Very sad to learn of passing of Maxamed Saeed Maxamed ‘Gees’, fmr Somaliland Minister of Planning, Director of the Somaliland Academy for Peace & Development, intellectual, professor. I worked for him in 1998 & we remained firm friends ever since. May he rest in peace.

The IPC’s confirmation of famine in Gaza is not early warning. It’s an indication that it’s already too late to prevent starvation of those already at Stage 5. Immediate ceasefire & full humanitarian access are needed to keep the situation from worsening www.bbc.com/news/article...

Great and timely piece by my colleagues Giorgia Dóna, Charlotte Sanders & Paolo Novak: As protesters and politicians call for the closure of asylum hotels, what are the alternatives? #migration #asylumseekerhousing #immigration theconversation.com/as-protester...

Read this letter from the presidents of Gaza’s universities and imagine what it takes to keep a university functioning under the conditions they face. Such bravery and dedication. We need a ceasefire now! aje.io/66loh2

Very excited about ‘Learning from South Omo’ - an exhibition highlighting new research from Southern Ethiopia. Doors open at the Gabre Kristos Desta Centre this Thursday 16th of July. If you’re in Addis then be sure to drop by. And if you’re not, you can read about it here: grnpp.org/learning-fro...

#Migration Peeps: Our new CoMOOC on Migration research has opened today. Free to join for the next 3 weeks!! Check it out! Share your research/insights/creativity!!! www.futurelearn.com/courses/conn...

8 years. I keep thinking about how the kids who we lost would have been young adults now. Like my kids. 💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚

That feeling when it's 6:30 am and you're about to board a long-haul flight. So you download 50 files to read/comment on while in the air. Then you buy a @vanityfair.com and ....

The US Administration is now explicitly threatening similar illegal, authoritarian assaults on every university in the country. Our entire system of higher education is under attack. The powers being used as weapons are perversions of the public trust.

This is a disaster from every angle. And it has nothing to do with addressing antisemitism at Harvard. Trump administration ends Harvard's ability to enrol international students www.bbc.com/news/article...

So nice to meet Somaliland Minister of Environment and Climate Change Minister Abdillahi Jama Osman today in my office at SOAS! Please excuse the mess!

"The Centre for Policy Studies claimed the lifetime net fiscal cost of recent migrants would be £234 billion. However, this used the wrong data for earnings & employment. Simply correcting the errors results in a net fiscal *benefit* of about £125 bn." www.independent.co.uk/voices/tight...

Shame on the Worcester Police and on ICE. But I am proud to see City Councillor Etel Haxhiaj, my former student, standing up for her community members who face arrest and deportation. She is as tough as they come, but with a heart of gold.

Last night SOAS President Zeinab Badawi launched Humanitarian Action for Sudan, a group led by nonpartisan Sudanese Diaspora to provide essential relief to civilians caught in the conflict in Sudan. Check out their website here: www.humanitarianactionsudan.org

You know you’ve stayed at work too long when the Central Line looks like this. #tfl

Oh the irony of the US fretting that the fertility rate is dropping below the 1.8 needed to maintain current population size, who we need to work, pay taxes and care for our elders while at the same time rushing to deport migrants who are - er - working, paying taxes and caring for our grandparents.

Finally a joint statement from the US’ colleges and universities. This is the kind of unity we need more of. www.aacu.org/newsroom/a-c...

Mum, can we go to the beach now? Yes we can! Off to tropical southern England, back after Easter.

Beautiful tribute to Amadou Bagayoko by SOAS’ Prof Lucy Durán. Amadou and Mariam have been a constant part of my family’s soundtrack for many years. May he rest in peace.

Read this together with my previous post and weep.😭 www.nytimes.com/2025/03/28/u...

ICYMI: my inaugural lecture. 🍿 ☕️ 🍷 www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUCu...

Thank you Rich!!

So proud of my state. #VermontStrong

Watching FOTUS try to extort minerals out of Ukraine by threatening and insulting Zelenskyy shows his absolute ugliest side. Many women will recognise this as a pattern common to predators.

Aspiring economists from Africa: Extended deadline 4 March Oxford's CSAE offers full scholarships >3 year for African students How? Apply for grad studies in Econ = 2 yr Master's course w/ progress to PhD We automatically consider all applicants www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/g...

Not only does this situation show the moral bankruptcy of this government, it also shows their intention to ignore the courts, a dangerous precedent that they will surely make a habit of. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/20/h...

Seems an apt reminder.

"Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups.” Pope Francis giving JDVance a Sunday School lesson

40,000 health workers in Kenya affected. 5000 Ethiopian Ministry of Health workers already laid off due to USAID closure www.nytimes.com/2025/02/08/w...

I decided to dig this bad boy out of storage to recognise/remember some of the many fine people I worked with @ USAID in Ethiopia in 1999-2000. Tamirat Mulu perished in the March 2019 plane crash in Eth. He & Beza Des were my students at @clarkuniversity.bsky.social What’s happening right now is 💔

And that's just DC aid workers. What about all the national staff now without jobs??? www.devex.com/news/exclusi...

Is the State Dept's strategy that, if people are starving but there is no one to gather data on it and sound the alert, and no one to respond to it, maybe it's not a famine? Riiiighhhht....

📢 Today at 5pm! "Stay and deliver? Walking the tightrope of humanitarianism in Afghanistan" by Hsiao-Wei Lee, WFP Country Director in Afghanistan Don’t miss out! @soasuni.bsky.social @naomihossain.bsky.social @laurahammond.bsky.social

3/Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments-Saidiya Hartman Trieste-Dasa Drndic Ordinary Notes-Christina Sharpe Recognizing the Stranger-Isabella Hammad I Will Bear Witness (1933-41)-Victor Klemperer Theory of Water-Leanne Betasamosake Simpson (coming soon) Human Acts-Han Kang Kintu-Jennifer Makumbi

2/ I think, like many, that we must start building those networks now. & we are part of some already built that could just use acknowledgement/strengthening. As a writer, I imagine certain books & their authors as part of a network of solidarity & knowledge. A few here, ranging in idea & purpose:

1/For my novel(s), I've spent years researching how some targeted communities have coped under fascism and authoritarianism. What I've found consistently is the networks of assistance they developed to help each other survive. It was not perfect but it helped many manage until something broke.

Sending so much love to my trans and nonbinary students, colleagues, friends and family members in the US who have been forced into a very scary time by the new government. Please know that you will continue to be seen and respected and loved. 🏳️‍⚧️🩵🏳️‍⚧️🩷🏳️‍⚧️🤍🏳️‍⚧️🩵🏳️‍⚧️🩷🏳️‍⚧️🤍

If, like me, you are outraged at the new Exec Order to pull US funding out of @who.int, please consider setting up a monthly subscription to donate. If enough people do this, we can minimise the damage done. donate.who.foundation?utm_source=d...

@leslievinjamuri.bsky.social @alvinahoffmann.bsky.social

Oh the irony of reading this article while on hold with HMRC...I was advised by the bot that the wait would be 20 minutes. I'm now 46 minutes in and still no human has appeared. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Such a great exhibit!! If you are in London, make sure to come to the @soasgallery.bsky.social to see it! Great inspiration for generating impact from research!!

🎙️ New podcast episode unravels informal economy with Surbhi Kesar, in a thought-provoking conversation with Sara Stevano, focusing on the Indian economy Tune in for key insights! Listen here 🔊 www.soas.ac.uk/research/res... @naomihossain.bsky.social @laurahammond.bsky.social #IndianEconomy

Prepare to broaden your horizons. ‘Stories of Migration’ launches 16th January at @soasuni.bsky.social , London. #storiesofmigration #soas @laurahammond.bsky.social @daniellocke.bsky.social @karriefransman.bsky.social

Wonderful to have Professor Sari Hamadi of American Univ Beirut with us this evening discussing Knowledge Production in the Arab World @soasdevelopment.bsky.social

📢Join us tomorrow for a talk on "A Cognitive Arab Uprising?: Paradigm Shifts in Arab Social Sciences" with Sari Hanafi, chaired by Gilbert Achcar 📍SOAS KLT & Zoom, 5pm Registration ➡️: shorturl.at/BVKaa @soasuni.bsky.social @naomihossain.bsky.social @carlosoya.bsky.social @laurahammond.bsky.social

📌 Join us on January 7th at @soasuni.bsky.social for a talk by Professor Sari Hanafi, chaired by Gilbert Achcar. 📍SOAS, Khalili Lecture Theatre & Zoom 📅 January 7th at 5pm GMT Info and registration➡️: shorturl.at/BVKaa @naomihossain.bsky.social @laurahammond.bsky.social @carlosoya.bsky.social

Deciding 3 years ago that the final deliverable on our large EUTF Research and Evidence Facility work(8 yrs of research on over 30 topics on migration in the Horn of Africa) would be a full length book was either brilliant or exceedingly foolish. We'll know which it is by Thursday.