Beneath Ukraine Crisis there’s real fear German-Russia alliance will hasten the decline of superpower status America currently enjoys
The Ukrainian crisis has nothing to do with Ukraine. It’s about Germany and, in particular, a pipeline that connects Germany to Russia called Nord Stream 2. Washington sees the pipeline as a threat to its primacy in Europe and has tried to sabotage the project at every turn. Even so,...
Recolonising Africa: Russia tightens grip on continent’s natural resources with increased military presence
Russia has drawn the world’s attention with its aggressive stance toward Ukraine. The former Soviet power has been rebuilding ties with Africa more quietly, strengthening economic and military cooperation, but also raising Western concerns about its tactics and goals there. Russian flags waved in Burkina Faso’s capital following January’s military...
Analysis: Successes and apparent popularity of recent coups in Africa have set a precedent that may inspire copycats
On the evening of February 15, 2022, reports emerged that key police and military officials in Djibouti were put under house arrest, reportedly amid fears of a coup d’état. This was the latest in the string of successful and attempted coups in Africa – from Mali to Madagascar and Guinea...
Survey points to new trends in Africa where political power is inherited, ‘winner’ answers to powerful overlords
West Africa’s latest successful coup, in Burkina Faso on January 24 2022, has renewed unease about coups “returning” and democracies “dying” in Africa. The recent attempt in Guinea-Bissau, too, recalled the first decades after independence, when coups were rampant. By 2012, there had been over 200 coups and attempted coups...
How Somali militants exploit Kenya’s coast religious diversity and land politics to propagate an Islamic caliphate ideology
The frequency of terrorist attacks in Kenya’s Lamu County on the border with Somalia has been alarming. Frequent kidnappings there were the ostensible reason Kenya invaded Somalia in 2011. Three years later, the seaside county was the scene of a deadly attack in which 48 people were killed during an...
Cancerous Kenyan doctors’ greed: Gory details of how patients spend millions on cancer only to learn the diagnosis was wrong
From the dreadful prostate, liver, duodenum, lymphoma, skin, bone, breast, lung, kidney, throat and other malignant cancers, the disease is spreading in Kenya like bonfire. And it’s not only affecting the urbanites, the villagers are not also spared. Evidence of cancer scourge can be seen as you visit major hospitals...
How unprepared British foreign secretary Truss flew to Moscow with ‘just language’ to stop looming Russia-Ukraine war
Oh, how I envy Liz Truss her opportunity! Oh, how I regret her utter failure to make use of it! For those who have never heard of her, Truss is the lightweight British foreign secretary who went to Moscow this week to tell her Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, that his...
Project management: How NASA overcame the odds to build the biggest telescope ever history
It was a big-science project plagued with so many problems that it seemed destined to fail. For years, the James Webb Space Telescope – an ambitious observatory planned and funded by NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency – was the target of astronomy’s most scathing jokes....
First pig-to-human heart transplant, if successful, regulators and ethicists will need to define eligibility for pig organ
The first person to receive a transplanted heart from a genetically modified pig is doing well after the procedure last week in Baltimore, Maryland. Transplant surgeons hope the advance will enable them to give more people animal organs, but many ethical and technical hurdles remain. “It’s been a long road...
Sudan crisis: International community urged to offer military incentives to surrender power to civilians
Events leading up to the resignation on January 2 of civilian Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok have returned Sudan’s rocky democratic transition to square one. This raises fundamental questions about what needs to be done differently to revive the faltering democracy project. Hamdok had been prime minister in the joint military-civilian...
