The Take

On January 9, Africa began its biggest biennial football tournament: The Africa Cup of Nations. Postponed a year because of the pandemic, the tournament will pit 24 of the continent's top teams against each other over the course of one month in Cameroon. But despite the celebratory fervor in Cameroon, there's some concern about how the tournament has been portrayed.

In this episode: 

• Usher Komugisha (@UsherKomugisha), African football journalist

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In 2001, while doing research in Afghanistan, Mansoor Adayfi says he was captured and turned over to the CIA. He turned 19 in a black site and weeks later found himself hooded and shackled at the newly opened American military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Hundreds of prisoners arrived in the first years; now dozens remain. Mansoor tells us his own story and how he and other detainees are trying to bring an end to a seemingly endless emblem of American injustice, the prison at Guantanamo Bay.

In this episode:

• Mansoor Adayfi (@MansoorAdayfi ), former Guantanamo detainee #441, author of, "Don't Forget Us Here", and @UK_CAGE Guantánamo Project Coordinator

For more:

Listen to Biden, Guantanamo and Mohammed al-Qahtani

Listen to The Course of the Forever Wars: After 9/11

This episode was produced by Alexandra Locke with Amy Walters, Negin Owliaei, Priyanka Tilve, Ruby Zaman, Ney Alvarez and Malika Bilal. Alex Roldan is our sound designer. Tom Fenton is our editor. Aya Elmileik is our engagement producer and Stacey Samuel is our executive producer.

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This week we have been revisiting and updating some of our favorite episodes on The Take. This is the last episode of the series.

Egypt’s low-tech, high-energy mahraganat music blasted out of the shantytowns to top the global charts on SoundCloud and rack up hundreds of millions of views on YouTube. But it’s been dogged by controversy, throwing the entire genre’s future into question.

In this episode:

• Mina Girgis (@minagirgis), an Egyptian ethnomusicologist based in the United States

For more:

Listen to Bent el Geran / ‘The Neighbors’ Daughter'

Listen to the "Mahraganat" playlist on Spotify

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This week, we continue revisiting and updating some of our favorite episodes on The Take.

Emmett Till was beaten, shot, and drowned in a river in Mississippi on August 28, 1955. He was 14 years old. Now that the US Department of Justice has closed its investigation into his killing, we look back at Emmett’s life and death, and his family's 66-year-long push for justice.

In this episode:

• Deborah Watts, Emmett Till’s cousin, and co-founder of the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation

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This week, we continue revisiting and updating some of our favorite episodes on The Take.

The year 2021 was the deadliest year to be a Palestinian child since 2014. As many as 86 children were killed, and Defense for Children International Palestine (DCIP) documented each of them. One of them was Obaida Jawabra. This week, we tell Obaida’s story, one of our most memorable on The Take, and hear about why it is getting harder for DCIP to do their job.

In this episode:

• Farah Bayadsi, Human Rights Attorney (@DCIPalestine)
• Ayed Abu Qtaish, Accountability programme director for Defense for Children International
• Yuval Abraham, Journalist at 972 Magazine (@yuval_abraham)

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This week and next, we're revisiting and updating some of our favorite episodes on The Take.

In August, the UN climate panel issued a “code red for humanity.” The latest IPCC report warned of a catastrophic planetary future if global emissions don’t reach net-zero within the next few decades. But in Bangladesh, there’s no code red needed. The country’s residents have been watching the seas rise and the glaciers melt, right in front of their eyes. And they have lessons — and warnings — for the rest of the world.

In this episode:

• Saleemul Huq (@SaleemulHuq), director of the International Center for Climate Change and Development

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This week and next, we're revisiting and updating some of our favorite episodes on The Take.

Where the global space race was once decided by the wealth of nations, now its future is increasingly determined by ultra-wealthy individuals worth more than many countries. Their pursuit of space could put new resources in reach, and it is reshaping the laws of outer space – at least, the ones made by humans.

In this episode: 

• Lucianne Walkowicz (@RocketToLulu), an astronomer at the Adler Planetarium and co-founder of Just Space Alliance (@JustSpaceOrg)
• Lisa Ruth Rand (@orbital_decay), assistant Professor at the California Institute of Technology

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This week and next, we're revisiting and updating some of our favorite episodes on The Take.

Every August, in a small town called San Cibrao, in the northern region of Galicia, Spain, people gather to celebrate an annual festival: A Maruxaina. Finding a toilet during the event, which brings together thousands of people, can be challenging – forcing many to relieve themselves in discreet alleys instead. But in 2019, a group of women was secretly recorded, with the videos ending up on pornography websites. These women are now seeking justice.

In this episode: 

• Sonia Visozo, El País’ correspondent in Galicia
• Paloma Maseda and Alba Álvarez, victims

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Americans are wasting about $408bn in food every year, but the biggest consequence of food waste is not financial. Pollution from methane gas generated at landfills accounts for about 8 to 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Today, we explore food waste — how to avoid it, and what steps local and national governments in the United States are taking to solve the problem.

In this episode: 

• Madeline Keating, City Strategist, Healthy People and Thriving Communities Program at NRDC (@NRDC)
• Kristyn Oldendorf, Chief of the Office of Waste Diversion for the Department of Public Works, Baltimore (@BaltimoreDPW)
• Marvin Hayes, Youth Program Manager, Baltimore Compost Collective (@bmorecompost)

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Where did humans go wrong? It might feel like the question of our species as another year passes into history. But ‘The Dawn of Everything,’ by David Wengrow and David Graeber, says we’re asking the wrong questions. The bestselling book is a blitz on Big History, a loaded subject: it’s a time period that’s both 300,000 years long and 99% before the invention of writing. But the book upends everything we think we know about the past, the present, and maybe even the future.

In this episode: 

• David Wengrow (@davidwengrow), co-author of ‘The Dawn of Everything’

If you haven't listened to our conversation with co-author David Graeber about essential work in the age of the pandemic, check it out: In a pandemic, are most jobs bull****?

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