57
votes
Is the internet in Madagascar faster than in UK?
That might be true in 2017, or at the beginning of the 2018 when UK analytics firm Cable published its speed table. Right now you can check the stats live.
And although Madagascar is still "faster" ...
- 2,765
32
votes
Accepted
Is Rub' al Khali the largest sand desert in the world?
These rankings are all a matter of what counts and what doesn’t. For examples, I’ve constructed three similar rankings, each one a little stricter—which forces out some contenders, and gives those ...
- 1,531
31
votes
Is the internet in Madagascar faster than in UK?
As of July 2019 according to the Speedtest.net Global Index , Madagascar (unranked mobile, rank 68 fixed) ranks below all of the 3 listed countries: United Kingdom (rank 50 mobile, rank 41 fixed), ...
- 18.7k
31
votes
Accepted
Did 60% of polled South Africans say the country was better run during apartheid?
The Guardian article is from 2002.
I owe a huge hat-tip to @Klanomath for finding the original 2002 survey where I failed, including a code book with the list of questions.
The questions cover a lot ...
- 145k
24
votes
Accepted
Do any people in South Africa traditionally spend two days together praising wrong-doers to help them?
The story in question was originally attributed not to an anthropologist, but to a childhood memory!
Consider the Babemba tribes of southern Africa, where the social structure includes only an ...
- 47.3k
15
votes
Accepted
Were three brothers killed while trying to have sex with a crocodile?
Although that webpage had protection to avoid anyone easily copying their image, I was able to find it in the source code and do a reverse image search.
The earliest source I found for the image was ...
- 34.1k
12
votes
Did France flood Guinea with counterfeit currency to destabilize it?
Yes, this actually happened, according to French journalists Roger Faligot and Pascal Krop, both of whom were mainstream journalists and specialized in French counterinsurgency and covert operations.
...
- 47.3k
12
votes
Do African countries using Ivermectin have a better Covid-19 situation?
The first really important question is what exactly it means that those countries use ivermectin or are part of APOC. Both papers seem to assume that this status is binary, a country is either in the ...
- 43.7k
12
votes
Is it possible to determine if a person has had receptive anal sex through a physical exam?
It depends
The available analysis (e.g. Human Rights Watch report, IRCT, though limited references to primary sources) state that, in essence,
"The normal variability in anal sphincter tone and ...
- 176
11
votes
Are high temperatures the cause of nudity being not unusual amongst the Daasanach?
Other sources indicate a less innocent explanation: nudity is the penalty for not undergoing female genital mutilation. Amongst females, only those who've undergone it are allowed to wear clothing, ...
- 39.2k
10
votes
Is Rub' al Khali the largest sand desert in the world?
Table 5.1 of Aeolian Sand and Sand Dunes lists all sand deserts (ergs) that are larger than 12,000 km2.
The second largest at 560,000 km2 is Rub' al Khali.
The largest at 630,000 km2 ...
- 109k
9
votes
Accepted
Is it possible to determine if a person has had receptive anal sex through a physical exam?
The scientific consensus is that examinations of the sort described are both ineffective and unethical.
I found an essay from PLOS medicine, titled Forced anal examinations to ascertain sexual ...
- 9,012
9
votes
Accepted
Was electricity ever free in Gaddafi's regime?
The claim that
There is no electricity bill in Libya; electricity is free for all
its citizens.
is false. There was electricity bills but the price was very low. According to IMF, Libya's ...
- 15.9k
7
votes
Accepted
Did France refuse to interview the Belarusian mercenary pilots which killed 9 French soldiers, even though France allegedly had the opportunity?
It is at least partially true. French government was informed by Togo that several Belorussians were detained in aftermath of the Bouaké attack. A letter attributed to Togo's then-Minister of the ...
- 1,579
7
votes
Accepted
Are high temperatures the cause of nudity being not unusual amongst the Daasanach?
See Women’s Worlds in Dassanetch,
Southern Ethiopia, Institut für Ethnologie und Afrikastudien, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität (2005).
Unlike boys Dassanetch girls start wearing clothes from ...
- 109k
6
votes
Do any people in South Africa traditionally spend two days together praising wrong-doers to help them?
Short answer: This is most likely nonsense. Ubuntu roughly denotes "a quality that includes the essential human virtues: compassion and humanity"(1), and while it is sometimes opposed to victimisation ...
- 1,176
5
votes
Does Africa have to choose between renewable energy and economic growth?
An answer to this question depends how one chooses to interpret that Putin said. I interpret it as him saying solar panels are more expensive than alternatives, perhaps for the next 20-30 years.
That ...
4
votes
Are these women “for sale in the market in Libya”?
Are these women in Libya
Probably not in Libya.
are they for sale in a market, and are they for sale as slaves?
Maybe.
The oldest version (June 26, 2018) I can find with reverse image search ...
- 9,512
4
votes
Do African Immigrants have the highest academic achievement in the U.S. of any ethnic group?
The article you linked correctly restates the conclusions of an article published in the "news and views" section of a scientific journal. I am unable to tell if their conclusions are rigorously true, ...
- 12k
3
votes
Did Malian sailors reach the Americas in 1311 CE?
I don't have a copy of al-'Umari's Arabic text, but I do have an English translation of it, it is in Corpus of Early Arabic Sources of West African History edited by N. Levtzion & J.F.P. Hopkins, ...
3
votes
Are three quarters of immigrants "flooding Europe today" from central Africa?
For immigration into Europe, African immigrants account for 24% of all migrants (2013).
Refugees/asylum seeker numbers are mentioned in the other answer, but I'd stress how important it is not to ...
- 189
2
votes
Are three quarters of immigrants "flooding Europe today" from central Africa?
In 2015 the vast majority of those applying for asylum in the EU were from war-torn regions like Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34131911
It is not clear which ...
- 581
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible