The Picts, the indigenous people of what is today northern Scotland, were documented by Roman historians as having complex tattoos.
Theodor de Bry, via Wikimedia Commons
The pandemic has made some people rush to get tattoos for different reasons. A tattoo historian explains why tattoos are often seen to be ‘trashy,’ a view likely influenced by colonialism.
Shutterstock
Eurobonds are costly for governments. But they are also attractive because investors buy them without preconditions.
Satellite images are critical for security, communication, agriculture and other essential services.
Satellite image (c) 2020 Maxar Technologies.
An expert says Nigeria’s capacity to access space support for development and security will be affected if its satellite goes down.
British troops on camels in Egypt, 1900.
Granger Historical Picture Archive/Alamy
As the government cracks down on the right to protest, we should remind ourselves of similarities between new legislation and older legacies of imperialism.
Tahrir Square, then and now.
Khaled Desouki, Pedro Ugarte/AFP
In the ten years since the Arab Spring, the countries affected have transformed completely. Here’s how.
Shutterstock
Digital media shutdowns in Africa will lead to higher economic costs and greater public outrage.
shutterstock.
The Suez Canal’s history has been forged over a century by multiple entities and people. Its past has been marked by colossal stumbling blocks.
Nelson Mandela, first president of a democratic South Africa, wanted human rights to guide the country’s foreign policy.
Hamish Blair/Getty Images
South Africa frequently invokes its celebrated constitution that is based on human rights, but has often failed to live up to its ideals.
Ethiopian protestors march down 42nd Street in New York during a “It’s my Dam” protest on March 11, 2021.
Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images
Ethiopia, Sudan, Egypt and their neighbours could deploy large-scale solar and wind farms, connected by a regionally integrated power grid.
Nawal El Saadawi in 2015.
David Degner/Getty Images
Her 1975 novel demonstrated a far more radical feminism than was common in Africa and the Arab world – a precursor of the #MenAreTrash anger of today.
The procession of ships in the Suez canal for its opening. Illustration from the magazine “The Illustrated London News, volume LV, November 18, 1869.
DEA / BIBLIOTECA AMBROSIANA/Getty Images
Prior to the mid-19th century, the Isthmus of Suez – the 125km strip of land that lies between the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea – was a quiet spot.
Nawal El Saadawi protesting at Tahrir Square, Egypt, 2011.
Amel Pain/EPA-EFE
She believed that writing is an act of speaking the truth, an act of courage, that must serve the people and not those in power.
Suez canal: a key trade route since the mid-19th century.
Pictorial Press Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo
Britain’s preoccupation with the canal was as much about controlling Egypt as it was about global trade.
El Saadawi protesting on her 80th birthday.
In Pictures Ltd./Corbis via Getty Images
To understand her contribution to public debate, it’s important to see her in the context of the historical moment that made her work possible, necessary and provocative.
Nawal El Saadawi at home in 2015.
David Degner/Getty Images
A firebrand activist for women’s rights, her novels espoused truths that made her hugely unpopular with the government.
The container ship ran aground in the Suez Canal on March 23, blocking the passage of other ships and causing a traffic jam for cargo vessels.
EPA-EFE/Media Suez Canal Head Office
The Suez Canal is the ideal target for causing maximum disruption to global trade.
Cairo downtown panorama, view on the Nile and bridges, Egypt.
AlexAnton/Shutterstock
Given the ever increasing importance of coordinated management Ethiopia, Sudan, and Egypt should manage all dams through the Nile Basin Commission.
An aerial shot of The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam reservoir filling up. Taken in 2020.
Photo by Gallo Images/Orbital Horizon/Copernicus Sentinel Data 2020
Nile communities carefully monitored and recorded the river’s flow. Centuries later these records are still being used by water resource managers around the world to analyse unpredictable river flows.
Survivors of the violence in Benishangul-Gumuz gather in a circle at a displaced persons camp in Chagni, Ethiopia in December 2020.
GettyImages
It’s a confluence of local, regional, national and, possibly, foreign interests.
shutterstock.
It won’t be easy to get the 11 countries in the basin to agree to a plan that avoids chronic water shortages in the future. Good information sharing and technical cooperation are critical.