News & Events

Ethiopia is holding parliamentary elections on 21 June at a time of immense domestic turmoil and foreign pressure. This is due to, in particular, the Tigray conflict, the COVID-19 pandemic and other ethnic-based violence. Ethiopia has always been a complex and volatile country, but the confluence of these pressures in 2021 is unique, and dangerous. Still, the elections are better held than delayed again, Jan Abbink writes in The Conversation.

On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of Wikipedia in the Netherlands, Jos Damen, head of the ASCL Library, was interviewed by EenVandaag (TV and radio) about Wikipedia's added value. The ASCL Library has uploaded more than 4,000 images from its (donated) Africa photo collections to Wikimedia Commons. 

The media have always played an important role in times of protest, struggle, and war. In recent times, social media have even strengthened this impact. This month’s Library Highlight, the volume of essays Guerrilla radios in Southern Africa: broadcasters, technology, propaganda wars, and the armed struggle, edited by Sekibakiba Peter Lekgoathi, Tshepo Moloi, and Alda Romão Saúte Saíde, focuses on the special role of radio as the predominant medium during the struggle for national liberation in Southern Africa. Read the Library Highlight!

Starting in Tunisia in December 2010, in the first months of 2011 a wave of protest spread across the Arab world. On the 10th anniversary of the “Arab Spring”, the ASCL Library has compiled a web dossier on its history and impact on the African continent. The dossier consists of titles from the ASCL Library Catalogue, complemented by sources available through the broader Leiden University Library collection. The dossier is introduced by Dr Abeer Abazeed. Read the web dossier.

Western media have never really been interested in the severe environmental damage caused by huge mining projects in Sierra Leone, many of them Western. So why is there suddenly so much attention for the ‘catastrophic Chinese support’ for building a fisheries harbour in Sierra Leone, near the paradisiacal Black Johnson Beach? Read Ton Dietz's latest blog.