Frederick Baijukya, International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and Fred Kanampiu, International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA)
Increasing legume production can turn the tide for African farmers who struggle with poor soils, declining farm yields and worsening nutrition in one fell swoop
The Enola Gay, a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, which dropped the first atomic bomb in history. The bomb was made from Congolese ore.
Reuters
Susan Williams, School of Advanced Study, University of London
The Soviet Union tested its own atomic bomb in 1949, to the profound shock of the US. This heated up the Cold War dramatically and thrust the Congo to the centre of American geopolitical strategy
Artisanal miners at an illegal mine pit in the DRC. At severe risk to their health, some still go to abandoned sites to dig out uranium and cobalt.
Reuters/Kenny Katombe
Susan Williams, School of Advanced Study, University of London
The mine that produced the uranium that made the Hiroshima bomb has since been closed. But its troubling legacy continues to haunt the Democratic Republic of Congo and the local community.
Mega development projects can have a positive impact. But there are risks. Between 2004 and 2013, some 3.4 million people were ‘physically and economically displaced’ by World Bank projects alone.
Despite ongoing conflict in the DRC, the number of endangered mountain gorillas in the Virunga National Park has increased.
Shutterstock
Papa Wemba was one of the most active ambassadors of Congolese urban music on the global stage. He did this by fusing international musical styles with authentic Congolese grooves.
Ivorians attend a memorial service for the late Congolese singer Papa Wemba in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, 27 April 2016.
EPA/Legnan Koula
US President Barack Obama would do well to refocus America’s interventions in Africa to support peaceful activists fighting for democracy.
There are shortcomings in celebrity led campaigns against “conflict minerals” such as the one in which US actress Robin Wright is involved.
Robin Wright's instagram
The relationship between advocacy organisations based in Western capitals and their marketed constituency of marginalised and disadvantaged African groups is tenuous. What then, is the goal?
King Mswati III of Swaziland. His word is law, above all other laws in the tiny kingdom.
Reuters/Carlo Allegri
In the words of US President Obama: Africa doesn’t need strongmen, it needs strong institutions. In this light, the South African president’s acceptance of a court ruling against him is a good thing.
Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo enters the court room of the ICC.
Reuters/Jerry Lampen
Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo has been convicted for crimes of sexual violence during war in the Central African Republic. It’s a significant case, but not the historic victory it’s been hailed as.
Victims of sexual violence in eastern Congo, 2007.
James Akena/Reuters
Unlike the third-term fever afflicting the Great Lakes region, Rwanda is not mired in corruption and stagnation. Rwandans were fearful and anxious about what might happen after 2017 without Kagame.
The conflict mineral provision has hurt the victims of the violence more than the perpetrators.
Reuters
Congress tasked the SEC with reducing violence in Congo through Dodd-Frank’s conflict minerals provision. A laudable goal, but the SEC can’t achieve it.
Excavators and drillers at work in a copper and cobalt mine near Lubumbashi. Mineral resources are a big part of the DRC’s economy.
Reuters/Jonny Hogg
The fall in commodity prices has hit the DRC hard. This is a lesson to resources-dependent countries in Africa that they need to diversify their economies.
The Chinese have helped build more than 300 dams in Africa, like this one on the Congo River.
Reuters
The Congolese physician has treated over 20,000 victims of traumatic rape in a conflict fueled in part by ‘conflict minerals’ used to make cellphones.
What does telling the story of the long-running conflict in the Congo through the lens of Verdi’s Macbeth teach us? Owen Metsileng and Nobulumko Mngxek in Macbeth.
by Nicky Newman
Brett Bailey’s Macbeth at Brisbane Festival is a powerful production that relocates Verdi’s opera (based on Shakespeare’s play) to the ongoing conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
France’s relationships with its former African colonies has become ambivalent.
Reuters/Pascal Rossignol
French and African presidents have, in the past, entertained close relationships outside official channels. These often included illegitimate exchanges. But there are signs that this is changing.
Part-time lecturer at the Global Health & Social Medicine, Harvard University, and Lecturer at the School of Public Health, College of Health Sciences, University of Liberia