Author: THE CONVERSATION

Donald Trump’s return to the White House in January 2025, combined with a Republican-led US Senate and House of Representatives was widely feared among international allies and will be cheered by some of America’s foes. While the former put on a brave face, the latter are finding it hard to hide their glee. On the war in Ukraine, Trump is likely to try to force Kyiv and Moscow into at least a ceasefire along the current front lines. This could possibly involve a permanent settlement that would acknowledge Russia’s territorial gains, including the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the territories occupied since…

African book publishing is in a rare moment of transformation, according to a new report. It’s an industry that has historically survived at the mercy of multinational publishing houses and donor funding. These arrangements, subject to the dictates of capitalism or aid, have not been sustainable. A newly published British Council study concludes that a new generation of African readers and writers has been disrupting traditional publishing. They are using new technologies and social media, holding public events, promoting indigenous languages and changing consumer behaviour through savvy self-publishing methods. But the report is only a snapshot covering a small fraction of the continent. Unfortunately,…

Breast cancer is the number one cancer among women: more than 2 million cases were diagnosed worldwide in 2022. It is also particularly challenging to treat. Physiologist Anna-Mart Engelbrecht, who heads the Cancer Research Group at Stellenbosch University, explains why this is so and how precision medicine could help. How do tumours work? Normally, cell growth, cell division and cell death are tightly regulated processes. But mutations in a cell’s DNA can disrupt this regulation, leading to abnormal cell proliferation, forming tumours. Tumours can be benign (non-cancerous) or malignant (cancerous). Malignant tumours are dangerous because they invade surrounding tissues and…

Over the past 17 years, Rwanda has cleared informal settlements to make way for modern urban construction. Kigali’s ambitious city master plan is expected to be fully realised by 2050. But what about the people who are pushed out in the process, and their memories? Shakirah E. Hudani presents some of their stories in her new book Master Plans and Minor Acts: Repairing the City in Post-Genocide Rwanda. She answers questions about Kigali’s emergence from conflict, and what could be. What has emerged from the state’s vision for Kigali? Kigali was established as a colonial outpost in 1907 by German administrator Richard Kandt. The city became…

The ambiguous and often tumultuous relations between Uganda and neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have made headlines in recent months. In a July 2024 report, the UN Group of Experts on the DRC stated that Ugandan army and intelligence officials were providing active support to the M23 rebel group. The group, which is active in eastern DRC, was first defeated in 2013. But it has resumed hostilities in the vast area since 2021. The UN report also found that Uganda was tolerating the group’s activities on its territory, with supplies and recruits coming through the country. M23’s key demands are an…

Alarmed by the surge in mpox cases, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention has taken the unprecedented step of declaring the outbreak sweeping through African countries a continental public health emergency. The World Health Organization (WHO) is also meeting to decide whether to trigger its highest global alert level over the epidemic. These moves come after a virulent strain of the disease spread rapidly to 16 countries and six new countries were affected in 10 days. There have been 15,132 mpox confirmed cases in Africa since the beginning of 2024. Some of the countries affected are Burundi, Cameroon, Congo, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, Rwanda,…

Nearly a quarter of adolescent girls between the ages of 15 and 19 who have been in a relationship will have suffered intimate partner violence by the time they turn 20. This is one of the findings of the World Health Organization’s first detailed analysis of intimate partner violence among girls. Nadine Dreyer, from The Conversation Africa, spoke to research scientist Anthony Ajayi, who has studied intimate partner violence against young adolescents in Africa, for more insights on this form of abuse. Findings in the WHO report? This is the first time the WHO has released a detailed analysis looking at the prevalence of intimate…

As critics line up to suggest Kamala Harris is unqualified to be President of the United States one wonders if any of them have actually read her memoir. The team at Sky News seem to largely base their analysis on her somewhat raucous laugh. But The Truths We Hold: An American Journey, first published in 2019, charts Harris’s time as a state prosecutor and senator, allowing her to claim some significant policy achievements. It is apparently compulsory for any American politician with national ambitions to write a biography, a temptation that in most cases should be resisted. Not surprisingly, Harris’s book has leapt up…

The generation of Kenyans born between 1997 and 2012 – the Gen-Zs – have borne the brunt of the country’s slow economic growth. If a country has slow economic growth, it typically experiences higher unemployment rates, reduced income levels and decreased investments. It leads to an overall lower living standard. Over the last 10 years, between 2013 and 2023, Kenya’s average growth rate has been 4.52%. This is less than half of the 10% growth rate that President Mwai Kibaki had envisaged in Vision 2030. The national development plan’s goal was to transform Kenya into a middle-income country providing a high quality of…

In political parties, unequal gender relations are visible in their structures and processes.