This year’s Ethiopian New Year, celebrated on September 12th, brought with it added fanfare and excitement in the nation’s capital Addis Ababa where people gathered for the inaugural service of the nation’s first light railway system. With a population of nearly 4 million people, most of whom are reliant on public transport, the city of Addis’ roads have gradually become … [Read more...] about Unweaving Africa: Sub-Saharan Africa’s First Light Railway
Archives for 2015
Unweaving Africa: The African Millionaire
The continent of Africa is so often inextricably associated with poverty and disease that one would find it difficult to believe that there are in fact a number of multimillionaires who call the continent their home. According to CNN, there are approximately 163,000 millionaires living in Africa. And while this number pales in comparison to that in some developed nations, let … [Read more...] about Unweaving Africa: The African Millionaire
Stateless: Exploring the Political Dynamics of Cultural, Ethnic, and Religious Minorities Around the World, This Week’s Focus–The Uyghurs
The Uyghurs are a Turkic group living in Xinjiang, or the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in northwest China. They speak the “Uyghur” language and the vast majority of them are practitioners of Sunni Islam. One particularly interesting thing about Uyghurs is that they are a phenotypically diverse ethnic group with some appearing Caucasian, others more central Asian, … [Read more...] about Stateless: Exploring the Political Dynamics of Cultural, Ethnic, and Religious Minorities Around the World, This Week’s Focus–The Uyghurs
Benjamin Franklin: The Fish-Loving Vegetarian
“I considered… the taking every Fish as unprovoked Murder, since none of them had or ever could do us any injury that might justify the slaughter…. But I had formerly been a great Lover of Fish, & when this came hot out of the Frying Pan, it smelled admirably well.” – Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin Although not the first … [Read more...] about Benjamin Franklin: The Fish-Loving Vegetarian
Development of Turquerie and Mozart
Since the Late Medieval Period, the Ottoman Empire and the European states have periodically been engaged in political and military conflict. Due to the vast dominion of the Ottoman Empire along with their acquisition of Constantinople, which undermined Christian influence in the east, many Europeans viewed the Ottomans as barbaric and uncivilized. Yet along with their … [Read more...] about Development of Turquerie and Mozart