6 IN 10 YOUNG SOUTH AFRICANS HAVE NO JOBS. WHY SOME STILL REJECT OFFERS OF WORK

Fri 28 February 2025: South Africa has one of the highest unemployment rates in the world. The official rate is 32%, rising to 42% when discouraged job seekers are included. Among young people aged 15 to 24, unemployment reaches a staggering 60%. While much attention has focused on youth exclusion from the labour market and their survival strategies, far less is […]

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AFRICA RELIES TOO HEAVILY ON FOREIGN AID FOR HEALTH – 4 WAYS TO FIX THIS

Wed 26 February 2025: There’s been a global trend in the reduction of aid to Africa since 2018. Donors are shifting their funding priorities in response to domestic and international agendas. Germany, France and Norway, for instance, have all reduced their aid to Africa in the past five years. And, in 2020, the UK government reduced its Overseas Development Aid from […]

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CAN NEW AFRICA ENERGY BANK POWER A CONTINENT WHILE PROTECTING THE PLANET?

Mon 24 February 2025: A long-planned bank to fund oil and gas projects in Africa must balance profit with climate considerations, experts say. A group of African countries is set to launch a bank to fund oil and gas projects amid growing reluctance by Western institutions to further invest in fossil fuels. The long-planned “Africa […]

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THE WOUNDS OF THE 1944 DEPORTATION STILL FESTER IN CHECHNYA AND BEYOND

 An elderly Chechen man goes to pray at a snow-covered cemetery, a memorial to the Stalin-era deportation’s victims, in the Chechen Republic’s capital Grozny on March 12, 2021 [File: Musa Sadulayev/AP] Sun 23 February 2025: The tragic history of trauma and repression in Chechnya must be a warning for those who want to abandon the […]

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VIOLENT CRIME IN SOUTH AFRICA HAPPENS MOSTLY IN A FEW HOTSPOTS: POLICE RESOURCES SHOULD FOCUS THERE – CRIMINOLOGIST

Sun 23 February 2025: Crime researchers use murder (or homicide) rate per 100,000 as a crude measure of the general level of violent interpersonal crime globally. According to the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime, South Africa’s murder rate of 45 per 100,000 (2023/24) is the second highest for countries that publish crime data. The […]

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HOW DID THE FALL OF ASSAD CHANGE THE FACE OF THE MIDDLE EAST?

Sat 22 February 2025: If asked to identify major milestones that have shaped the Middle East over the past hundred years, they would most likely be the First World War (1914-1918); the 1948 Nakba in Palestine; the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran; the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990; and the US-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq in 2001 and 2003 respectively. The […]

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