Before the fall
RUSSIA How Yevgeny Prigozhin’s mercenary army, Wagner, grew to become a major tool in Russian foreign policy – murdering its way across Africa and Ukraine.
Africa
Utopias of community
FUTURE: Are we progressing towards an international society that looks after those left out of the conventional job market – and, with wisdom, transitions today’s military industry towards civilian duties? It’s conceivable that the new BRICS might pave a path away from today’s Western ideology.
Colonial past, today
AFRICA: An exploration of rare archival material that unveils the significance of Algeria’s fight for independence and its implications for modern-day Africa.
Private game reserves – a business concept for species conservation
SOUTH AFRICA: Around 500 South African game reserves represent a spectacular marketplace. But after thirty years, Shamwari Private Game Reserve, for example, now has seven luxury lodges, an explorer camp, a learning centre, a rehabilitation station for young, abandoned or injured animals – and not least a police unit to combat poaching.
Russia’s Africa Policy
AFRICA: Russia has been very committed to the principle of non-interference and allowed authoritarian regimes to conduct their own politics without setting any political demands for their trade or aid. But they forgave debts to several African countries while signing several military-technical agreements.
Green electricity from Africa
NAMINIA: Dependence on Russian gas, Putin’s war of aggression in Ukraine, and provoked supply crises have put energy at the center of European politics. But in Namibia, the plan is now to focus on ‘green’ electricity where seawater is desalinated and produces hydrogen through electrolysis.
Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad
AFRICA: In Norway, interest in the Sahel region is increasing. With Gaddafi’s fall in 2011, the strength and number of rebel groups in the region increased. After the start of the global war on terror in 2001, more and more countries have become interested in this vast area. But aren’t the Islamists primarily fighting against the West?
A numbers game
DOCUFICTION: After an unofficial five-year filmmaking ban, Hungary’s Ádám Császi continues to oppose the authoritarian Orbán regime.
A politically correct decolonisation ideology?
MODERNISATION: Nigerian professor Olùfèmi Táíwò examines power relations between former colonised and colonialists. All states struggle to adapt modern institutions to their own history, cultural context, and ideological climate. But can the demand for decolonizing language become absurd?
Muslim elites, exercise of power, and terror
AFRICA: What can a book say about Boko Haram or the porous border between present-day Cameroon and present-day Chad? Or about the pre-colonial Kingdom of Kanem-Bornu?
Cobalt, the other side of the electric dream
CLIMATE: The cost of going carbon neutral painted in the nightmare colours of cobalt blue.