Tom Gardner
LightNews LightNews
banner
tomgardner18.bsky.social
Tom Gardner
@tomgardner18.bsky.social
4K followers 970 following 73 posts
Africa correspondent @TheEconomist
Author, "The Abiy Project: God, Power and War in the New Ethiopia”

Retweet ≠ endorsement / views my own
Still on X (for now) @tomgardner18
Posts Replies Media Videos
Pinned
tomgardner18.bsky.social
Tom Gardner @tomgardner18.bsky.social · Apr 22
Chuffed to see that the brilliant @kopalo.bsky.social
has reviewed my book, "The Abiy Project", in this latest issue of @foreignaffairs.com. He calls it "essential reading": www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/abiy...
The Abiy Project: God, Power, and War in the New Ethiopia
Gardner’s account of the rise of Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is essential reading for those interested in understanding how individual ambition and structural factors combine to mold a leader’...
www.foreignaffairs.com
tomgardner18.bsky.social
"But a covert proxy war between Ethiopia, Eritrea and their allies has, in effect, already begun. It needs worryingly little to explode into the open."

www.economist.com/middle-east-...
Ethiopia is perilously close to another war
Conflict in Tigray could balloon into a regional conflagration
www.economist.com
November 13, 2025 at 5:45 PM
tomgardner18.bsky.social
One feature is the role of outside powers, including some Gulf states, which exert influence over their proxies. The best chance for de-escalation lies with America and these outside powers, who must push their allies to stop fighting and start talking again.

www.economist.com/leaders/2025...
How to avoid Africa’s next war
Pressure from America and its allies can prevent a return to fighting
www.economist.com
November 13, 2025 at 5:44 PM
tomgardner18.bsky.social
A groundbreaking, eye-opening, and much needed investigation into Tigray's postwar goldrush: one of the most overlooked causes of the region's calamitous law and order breakdown—and its slide back to war.

www.theglobeandmail.com/world/articl...
When Tigray became a ‘wild west’ of illegal gold mining, Canadian firms staked a claim
A postwar gold rush in Ethiopia razed the landscape and sowed seeds for conflict. The Globe looks into Canadian-licensed sites at the heart of it, and their ties to Beijing
www.theglobeandmail.com
November 13, 2025 at 1:11 PM
tomgardner18.bsky.social
a must-read on this topic
November 7, 2025 at 7:49 AM
Reposted by Tom Gardner
jasonmosley.bsky.social
The ‘Wolqayt question’ from c. 2015 to the Tigray war: agrarian claims in Amhara nationalism

Latest articles in JEAS:
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
The ‘Wolqayt question’ from c. 2015 to the Tigray war: agrarian claims in Amhara nationalism
The emergence of Amhara nationalism as a central political trend in Ethiopia can be dated to 2016. It soon gained considerable audience within the Amhara region and beyond. This article analyses a ...
www.tandfonline.com
November 7, 2025 at 7:41 AM
tomgardner18.bsky.social
The RSF has accepted the US proposal for a "humanitarian truce" since this went to press, but the fundamentals remain unchanged - both sides are reluctant to move seriously to talks, and outside pressure on them -- and their foreign backers -- remains insufficient.

www.economist.com/middle-east-...
Will anything—or anyone—stop the slaughter in Sudan?
As a killing spree unfolds in Darfur, an end to the civil war looks remote
www.economist.com
November 6, 2025 at 5:55 PM
Reposted by Tom Gardner
economist.com
“At the heart of the conversation about deforestation is a very simple problem,” writes Jack Hurd in a guest essay. “Trees have always been economically more valuable felled than standing”
If only the market value of an intact forest were more obvious, writes Jack Hurd
A COP in a rainforest could be the biome’s best hope
econ.st
November 6, 2025 at 3:20 PM
tomgardner18.bsky.social
Last month, in Cape Town, I interviewed Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater and America's most controversial mercenary, for The Weekend Intelligence, our weekend longform podcast.

Prince's return to the limelight is a bet on the direction the world is heading.

www.economist.com/podcasts/202...
The return of Erik Prince
The comeback of America’s most infamous mercenary
www.economist.com
November 1, 2025 at 12:00 PM
tomgardner18.bsky.social
Trump and Abiy Ahmed would get along swimmingly
atrupar.com Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 22d
Leavitt: "At this moment in time, of course, the ballroom is really the president's main priority."
October 23, 2025 at 6:17 PM
tomgardner18.bsky.social
And in this piece I look at two elections coming up in the next week: Tanzania and Ivory Coast. They are the emerging stars of their respective regions, but share a vulnerability: a drive to eliminate political competition, which may prove self-defeating.

www.economist.com/middle-east-...
Two flawed elections show the dangers of one-party rule
Rulers in Tanzania and Ivory Coast may be overestimating their countries’ stability
www.economist.com
October 23, 2025 at 2:42 PM
Reposted by Tom Gardner
gavinjackson.bsky.social
Last month I took a trip to the Amazon rainforest to better understand the economics behind deforestation and how to preserve the world’s largest forest.
economist.com/the-americas...
The obvious economics of preserving the Amazon
It provides Brazil’s world-beating farmers with water, and keeps carbon locked up for the rest of us
economist.com
October 23, 2025 at 2:04 PM
tomgardner18.bsky.social
Africa is a biodiversity superpower, but gets paid a pittance for it. In this week's issue I explore the new conservation schemes trying to put a price on Africa's biodiversity wealth - including one Kenya and another in the Congo.

www.economist.com/middle-east-...
How to preserve Africa’s natural riches for everyone
Conservationists want to make the world pay to look after its rainforests and wildlife
www.economist.com
October 23, 2025 at 2:31 PM
Reposted by Tom Gardner
dlknowles.bsky.social
Good column: www.nytimes.com/2025/10/20/o...
Opinion | Trump Posted a Video of Himself Dumping Excrement on Our Cities. It’s a Glimpse of His Deepest Drives.
www.nytimes.com
October 20, 2025 at 11:45 PM
Reposted by Tom Gardner
benansell.bsky.social
Apropos of nothing, I really do think UK journalists and politicians need some reminding that mass deportation of LEGAL immigrants, particularly those with permanent status, is far more extreme than even Trump's America and would basically place Britain completely on its own among democracies.
October 19, 2025 at 11:32 AM
Reposted by Tom Gardner
economist.com
One possible reason for Ghana’s stability is geographic luck. Another is the relative professionalism of its security forces. Most importantly, though, jihadists have chosen not to attack
Why Ghana is safe from jihadists, for now
A mix of luck, competence and indifference has deterred Sahelian militants
econ.st
October 17, 2025 at 1:00 PM
tomgardner18.bsky.social
This week's issue also includes my tribute to Sudan's Emergency Response Rooms, which ought to have won the Nobel peace prize (but didn't thanks to politics)

www.economist.com/middle-east-...
Sudan’s remarkable mutual-aid groups
They deserved the Nobel peace prize, even though they didn’t win
www.economist.com
October 16, 2025 at 3:39 PM
tomgardner18.bsky.social
And shared more thoughts on the subject in this week's newsletter: view.e.economist.com?qs=477dfaaa5...
October 16, 2025 at 3:38 PM
tomgardner18.bsky.social
In this week's issue I report on the Sahel crisis -- and Ghana's curious invulnerability to it www.economist.com/middle-east-...
Why Ghana is safe from jihadists, for now
A mix of luck, competence and indifference has deterred Sahelian militants
www.economist.com
October 16, 2025 at 3:37 PM
tomgardner18.bsky.social
“Do you think the fact that the British and the Irish speak English,” scoffs a sceptical Tigrayan, “is enough to make them one country?”

www.economist.com/middle-east-...
Africa’s most secretive dictatorship faces an existential crisis
Eritrea’s sovereignty is under threat from an expansionist Ethiopia
www.economist.com
October 2, 2025 at 1:37 PM
Reposted by Tom Gardner
philbc3.bsky.social
Can't disagree with Gavin Barwell. It's high time the right in this country cleaned house.

They won't though, because this is what the right have become. The likes of Barwell are very much a minority.
October 1, 2025 at 8:14 AM
tomgardner18.bsky.social
Also in this week's issue of @economist.com, I look at how cybernationalism is booming in the Sahel, and particularly when it comes to one man: Africa's most viral leader, Ibrahim Traoré (by miles):

www.economist.com/middle-east-...
Burkina Faso’s strongman has gone viral
He may have had a little help from his Russian friends
www.economist.com
September 28, 2025 at 3:19 PM
tomgardner18.bsky.social
"Numbers matter... Yet Michael Spagat of Royal Holloway University of London fears the continent is now on the cusp of a new 'data dark age'."

My latest 👇

www.economist.com/middle-east-...
Measuring mortality is getting even harder in Africa
One estimate puts deaths in the war in Tigray at 5,325; another at 600,000
www.economist.com
September 28, 2025 at 3:13 PM
Reposted by Tom Gardner
zekuzelalem.bsky.social
THREAD: this investigation took up over half my year, but it's here in @thecontinent.org:
A Djiboutian drone strike in January was depicted as a army operation targeting rebels. It was actually a massacre of civilians. The bloodshed & coverup implicating Ethiopia, Djibouti, France & Turkiye.
#OSINT
The Continent 27 SEPTEMBER 2025 | ISSUE 215 15 INVESTIGATION The Djiboutian massacre Ethiopia won’t acknowledge Djibouti drones killed eight people on the other side of its border with Ethiopia. Djibouti claimed they were terrorists. Ethiopia said nothing. This investigation found that some of the dead were Ethiopians, revealing another episode in Addis’s tendency to let its neighbours kill its citizens with impunity. Crossing the line: Djibouti’s bombs landed inside Ethiopia, killing civilians – not armed fighters. zecharias zelalem On 30 January this year, a drone manned from Djibouti dropped a bomb on a funeral gathering in Siyaru, a remote, semi-arid village near the Ethiopia Djibouti border. As rescuers rushed in, a second bomb dropped. And then a third. At least eight people were killed, including three children. Several others were injured. Given the village’s remoteness, the incident might have gone unreported if graphic images of the dead hadn’t spread across Ethiopian social media. A statement from the Djibouti’s defence ministry said the drone struck rebel fighters from the Front for the Restoration of Unity and Democracy (Frud), a Djiboutian political party with a military wing. It has been fighting for Afar interests in Djibouti since the 1990s. The Afar are a community split by the colonial border separating Ethiopia, Djibouti, and Eritrea. “Eight terrorists were neutralised on site,” said a Djibouti military statement. “Unfortunately, collateral damage among Djiboutian civilians in the area has been documented.” International media, including Voice of America, Agence France Presse, and Radio France Internationale reported this version of events. Now, new findings from an open In recovery: Mariam Mohammed Abdullah was injured in the drone strike. source investigation by The Continent reveal a different reality. The bombs landed inside Ethiopia, not in Djibouti, and civilians – not armed fighters – were killed. That distinction matters. It shows Ethiopia is once again tolerating a foreign military targeting its own citizens, as it did with Eritrea during the Tigray conflict. A transparent lie Even before the ink could dry on the Djiboutian military’s statement, The Addis Standard and human rights groups in Djibouti were emphatic that the strike had actually occurred inside Ethiopia’s Afar region. But Alexis Mohamed, an adviser to Djiboutian President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh, rubbished these reports in now-deleted social media posts. The Continent got to work to figure out what really happened. Over the course of eight months, we collected eyewitness testimonies, interviewed human rights activists in Ethiopia and Djibouti, and examined images and footage from the strike. Our findings align with those of Djiboutian activists, who pinpointed Siyaru in Ethiopia’s Afar region as the site of the strike. The ammunition residue found on the night of the strike confirms the bomb was manufactured by Roketsan, a state run weapons manufacturer in Türkiye. Former US army explosives expert Trevor Ball identified t…
September 28, 2025 at 4:14 AM
Reposted by Tom Gardner
gerritkurtz.bsky.social
In many African armed conflicts, estimates of fatalities differ widely, including in #Sudan and regarding the war in Northern #Ethiopia 2020-22. While numbers matter, it is important not to present sometimes mere guesses at the same level as mortality studies.
www.economist.com/middle-east-...
Measuring mortality is getting even harder in Africa
One estimate puts deaths in the war in Tigray at 5,325; another at 600,000
www.economist.com
September 26, 2025 at 10:13 AM
Reposted by Tom Gardner
dmk1793.bsky.social
Fantastic piece
clairelwilmot.bsky.social Claire Wilmot @clairelwilmot.bsky.social · Sep 25
I’ve been struck by how the British far right is using deepfake technology — less to deceive about specific events, more to tap into fascistic affects & desires. This is really frightening.

My dispatch from grim corners of the Internet, for @lrb.co.uk online.

www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/se...
Claire Wilmot | Fascistic Dream Machines
Part of the misunderstanding of the deepfake threat stems from the idea that it is a problem of bad information, rather...
www.lrb.co.uk
September 26, 2025 at 1:26 PM