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Tom Gardner

@tomgardner18.bsky.social

3.9K followers 950 following 61 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

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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

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Tom Gardner @tomgardner18.bsky.social · 6d

“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

Reposted by Tom Gardner

Phil Burton-Cartledge @philbc3.bsky.social · 7d

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.

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Tom Gardner @tomgardner18.bsky.social · 9d

can still listen to it where I am

Tom Gardner @tomgardner18.bsky.social · 10d

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

Tom Gardner @tomgardner18.bsky.social · 10d

"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

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Reposted by Tom Gardner

Zecharias Zelalem @zekuzelalem.bsky.social · 11d

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…

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Reposted by Tom Gardner

Gerrit Kurtz @gerritkurtz.bsky.social · 12d

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

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Reposted by Tom Gardner

David Klemperer @dmk1793.bsky.social · 12d

Fantastic piece

Claire Wilmot @clairelwilmot.bsky.social · 13d

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

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Reposted by Tom Gardner

Claire Wilmot @clairelwilmot.bsky.social · 13d

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

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Reposted by Tom Gardner

Henry Mance @henrymance.ft.com · 15d

What on Earth is this? An "in depth" BBC article about free speech in the UK that only cites examples of right-wing/ 'anti-woke' speech being suppressed. How can you mention Lucy Connolly but completely ignore Palestine Action / Just Stop Oil? Gob-smacking. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

How the simmering UK freedom of speech row reached boiling point

How did we reach a point where the UK is being compared to a 'tin pot Third World dictatorship'?

www.bbc.co.uk

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Dorian Lynskey @dorianlynskey.bsky.social · 17d

Wikipedia is what the internet was meant to be and one of the few online places that hasn’t got worse. It’s a miracle

timothy faust @tbone.malware-virus.biz · 17d

Last year I got into Wikipedia editing a little bit and it's an insane (compliment) community — people really, really take quality, unbiased editing seriously.

Dr. Samantha Hancox-Li @sjshancoxli.liberalcurrents.com · 17d

for all people mock it wikipedia is genuinely one of the wonders of the modern world

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Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 17d

Reform are now coming after people with permanent residency. It'll be citizens next. No one is safe from authoritarian governments.

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Marie Le Conte @youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com · 20d

think if you're broadly a centrist and were suuuuuper concerned about attacks on free speech from the left and so you decided to give the right a hearing then you need to realise you were taken for QUITE the ride (and don't really have anyone to blame but yourself)

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Mara Gay @maragay.bsky.social · 20d

Obama weighs in on the firing of Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah

Barack Obama @barackobama.bsky.social · 20d

This is precisely the kind of government coercion that the First Amendment was designed to prevent — and media companies need to start standing up rather than capitulating to it.

Washington Post Columnist Says She Was Fired for Posts After Charlie Kirk Shooting

www.nytimes.com

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Reposted by Tom Gardner

Andreas Sieber @andreassieber.bsky.social · 22d

Official UN finding:
#Israel has committed #genocide in the #Gaza Strip

www.ohchr.org/en/press-rel...

Israel has committed genocide in the Gaza Strip, UN Commission finds

GENEVA – Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, a...

www.ohchr.org

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Reposted by Tom Gardner

Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 23d

Can almost smell the Reichstag fire from thousands of miles away

www.nytimes.com/live/2025/09...

Trump Administration Live Updates: White House Officials Vow Vast Crackdown on Liberal Groups

www.nytimes.com

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Tom Gardner @tomgardner18.bsky.social · 23d

Do you know anything about the credibility of the source?

Tom Gardner @tomgardner18.bsky.social · Sep 8

“This project means the end of Ethiopia’s geopolitical insignificance,” Abiy Ahmed, Ethiopia’s prime minister, declared on September 1st. “I have nothing more to say than to thank the Creator.”
www.economist.com/middle-east-...

The promise and peril of Ethiopia’s new mega-dam

It could power the region or plunge it into another conflict

www.economist.com

Tom Gardner @tomgardner18.bsky.social · Aug 21

Autocrats without borders -- my latest in this week's @economist.com, with reporting from Uganda.

www.economist.com/middle-east-...

Are east African governments colluding to stifle dissent?

A raft of recent cases raises a disturbing suspicion

www.economist.com

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Reposted by Tom Gardner

Drew Harwell @drewharwell.com · Aug 8

You know that classic Edward Hopper painting evoking isolation and despair? We used AI to make it look terrible for no reason

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Albert Pinto @70sbachchan.bsky.social · Aug 2

the shredding of international liberal order's legitimacy is because everyone knows the answer to @edwardluce.bsky.social thought experiment www.ft.com/content/6176...

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Tom Gardner @tomgardner18.bsky.social · Aug 1

In @economist.com this week I profiled Digitel, South Sudan's first locally-owned telecoms provider, in its bid to topple big multinational rivals in exceptionally challenging circumstances

www.economist.com/middle-east-...

Can a home-grown telecoms firm connect South Sudan to the world?

Civil war need not be an insurmountable obstacle

www.economist.com

Tom Gardner @tomgardner18.bsky.social · Jul 25

Earlier this month I travelled to Bosaso and Garowe in Puntland, the strongest of Somalia's five federal states, to report on the intense debate underway about one of the world's oldest state-building projects.

(My photo from the road from Garowe to Bosaso)

www.economist.com/middle-east-...

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Tom Gardner @tomgardner18.bsky.social · Jul 11

Ok, got it

Tom Gardner @tomgardner18.bsky.social · Jul 11

Sorry, would include myself in that (to my shame)!

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