Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto are currently facing crimes against humanity charges at the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC). The charges result from the post-election…
Tanzanian government plans to exclude Maasai from some traditional pastoral lands in the name of wildlife conservation have met with protest and global media attention. This is certainly not the first…
Earlier this week, the new US Secretary of State, John Kerry, announced a US$5 million reward for information leading to the arrest, transfer and conviction of notorious African warlord Joseph Kony. On…
The new year is scarcely a month old. Yet we have seen enough to know that the fires raging in different parts of the Middle East and North Africa will not easily abate – and that the firefighting efforts…
Why the French intervention in Mali? Last week, French daily Le Monde asked this question of André Bourgeot, specialist on Sub-Saharan Africa with France’s National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS…
The French government has announced it will triple its troop deployment to the conflict-plagued state of Mali. On Monday, France’s ambassador to the United Nations, Gerard Araud, explained that France…
What goes down our toilet is commonly viewed as waste. This makes intuitive sense because separating people from their excreta - sanitation - is arguably the single most important public health objective…
More than a century ago, on 26 September 1905, in a remote and isolated part of German Southwest Africa (present day Namibia) a young Australian lay dying amid the sand dunes and salt pans. Lured across…
This year’s US presidential election has been notable for the lack of focus on foreign policy issues by either candidate. Certainly Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate, has attempted to gain traction…
When I arrived in South Sudan in November 2005, the scars of war were everywhere. Intermittent power came from generators, there was no clean drinking water, schools were little more than benches under…
On Friday, we learned that South Africa and Australia/New Zealand will jointly host the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope, rather than the facility going to just one of the bids. The split-site…
Khartoum has resumed its bombardment of South Sudan despite the passing of a UN Security Council Resolution calling for a ceasefire. With military action escalating over the past few days, the two nations…
Modern-day Africa was the keystone of Gondwana, the aggregated mass of southern continents that co-existed for nearly 400m years. That supercontinent has since split apart, creating the land masses we…
“Kony2012” is trending worldwide on Twitter. Really, people? Why couldn’t we just stick to making tweets about the Kardashians, Justin Bieber, Angelina Jolie’s leg and sexist hashtags? Snark aside, I knew…
The coming of the new year was not auspicious for Nigeria. Despite being rich in oil, the country is overwhelmed by corruption and violence. The north of the country has been torn apart by terrorist attacks…
DURBAN CLIMATE CHANGE CONFERENCE: With a backdrop of global financial woes and the European Union’s debt crisis, the Conference of the Parties at Durban convened with lower expectations but high stakes…
How and when did humans colonise the globe? This question has become one of the key concerns of archaeologists, geneticists and human biologists. And now the latest archaeological discovery in Oman in…
The world’s population has just hit seven billion and nearly one billion people do not get enough to eat. Agricultural land is being degraded at the rate of 12 million hectares a year and the world faces…
CHOGM: As the leaders of Commonwealth nations meet in Perth, The Conversation is examining the role of the biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government (CHOGM) Meeting. Daniel Rodriguez from the University…
Muammar Gaddafi’s 42-year-rule of Libya has come to an violent end in a manner reminiscent of the dispatch of Fascist Italy’s Benito Mussolini. Libya under Gaddafi, like Libya before him, had a complex…
Anthropologue et démographe, professeur émérite au Muséum national d’histoire naturelle et conseiller de la direction de l'INED, Muséum national d’histoire naturelle (MNHN)