Tomorrow Namibia holds its 6th general elections since independence from South Africa in 1989. The South West African People’s Organisation (Swapo), which led the struggle for emancipation, has dominated each poll. In the last one in 2014, the party won 80% of the votes for the National Assembly, while its presidential candidate, Hage Geingob, scooped almost 87% of the votes. There’s no doubt that Swapo will win the election. But, Henning Melber argues, it might be with a smaller margin thanks, in part, to an economic crisis that has seen youth unemployment skyrocket.
A series of showy, brazen and deadly attacks by Mexican cartels in recent months have set the government on its heels and left a nation debating how to stop the bloodshed. Angélica Durán-Martínez says there’s no quick fix when it comes to organised crime. But a few communities deep in the hills of southern Mexico have managed to prevent cartel infiltration of the police and judiciary. What do they know that Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador doesn’t?
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Namibian president Hage Geingob.
EPA/Siphiwe Sibeko
Henning Melber, University of Pretoria
Namibia’s political stability so far has been vested in the dominance of Swapo. Those opposing its control face an uphill battle.
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Clouds of smoke from burning cars mark the skyline of Culiacan, Mexico, during a 12-hour siege by the Sinaloa Cartel, Oct. 17, 2019.
AP Photo/Hector Parra
Angélica Durán-Martínez, University of Massachusetts Lowell
A series of brazen, highly visible attacks by Mexican drug cartels have killed at least 50 people in the past month, terrorizing citizens and making the government look weak on crime.
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Politics + Society
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David A. Frank, University of Oregon
When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was indicted on corruption charges Wednesday, both the charges and Netanyahu's response to them were reminiscent of the situation President Trump is in.
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Roukaya Kasenally, University of Mauritius
Mauritius' "dynastic politics" does not augur well for the often celebrated image of Mauritius as Africa's shining democratic model.
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Health + Medicine
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Patience Afulani, University of California, San Francisco
Most women feel they are unable to ask health professionals questions. And only half were consistently asked if they had questions.
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Mhairi Maskew, University of the Witwatersrand
There's an urgent need for interventions to increase uptake of antiretroviral therapy and improve services for adolescents.
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Science + Technology
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Maria Seton, University of Sydney; Joanne Whittaker, University of Tasmania; Simon Williams, University of Sydney
We undertook a 28-day voyage to explore a possible lost continent in a remote part of the Coral Sea, in an area off the coast of Queensland. Here's what we found.
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Nick Longrich, University of Bath
300,000 years ago, there were lots of different species of human. Now it’s only us – and we're probably the reason why.
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