Kenya
Moved to Nairobi in 2014 after a few years covering the Middle East. Now reporting for The Christian Science Monitor, Quartz Africa, and others. Used to cover business and investment risk in the region for Monitor Global Outlook, CSM's biz startup (paywalled, so no links here). Formerly Middle East Editor and Europe Editor with CSM in Boston.
Latest work
GARISSA AND MANDERA, Kenya - The men who form Kenya's first line of defense against the Somali militant group al-Shabab wear sneakers or rubber tire sandals, bucket hats, and mismatched, hand-me-down fatigues. They are Kenya Police Reservists, also known as Home Guards.
When American April Dodd went home for the first time since moving to Nairobi, there were a lot of questions about food. "Friends and family kept asking 'What do you want to eat? Do you have pizza in Kenya? Do you want pizza? Can you find good Chinese food?'" she recalls with a roll of...
MANDERA and GARISSA, Kenya - Teaching finally resumed last week at Garissa University, the northeast Kenyan college where al-Shabab killed 148 people last April. The attack by the al Qaeda-linked group, which over the last five years has morphed from a Somali insurgency into a regional terrorist threat, was the largest on Kenyan soil since the U.S.
The first day back after a deadly terror attack last April holds out a chance for Garissa to present itself as a beacon of education for a long underserved region. When classes resumed on Monday at Garissa University, where the Somalia-based militant group Al Shabab killed 148 people last April, many here saw it as a second chance for the region.
A growing number of Kenya's ethnic Somalis have vanished or turned up dead after being detained amid a crackdown by security forces on Islamist extremists. The authorities have denied involvement, suggesting many of the deaths are at the hands of al-Shabab, an al-Qaeda affiliate based in neighboring Somalia.
On the steep slopes of Kenya's Kerio valley, El Niño is still discussed with reverence and fear. When it hit in 1998, days of rain sent the land sliding, carrying homes, crops, livestock and people with it. People groped through the darkness to flat ground, as trees cracked and fell.
A bus attack Monday by Al Shabab in northeast Kenya got rebuffed by passengers who bravely refused to divide into Muslims and Christians. Kenyan Somalis are forced to take civic responsibility for local education and schools. When the Somali militant group Al Shabab attacked a bus in Kenya's remote northeast on Monday morning, they appeared to have a clear plan: Stop the bus.
African leaders will be squirming at the end of Pope Francis's three-day Kenya visit, the first leg of his visit to Africa. At every turn, he offered a contrast to leaders' who make no attempt to hide their wealth or understand the lives of their citizens, at least half of whom typically live below the...
Pope Francis has declined invitations to lavish hosted events in order to meet more ordinary Kenyans during his visit that begins Wednesday. Pope Francis, dubbed the "humble pontiff" for his focus on the poor and his own simple inclinations, arrives here Wednesday at a time of immense frustration with the lavish lifestyles of Kenyan leaders.
For two days this week some of Kenya's elite runners blockaded Athletics Kenya's headquarters in Nairobi to demand the resignation of the organization's leadership, charging that corruption and their slow response to doping accusations is jeopardizing runners' careers. Russia's recent ban from international athletics, coupled with corruption allegations lodged against Kenya's own athletic leadership, has runners...
Last April, four al-Shabaab fighters killed 148 people at Garissa University in northeastern Kenya, just up the street from a major military installation. While students fled, barefoot and in their nightclothes, the soldiers remained on standby, unsure how to respond, and elite police took hours to arrive.
African governments in oil-producing states are done with watching multinational oil companies rake in profits while importing their own workers and supplies and wreaking havoc on the environment and local economy. If companies are going to drill, governments say, they're also going to help them develop the country.
Per Carstedt, executive chairman of the Swedish company Agro EcoEnergy, has a vision for a shrubby tract of land on the north Tanzanian coast. Under his firm's plan, farmers who once depended on subsistence work will earn wages on a sugarcane plantation or from selling sugarcane they grow to a planned processing facility.
Fidgety oil companies and investors heaved a sigh of relief in August when Kenya and Uganda announced they had picked a route for the world's longest heated pipeline. Finally, there was a plan for getting the estimated 1 billion barrels in Kenya's remote northwest out of the country.
Many expected Cuban-Americans to rise up in anger at the restoring of relations. That hasn't happened. Instead, a yearning has taken hold among both younger generations and older exiles to know the Cuba of today. Raul Moas's family has a 1982 bottle of Dom Pérignon sitting in the back of their fridge to pop the day Fidel Castro dies.
A hard plastic suitcase is being marketed as the thing to transform education in Africa. The team behind BRCK, a rugged mobile modem and wi-fi router designed for Africa's tough conditions, unveiled its latest Kenyan-made solution to Kenyan problems in a glossy, Apple-esque show today (Sept. 22).
Burkina Faso has worked closely with the Pentagon on managing regional conflicts and fighting Islamist terror groups. On Thursday, a transitional government was ousted by a senior military aide to the former president. A military coup in Burkina Faso led by a veteran of US counterterrorism training in the Sahel has put American security partnership with the West African country in the spotlight.
Virunga, Africa's oldest national park, is not immune to security threats. But changing practices have yielded progress. Strolling among the tombstones of Virunga National Park's "gorilla graveyard," Innocent Mburanumwe, one of the chief wardens, smiles as he talks about his favorite gorilla, whose bald head reminds him of an old man.
For Kenyans, one of the more exciting moments of US president Barack Obama's visit last week was his brief, vague comment that direct flights between the US and Kenya might soon resume. American and Kenyan security officials had convened, he said, and "real progress has been made."
In the tiny village of Kogelo, home to President Obama's step-grandmother, savvy businessmen have built an 'Obama circuit' that has yet to become a tourist hub. But a visit from the president this weekend could turn their fortunes around.
The East African nation is one of the world's most corrupt. Obama's highlighting of the problem probably didn't win him friends among the powerful, but drew cheers from the crowd gathered to hear him in Nairobi.
President Barack Obama used United States' past struggles during the civil rights era to make the case for Kenya to improve its record on the treatment of the local gay community. By doing so he delivered on a promise to be blunt in his support for gay rights, despite the certainty of a chilly response from President Uhuru Kenyatta, who earlier in the...
Barack Obama is beloved in Kenya - but not his stance on same-sex marriage. Still, slow gains are being made to recognize the country's gay community. President Barack Obama is widely expected by Kenyans to speak up for gay rights during his speech to the nation on Sunday.
Anticipation of President Obama's visit has been high in his ancestral home, where he is seen as a rare example of success from the politically sidelined region. But news that he will not make a stop here has left many disappointed.
In front of the Samsung store, a parent passed his baby up to a top-hatted man on stilts. As the stilt man bounced the baby, whose face scrunched up in fear, onlookers laughed, cheered, and held up their smart phones to snap photos. There was no sign of sadness or fear at today's reopening of...
The label-conscious public in the city of Goma has made looking your best big business. Those who deal in vintage wares know: new clothes don't move nearly as quickly. Diesel jeans for $10. Converse hi-tops for $8 a pair. iPads for $250. Status-conscious but cash-strapped Goma hosts a robust trade in everything secondhand.
Potholed, sidewalk-deficient Nairobi is getting an emergency facelift ahead of US president Barack Obama's visit later this month. Road crews in the Kenyan capital are filling in potholes, flicking on street lights, building sidewalks, painting guard rails and curbs, and planting medians with grass and flowers along the roads the presidential motorcade is expected to...
Kenyan actress Lupita Nyong'o came home this week for the first time since winning an Oscar in 2014 for her role in "12 Years a Slave."--the first African to ever win the coveted award. At her public appearances, the media gushed over her "elegant" kitenge wrap and her "afro, deliberately tousled, not too neat, not too rough."...
An estimated one-third of government spending goes towards Chad's vaunted army, a dependable regional policeman and the pride of the people. But a taste of stability, and oil money, has Chadians wanting more.
Kenya's role in an African-led military mission in Somalia goes against the practice of not using troops from neighboring countries for such campaigns. And with good reason: the uptick of retaliatory attacks by Al Shabab has made Kenya's fight personal.
Kenya could have been the place commercial drone use took off. This January, three university seniors working out of their apartment launched Adriana Pro Films. Their start-up produces slick aerial video advertisements at $500 a job capturing Nairobi's glassy apartment buildings, lush neighborhood developments, and luxury hotels - with just a remote-controlled helicopter bought online.
Al Shabab massacred 148 people in an attack on the university last week. To residents, the young institution offers progress and development in their struggling region. It has been four years since Garissa University College opened its doors as northern Kenya's first university. But the school may never see a graduating class.
In the intense heat of the north-east Kenyan afternoon, a white pickup truck drives down Garissa's main road, a crowd running behind. It is the same road where three days ago terrified students also ran, barefoot in nightdresses and boxer shorts, after being awoken by gunshots as al-Shabaab militants stormed the town's university campus.
Al Shabab militants murdered 147 people, mostly Christian students, at a university in Garissa, in northeast Kenya on Apr. 2. Church leaders offered prayers Sunday for the fallen, as some worshippers stayed away. "We have to sing this song with a happy voice," Rev.
Despite numerous warnings of a potential attack, Kenya was still unable to prevent the deadly siege of a university by Al Shabab Islamist militants. A dramatic attack by Al Shabab at a university in a fortified northeastern town is raising questions about Kenya's capacity to respond to the Islamist militant group.
Al Shabab gunmen freed Muslims and targeted Christians in a 13-hour siege at a majority Christian university that killed at least 147 people. Christians gunned down on the spot. Muslims left alive, saved by their ability to prove their faith.
On a steamy day on the Kenyan coast, a tall student stands at the courtyard water pump at her school filling a wheelbarrow during a class break. Her arms, bare to above her elbow, poke out from beneath her blue hijab. Her attire speaks to a series of compromises between her Christian-funded school and its Muslim students.
It's been a month since Nigeria postponed its presidential election, saying it couldn't hold a safe vote amid Boko Haram 's sweep across the northeast. Since then, the homegrown militant group has suffered a string of territorial losses to a multinational force.
The government has struggled to come up with ways to make traditional farming more appealing as farmers in the north turn to growing miraa, a legal narcotic that needs little water and has a steady demand. When Omar Kutara's grandfather tended the family farm outside Marsabit, it was covered with fruit trees, and rows of barley and wheat waved in the wind.
The insecurity along Kenya's border with Somalia has forced an exodus of teachers from Wajir County ahead of the new school year. A spree of attacks by the militant group has been aimed at non-Muslims. The threat of Al Shabab lingers in empty classrooms here, abandoned by teachers who fear they're the next target.
Locals have reclaimed a mosque in the port city of Mombasa after it was overrun by young extremists late last year. But the youth won't give it up that easily. Musa Mosque reclaimed its name on Friday, declaring it was back on track after an eight-month takeover by radical Islamic youth who have surged in number amid increasing extremism along Kenya's coast.
UN officials hope an operation being planned for the violence-wracked eastern Congo will be the downfall of the major rebel group FDLR, which had promised to disarm by Jan. 2. Spurred by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's call for "decisive action" after the the largest rebel force in eastern Congo missed a January disarmament deadline, the UN is pushing a military effort to dismantle the group.
Esther Wangiru thought she hit the jackpot. Two strangers called out of the blue, saying she'd won 200,000 shillings. She was shocked but excited - that's about $2,200, well above her monthly $200 salary. But there was a catch.
In cities with large Muslim populations, like Mombasa, where radical Muslims and the government have battled over mosques, some fear a Kenyan campaign against all who follow the faith. The 26-year-old's tone is calm as he recounts showing up at a local mosque here last month with dozens of other young men, armed with knives and ready to drive out the imam and other leaders for their flawed teachings of Islam.
Cuban-Americans in South Florida were torn after President Obama's announcement that he would restore ties with Cuba. Long seen as a monolithic group opposed to the Castro regime, 68 percent of Miami-Dade County's Cuban-American population said they favored diplomatic relations in a recent poll.
Some 15 months after the Westgate attack, Al Shabab continues its attacks in Kenya. The departure of two officials shows it's becoming a political crisis for President Kenyatta. Fierce public outcry over the muted Kenyan government response to repeated attacks by Al Shabab culminated today in the departure of two top security officials.
Al Shabab murdered 28 Kenyans in the north of the country on Saturday, raising questions about the effectiveness of the country's approach to countering terrorism. The militant Islamist group Al Shabab attacked a bus in northeastern Kenya Saturday and murdered the 28 non-Muslim passengers on board, a brutal reminder of the group's promise to make Kenya pay for its role in fighting the group.
An expose has raised a furor over a self-styled prophet's exploitation of poor people. While such cases are not new, this latest has prompted a sharp reaction. He is a self-styled modern-day prophet, a "miracle healer" who has attracted thousands to his Nairobi "church" with claims of being able to cure everything from childlessness to HIV/AIDS.
Only a handful of Kenya's NGOs pushed for a trial of those thought to be behind the 2008 election violence. But their actions have boosted public support for putting limits on NGOs, something a proposed bill would do.
Does Kenya needs its own 9/11-style commission to clarify the details of Al Shabab's four-day siege of Nairobi's most upscale mall - and the government's response? A year ago today, four members of Al Shabab went on a shooting rampage in an upscale Nairobi mall.
Only Ethiopia and Algeria are judged ready to handle an Ebola crisis. The White House said today it's sending aid and 3,000 American troops to join the battle. East African leaders today acknowledged that West Africa's Ebola virus outbreak is unprecedented in severity and scope, and too big for that region to handle by itself.
Recently retired US Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford offered a bleak assessment of the Syrian civil war in his first remarks since departing his post last week. In his first public comments since stepping down as US ambassador to Syria on Friday, Robert Ford addressed the failure to contain Syria's bloody civil war, laying most of the blame at the feet of President Bashar al-Assad and his government's international backers.
Many experts argue that tough sanctions have brought Iran's economy to the brink of collapse. But other factors may be pushing Iran to the negotiating table. As world powers meet with Iran in Geneva today, their main bargaining chip is an easing of sanctions, the most painful of which have cut Iran off from the global financial system and put a chokehold on its oil exports.
Egypt's beleaguered educational system has long been run by Cairo, with poor results. Only Mongolia and Honduras rank lower among comparable economies. Egyptians now demand better. In Cairo, Egypt's center of gravity for centuries, the marble halls of the Ministry of Education echo with the footsteps of important visiting entourages.
In a Christian home in a Shiite suburb of Beirut, images of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah share mantel and wall space with the Virgin Mary. In a home in a Shiite neighborhood in southern Beirut, images of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah share mantel and wall space with the Virgin Mary.
The Free Syrian Army attacks regime positions on Syria's southern border, but only holds them long enough to rush supplies and fighters in from Lebanon. Such tactics won't break a grim stalemate. In the flat, open Syrian-Lebanese border region, the strapped Syrian rebels have no choice but to let ground they capture fall back into enemy hands.