Mon 15 January 2024: South Africa experienced unprecedented electricity shortages in 2023 as ageing coal plants became increasingly prone to breakdowns. The country urgently needs to develop new electricity generation facilities and reduce reliance on coal power. In the first week of 2024, the South African energy minister, Gwede Mantashe, released a proposed roadmap for the future […]
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Sun 14 January 2024: The year 2023 will be remembered as turbulent for cryptocurrencies, with numerous important developments that ultimately helped to “clean up” the space to potentially make it more attractive to mainstream investors. Notably there was the conviction of FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried for fraud. Top exchange Binance also reached a US$4 billion settlement (£3.1 billion) with […]
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Sat 13 January 2024: Tensions in the Red Sea have extended to Yemeni land after the United States and the United Kingdom led bombings against multiple sites controlled by the Houthi armed group on Thursday night. The Houthis have carried out dozens of attacks on commercial vessels that they say are linked to Israel, and that were […]
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Fri 12 January 2024: The needless controversy surrounding the Tamil film Annapoorani, which was removed by Netflix, could have been avoided had the ‘upper’ caste people outraged over a dialogue actually read the very text they were seeking to defend. Another needless controversy over culture and food, provoked, as usual, by Hindutva hot-heads has broken […]
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Thu 11 January 2024: Note: This article Published on November 19, 2020. The phrase “the gold standard” means, in common parlance, the best available benchmark – as in double-blind randomized trials are the gold standard for determining the efficacy of a vaccine. Its meaning likely comes from my world of economics and refers to what was once […]
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Wed 10 January 2024: The killing of a Hezbollah commander in southern Lebanon on Jan. 8, 2024, has raised concern that the conflict between Israel and Hamas could escalate into a regional war. Wissam al-Tawil, the head of a unit that operates on Lebanon’s southern border, was killed in a targeted Israeli airstrike just days after a […]
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Tue 09 January 2024: The Israeli army did not claim to have destroyed Hamas’s forces, but rather to have eliminated its ‘senior commanders’. The Israeli army has announced it will scale down its operations in northern Gaza after it “dismantled” Hamas in the area. According to the Israeli military spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, the […]
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A ship is docked at Berbera, a port Somaliland has agreed to lease to Ethiopia. Sun 07 January 2024: Ethiopia’s economy has struggled with no sea access, and an agreement to use a Somaliland port has upset its neighbour. A deal under which Somaliland has agreed to lease a Red Sea naval port to […]
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Thu 04 January 2024: South Africa’s case might take years, but it could add weight to growing international calls for Israel to stop the war. Last week, South Africa became the first country to file a suit against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, ramping up international pressure on Tel Aviv to […]
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Thu 04 January 2024: The January 7 Bangladesh general election is set to deliver a victory to Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League party. It might also turn out to be a watershed moment in the country’s history. Despite some similarities with the past two elections of 2014 and 2018, the post-election scenario in 2024 is likely to be different. […]
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