Ruth Becker

Update, October 2022: This article was first written in 2012. Morocco has since rejoined the African Union. A list of current AU members – which number 55 – can be found here. “How many countries does the continent have in its entirety?” asked a message sent to us by a group of informatio...

On January 1, President Yahya Jammeh of Gambia announced plans in his New Year address to build a large hospital in the tiny west African nation offering a herbal ‘cure’ for AIDS to up to 10,000 patients every six months."With this project coming to fruition, we intend to treat 10,000 HIV/AIDS p...

Ever since cell phone masts started to go up around the world at the end of the last century, people have worried that the radiation the masts transmit might have harmful effects on those who live or work nearby.Radiation is present everywhere as part of the natural world but studies have shown that...

In a speech at the end of last week, President Jacob Zuma hit out at criticism of the continuing high levels of income inequality in the country, declaring that the gap between rich and poor in South Africa has been narrowing since 1994 and is still falling.Opposition Democratic Alliance finance spo...