Posts Tagged ‘somalia’
Things you should read this weekend
Tristan McConnell’s series of stories from “the new Mogadishu” for GlobalPost. I think the piece on underpaid city cops is my favorite. Spend some time with his slideshow, too. (And if you haven’t you should read McConnell’s piece on Somaliland for VQR. I told you why last week, but here’s a new reason: there are [...]
Regarding more than the pain of others
I have a new essay with the Boston Review, about suffering, compassion and foreign journalism (and other narratives) of Africa. I hope you’ll read it. But here’s a cribsheet: Being the object of compassion is not the same thing as being the subject of a story. A lot, but not all of this, is our [...]
As diplomats meet in London to talk Somalia, where are the women?
Lots of powerful men — and a few powerful women, including the American Secretary of State — are meeting in London to talk about the dire “security threat” that is now Somalia — or, in the words of Britain’s foreign minister, “the world’s most failed state.” (Because that’s a useful competition with rational metrics.) Nevermind that [...]
Lasers vs. pirates: The new Somali frontier
The British are going to try beating back pirates with specially-crafted laser canons. I’m not kidding. “We are using the laser as a kind of dummy sun that we can hide the vessel behind,” Roy Clarke, who works with laser-maker BAE Systems Advanced Technology Centre, told Britain’s Telegraph. This got me thinking: What else should [...]
Outing corruption in Kenya, and African authors you want to meet
Last year, I wrote about a new book on a Kenyan whistleblower, written by a British journalist. A reader pointed me to Kenyan writer Billy Kahora, who’d also just published a book, locally, about a Kenyan whistleblower — in fact, the man who, as Kahora tells it, exposed Kenya’s biggest-ever corruption scandal. It’s also one [...]
America’s War, Africa’s body bags: Guest post from Uganda
In the wake of the Kampala bombings, I’ve been exchanging emails with my friend and colleague Allan Brian Ssenyonga. Allan is a Ugandan freelance journalist based in Kigali, and a guy whose insatiable desire to understand history, politics, culture and place has provided me with invaluable context in the Great Lakes over the years. In [...]
I am a freelance journalist and multimedia producer who covers human rights, Africa and foreign affairs. [