Activists in South Africa wins important victory on mining rights

Last month activists in Pondoland in South Africa won an important victory., The Guardian reports. A court decided that before the government grants mining rights to someone, they must first have the consent of the local community. Local residents have formed the Amadiba crisis commitee because they are afraid mining could the ecology in the region and that people could lose their land. The mining company wants to find materials that could be used for golf clubs, laptop computers, bicycles, watches, just to mention a few things.


Protesting against mining rights in South Africa can sometimes have a lethal outcome, according to the Guardian.

A Moroccan who helpted to find the Higgs boson particle

As I have mentioned earlier I will sometimes talk about scientists from the African continent. This time I would like to mention Rajaa Cherkaoui El Moiursli, a Moroccan woman who in 2015 was awarded A Loreal Unesco for Women in Science Award. She gor it for her part in finding the Higgs boson particle, so it´s no small contribution to science.

What exactly did Rajaa Cherkaoui El Moursli do? She "contributed to the simulation and construction of the electromagnetic calorimeter in the ATLAS detector".

ATLAS is "one of two general-purpose detectors at the Large Hadron Collider" at Cern.


Click here for a video about her scientific work.

Netflix turns to Africa!

Netflix has announced it will now start to make African original series. The first one will be "Queen Sono", a story about a secret agent.

“It’s going to change the game for every artist on this continent”, stated South African actress Pearl Thusi (who plays the lead role), according to Variety.

Gandhi statue removed in Ghana

A statue of Mahatma Gandhi has been removed at a university in Ghana. The reason is that people are complaining that Gandhi was racist towards Africans.

Gandhi lived for a long time in South Africa and it is at this time people say Gandhi showed what he really felt about Africans. Find out more about this topic here and some more about Gandhi here.

Trevor Noah shows South Africa

South African Trevor Noah, host of The Daily Show, recently published a Youtube video where he travelles back to South Africa. In the video he talks with his grandmother about apartheid and Trevor´s upbringing.

Successful Swedish singers of African descent

Recently BBC made an interview with Swedish singer Cherrie who is of Somalian descent. But she is not the only Swedish singer with at least one parent from the African continent. Other artists who have had success in recent years include Seinabo Sey (of Gambian descent), Madi Banja (of Gambian descent) and Sabina Ddumba (of Ugandan descent).

Cherrie.

Madi Banja.

Seinabo Sey.

Sabina Ddumba.

Africa´s influence on Western music

African music has had a history of influencing Western music. The influence from Africa on the Americas in history is well known. But it is also common that many artists today are influenced by Africa.
One such example is Vampire Weekend. Here you can find an article on Pitchfork where a person of African descent discusses Vampire Weekends borrowing from African music, including aspects of influences, appropriation etc.

Beyoncé has been influenced by African music and culture on numerous occassions. She recently also performed in a concert in South Africa to honour Nelson Mandela.

The most well known example of African influence is of course Paul Simon´s album "Graceland" where he travelled to South Africa to record music.

Nigeria are champions and Cameroon loses event

A lot has happened in African football recently. On Saturday Nigeria became champions in the Women´s African Cup of Nations by beating South Africa on penalties in the final. Both nations are through to the World cup next year together with Cameroon who grabbed the last World cup spot by finishing third after a 4-2-win against Mali.

When it comes to the men´s edition of the competition, Cameroon have been stripped of hosting the event. This is because of delays in the preparation for the competition. According to BBC, Morocco, South Africa and Egypt are now candidates to host the tournament next year.