07 March 2023
Johannesburg: The cooperation between photographer Mark Lewis and urban planner/writer Tanya Zack produced the “ethnographic” book “Wake Up, This is Joburg“. The article, written by Tanya Zack, presents six photographs from the book and briefly tells their stories, all set in a city “where excess, waste and cosmopolitanism collide”.
https://theconversation.com/the-real-johannesburg-6-powerful-photos-from-a-gritty-new-book-on-the-city-200842
Rosetta stone content: Around 200 before the common era, there was an Egyptian revolt against Hellenistic imperialism which was eventually put down by the Ptolemaic dynasty. The Memphis Decree proclaimed Ptolemy V’s victory against the rebels. Copies of the decree, inscribed in hard stone, were placed in all temples – they were “written in hieroglyphs, Demotic and Greek so that all could read it.” The Rosetta stone found in 1799 was one of them – and it finally helped understand hieroglyphs.
https://theconversation.com/i-dug-for-evidence-of-the-rosetta-stones-ancient-egyptian-rebellion-heres-what-i-found-200318
Bipolar disorder/Ghana: The bipolar disorder (‘normal’ periods interspersed with manic episodes and depressive episodes) often carries stigma. The article tries to educate, also about available treatments (in mainstream modern medicine) and create awareness.
https://theconversation.com/bipolar-disorder-is-poorly-understood-in-ghana-knowing-the-facts-can-help-prevent-suffering-200106
UK/Rwanda: While we are waiting for London to announce new plans how to legally stop migrants from entering Great Britain, its Prime minister Sunak has over the telephone convened with Rwandan president Kagame to continue working together concerning London’s plans to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda.
BBC Africa Live 07 March 2023. 8:02
UK/Migration: Those reaching the UK illegally will be arrested and “swiftly deported”. They’ll be able to ask for asylum once back home – or from Rwanda. The new law to that effect could criminalise thousands of “genuine refugees” – and it may well break human rights laws as the British Interior Minister herself admitted.
BBC Africa Live 07 March 2023. 15:56
06 March 2023
South Africa: According to the authors’ research (by means of a WhatsApp survey), there are “significant numbers of LGBTI+ migrants and asylum seekers” in South Africa – which (albeit for the most part only in theory) recognizes “persecution based on gender and sexuality as legitimate grounds for asylum” – and these LGBTI+ migrants and asylum seekers are “more dispersed and diverse than previously thought”, i.e., they do by no means all live in ‘gay-friendly’ Jo’burg or Cape Town.
https://theconversation.com/lgbtiq-migrants-and-asylum-seekers-in-south-africa-major-new-study-identifies-a-diverse-wide-spread-community-199227
Joseph Kony/LRA: Since 2017, Washington and Kampala are no longer trying to find him, saying he and his Lord’s Resistance Army no longer is a relevant security problem. But the International Criminal Court still wants him. His whereabouts are unknown. Somewhere in the jungles of the Central African Republic? Or in Sudan? The article tells what is known about this Acholi (who live in northern Uganda and were persecuted by Museveni after he took power) who sowed terror in northern Uganda for two decades before crossing over to Sudan, Congo-Kinshasa, Central African Republic. Kony claimed to be trying to establish “a theocratic state based on the biblical 10 commandments and Acholi tradition”.
https://theconversation.com/who-is-joseph-kony-the-altar-boy-who-became-africas-most-wanted-man-200361