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Fri, Apr 26, 2024 10:13 AM All times are UTC

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How to turn the tide against South Africa's crime wave

Feb 25, 2020 13:08 pm UTC| Insights & Views Life

In February last year South African President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that his government would pursue five fundamental goals over the next decade. One of these was particularly bold, namely that violent crime would...

They're all fabulous and wonderful! How to figure out what's real in an inflated letter of recommendation

Feb 25, 2020 13:06 pm UTC| Insights & Views Life

Over the decades that Ive worked in universities, Ive watched academic letters of reference become increasingly inflated. And letter inflation goes beyond the academy; friends who hire in business say they, too, have...

South Africa's spaza shops: how regulatory avoidance harms informal workers

Feb 25, 2020 12:52 pm UTC| Insights & Views Life

Small informal retailers are ubiquitous feature of any developing country urban landscape. Known as spaza shops in South Africa, they are an important, even vital, component in the townships. Numbering over 100,000 across...

Coronavirus: The latest disease to spur mistrust, fear and racism

Feb 13, 2020 00:08 am UTC| Insights & Views Life Health

With the outbreak of the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in Wuhan, China, stories of courage and strength have captured our collective attention as the disease spreads. We have also seen large-scale efforts in China to...

Why we aren't closing the gap: a failure to account for 'cultural counterfactuals'

Feb 13, 2020 00:07 am UTC| Insights & Views Life

Australias 12th Closing the Gap report, published yesterday, shows by most socio-economic measures Indigenous Australians continue to lag behind the rest of the population. Only two of seven targets early education and...

Bias starts early – most books in childcare centres have white, middle-class heroes

Feb 10, 2020 23:52 pm UTC| Life

Only 18% of books available in four Australian childcare centres include non-white characters. Animal characters make up around half the books available, with the animals largely leading lives, and adhering to values, of...

'Death by a thousand cuts': women of colour in science face a subtly hostile work environment

Feb 10, 2020 23:49 pm UTC| Insights & Views Life

Its hard for women to succeed in science. Our research shows its even harder for women of colour. We interviewed women of colour working in scientific and technical organisations across Australia about their...

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Economy

Beyond the spin, beyond the handouts, here’s how to get a handle on what’s really happening on budget night

Three weeks from now, some of us will be presented with a mountain of budget papers, and just about all of us will get to hear about them on radio, TV or news websites on budget night. The quickest way to find out what...

Johannesburg in a time of darkness: Ivan Vladislavić’s new memoir reminds us of the city’s fragility

Ivan Vladislavić is Johannesburgs literary linkman. He tells us, in the first pages of his new book, The Near North, that before cities were lit, first by gaslight and later electricity, people of means paid torchbearers...

What if the Reserve Bank itself has been feeding inflation? An economist explains

Heres something for the board of the Reserve Bank of Australia to ponder as it meets next month to set interest rates. It has pushed up rates on 13 occasions since it began its attempt to restrain inflation in May...

China’s new world order: looking for clues from Xi’s recent meetings with foreign leaders

There is broad consensus that Chinese foreign policy has become more assertive and more centralised in the decade since Xi Jinping has ascended to the top of Chinas leadership. This has also meant that Chinese foreign...

How India’s economy has fared under ten years of Narendra Modi

More than 960 million Indians will head to the polls in the worlds biggest election between April 19 and early June. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is seeking a third...

Politics

Labour can afford to be far more ambitious with its economic policies – voters are on board

To say that the Labour party is flying high in the polls is something of an understatement. But despite its consistent lead against the Tories, the opposition finds itself in a rather odd position: on the cusp of power but...

History for sale: what does South Africa’s struggle heritage mean after 30 years of democracy?

One of my favourite statues is the one of Nelson Mandela at the Sandton City shopping centre in Johannesburg. Larger than life, its oversized bronze shoes shimmer in the evening light, polished by the hands of many...

Sudan: civil war stretches into a second year with no end in sight

In the early hours of April 15 2023, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) a Sudanese paramilitary force attacked the military airstrip in the town of Merowe and deployed troops across strategic locations in Sudans capital,...

Turkey’s suppression of the Kurdish political movement continues to fuel a deadly armed conflict

The world has 91 democracies and 88 autocracies. Yet 71% of the worlds population (some 5.7 billion people) are living under autocratic rule, a big jump from 48% ten years ago. This trend towards authoritarianism can...

Georgia is sliding towards autocracy after government moves to force through bill on ‘foreign agents’

Georgias ruling party attempted to pass a controversial bill on foreign agents in March 2023. The law would have required civil society groups and the media to register as being under foreign influence if they receive...

Science

A Nasa rover has reached a promising place to search for fossilised life on Mars

While we go about our daily lives on Earth, a nuclear-powered robot the size of a small car is trundling around Mars looking for fossils. Unlike its predecessor Curiosity, Nasas Perseverance rover is explicitly intended to...

The rising flood of space junk is a risk to us on Earth – and governments are on the hook

A piece of space junk recently crashed through the roof and floor of a mans home in Florida. Nasa later confirmed that the object had come from unwanted hardware released from the international space station. The 700g,...

Peter Higgs was one of the greats of particle physics. He transformed what we know about the building blocks of the universe

Peter Higgs, who gave his name to the subatomic particle known as the Higgs boson, has died aged 94. He was always a modest man, especially when considering that he was one of the greats of particle physics the area of...

Could a telescope ever see the beginning of time? An astronomer explains

The James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST for short, is one of the most advanced telescopes ever built. Planning for JWST began over 25 years ago, and construction efforts spanned over a decade. It was launched into space on...

US media coverage of new science less likely to mention researchers with African and East Asian names

When one Chinese national recently petitioned the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to become a permanent resident, he thought his chances were pretty good. As an accomplished biologist, he figured that news...

Technology

DeepL Unleashes AI-Powered Tool for Business Writing

DeepL is a translation service from Germany, and it announced on Friday, April 26, that it would launch a new tool called DeepL Write Pro. It is an AI-based writing assistant created to help businesses with their writing...

Arthur Hayes Predicts Major Bullish Crypto Market Recovery Signal From US Treasury Department

Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX, has identified a potential boost for the cryptocurrency and stock markets based on recent U.S. Treasury actions. These actions could inject substantial liquidity, fueling a bullish...

Tesla Cybertruck Spotted in Sydney Sparks Debate: Potential Australian Release?

As the Tesla Cybertruck makes unexpected appearances on the streets of Sydney, speculation swirls about its potential availability in Australia, despite previous doubts regarding its local launch. Tesla Cybertruck...

Hertz to Offload 30K EVs This Year, Deepens Cuts Amid Mounting Fleet Losses

In a recent financial revelation, Hertz disclosed continued losses from its electric vehicle (EV) investments, announcing plans to sell 30,000 EVs this year amid depreciating values and escalating maintenance...

Toyota Motor Launches Trial for EV Pickups in Thailand

Toyota Motor Corporation launched the trial for its electric pickup trucks in Thailand. The Japanese automaker said its pilot project brought nine fully electric Hilux Revo pickups to key Thai market. According to...