In The News

Quartz: Adding Asians to Kenya’s List of Tribes

Abdi Latif Dahir August 9, 2017
In July, Kenya’s government declared Asians as the nation’s 44th indigenous group after a successful petition from the Asian community, a nod to their long history in the country. Although individuals from the Indian subcontinent, referred to as Asians in Kenya, first immigrated en masse to the East African nation in the late 1800s, they still face scapegoating, racism and violence. Critics “...

The Washington Post: We May Have Less Time to Stop Global Warming Than We Thought

Chris Mooney July 26, 2017
Despite warnings from numerous scientists over the course of several decades, many people remain uncertain about climate change and the human role. A team of scientists has revised the estimate of carbon dioxide emissions that can enter the atmosphere before the planet exceeds a 2-degree Celsius rise in temperatures. “Many analyses have taken the late 19th century as the starting point, but the...

NewAfrican: Youth Exodus – Is Africa being Turned Into a Giant Farm?

Kalundi Serumaga July 25, 2017
About 34 million people left Africa and became international migrants in 2015, more than 2 percent of the continent’s population and a slightly higher percentage than those migrating from Asia. Kalundi Serumaga, writing for NewAfrican, describes the many young Africans fleeing conflict and poverty, trying to enter Europe or arrange low-paying menial jobs in the Middle East. “Most of these youths...

The Conversation: Foreign “Conservation Armies” in Africa May Do More Harm Than Good

Rosaleen Duffy, Hannah Dickinson and Laure Joanny July 24, 2017
British troops are collaborating with Gabonese park rangers in an effort to fight Boko Haram, which is allegedly using ivory poaching to fund its terrorist activities. This type of “conservation army” is emblematic of rising militarization to prevent elephant and rhino poaching in Africa. From groups of Western army veterans to “foreign national armies, private military companies and even UN...

The Conversation: Big Alcohol Is Poised to Expand Into Africa

Karen Hofman and Charles Parry June 2, 2017
The alcohol industry confronts low population growth rates and regulatory barriers in the developed world, its traditional source of profits. So the industry is focusing on Africa with its increasing affluence and what is described as a “high-intensity consumption of beer,” according to Karen Hofman and Charles Parry in the Conversation. AB Inbev, maker of Budweiser, Corona and Stella Artois...

AL Jazeera: Puntland Teetering on the Edge of Famine

Ashley Hamer March 27, 2017
In Puntland, a semiautonomous region of Somalia, a drought has ravaged grazing land. People who raise livestock for a living must move increasingly far distances – sometimes hundreds of kilometers – to find suitable land for their animals. Yet relocation is not enough as the drought spreads through the country. Six years ago, a famine in Somalia killed 260,000 people. “Now, nearly 6.2 million...

Los Angeles Times: With 20 Million People Facing Starvation, US Foreign Aid Cuts Strike Fear

Robyn Dixon March 20, 2017
Proposed cuts to the US State Department and United Nations budgets coincide with severe famines underway. “Two years of drought and failed rains across much of Africa have affected 38 million people in 17 countries,” reports Robyn Dixon for the Los Angeles Times. “Without a massive donor injection of $4.4 billion, aid officials estimate, more than 20 million people face starvation and famine in...