Archive for the ‘Rwanda’ Category
Kigali Grenades: News Redux
If you do a Google News search for ‘kigali grenades,’ you’ll get nearly 1500 items right now. That includes a lot of bullshit, so here are the high points, which is to say, most of the real news stories. I suspect it’s most because I found them all on the first page of the Google [...]
What Kigali is like when there’s a grenade
Quiet. It’s always quiet, though. That’s the thing. About 25 minutes after reports started moving through SMS and Twitter of tonight’s grenade attack(s?) in the city center, everything was…normal. Unless you wanted to catch a bus from the center of town, of course. There, I hear, the road is sealed off, and nothing is moving. [...]
Anybody know where I can get some more of this?
Someone just shared with me this link “Ururabo,” an old Kinyarwanda song, by a band known as Rossisendi & His Group. The link has details about the record company and the album number but nothing about the band. Anyone know anything about this band, or old bands like it? I’m fascinated by this music. It’s [...]
The White Reporter’s Burden in Africa II: Journalists who get over it
In an effort to be productive in my criticism, here are nearly two dozen or so Western journalists I think do good work in Africa. This all started with Phil Bronstein’s Easterly-inflected praise of the courage of Nick Kristof to admit “that there is a white man’s burden in reporting on Africa.” That’s the wrong [...]
Don’t look here for good news
Al Shabaab bombs Kampala threatens Bujumbura, which now feels like my second home. Journalists and political candidates are turning up dead in Rwanda. New fighting by the same old freaking people in eastern Congo sent 70,000 more people running. Meanwhile, Burundi apparently still can’t get its act together, and it’s dragged the East African Community into [...]
An open application to join Kofi Annan’s speech writing team
Because I’d make a few tweaks to his op-ed on Holocaust education and genocide prevention. I’d clean up some sloppy language and some bad metaphors. And lest you think that’s just snotty writer talk, here’s the point up front: The metaphors we use about genocide tell us what we think causes it. And I think [...]
I am a freelance journalist and multimedia producer who covers human rights, Africa and foreign affairs. [