15 years. #Jan25

According to at least one independent group “More than 25,000 children have been killed and 45 girls raped while fleeing the North-Darfur city of El Fasher since Sudan’s war began” Utterly horrific, making global silence on #Sudan ever more unconscionable sudantribune.com/article/3077...

Amnesty’s report on the carnage at the hands of the RSF at Zamzam, April 2025: Sudan: “A Refuge Destroyed”: RSF Violations in Darfur’s Zamzam Camp for Internally Displaced Persons www.amnesty.org/en/documents...

In Lebanon. Can hear the Israeli drone constantly now. I’ve only been back for a day but folks here deal with it 24/7, for months. It’s psychological torture. You can even see it, just flying around. The Israelis want to let everyone know that they can kill whoever they want whenever they want.

Many congratulations to my colleague and dear friend Randa Slim: Stimson Center Welcomes Randa Slim to Lead Middle East Program www.stimson.org/2025/stimson...

The problem in Sudan, the major battle to ending the war, only comes with acknowledging that everyone has blood on their hands.

Pure heartless cruelty. The entire Parliamentary Labour Party owns this. All of them, heartless, cruel, racist, bigoted, incompetent, careless and unfeeling idiots.

Are we asking what/who radicalised Shabana Mahmoud yet? Because honestly, I don’t see any other explanation.

To all the US officials who have stayed silent as Israel killed 271 Palestinian journalists, assassinated Shereen Abu Akleh: there have been few public figures, advocates or voices more staunchly committed to Palestinian self-determination in our region, than Jamal Khashoggi, Allah yerhamo.

Our beautiful Afraa bravely sharing her thoughts, interviewed yesterday by @channel4news.bsky.social over the new measures announced by the Home Secretary yesterday cc @thesyriacampaign.org www.instagram.com/reel/DRK2otj...

Confiscating jewellery from survivors of a war zone makes you look like a fucking Nazi. And the obscene thing is, that is the intention. It's there to look appropriately harsh. Indecent. Filthy. A moral stain. And no-one of good character would have ever proposed such a thing in the first place.

What. The. Actual. F***

Important investigative work outlining the pillaging of the Horn of Africa - not just in Sudan: How gold tarnished Tigray www.theglobeandmail.com/world/articl...

Very, very good read from Amb. Jeffrey Feltman: Sudan’s deadly divide: The RSF and SAF’s reign of terror www.brookings.edu/articles/sud...

Sudan has always been the holy grail of regional security, stability & supply. It’s where all conventional, traditional & natural alliances blow up as all external actors compete for the same resources. Public disaccord amongst them isn’t surprising - that they’ve made this competition zero-sum, is.

It’s taken two years of shouting into the void as pro-Palestine activism whitewashed and covered up all the pro-Assad voices who created a heinous and violent online space of defending his barbarism during social uprising, but now the Gaza War is slowing, people are finally listening.

All Protocol Observed Welcome to Issue 219 of The Continent Protests, an internet blackout, and deadly force marked Tanzania’s Election Day. Once online again, 37 readers shared what they witnessed. Read their stories: bit.ly/219_TC

Honestly, I just laughed through most of this article: ““When you flush the toilet, the stuff goes downhill, right?” the architect asked…“We’re going to have hundreds of shuttle cars running back and forth, picking up the sewage on retractable bridges.”” End of The Line ig.ft.com/saudi-neom-l...

The Shutdown of U.S.A.I.D. Has Already Killed Hundreds of Thousands www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

What is happening in Darfur is utterly devastating, made more painful by how we all saw it coming. You can’t really say you didn’t know, but if you didn’t, read this: An atrocity foretold: How the RSF siege of El Fasher turned into genocidal slaughter www.thenewhumanitarian.org/analysis/202...

First London, now New York. If there’s one post-2001 legacy thesis that is yet to be written, it’s about mayoral elections in these two cities.

There should be something impactful and meaningful about accountability that one has ready to say when it’s announced Dick Cheney has died. But maybe, actually, it’s enough that today will only ever be remembered as the day Zohran Mamdani becomes the Mayor of New York City.

Blood spilled in Sudan can be seen from space. Nobody can feign ignorance about what’s going on | Nesrine Malik

The folks at The Continent continue to commission the reporting of some of the best Sudanese journalists on the ground, read Khalid Elwalid's full story from page 13 onwards. And check in with your Sudanese friends. www.thecontinent.org

Sudan’s cultural heritage becomes a casualty in its civil war www.pbs.org/newshour/sho...

Infuriating to see political voices in the West against what is happening in El Fasher, when powerful Sudanese voices have been warning about this for months if not years. It’s disingenuous to act surprised, pretend it’s a shock or find your voice now with this phase of genocide in Darfur underway.

We need urgent, immediate intervention in Sudan. For months now, I’ve been proposing an Astana-like process to conduct negotiations between Egypt & UAE - be it convened by Russia or by the United States. We can sit on our hands and argue ‘do no harm’ principles, or we can be realistic about this war

We live in an era of changed diplomacy in the Middle East, with the rising power of Gulf nations and their influence on regional dynamics and international diplomacy. Whilst a more coherent Arab position has long been sought…(1/2)

Must watch interview on @channel4news.bsky.social by @krishgm.bsky.social last night with Kholood Khair on developments in Sudan amid the RSF takeover of El Fasher in North Darfur. Utterly devastating for all Sudanese; important info, background & warnings from Kholood: youtu.be/XQV8ZMR3CrM?...

El Fasher is on all of those who have remained silent, or ignored the cold reality of what all knew would happen under RSF takeover. Geneina, Zamzam…we knew this. We were warned. Two previous genocides just in this war alone. Everyone stood back, watched. Stayed silent, and let this happen.

Americans are actually coming out en masse to *defend* Islamophobia. Up in arms at Mamdani giving agency and voice to the discrimination that Muslims have endured in the West, escalating on a visceral scale since 2001. I’ve long thought nothing can surprise me, but honestly, this really does.

“Tigray is broken. Its leaders divided, some aligning with Addis Ababa, others with Eritrea. Another war looms, one that could pit Tigrayans against each other. I fought once to defend my people; I will not fight again in a war that will destroy what remains.” continent.substack.com/p/the-exodus...

Embracing secondary, doubtful status for Muslims has major policy implications. Biden’s moral+strategic disaster on Gaza, for instance, flows directly from the broad acceptance among US elites that mass punishment + destruction post-10/7 was unavoidable. Huge, horrific, still unfolding consequences.

These are moments when history is being made. In this election, a monumental watershed moment has arrived. “To be Muslim in New York is to expect indignity. But indignity does not make us distinct—there are many who face it. It is the tolerance of that indignity that does.” - Zohran Mamdani.

The last few weeks of this heightened, racialised, sectarian narrative growing against Mamdani as he runs away with the election reminds me of where we were when Zac Goldsmith spewed utter bile and venomous crap about Sadiq Khan before Khan stormed the election to become the Mayor of London.

It’s really incredible how, despite 10 years in (de facto) power, no one in the West seems to have learnt a single thing about MbS’ Saudi Arabia. But please, carry on filling your time with hopeless, wasteful words that don’t ring true of any kind of real analysis or understanding.

Today is a reminder that the shrill, baseless screaming coming from Israel that “everything is Hamas” doesn’t stand up to any real scrutiny by serious people or serious institutions. Today is a victory not just for UNRWA. But for rule of law. And serious judges that occupy the seats at the ICJ.

The years-long trickle of information crystallising the story, is just utterly chilling. It’s hard to stomach, it’s almost too hard to believe, I cannot imagine the trauma inflicted upon these young girls for so long. Rest in your truth, rest in power, Virginia. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...

Raila Odinga, Former Kenyan Prime Minister and Champion of Democracy, Dies at 80 www.nytimes.com/2025/10/15/w...

He’s trying to orchestrate an “Oslo moment”.

If you've never been to Gaza, you won't appreciate what the yellow line means. Basically Israel now holds most of Gaza's small but important agricultural land. Continued Israeli occupation, which I judge the likely outcome, makes Gaza even more unliveable and more dependent on outside goods.

The only thing worth reading today as leaders gather in Sharm el Sheikh: While the perpetrators of Gaza’s genocide pose as its saviours, survivors return home – to a wasteland - @nesrinemalik.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Sudan’s Emergency Response Rooms: the continuous moral winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in the eyes of those who know their sacrifice, the risk they take, the losses endured. (Taking nothing away from the winner, but two years in a row, the ERRs are robbed of their rightful place in peace building)

I don’t have the energy to listen to or read anything on Gaza ceasefire. There is merit in arguing global support for this deal may act as a deterrent to restarting the war, but the reality is what it’s been for 77 years - inside Israel above all, things have not changed when it comes to Palestine.

This is not a story of two sides finally finding peace. It is a story of two peoples who will wake up tomorrow under two very different skies: one free to heal, the other trapped in the ruins Nagham Zbeedat www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...

"ستنتهي الحرب، ويتصافح القادة، وتبقى تلك العجوز تنتظر ولدها الشهيد، وتلك الفتاة تنتظر زوجها الحبيب، وأولئك الأطفال ينتظرون والدهم البطل. لا أعلم من باع الوطن ولكنني رأيت من دفع الثمن." - محمود درويش

As I predicted before, we have the lowest hanging fruit of a deal: hostage exchange and aid entry. Any attempts to look at the deeper, longer “20 point plan” and see a viable deal are futile, those positions cannot be reconciled, not just between Hamas and Israel, but Israel and the Arab States.

Bassem Youssef is back on Egypt’s airwaves, writing again in Shorouk. Plus ça change…

Keir Starmer calls us “un British” because we can acknowledge all victims are the same victims of the same brutality, same occupation - one original sin. Being anti-violence, being anti-war, being anti-occupation is an absolute principle. Real Principle can never be selective. @mrjamesob.bsky.social

Ali Kushayb, former senior leader of the Janjaweed - who ravaged and killed hundreds of thousands of people - convicted of war crimes in Darfur bbc.com/news/article...