By Kimberly Mutandiro
JOHANNESBURG, Sept 26 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – John first heard of cryptocurrency three years ago, when the teenager came across slick YouTube videos and Facebook posts of other South Africans claiming to have become wealthy overnight with bitcoin.
Continue reading
Phil Tomlinson, University of Bath; Andrew Burlinson, University of East Anglia; Catherine Waddams, University of East Anglia; Donald Hirsch, Loughborough University; Jean-Philippe Serbera, Sheffield Hallam University; Jim Watson, UCL; Jonquil Lowe, The Open University, and Steven McCabe, Birmingham City University
UK chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng has just launched the biggest package of tax cuts in half a century. This will involve around £45bn of reductions for people and businesses by 2027 – 50% more than anticipated before the mini-budget announcement.
Steve Schifferes, City, University of London
The UK economy has been dogged by slow growth for a long time. Combined with even slower growth in productivity, it has meant virtually no increase in living standards for the average family over the past decade.
By Nita Bhalla
NAIROBI, Sept 22 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – When the pain started in Agnes Wachira’s chest almost six months ago, the Kenyan mother-of-three dismissed it as a symptom of the daily grind of working long hours hand-washing clothes in the narrow lanes of Nairobi’s Kawangware informal settlement.
Continue reading
John Curtice, University of Strathclyde
The death of Queen Elizabeth II after 70 years on the throne has, of course, been met with widespread sadness and mourning. For most people in Britain, she is the only monarch they have known. Yet, inevitably, the mourning of her passing will be followed by a discussion about the future of the monarchy as an institution. After all, much has changed since 1951.
Although it may have provided the head of state for over a thousand years, in a modern democracy like Britain the monarchy will need to retain public consent if it is to survive.
ACCRA, Sept 8 (Reuters) – A keypad-locked door in Ghana’s capital Accra hid a neon-lit hall of flickering processors, clicking keyboards and excited voices. The young crowd erupted as brother beat sister in a tight-fought but good-spirited round of Mortal Kombat.
British-Ghanaian gamer Annabel Ashalley-Anthony smiled at her brother Adam, after the tournament match at a gaming hub organized by Melanin Gamers, a collective she hopes will change the video game landscape.
A ‘network state’ is ideologically aligned but geographically decentralised. The people are spread around the world in clusters of varying size, but their hearts are in one place.
In June 2022 Balaji Srinivasan, former chief technology officer of the Coinbase cryptocurrency exchange, published an ebook entitled The Network State: How To Start a New Country. It is the latest in a flurry of utopian visions by self-styled digital visionaries, crypto believers and web 3.0 evangelists who are lining up to declare the death of the traditional concept of countries and nationhood.
James Freeman, University of Bristol
Boris Johnson’s time as prime minister comes to an end next week, giving us all a chance to consider what his legacy will be. More than his predecessors, Johnson owed his premiership to his reputed ability to persuade audiences other Conservatives couldn’t, through his charisma, unpredictability and energetic campaigning.
Chantal Gautier, University of Westminster
In the digital age, online dating and swiping right are the status quo for romance. Practically gone are the days of meeting “the one” in a pub. But what about flirting by the water cooler or over Zoom? The consensual office relationship has been both a romance trope and a taboo for decades.
Jennifer Grant, University of Portsmouth
The most hated man on the internet, according to a new Netflix docuseries, is Hunter Moore. The convicted criminal and self-described “professional life ruiner” Moore enabled the non-consensual distribution of thousands of private images by founding “revenge porn” website Is Anyone Up?.