The conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region is now in its seventh month, with reports suggesting that conditions for people living there continue to deteriorate. The head of Ethiopia’s Orthodox Church, Abune Mathias, said recently that “genocide is being committed” in the region, a view echoed by rights groups and media agencies. As Firew Tiba explains, establishing whether genocide is taking place is complicated. No government will announce its genocidal intentions to the world, which means that only a credible and independent investigation can get to the bottom of the allegations.

Three years ago the University of Pretoria became the first in sub-Saharan Africa to create an academic unit that had the wherewithal to prove the authenticity of paintings. Little did they know at the time that the unit would use its high tech methods to study the institution’s one and only prized Rembrandt van Rijn portrait. The provenance of the painting by the famed Dutch master was first questioned in 2015. As Gerard de Kamper and Isabelle McGinn discuss, the new unit wanted a definitive answer. They found one: the painting is fake because it has chemicals in it that weren’t around until 200 years after Rembrandt’s death.

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