows, the region’s nations are looking mainly to solar...
Experts say Chinese President Jinping’s election bodes well for research as Beijing reels under US stiff sanctions
China’s ambitions and reliance on science and technology were front and centre at the Communist Party’s all-important 20th congress in Beijing, which ended on Sunday. President Xi Jinping said at the opening of the meeting, held every five years, that the country must “regard science and technology as our primary...
UN peacekeepers: Why are the missions coming up against stiff resistance in Africa?
In the past few months, two United Nations (UN) peacekeeping missions in Africa have encountered violent protests from the local populations they’re meant to protect. Protesters in Mali and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) demanded the immediate withdrawal of the UN Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of...
Bolsonaro red card: As human rights activists, we cannot vote for someone who supports torture of Brazilians
Eight years after Brazil dropped off of the World Food Programme’s Hunger Map, food insecurity is again becoming a problem. A post-pandemic survey conducted by the Brazilian Research Network on Food and Nutrition Sovereignty and Security shows that 58.7 per cent of Brazilians are facing some level of hunger. People...
Brazil poll: Indigenous neglect, hunger and police violence to determine if hated Bolsonaro retains power
As she waited her turn to vote earlier this month, Gleyniane Trajano couldn’t help but smile. Aged 17, it was the first time she had ever voted in a national election, where citizens are eligible to cast ballots as young as 16 and obligated to do so from 18. Trajano...
Revelations: US Africom runs a network of drone bases integral to American assassination programmes in Africa
I had begun requesting information in May 2012, so called in additional questions in June and July, and then (as requested) put them in writing. I followed up on the July 9, mentioning my looming deadline and was told that Africom headquarters might have some answers for me on the...
Against backdrop of Russia’s Wagner Group’s atrocities in Africa, same concerns are also being raised over US Africom
What’s the US military doing in Africa? It’s an enigma, wrapped in a riddle, straitjacketed in secrecy and hogtied by red tape. Or at least it would be if it were up to the Pentagon. Ten years ago, I embarked on a quest to answer that question at TomDispatch, chronicling...
Why without conceptual clarity, the fuzziness in social sciences can drive a news reporter to despair
US millennials are rejecting suburbia and moving back to the city. That was a prevailing idea in 2019, when I started as the social sciences reporter at Science News. But when I began digging into a possible story on the phenomenon, I encountered an incoherent mess. Some research showed that...
Social media companies in Ethiopia told to rein in hate mongers during peace talks in South Africa
With talks under way in South Africa to end the two-year Tigray civil war in Ethiopia, there are calls for social media platforms to control hate speech that could stir tempers between the two warring parties. Since the beginning of hostilities in November 2020, social media, mostly Twitter, has become...
Why Liz Truss’s 44-day stint as UK premier has been branded a ‘globalist coup’ in financial markets
The shortest-serving prime minister in British history. She went after days of absolute mayhem at Westminster. Everywhere people are lining up to say that this represents some kind of democratic collapse. And everywhere, those people are wrong. At worst we see the conspiracy theorists of the right branding this a...
