Brenda Biya is sending out mixed messages. Also today I learned that rétropédale is the French word for backpedal.

Nigerian women are protesting for more seats in Parliament.

Got out for an equinox hike. Made it to 6k ft & the fall colors were resplendent. The red foliage sweeping the high meadows are blueberries. Ran into a clutch of hunters w/ rifles looking for deer...so be aware that's in season. Snow (up high) is coming this week?

ICE is deporting people to African nations like Ghana on military flights that are nearly un-trackable. www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

This set of intimate atrocities clouded the summer hiking season. The remains of a man that murdered his three daughters may have been found in National Forest near the Enchantments.

What is Brenda Biya's reach in Cameroon? Her father is running for presidential re-election. He has been in office since 1982. Many question his leadership, especially around the violent repression of the Ambazonian secessionist movement.

One of the salient points that journalists have raised about the 14 West Africans deported to Ghana is that some were seeking asylum in the US due to violence and threats they experienced in their home countries due to minoritized sexual orientation and/or gender identity.

A different angle to the lawsuit in which West Africans, deported from the US, are suing Ghana. "Eight of the deportees also told the court they had legal protections from being deported to their home countries “due to the risk of torture, persecution or inhumane treatment.”

Who would have predicted that the US brokered "peace" wouldn't stick. Will the US will argue that despite the evidence that peace is not happening in Goma, they can enforce point six?

Dear Economists...has this been tried before elsewhere? What were some of the outcomes? "Senegal is set to become the first Francophone African country to launch a “Diaspora Bonds” program aimed at Senegalese living abroad, offering attractive interest rates ranging from 6.40% to 6.95%."

JNIM's blockade of Senegal-Mali trade route continues. On 14 September, the Malian army attempted to escort over 80 fuel trucks coming from Senegal, but they were attacked by JNIM.

Déby the younger for life....? On 15 September, Chad’s lower house of parliament, dominated by the ruling MPS party, voted by a crushing majority, 171 to 1, to prolong President Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno’s five-year mandate by two years and abolish term limits altogether. Next the Senate votes....

Journalists freed (after a year!) by the Burkina government.

WOW. Mali, Burkina, and Niger (AES) will withdraw from ICC. www.jeuneafrique.com/1722355/poli...

Am I to understand that the four people are dead and they are unrecoverable because the helicopter crash started a(nother) forest fire in WA state?

Can anyone out there send me either a PDF of this; or, give me access? (no subscription to NYT) From the byline, I can't help but think the wrong government is being sued. However, I'm curious about why the deportee chose this route.

There was a bevy of really tragic news concerning migration across the Sahel today. This could've been much worse....but for a fisherman that saw this drifting migrant boat that had been abandoned by its captain (?!)

What has existed as digital articles is now an encyclopedia in both print and digital forms. A celebratory acknowledgement of the many authors and editors! !! The Oxford Encyclopedia's History of African Women !!

I spoke with Amanda Heffernan, a nurse-midwife based in Seattle, about what's like to currently work with pregnant migrants in ICE custody. What she has witnessed in Washington state mirrors other recent cases of mistreatment in detention centers across the country: www.thecut.com/article/preg...

Members of JNIM continue their blockade of Kayes--attacking trucks and seizing goods shipped from Senegal meant for regular household consumption.

A massive vaccination campaign begins in DRC to combat an Ebola outbreak in the Kasai region...

Anyone want to coordinate a trip to London?

British and French merchants took control of commodities trade through chains of debts--working through complex networks of brokers & traders. --protected European businesses from the risks inherent in farming, such as bad weather and pests. --local farmers incurred higher & higher levels of debt.

I feel like John Mahama used bureaucracy to be much kinder to migrants than the US govt here...but also, what do African countries that have agreed to accept deported US residents get in return? The UK/Rwanda scheme was Ks of pounds per migrant, no?

Fun fact! While normally a groundhog lives ~8 years in captivity, Punxsutawney Phil (the notorious weather-forecasting groundhog) is 139 years old because every year he drinks the Elixir of Life at a September community picnic. Source: watched him drink it this afternoon

Fellow WA state residents--Covid-19 & Flu shots are available. My health insurance (for public employees) categorizes them under preventative care. No co-pay! My local pharmacy encourages walk-ins & I had both vaccines within 15m.

Blockades, terrorist, anti-terrorist, and military activities are threatening pastoralists, migrants, and expat communities in the western Sahel...

"On 2 September, residents of Barani (Burkina Faso), located 22 km from the Malian border, gathered to protest the growing presence of jihadist groups. The demonstrators, mainly women and children, were met with tear gas and warning shots from the police"

JNIM is blockading Kayes and Nioro du Sahel....

What could the Columbia River's water be used for instead? "Morgan said any data center placed on the annexed land would have water piped in from the Columbia River. Some of the land has been used for farming in the past, irrigated with groundwater from wells."

Breaking: 800,000 CA rideshare drivers are on the verge of winning their union with #AB1340. Workers are building power and making history. #SolidaritySeason

My middle initial showed me that Militarizing Marriage was used by Meta......

Egypt is protesting Ethiopia's Renaissance Damn at the UN...on the day of its inauguration.

Another state budget casualty: School field trips at the Capitol The campus will lose almost half its part-time guides, even though nearly 2,200 Washington students were on the waitlist for tours last school year

Dear WA state residents, HB 1566 is currently in committee...maybe check in with your WA house rep and Nov candidates regarding how they would vote about the use of AI in health insurance determinations. This bill aims to regulate AI's use in health insurance authorizations and denials.

Among the many things to mourn in Sudan....

“We don’t have the right to destroy what’s been created; we have a duty to live within it,” said Jewell James, master carver from the Lummi Nation House of Tears Carvers.

Light government shakeup in Senegal?

Well this is terrifying....Senegalese truck drivers were taken by Islamic militias in western Mali because they are trying to isolate Bamako.....

The fed govt announced its intention to repeal the Roadless Rule, a 2001 action that prohibited road building & logging in 58 million acres of national forest, including around 400k acres in the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. You should register public comment, see in the thread below

Senegal is the first African country, in which French is an official language, to adopt whistleblower protections...

Cholera is spreading among Sudanese living in refugee camps in Chad...

"adopted universally by the 71 UNELECTED members of transitional legislative assembly" "Le projet de loi a été adopté à l’unanimité par les 71 membres non élus de l’Assemblée législative de transition (ALT), qui fait office de Parlement depuis la prise de pouvoir de la junte, il y a près de 3 ans."

I recently watched the film L'histoire de Souleymane and "abandonnés à leur sort" doesn't quite capture how the main character described his time in Libya. Film linked in the thread.

There has been a terrible landslide in Sudan....

They are nearly to the ribbon cutting with the Renaissance dam....which will drastic effects along the Nile

A final overnight for the season? Copper Ridge, you nearly undid us. Our sore muscles and joints for these views....

🚨JOB Alert🚨 We are looking for another postdoctoral researcher to cover the history of veterans in the British colonies of Southern and/or East Africa in the interwar period. 24 month contract, deadline October 03. Please share widely. universityvacancies.com/maynooth-uni...

Regarding sending Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Uganda....