In November 2020, a war erupted in the Ethiopian region of Tigray. Six hundred thousand to a million civilian lives are estimated to have been lost. Amongst the many war crimes and crimes against ...

The early twenty-first century is a time of monsters in the Global South. What do these monsters look like? Let me begin with those at work closest to home, namely in post-apartheid South Africa, ...

As I sat there listening to a friend who owns a small business, I wondered whether there are different tax regimes in Kenya depending on what form of commercial activity one undertakes. Despite ...

There is a silent population inside Kenya’s correctional facilities that rarely enters public debate, penal policy discourse, or the national imagination. They appear in no crime statistics, are ...

Due to the rapid advancements in AI technology, the Media Council of Kenya (MCK) formed a technical taskforce in October 2023 to develop the Media Handbook for Reporting on Artificial Intelligence in ...

When a Kenyan candidate speaks at a Washington organization like the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) or the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the public event is just the ...

“It is not from the benevolence (kindness) of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.” – Adam Smith: An Inquiry into the Nature ...

On the afternoon of 17 June 2025, I witnessed a large group of young men riding into central Nairobi on motorbikes carrying whips and clubs. They had come to break up a demonstration over the death of ...

Africa’s post-colonial promise of democratization that began in the 1980s and 1990s with the “second independence” struggles now confronts a defining and painful reckoning. The optimism that ...

Oral historians researching different Kenyan communities retell stories of seers such as Mugo wa Kibiru, Syokimau, Mbatian, Kimnyole arap Turukat, Orkoiyot Mugeni, Mepoho, and various Luo Jobilo who ...

After finishing a long journey of studies in language and literature, the first shock I got on returning home to start my academic career was from the concept of “practical subjects” that are ...

The East German secret police kept a file on Michael Jackson. He performed near the Berlin Wall in June 1988, and the preparations for his arrival were elaborate. A memo dated May 4, 1988, recorded ...