The local AI conversation has moved from job displacement panic towards autonomous AI agents, unmanaged ‘Shadow AI’, and emerging cybersecurity vulnerabilities that threaten corporate governance, data sovereignty and Popia compliance. There’s something happening here, and what it is may not be exactly clear. You know the stat that gets fired off often well: out of…
South Africa’s available land could attract larger AI data centre campuses. (Image source: 123RF) South Africa is emerging as one of the markets for next-wave data centre growth in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region, with the country’s availability of land potentially giving it an advantage, as established European hubs face growing constraints….
As stated in President Trump’s Executive Order (EO) 14204, “Addressing Egregious Actions of the Republic of South Africa,” the United States remains gravely concerned about racially motivated crime and government-sponsored discrimination occurring against the Afrikaners and other minority populations in South Africa, including race-based discriminatory legislation, threats of land expropriation without compensation, and incitement of…
New Global Witness figures bring the total killed and disappeared since 2012 to 2,375 Just two South American countries – Colombia and Brazil – accounted for 52% of the 2025 killings In Asia, defenders are facing a rising tide of criminalisation and intimidation Globally, more than three quarters of those killed were small-scale farmers, Indigenous…
Promising efforts to restore degraded land are now in the spotlight at a time when 40 per cent of the world’s land currently faces degradation and drought, threatening the livelihoods of over three billion people, the head of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) said Wednesday, announcing three winners of its World Restoration Flagships…
She said Africa needs to move land restoration from the aid column into the investment column by developing bankable landscape programmes, strengthening land tenure, deploying risk-sharing instruments and ensuring that farmers and pastoralists benefit from carbon and other emerging environmental markets. As negotiations continue at the 17th session of the United Nations Convention to Combat…
Countries are spending too little to restore degraded land even as the economic cost of doing nothing climbs towards $1 trillion a year, UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed warned at a major UN land conference in Mongolia. Speaking at the high-level opening of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) meeting in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, Ms….
The Professor argued that Africa does not primarily lack scientific knowledge to address land degradation and drought; rather, the continent faces gaps in data continuity, technology deployment, local-scale evidence and the ability to translate scientific findings into policy and action. In this interview with PREMIUM TIMES on the sidelines of COP17 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, Oluseyi…
From Ecuador to Bangladesh, a new generation of entrepreneurs is turning land restoration into economic opportunity. Whether repurposing agricultural waste, building greenhouses or deploying AI-powered sensors, they are showing, with support from a United Nations-backed initiative, that restoring land can also generate income and improve livelihoods. In Senegal, Daniel Halman is working with a simple…
As the 17th session of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification enters its final week in Ulaanbaatar, ministers and global leaders will focus on finance, water, land, and food systems. The second and decisive week of the 17th session of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, UNCCD COP17, began on Monday, in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia,…
