By Brian Shilavy Testing on an experimental COVID vaccine began on 2000 “volunteers” in South Africa this week, and protesters gathered at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. This is the Oxford University’s coronavirus vaccine trial from the UK, funded heavily by the World…
By Alexander Hammond In late March, most African states copied the approach taken by many countries worldwide and implemented a mass lockdown that saw schools close, curfews put in place, and people largely confined to their homes. In Sub-Saharan Africa—the world’s poorest region—these lockdowns have…
By Amanda Lichtenstein Check out Global Voices’ special coverage of the global impact of COVID-19. The mad rush by scientists and researchers to test potential treatments for COVID-19 in scientific trials has revived a heated debate over the use of humans in critical drug trials in…
By Neenah Payne “The greatest service which can be rendered any country is to add a useful plant to its culture.” — Thomas Jefferson. Beans and rice are a daily staple in all Caribbean as well as Central and South American countries – for breakfast,…
By John Vibes The largest waste dump in Ethiopia has been converted into an energy plant that turns trash into power. The Koshe waste dump has been operational for nearly 50 years, but after a terrible accident that killed 140 people in March of 2017,…
By Neenah Payne The 2012 video “15-Yr-Old Kelvin Doe Wows M.I.T.” says Kelvin Doe is a 15-year-old engineering whiz from Sierra Leone. Kelvin taught himself to do very intricate things with very few resources. Kelvin created a battery to power homes because the electricity is…
By Neenah Payne Chiwetel Ejiofor, director of The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind was interviewed by The Daily Show host Trevor Noah in “Chiwetel Ejiofor – Telling a Malawian Story in ‘The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind.’” Ejiofor is a British actor who made…
By Aaron Kesel Desert locusts are invading and feasting on crops across Africa, and those affected are calling for international help, a new report states. The outbreak of desert locusts is reportedly the worst that Kenya has seen in 70 years, according to the Associated…
By Alanna Ketler The Facts: Togo, a country in West Africa has decided to ban the use of toxic chemical pesticide, glyphosate because of growing health and environmental concerns. Reflect On: Togo joins 20 other countries who have decided to ban this pesticide, do you…
By Elias Marat Those of us living in the developed countries of Europe and North America often take our access to potable water for granted, spraying it needlessly over our cars and turf-covered lawns, or flushing gallons of it with abandon every time we visit…
By John Vibes According to new research published in the journal Science Advances, a third of tropical African plants are at risk of extinction. A team led by Dr. Thomas Couvreur of the French National Institute for Sustainable Development, collected data across Africa, documenting 22,000…
Op-Ed by Neenah Payne “How Bottled Water Became America’s Most Popular Beverage” explains the switch from soft drinks to bottled water — now the leading growth industry for the beverage market. Americans buy over half a billion bottles of water each week when water flows…
By Jason Erickson It’s well understood by most readers of this site that Egypt has experienced massive turmoil over the last decade in the aftermath of a contentious revolution in 2011. While it’s a tendency to ignore political machinations in far-off lands, unless they have…
By Mayukh Saha For a millennium, people have been trying to change oceanic water into potable water. But, it has never been really affordable or technologically efficient. Yet, Kenya has designed a facility specifically for that with GivePower, a nonprofit organization, heavily involved. This system…
By Mayukh Saha Italian designer Stefano Boeri is planning to bring about the first vertical forest in the New Administrative Capital, currently being set up in the deserted and barren region of Cairo. The three buildings designed for this would involve trees and plants that…
By Amanda Froelich In early 2018, a black leopard was caught on camera in Kenya by biologist Nick Pilfold. Though the big cat’s existence was merely a rumor at the time, Pilfold and his team deployed a set of camera traps throughout the bushland of…
By Sustainable Pulse The African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) has welcomed the decision of the South African biosafety authorities, rejecting Monsanto’s application for the commercial release of its GM drought tolerant triple stacked maize: MON 87460 x MON 89034 x NK 603. At its meeting on the 2nd…
By Matt Agorist A state-sponsored forced sterilization on a massive scale has allegedly taken place in Africa according to opposition leaders and the public who are railing against the government. An industrial pharmaceutical laboratory has since had its license suspended by the Kenya Accreditation Service as…
By Catherine J. Frompovich The Roman Catholic Church has strict rules and unyielding dogma regarding religious beliefs and congregants practices but, unfortunately, seems to turn a deaf ear and a blind eye and subscribes to “going along to get along” especially regarding the pseudosciences regarding…
By Lauren Stralo, Lehigh University Coffee represents a multi-hundred-billion dollar industry, consumed almost entirely by industrialized nations while being cultivated, harvested and exported by the world’s poorer nations. And although there has been recent attention to Fair Trade coffee—which brings more economic benefits to growers—Fair…
