December 5, 20235:03 AM ET
Ten years after the death of Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first democratically elected president, many young people there have become disillusioned with his legacy and his party.
December 5, 20235:03 AM ET
A ex-U.S. ambassador is accused of working as a secret agent for Cuba. After Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, fears of a wider Middle East conflict grow. It’s been 10 years since Nelson Mandela died.
December 5, 20235:03 AM ET
Enlarge this imageAnti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela delivers a policy statement in Johannesburg, South Africa, on Jan. 8, 1994. Mandela called on all South Africans to pledge themselves to peace. Later that year, Mandela became South Africa’s first Black president.
Walter Dhladhla/AFP/Getty Images
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Walter Dhladhla/AFP/Getty Images
Anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela delivers a policy statement in Johannesburg, South Africa, on Jan. 8, 1994. Mandela called on all South Africans to pledge themselves to peace. Later that year, Mandela became South Africa’s first Black president.
Walter Dhladhla/AFP/Getty Images
Former South African President Nelson Mandela actively protested apartheid for most of his life, and he is known for being one of the world’s most famous political prisoners.
His anti-apartheid activism never faltered: He delivered speeches, wrote letters while imprisoned and, after his release, negotiated..
December 4, 20237:04 PM ET
Enlarge this imageManmade pits at construction sites are providing nurseries for malaria-carrying mosquitoes, new research finds.
Gonzalo Vazquez-Prokopec
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Gonzalo Vazquez-Prokopec
Manmade pits at construction sites are providing nurseries for malaria-carrying mosquitoes, new research finds.
Gonzalo Vazquez-Prokopec
About a decade ago, a new kind of mosquito began showing up in African cities. Native to Asia, Anopheles stephensi prefers crowded urban environments over rural ones. That spelled trouble: These mosquitoes transmit malaria.
It’s especially bad news for Africa where more than 93% of the world’s quarter-billion malaria cases were identified last year.
“The challenge relates to a new species invading an area in which most people have never been exposed to malaria,” says Gonzalo Vazquez-Prokopec, an environmental scientist at Emory University. “And that could lead to severe outbreaks and transmission — you kno..
December 8, 20234:55 PM ET
Despite legal challenges, the U.K. is pushing ahead with a plan to deport undocumented migrants to Rwanda. But it’s already cost taxpayers twice what was planned, and no one has been deported yet.
December 8, 202311:44 AM ET
Enlarge this imageNdileka Mandela, the eldest of Nelson Mandela’s grandchildren, during her Zoom interview with NPR. A climate activist, she had spoken at COP28 earlier in the week, the climate summit, and returned home to Johannesburg to mark the 10th anniversary of her grandfather’s passing.
Screenshot by NPR
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Screenshot by NPR
Ndileka Mandela, the eldest of Nelson Mandela’s grandchildren, during her Zoom interview with NPR. A climate activist, she had spoken at COP28 earlier in the week, the climate summit, and returned home to Johannesburg to mark the 10th anniversary of her grandfather’s passing.
Screenshot by NPR
This week marks the tenth anniversary of the passing of Nelson Mandela. His activism against apartheid sent him to prison for 27 years. After that system of racial segregation came to an end and Mandela was released, he went on to become president of South Africa.
Today, he is survived by 17 grandchild..
December 8, 20237:32 AM ET
Enlarge this imageThis is the vaginal ring that releases the antiretroviral drug dapivirine to ward off HIV infection. The ring is now going into wider distribution in sub-Saharan Africa, where girls and young women age 15 to 24 accounted for more than 77% of new HIV infections in 2022, according to UNAIDS.
AFP/Stephane de Sakutin/AFP via Getty Images
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AFP/Stephane de Sakutin/AFP via Getty Images
This is the vaginal ring that releases the antiretroviral drug dapivirine to ward off HIV infection. The ring is now going into wider distribution in sub-Saharan Africa, where girls and young women age 15 to 24 accounted for more than 77% of new HIV infections in 2022, according to UNAIDS.
AFP/Stephane de Sakutin/AFP via Getty Images
Women in a growing number of African countries will soon have access to a vaginal ring to help reduce their risk of acquiring HIV from an infected partner. And they can use it discreetly, without..
December 8, 20235:07 AM ET
NPR’s Steve Inskeep talks to Madeleine Sumption of the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, about the British government’s latest plan to send migrants to Rwanda.
December 7, 20239:24 AM ET
Husband and wife Denis and Bentha Otieno at their home in 2017, calculating their monthly budget shortly after they began receiving a monthly grant from the charity GiveDirectly. Researchers are studying whether the grant program — which provides $50 every month over 12 years — can lift people out of poverty.
Nichole Sobecki for NPR
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Nichole Sobecki for NPR
It’s an unprecedented – and massive – experiment: Since 2017 the U.S.-based charity GiveDirectly has been providing thousands of villagers in Kenya what’s called a “universal basic income” – a cash grant of about $50, delivered every month, with the commitment to keep the payments coming for 12 years. It is a crucial test of what many consider one of the most cutting-edge ideas for alleviating global poverty. This week a team of independent researchers who have been studying the impact released their first results.
Their findings cover the..
December 7, 20235:13 AM ET
NPR’s Michel Michel talks with Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, about Antony Blinken’s call on the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces to stop the conflict.