Africa's ports race is hyped as 'development' but also creates pathways for plunder
Fellow, Department of International Relations, London School of Economics and Political Science Ports have long been integral to Africa’s connectivity with the rest of the world. Yet over the last 15 years, a new stage in maritime infrastructure planning and development has begun. Between 2004 and 2019, over US$50 billion was spent on this infrastructure – roughly 13 times more than was spent between 1990 and 2004. Continued here |
How the Founder of Tend Is Making Dental Visits Cool Doug Hudson's consumer-obsessed strategy is turning the industry on its head. Continued here |
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Hypertension, diabetes, stroke: they kill more people than infectious diseases and should get a Global Fund
Kaushik Ramaiya is Honorary General Secretary of Tanzania Diabetes Association and we work with Ministry of Health (Tanzania) in implementing National NCD program which has been funded by World Diabetes Foundation (WDF) and Novo Nordisk Foundation. Noncommunicable diseases such as diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular conditions account for 41 million deaths each year. That’s more than 70% of all deaths globally. Most of these deaths (77%) are in low-income and middle-income countries – including those in Africa. Continued here |
2022 was a rollercoaster for Nigeria – 4 essential reads on what went down and how to fix it
Visiting Scientist at the Institute for Environment and Human Security, United Nations University For Nigeria and Nigerians, the year 2022 was a rollercoaster ride of sorts. As a year preceding the country’s general elections in 2023, it was expected to hold a lot of political drama. Continued here |
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'How Do You Live': Hayao Miyazaki's final movie releases in Japan in 2023
Hayao Miyazaki loves to go into retirement — but somehow always winds up back at the drawing board (literally). The masterful Japanese storyteller and prolific anime-style filmmaker swore he was done pumping out critically acclaimed animated features like Kiki’s Delivery Service, My Neighbor Totoro, and Princess Mononoke in 2013. That was the second retirement announcement Miyazaki has made throughout his illustrious career — the first one, announced in the 1990s, was broken with the release of Miyazaki’s most recognizable work worldwide, Spirited Away, which earned him an Oscar win for Best Animated Feature. But, as is tradition, Miyazaki un-retired again in 2016 to begin producing his next (and supposedly his last) film under the Studio Ghibli banner, How Do You Live? Continued here |
Are snow days about to get buried by remote learning? Not quite -- but it depends on where you live
Snow days, a nostalgic rite of passage for generations of students across the northern United States, might seem destined to be a memory of school days past. For nearly a century, schools have canceled or delayed classes because of heavy or dangerous snowfall that creates hazardous travel conditions. School calendars would include a number of “makeup” days, when any missed time could be rescheduled. During the COVID-19 pandemic, schools transitioned to remote learning to keep teaching when it wasn’t safe for people to gather. With students already learning at home, nearly 40% of schools chose to forgo traditional snow days and proceed with remote learning during the pandemic. Those choices, and improvements in online education, led several commentators to predict the end of the snow day. Continued here |
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1 Workplace Trend That Will Instantly Point to Someone With Exceptional Leadership Skills How great leaders build trust and inspire their people to succeed. Continued here |
Six reasons Britain’s impending voter ID law is a bad idea
Under new government rules, voters across Great Britain will be required to show photographic identification before being given their ballot paper at many elections. (Northern Ireland already requires voters to provide photographic ID.) But not everyone thinks this is a good idea. Two cross-party parliamentary committees – one on human rights and another on constitutional affairs – have raised serious concerns. The Scottish and Welsh governments don’t think that voter identification is necessary (and so it will not be required for local elections in Scotland and Wales or Scottish and Welsh government elections). Campaigners have called it voter suppression. Continued here |
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After Hitting $200 Million in Sales, This Kombucha Entrepreneur Found Her Buyer Hiding in Plain Sight Health-Ade Kombucha co-founder Daina Trout took 30 meetings with potential buyers, until her first investor came up with a new exit strategy. Continued here |
A Danish Psychologist Says These 2 Danish Words Are the Secret to Eliminating Holiday Stress Say these to yourself when you feel your holiday stress levels rising. Continued here |
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The silent struggles of workers with ADHD
When Christian got laid off in late 2022, he wasn’t surprised. The 31-year-old, based in New York City, knew he’d fallen behind on his projects as a management consultant, and underperformed with essential job duties. “I had a tough time grappling with the sorts of executive functioning that our world operates by, like being able to set up meetings, follow through with things, focus and be detail oriented,” he says. His manager had pointed out these failings for months, which is why his termination was hardly shocking. Continued here |
Turn Your Teams Inside Out
It’s been over 20 years since we first identified a new kind of work group emerging at innovative organizations. Entrepreneurial, externally focused “x-teams” have proved to boost organizations’ agility and speed of execution in the face of rapid change and uncertainty, and have been used successfully in product development, sales, manufacturing, and senior leadership. However, while x-teams are particularly relevant to today’s challenging business environment, they are still found at only a relatively small number of companies and not-for-profit organizations. The prevailing approaches to training and managing teams haven’t changed much at all. At most organizations, managers concerned with teamwork still focus largely on internal group dynamics. X-teams, in contrast, combine this internal focus with a strong orientation toward external outreach and learning. They reach out to stakeholders both inside and outside their companies. Their emphasis on networked action helps to distribute leadership to all levels of the company. And, as organizations shed bureaucracy and become more nimble and networked, x-teams become the building blocks of these new architectural designs. Continued here |
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Child nutrition programmes can feed inequality: model from South Africa shows how context shapes lives
University of the Witwatersrand provides support as a hosting partner of The Conversation AFRICA. Interventions to improve nutrition, especially for children and pregnant women, can be critical for health, physical growth and cognitive development, enabling better lives and futures. Reams of policy papers will attest to the fact that if a government or a donor spends substantially on nutrition, the return on their investments – in lives improved or saved – will be high. Continued here |
Google's CEO Just Responded to a Question About Potential Layoffs. While His 1-Sentence Answer Was Smart Leadership, It Lacked a Bit of Empathy When you're a leader, there are things you just can't share. That's why how you decline to share makes all the difference. Continued here |
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Canada's train that takes hitchhikers
A line of SUVs ground to a halt, horns sounding out before the reason for the hold-up became clear: a mule deer and her fawn trotted between the traffic, then hopped onto the pavement and carried on in the direction of the train station. I was in downtown Jasper in Alberta, Canada, a mountain town that's reminiscent of a ski village, with wandering elk and gift shops selling bear spray at the counter. Located in the middle of Jasper National Park, the alpine town of just 4,200 residents is a major junction on some of Canada's greatest railway routes. Both The Canadian (a transcontinental passenger train from Vancouver to Toronto) and the luxury Rocky Mountaineer (whose routes include scenic trains in Western Canada and the Canadian Rockies) are a regular feature of the landscape, their carriages dwarfed by peaks gathered like a group of elders. Continued here |
Why This Misunderstood Neighbourhood 9000 Miles From Brazil Has Its Biggest Superfans
KARACHI, Pakistan—There was no place to move in the sea of green and yellow. By the time the game started, the football stadium sandwiched in this densely-populated neighbourhood was packed. Lyari is 9,000 miles away from Brazil, but this neighbourhood of 2-3 million people in Pakistan’s largest city Karachi is home to some of its biggest superfans. Continued here |
Proud Boys Abruptly Shifted Focus to Anti-LGBTQ Action in 2022
Proud Boys remain an active menace across the U.S., even amid significant hurdles this year such as infighting, their top brass facing serious federal seditious conspiracy charges, prominent members flipping on the gang, and a terrorist designation in New Zealand. Despite unprecedented scrutiny, the far-right street-fighting gang has continued to act as brazenly as ever and sought legitimacy through the illusion of civic engagement. Continued here |
The Cost of Living Crisis Is Ruining Sex
Supermarket prices are soaring, energy rates are out of control and landlords are hiking up rents. The future feels uncertain, but the cost of living crisis isn’t just depleting young peoples’ bank accounts: It’s ruining their sex lives. Romantic wining and dining comes at a cost, and with 93 percent of UK adults reporting an increase in their living costs between August and September 2022, singles and couples alike are struggling to maintain passion-levels. The Student Beans Cost Of Living Report – published in October 2022 – found that 24 percent of British students reported that the crisis is negatively influencing their dating life, with 10 percent stating a detriment to their sex life specifically. It’s impacting our approach to financial boundaries, too, with dating app Bumble finding that 28 percent of people are now implementing stricter cost-caps on their dating lives. Elsewhere, a study conducted by Stowe Family Law finds that 55 percent of UK couples feel friction in their relationships because of the cost of living crisis: 70 percent worry that their relationship won’t survive it. Continued here |
25 Years of Garage review – music documentary falls prey to the same mistakes that killed the scene
A host of veterans from the heyday of the UK’s garage scene (including Heartless Crew, Dane Bowers and members of So Solid Crew) star in 25 Years of Garage, a new documentary co-directed by former promoter Terry Stone. As an academic who specialises in Black music and advocates for its serious intellectual study, I find it encouraging to see active members of the garage scene documenting the culture. Continued here |
Why Entrepreneurs Waste Time on Low ROI Activities Learning the difference between quality time and wasted time. Continued here |
Managing the New Tensions of Hybrid Work
Developing corporate culture and inspiring innovation were tough three years ago, when everyone sat in adjoining cubicles all week, drinking coffee from the same pot. Now that hybrid work appears to be here to stay, with many employees dividing their working hours between home and a company location, these challenges are magnified. New research shows that managers are deeply concerned about the downsides of hybrid arrangements for two domains that are, beyond most others, inherently social: Although evidence of damage to innovation and culture remains largely anecdotal, the potential threat is real. We define hybrid work as a flexible balance, with working hours divided between a company location and elsewhere, typically a home office. Its endurance became manifest during the two years we studied market-leading global corporations that had adopted the model during the COVID-19 pandemic. All of the managers in our sample said that their companies intended to create long-term hybrid strategies or had already done so. The imperative to support hybrid working is largely workforce demand. Employees — pointing to their strong performance when they worked from home during the worst of the pandemic — are reasonably demanding greater flexibility to work where and when they want. Leaders know they have to offer flexible working arrangements to attract, retain, and motivate top talent. Continued here |
Why the nuclear fusion breakthrough matters - The Hustle
Scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California made a pretty cool breakthrough in nuclear fusion this month. Fusion is when atoms fuse together to form larger atoms, producing energy. If we could harness it, it’d be a clean energy source that doesn’t produce greenhouse gases or radioactive waste. Continued here |
Arctic Report Card 2022: The Arctic is getting rainier and seasons are shifting, with broad disturbances for people, ecosystems and wildlife
In the Arctic, the freedom to travel, hunt and make day-to-day decisions is profoundly tied to cold and frozen conditions for much of the year. These conditions are rapidly changing as the Arctic warms. The Arctic is now seeing more rainfall when historically it would be snowing. Sea ice that once protected coastlines from erosion during fall storms is forming later. And thinner river and lake ice is making travel by snowmobile increasingly life-threatening. Continued here |
How the 20-Year Trend Cycle Collapsed
If you looked around today on any high street in Britain – or on social media – you might find it difficult to place which decade we’re in. The only clue would be that… it’s literally all happening. Every trend, every era, every reference is happening everywhere all at once. Colours, fabrics, cuts, themes, energy. We’ve been edging this way since 2020, but never has this been truer than in 2022, the first full and proper year out post-coronavirus lockdowns, the couple of years that altered our collective psyche. Since the pandemic, microtrends have organically popped up on TikTok, with users describing grouped looks or aesthetics – bimbocore, Catholic chic – that might most accurately be described as “vibes” or “a mood”. Most of them exist for people to showcase specific fashion, interiors, films and behaviours that are matched together: the modern Pinterest board. There were enough of these mini-trends that we got fatigued enough by the media writing news blogs about them that we went “post-trendcore”, the media then declaring that the trends had gone too far and so had the blogs about them. Continued here |
Five reasons why interest rates can't go much higher
It’s decision time for central banks on interest rates again. The US Federal Reserve and European Central Bank (ECB) are set to announce their latest decisions on Wednesday 14, while the Bank of England (BoE) will go a day later. After years of ultra-loose monetary policies, the Fed in particular has been aggressively raising interest rates during 2022 to counteract the inflation surge. All three central banks increased their benchmark rates by 0.75 points at their meetings in late October/early November. Continued here |
Our third COVID Christmas – here's how things might play out
The UK is now approaching its third Christmas of the COVID pandemic. And this year feels different. There’s little question we’re in a better position compared with 2020 and 2021. In 2020, Christmas plans were significantly curtailed, with a range of restrictions in place across the UK. But winter social mixing that took place before a full national lockdown was implemented in early January 2021 caused the number of deaths to rise quickly, reaching levels similar to those in the first wave. Continued here |
Céline Dion reveals she has stiff person syndrome – an expert explains the condition
In an emotional message, Céline Dion recently revealed to her Instagram followers that she has a rare condition called stiff person syndrome. The condition has begun to affect the 54-year-old Canadian singer’s vocal cords and her walking. As a result, she has had to cancel her upcoming Courage tour, which was set to begin in Europe in February 2023. Continued here |
Iranian protesters turn to TikTok to get their message past government censors
Ph.D. candidate in American Studies, The University of Texas at Austin College of Liberal Arts Images of the protests that followed the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Zhina Amini on Sept. 16, 2022, in Iran and reports of the government’s brutal crackdown have circulated widely on social media. This flow of information comes despite efforts by the Iranian regime to throttle internet access and censor information leaving the country. Continued here |
Timing matters for medications – your circadian rhythm influences how well treatments work and how much they might harm you
All living organisms on Earth are exposed to a 24-hour day-night cycle. This cycle is the reason why people rest during the darkness of night and are active during the light of day. Consequently, all human body functions also follow this daily rhythm, and the timing of behaviors like exercise or food intake can significantly influence your health. For example, eating at night can lead to weight gain over time because while daytime food intake is used for activities, food intake at night leads to increased fat storage because the body expects to be at rest. When you take your medications is also influenced by your circadian rhythm. Many drug targets in the body follow a 24-hour cycle. This means that the specific proteins a drug is designed to modify can react differently to the medication over the course of a 24-hour time period. Because how the body responds to a medication can differ depending on whether it is taken during the day or at night, it logically follows that taking medications at specific times could help increase their effectiveness and reduce unwanted side effects. Continued here |
COVID: what we know about new omicron variant BF.7
Since the COVID variant omicron emerged in late 2021, it has rapidly evolved into multiple subvariants. One subvariant, BF.7, has recently been identified as the main variant spreading in Beijing, and is contributing to a wider surge of COVID infections in China. But what is this new variant, and should we be worried? Although reports from China about this variant’s characteristics are concerning, it doesn’t appear to be growing too much elsewhere in the world. Here’s what we know. Continued here |
Five unusual energy-saving tips to help you slash your bills
As temperatures drop over the winter period and the cost of energy rises across the UK and Europe, how to spend less money on gas and electricity is on everyone’s minds. The UK energy regulator Ofgem reports that an average two- to three-person household in the UK consumes eight kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity and 33kWh of gas daily. This equates to around 2,900kWh of electricity and 12,000kWh of gas a year. For comparison, an electric oven in your house uses 2kWh for 30 minutes of use. Continued here |
That annoying ringing, buzzing and hissing in the ear – a hearing specialist offers tips to turn down the tinnitus
Not a week goes by when I don’t see someone in my clinic complaining of a strange and constant phantom sound in one of their ears, or in both ears. The noise is loud, distracting and scary – and it doesn’t go away. The kind of sound varies from patient to patient: buzzing, blowing, hissing, ringing, roaring, rumbling, whooshing or a combination thereof. But whatever the sound, the condition is called tinnitus. And one thing tinnitus patients have in common is that the sound is not an external one. Instead, the noise is literally inside their head. Continued here |
Are you and your partner thinking of separating? Here's how to protect the kids' mental health
There’s an annual underground phenomena happening right now around Australia: couples who have decided to separate, but are putting on a happy face to perform their final Christmas as an intact family. January is known by family court lawyers as “divorce month” for this very reason. Compared to 2020, last year saw an increase of nearly 14% in divorces granted in Australia. Nearly half of those couples had children aged under 18 years. Continued here |
Can the U.N. Save the World from Ecological Collapse?
The Red List of Threatened Species might best be described as a lack-of-progress report. Every six months or so, the list, which is maintained by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, is updated, and, with each update, more creatures are classified as heading toward oblivion. The latest update, issued last week, added seven hundred species to the roster of those threatened with extinction. Many of the new additions are classified as “critically endangered,” including the Hot Creek toad, found only in Nye County, Nevada, and the Dixie Valley toad, found in neighboring Churchill County. The trend “is that things are getting worse,” Craig Hilton-Taylor, the head of the I.U.C.N.’s Red List unit said, when the additions were released. Not coincidentally, the latest Red List update was released just as the latest talks on the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity were getting under way. Some twenty thousand delegates from around the world have gathered in Montreal, where, it is hoped, they will agree on a “road map” for saving the world from ecological collapse. (The talks are scheduled to conclude on Monday.) António Guterres, the U.N. Secretary-General, outlined the enormousness of the task in his opening remarks. “Our land, water, and air are poisoned by chemicals and pesticides, and choked with plastics,” Guterres observed. “The addiction to fossil fuels has thrown our climate into chaos. Unsustainable production and monstrous consumption habits are degrading our world. Humanity has become a weapon of mass extinction.” Continued here |
What Employees Want Most in Uncertain Times
Between March and October 2020, the authors asked employees across a variety of industries and organization sizes, “What is one thing your supervisor could do (or do more of) to help alleviate the uncertainty that arose as a result of the pandemic?” They collected and coded the data in two phases, using an iterative process and inductive content analysis. Following the initial wave of data collection and coding (N = 201), they collected information from an additional 86 respondents to ensure a sufficient sample size for theoretical saturation. In total, 287 participants responded with 398 unique comments. Managers have always needed guidance to lead their employees through times of extreme uncertainty. The COVID-19 pandemic is the defining global crisis of our generation, but it is not the first of its kind, nor will it be the last. Uncertainty and volatility continue to rock work environments as the pandemic recedes and global economic and political instability loom, compounding employees’ feelings of uncertainty. In this changing environment, traditional management and leadership approaches are insufficient. Continued here |
Everyone's having a field day with ChatGPT – but nobody knows how it actually works
ChatGPT is the latest and most impressive artificially intelligent chatbot yet. It was released two weeks ago, and in just five days hit a million users. It’s being used so much that its servers have reached capacity several times. OpenAI, the company that developed it, is already being discussed as a potential Google slayer. Why look up something on a search engine when ChatGPT can write a whole paragraph explaining the answer? (There’s even a Chrome extension that lets you do both, side by side.) Continued here |
Fit Check: Head in the Clouds Manila
Despite the heavy rainfall and occasional lighting, you could see 88rising’s iconic cloud of balloons from a mile away on the weekend of the company’s first Head in the Clouds festival in Manila. To fans, the stage decor signified the return of live events in the Philippines and their chance to finally watch artists they’ve streamed for years or serendipitously stumbled upon on TikTok. This included local acts like Zack Tabudlo and SB19; fan favorites Atarashii Gakko!, Jackson Wang, BIBI, eaJ, and Zedd; and, of course, 88rising mainstays Rich Brian, Joji, and NIKI. Continued here |
'There's No Other Rapper Doing Geopolitical, Communist Rap': An Interview with Ghais Guevara
Ghais Guevara's music is chaotic, confronting, and cathartic. Swirling, jazz-inspired beats whip around his frenetic-yet-precise wordplay, evoking images of Black pain, violence and joy. Channelling those feelings into music is a tried and tested formula as old as the hip-hop genre –– But Guevara’s point of difference, in his own words, is his ideological bent. “I’m not even gonna say there’s not a lot… there’s no other rapper doing geopolitical communist rap,” the 23-year-old rapper tells VICE, laughing. Continued here |
Morocco are the first-ever African semifinalists of the World Cup. Here’s what geographical data tell us about this result
The 2022 FIFA World Cup has certainly attracted plenty of negative press, with scandal from bidding process through to the tournament itself. Yet out of this negativity, one positive storyline has arisen. With victories over two recent European champions – Spain and Portugal – Morocco have become the first African nation to reach the last four of the World Cup. Continued here |
China and Russia’s uneven relationship can be explained with one word
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, China’s reaction in response to the Russian aggression has been fiercely debated in the western media. The majority of the discussions have focused on one particular term: “no-limits friendship” – a phrase believed to have been taken from a Sino-Russian joint statement issued a few months before the war. But there is one problem with this phrase. While the Russian version of the statement indeed used the word “friendship”, the Chinese version used “friendliness”. Is this just an issue of translation, or did China deliberately avoid using the word “friendship”? Continued here |
A Professor Who Challenges the Washington Consensus on China
Two years ago, Jessica Chen Weiss made a phone call to her mother that changed her career. Her mother, a cancer researcher who lives in Seattle, told her that rising violence against Asian Americans was making her fearful of going outside. “She just didn’t want to walk around the streets,” Weiss said. “I was just shocked. It’s still something on her mind when she weighs whether to walk around downtown.” Continued here |
When and How to Respond to Microaggressions
Microagressions are defined as verbal, behavioral, and environmental indignities that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults to the target person or group. For Black people, they are ubiquitous across daily work and life. You can respond in one of three ways: let it go, call it out immediately, bring it up at a later date. Here’s a framework for deciding which path is right for the situation and how to handle the conversation if you choose to have one. First, discern what matters to you. Second, disarm the person who committed the microaggression; explain that you want to have an uncomfortable conversation. Third, challenge them to clarify their statement or action, then focus them on the negative impact it had. Finally, decide how you want to let the incident affect you. Continued here
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