African AI workers, mostly from Kenya, released an open letter to Joe Biden this week asking him stop US tech companies from “systemically abusing and exploiting African workers” and to end the “modern day slavery” they’re subjected to.
A beloved figure of Ghanaian folklore, Anansi is a spider god and a charming trickster who triumphs over larger and more powerful adversaries by using his wits alone....
Mali is among the countries currently suffering extreme heat with some areas hit by a temperature of 48,5°C, has recorded more than 100 deaths, victims of the heat wave. Malian meteorologists say the city Southwestern di Kayes recorded the hottest day in African history on April 4, 2024....
Near Ouarzazate, me and @cobic have just met Czech cyclist Mirek and Slovenian cyclist Katya, who travel all around the world on their bicycles and live on the road and work as artists. I have introduced them to Mastodon and they are now @Cyclingnomads on our #fcz instance...
So if you want Cycling Nomads in Fediverse instead of just on Facebook, don't hesitate and follow @Cyclingnomads !
On European social media we often discuss American issues and talk to Americans on social media - but doesn't it make sense for us to talk more to Nigerians, South Africans and Kenyans, and about their news, because that's who's awake at the same time as us?
Let me know if you are from these time zones, in #Africa, and I will follow you.
“There’s a competition between them to see who can look the most brutal,” says South African photographer Franck Marshall, who calls his subjects the renegades– ‘an underground minority rebelling against the status quo, redrawing the borders of both Heavy Metal and orthodox culture in Botswana’. [...]
A lone voice cries out from Africa. Will anyone hear?
Nnimmo Bassey is a Nigerian architect, environmental activist, author, and poet. Listen to what he says...
Colonialism was erected on the right to subjugate, erase, or diminish the right to life and the right to the unfettered cultural expression of the colonized. In particular, the colonized were dehumanized and transformed into zombies working for the benefit of the colonial powers. Ecological pillage was permitted as long as it benefited the colonizers.
This ethos has persisted and manifests in diverse forms. Grand theft by the colonial forces was seen as entrepreneurship. Genocide was overlooked as mere conquest. Slavery was seen as commerce. Extractivism was to be pursued relentlessly as any element left unexploited was considered a waste. What could be wasted with no compunction was life. So most things had to die. The civilizers were purveyors of death. Death of individuals. Death of ecosystems.
Today, Africa is facing multiple ecological challenges. All of these have resulted from the actions of entities that have seen the continent as a sacrificial zone. While the world has come to the conclusion that there must be an urgent shift from dependence on fossil fuels, we are seeing massive investments for the extraction of petroleum resources on the continent.
This investment comes with related infrastructure for the export of these resources out of the continent in a crass colonial pattern. A mere 1% of the labor force in the extractive sector in Africa are Africans. A mere 5% of investment in the sector is in Africa. More than 85% of the continent’s fossil gas infrastructure is for export purposes.
While the world knows that we must rebuild our biodiversity, what we see is the push towards more deforestation in Africa and for monoculture agriculture, all of which are against our best interest and that of the world.
The reign of exploitation and consumption without responsibility has driven Africa and indeed the world to the brink. The current civilization of death seeks ready investment in destruction through warfare and extractivism rather than in building resilience and adapting to the environmental changes that result from corporate and imperial misadventures.
THREAD: This thread discusses the December 2020 forced expulsion of people inhabiting farming communities in a disputed border area claimed by both Ethiopia 🇪🇹 and Sudan🇸🇩. #Osint data appears to suggest that Sudanese troops may have carried out atrocities when it removed hundreds if not thousands of Ethiopians from the Al Fashaga triangle. Nobody has properly documented the expulsions and there's not enough evidence to draw conclusions.
Families still reeling from the aftermath of a two-year conflict in Tigray are now resorting to increasingly desperate measures to survive. The conflict and erratic rainfall have further exacerbated the planting season which threatens to plunge the region into deeper humanitarian catastrophe if nothing is done, warns Oxfam....
Author copies arrived of this bulky anthology of African ghost stories. Now I can say that my story was published in the same book as the legend, Amos Tutuola!
Meet Anansi - the West African trickster God who inspired Br'er Rabbit, and is canonically confirmed as the first Spiderman, (allthatsinteresting.com)
A beloved figure of Ghanaian folklore, Anansi is a spider god and a charming trickster who triumphs over larger and more powerful adversaries by using his wits alone....
Africa’s linguistic diversity goes largely unnoticed in research on multilingualism (theconversation.com)
sharing it here because it mentioned SEA as another under-studied multilingual region, and we share the same issues:...
Heat wave causes havoc in Mali, kills 100 people (africanperceptions.org)
Mali is among the countries currently suffering extreme heat with some areas hit by a temperature of 48,5°C, has recorded more than 100 deaths, victims of the heat wave. Malian meteorologists say the city Southwestern di Kayes recorded the hottest day in African history on April 4, 2024....
Every two hours, a child dies in Sudan. Our global silence is deafening. (www.usatoday.com)
The suffering of the Sudanese may be off camera now, but it won't be in a few months when babies are starving en masse.
Oxfam warns of growing hunger crisis in Tigray as families resort to extreme measures to survive (theaimn.com)
Families still reeling from the aftermath of a two-year conflict in Tigray are now resorting to increasingly desperate measures to survive. The conflict and erratic rainfall have further exacerbated the planting season which threatens to plunge the region into deeper humanitarian catastrophe if nothing is done, warns Oxfam....