I always struggled to understand what pushed Stefan Zweig to end his life. Today, living in a time when bad guys seem to be winning everywhere and shitty values are rising all around us, I start to understand the feeling. www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

While media talk about a peace deal between #DRC and #Rwanda, people on the ground don’t seem to believe the war will stop. In my team they expect M23 to keep moving toward Kisangani, with a real risk for Kasaï. If Kalemie falls, the road to Kinshasa is wide open. The risk of an escalation is real.

#COP30 showed us that you don’t need a U.S. delegation to sabotage a climate conference. Other countries’ lack of political will, combined with an army of lobbyists, can do the job just fine. #COP30ODG

The dismantling of #USAID isn’t just rhetoric. According to available data it has already led to 600.000 deaths, most of them children. www.newyorker.com/culture/the-... #GlobalHealth #AidMatters #HumanitarianCrisis

The catch-up immunisation campaign across #Gaza has started. UNRWA, together with @unicef.org, @who.int & partners, is helping deliver life-saving vaccines and health services for thousands of children who missed essential doses during the war. #UNRWAworks

Two Antonov An-2s rotting under the sun in Katanga. First flew in the late 1940s in the USSR, reached Africa in the 1960s with independence movements. Aviation relics slowly fading. ✈️☀️

Today I passed by #Lumumba ’s house in #Kinshasa. No sign, no landmark, nothing to show this place where history changed — not only for #Africa, but for the world.

The #Nobel #Peace Prize keeps sinking lower. Giving it to someone who’s called for military insurrection and foreign intervention against their own country is as absurd as when they gave it to Obama or the EU

The most shocking part of Trump’s 20-point “peace” plan is its total disregard for democracy and Palestinians’ right to vote. No elections are planned. Palestinians will be governed indefinitely by others — including the old metropole. #politicalrights www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/9/...

Don’t let them curtail the right to protest. Under international law, a peaceful protest doesn’t become “violent” just for disrupting a sporting event or removing barriers. #RightToProtest #HumanRights www.eldiario.es/desalambre/n...

Gaza is becoming the graveyard of international humanitarian law. We have made the Geneva convention[s] almost irrelevant. What is happening and being accepted today in Gaza is not something that can be isolated; it will become the new norm for all future conflicts english.elpais.com/internationa...

A lovely review of what sounds like an essential new book from Howard W. French (@hofrench.bsky.social). Gift link: Jennifer Szalai (@jenszalai.bsky.social), "The Tangled Legacy of the Man Who Led Africa’s Liberation" (NYT; #skystorians) www.nytimes.com/2025/08/27/b...

“Why use airdrops when you can drive hundreds of trucks through the borders?,” Juliette Touma tells @nytimes.com “It’s much easier, more effective, faster, cheaper.” Lift the siege, open the gates and guarantee safe movements and dignified access to people in need. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/25/w...

#USAID funding helped prevent 91.8 million deaths (35.2M under 5) from 2001–2021. Now, steep cuts could cause 14M more deaths by 2030 — 4.5M of them children. Aid saves lives. Cutting it costs them. www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

it's here! Money, Value, and the State: Sovereignty and Citizenship in East Africa my book has arrived. a brief 🧵

I’ve overseen many aid distributions—some funded by #USAID, some in #Gaza. No deaths, no major incidents, always with attention to vulnerable people and human rights. What’s happening now—exposing civilians to death at aid points—is deliberate and unnecessary. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

So the main outcome of the US-Israel war on Iran’s nuclear program? Iran likely quitting the NPT, advancing its nuclear program without IAEA oversight, and deciding it needs nukes—because multilateral orgs couldn’t/didn't protect it from a non-compliant NPT state. Great job, folks.

During an outbreak, what does “contact tracing” mean? A newly released disease agnostic practical guideline, helps to strengthen public health responses during outbreaks by defining essential terms. bit.ly/4mETgWL

As a humanitarian worker, I’m outraged by how distributions are being carried out in #Gaza by the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation #GHF. What we’re seeing violates every standard of safety, dignity, and humanitarian operational procedures. Thread 👇 www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...

I’ve seen the reality of the new Israel-backed ‘aid’ for Gaza. It’s nothing more than a deadly PR stunt | Eyad Amawi www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Medical journals like the Lancet have been publishing articles a/b the Gaza Ministry of Health numbers’ reliability since fall 23. Given scale of destruction & recording methods, they were always undercounts. Outside numbers underestimate civilian death b/c they treat all adult men as combatants.

The Economist says that the Gaza health ministry's death toll, criticized by some as inflated and as Hamas propaganda, might actually undercount the death toll (it could be as much as double).

Another step toward turning #Gaza into a concentration camp: private security contractors now overseeing aid distribution and crowd control. This is not humanitarian aid—it’s containment. www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/0...

A year ago, jour pour jour, I entered Gaza. Days later, Israel destroyed the Rafah crossing. No humanitarian response was possible—aid wasn’t allowed in. One year later, the situation hasn't improved. This is a crime, and someone will have to answer for it. #Gaza

Have you checked back for updates? 👀 Books from African authors and authors of African descent to look forward to in 2025 (Updated) hararereview.wordpress.com/2025/01/04/b...

Just landed in #Ethiopia again after 3 weeks — and this is what I find. Lifesaving malnutrition treatments halted due to underfunding. This is what poor decisions based on dumb ideas lead to: people dying from preventable causes. 🔗 reut.rs/3Q6SxXZ #GlobalHealth #FundingMatters #AidCutsKill

We will just die in silence': US aid cuts hit Ethiopia’s fragile Tigray region #USAID #Tigray #Ethiopia apnews.com/article/ethi...

www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-... Eye before the storm

Drums of war are resounding again in #Tigray. Eritrea and Ethiopia, clashing over Red Sea access, are now backing opposing #TPLF factions. Tensions have escalated from words to action, raising fears of a Tigrayan civil war. People are truly scared. continent.substack.com/p/one-day-in-mekelle

I reviewed Jason Stearns' book about the Congo from @princetonupress.bsky.social; it's "an important contribution to contemporary peace research" that highlights the challenges of making sense of an "unending conflict" with qualitative & quantitative data aidnography.blogspot.com/2025/02/the-...

New article out today! I wrote a short review of Egypt+100, a brilliant science fiction anthology from @commapress.bsky.social that presents different versions of Egypt's future to explore its volatile present.

I’m no fan of USAID, but credit where it's due—they helped create one of the most important water solutions in the world: the India Mark II handpump. Millions of people in rural areas drink safe water today because of it. Here's the story. 🧵👇 #USAID #ForeignAid #WaterCrisis

When LinkedIn tells you that a significant percentage of your searchers have 'Military Officer' as their top job title… should you be worried? 😅

Let’s be clear: Beyond violating democratic principles, the real problem with #DOGE is that it’s not improving U.S. government efficiency. #Efficiency isn’t about spending less, but about the balance between money and impact. #USAID’s capacity is annihilated, so efficiency is nonexistent.

Dirty water, war, and climate change—fueling a global cholera surge. Cases have skyrocketed since 2021 as conflicts and crises strain vaccine supplies. 🌍💧 #Cholera #GlobalHealth www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

Guinea Conakry eliminates sleeping sickness! 🌍👏 A reminder that, despite its flaws, international cooperation is worth preserving. #GlobalHealth #EndSleepingSickness www.who.int/news/item/29...

What these people don’t understand is that the first line of defense for the U.S. is not the Navy or the Marines. It was #USAID and its 10,000 people in over 130 countries, building a global deterrence network against hate. Without it, hostility toward the U.S. will explode.

Today, I needed to plan an emergency WASH intervention for Ethiopia's food-insecure areas. But—surprise!— Global Famine Early Warning System is down due to #USAID funding freeze. And the most frustrating part? The decision-makers seem unaware of the harm they've caused... static.fews.net #Ethiopia

USAID support to Ethiopia equals about 10% of the government’s budget and plays a crucial role in humanitarian assistance to nearly 5 million refugees and IDPs. Freezing it means abandoning the poorest to their fate. #USAID #Ethiopia #StateDept

The US president openly advocating ethnic cleansing? Shocking. Maybe it works as internal policy, but US soft power worldwide is crumbling #Gaza www.theguardian.com/world/2025/f...

Possible Ebola outbreak in DRC’s Bolomba Health Zone (12 suspected cases, 8 deaths). Uganda has a confirmed outbreak with 1 death so far. Meanwhile, the US has barred CDC staff from speaking to WHO—seems like a bad call. 🤔 #Ebola #GlobalHealth www.foxnews.com/health/ebola...

Back in Mekelle, a year after I left. In between, one of the most frustrating humanitarian missions of my career. In Gaza, the inhumane conditions—shaped by ruthless decisions worldwide—made a meaningful humanitarian response impossible. That will haunt me forever. #Tigray #Ethiopia

To claim that the agreement allows "Palestinians [to] also return to their neighbourhoods in all the areas of Gaza" is almost laughable—there are no neighbourhoods left. That said, I am willing to bet that phases 2 or 3 will never materialize. Israel is not invested in a peaceful Gaza.

I'm so sick of this. Most respected world-leading general medical journal says that victims of Israel in Gaza are beyond 64.000. Yet, many media outlets continue to dismiss lower figures as unreliable, citing their source as the 'Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health' www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

I spent some time at a remote monastery in Ethiopia's Tigray region, learning how the community that safeguards the world's world's oldest 'illuminated' christian gospels are coping with traumatic grief in the aftermath of war My feature for @newlinesmag.bsky.social newlinesmag.com/reportage/th...

Ofendidisimo pq este año los especialistas secundarios no estan al mando de la nochevieja de @cadenaser.com 🙃

On #InternationalMigrantsDay, consider reading 'My Fourth Time, We Drowned' if you haven't already. It's available now in six languages & the English version is less than 4 euros on Kindle. #IMD2024 #MigrantsDay (Polish is the available language not pictured.)

sudan's civil war: a brutal chess game where rival militias weaponize violence, commodify conflict, and systematically dismantle state institutions globalinitiative.net/analysis/ill...

Book launch! 📙 Lundi, on discute "ID Wars", co-écrit par Richad Banégas et Armando Cutolo. Réflexions passionnantes d'un politiste et d'un anthropologue sur les papiers et l'identité à partir de la Côte d'Ivoire. www.sciencespo.fr/africa-progr...

Every one of my Syrian colleagues is aware of the huge risks surrounding the post-revolutionary order in Syria. But all of them are happy and relieved.