Jobs in South Africa: the labour market is recovering from COVID – but unskilled and less educated people are still being left behind: For more than three decades the South African economy has had very high rates of joblessness. The country’s economy has been unable to create enough jobs for its growing army of workers. …
Global deaths from fungal disease have doubled in a decade – new study: Kateryna Kon/Shutterstock Eleven years ago, my colleagues and I estimated that about 2 million people around the world were dying from fungal infections annually. My latest estimate puts the figure today at nearly double that: around 3.8 million deaths. To put this …
South Africa’s genocide case against Israel: expert sets out what to expect from the International Court of Justice: The International Court of Justice (ICJ) will be holding public hearings on 11-12 January at the Peace Palace in The Hague, the seat of the court, in a case brought by South Africa against Israel. South Africa …
How Ireland’s Nollaig na mBan evolved from a day off housework to a celebration of women’s achievements: Butsaya/Shutterstock Growing up in west Kerry, Christmas was (and still is) not officially over until after Nollaig na mBan (Women’s Christmas) on January 6 – candles are lit in windows and decorations are not taken down until the …
The curious link between animal hibernation and ageing – and what humans could learn from it: Nicoleta Ionescu/Shutterstock When the cold and dark winter is setting in, some of us envy animals that can hibernate. This long, deep rest is an example of how nature develops clever solution to difficult problems. In this case, how …
Gaza war: Israeli assassinations draws fiery rhetoric from Iran and Hezbollah – but regional escalation is unlikely: Two weeks ago, Sayyed Razi Mousavi was a ghost on the internet. He left no mark on search engines or in coverage of Iran’s military and the Middle East. But in the Syrian capital Damascus, Mousavi’s 30-year presence …
Spycatcher scandal: newly released documents from the Thatcher era reveal the changing nature of government secrecy: I grew up in Tasmania in the 1980s. The capital city, Hobart, had a bit of a “living at the edge of the world” feeling in those days. It seemed about as far away from anywhere as you could …
Bullies in South African schools were often bullied themselves – insights from an expert: Bullying is far more complex than current interventions acknowledge. Georgia Court/Getty Images “Pupil stabbed to death at Gauteng school had suffered history of bullying”. “Grade 6 learner commits suicide after bullying”. “Grade 11 learner takes her own life after taunts over …
How Israel failed to learn from the Northern Ireland peace process: There is no peace in the Middle East because there is no effective peace process. This isn’t because the Palestinians and Israelis do not know how to make peace. They do. The Good Friday agreement which brought peace to Northern Ireland a quarter of …
Four tips for a healthy news diet in 2024, from an expert in media psychology: DimaBerlin/Shutterstock The start of the new year brings inevitable pressure to start fresh, with new hobbies, exercise regimes and healthy diets. But there is one diet you may not have thought of improving this year: your media and news consumption. …
Four good news climate stories from 2023: We don’t want to give you the wrong idea: things are bad. Antarctic ice sheets are melting, the fossil fuel lobby was everywhere at the COP talks, and even solutions like electric cars have their problems. And that just covers the past few weeks of this newsletter. But …
Three-day week, 50 years on: lessons from a previous Conservative government struggling with a cost of living crisis: Midwinter. War in the Middle East. Energy crisis. Rising prices borne disproportionately by low-wage workers, particularly in a public sector squeezed by a “Tories in turmoil” UK government. Not December 2023, in fact, but December 1973, as …
Insights 2023: from unheard voices and AI to the origin story of a very popular rabbit: An illustration by Beatrix Potter from The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies. The Trustees of the British Museum, CC BY-NC-ND This year, the Insights series has covered a wide range of important topics but the themes of ‘unheard voices’, …
They’re serving what?! How the c-word went from camp to internet mainstream: Beyoncé uses the c-word in staging for her 2023 Renaissance tour, as well as in lyrics for the track Pure/Honey. Raph_PH/Wiki Commons, CC BY-SA Warning: this article contains language that some readers may find offensive. If someone told you that you were “serving …
Magnets, mating and metallic objects – cautionary tales from the MRI scanner: What's the worst that can happen? KaliAntye/Shutterstock A 57-year-old woman from Wisconsin recently sustained a rather unfortunate injury to her buttock. She had attended the hospital for an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scan and had entered the machine with a concealed firearm. The …
4 must-read books from east Africa in 2023: from Tanzanian masters to Ugandan queens: East African literature continues to grow and reshape itself in exciting new ways – and 2023 was no exception. The world really did take notice of the region when Tanzanian-British author Abdulrazak Gurnah won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2021. …
Britain likely to generate more electricity from wind, solar and hydro than fossil fuels for the first year ever in 2023: Solar now provides about 5% of Britain's electricity. StudioFI / shutterstock There are many milestones to pass in the transition from a high to low-carbon sustainable energy system. There is the first hour without …
Apple, Tesla and Nvidia were among 2023’s ‘magnificent seven’ stocks – here’s what to expect from them all in 2024: In the 1960 western The Magnificent Seven, a group of seven gunfighters protect a village from bandits. Only three survive to ride out of town at the end of the movie. The odds look much …