Michela Wrong

Announcement of Visa Restriction Policy Targeting Individuals Undermining Peace in the Great Lakes Region - United States Department of State The Department of State will impose visa restrictions on several senior Rwandan officials for fueling instability in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). By continuing to support M23 and vi...

After US sanctions on Rwandan army come visa restrictions on "several senior Rwandan officials" deemed to be destabilising eastern DRC. Not specified who is intended, but Paul Kagame perfectly fits that description. www.state.gov/releases/off...

Sanctioning Rwandan Violators of the Washington Accords for Peace and Prosperity - United States Department of State Today, the United States is sanctioning the Rwandan Defense Force (RDF) and four senior RDF officers for their direct operational support to the March 23 Movement (M23) and its affiliates in eastern D...

After weeks of speculation, the US has finally unveiled its sanctions against the Rwandan army for its brazen violations of the peace deal signed with Democratic Republic of Congo and immediately ignored by Kigali. www.state.gov/releases/off...

DRC: UN experts warn of extreme M23 violence targeting human rights defenders GENEVA – UN experts* today condemned the extreme violence committed against human rights defenders by the M23 armed group in the North and South Kivu provinces, in eastern DRC.“We are horrified by the...

The horrors being committed in eastern DRC by Rwanda's proxy rebel force, the M23. www.ohchr.org/en/press-rel...

Floating cities of logs: can the ‘lungs of Africa’ survive its exploitation? The Congo River basin is one of the planet’s most biodiverse ecosystems. But it is also home to a growing population and relentless trade in timber and charcoal

Beautiful images from Democratic Republic of Congo in this feature by Hugh Kinsella Cunningham: www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

Incredible, shocking story, which underlines how much work Putin's Russia dedicates into researching - and then using - obscure and fatal toxins. Dart frogs are not naturally to be found hopping around Moscow, I think it's fair to assume. x.com/YvetteCooper...

Exclusive: Trump ally Prince sent men, drones to help Congo's army secure strategic town Blackwater founder Erik Prince deployed a private security force to operate drones and help Democratic Republic of Congo's army secure the strategic city of Uvira against Rwanda-backed rebels, four pe...

Does this development explain Rwanda and the M23's new-found, long overdue candour about their military collaboration in eastern DRC? Has Kigali decided there's no point faking it any more? www.reuters.com/world/africa...

M23 leader Bertrand Bisimwa: Yes, Rwanda supports us M23 says Rwanda supports them for regional security amid FDLR threats and cross-border tensions in eastern DRC.

In stunning revelation, Pope finally admits he's a Catholic. www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/news/eas...

Volume 67, Issue 1 FRONT MATTER: Foreword ARTICLES: Environmental Protection in War: Beyond Humans and Nature By Alexandra Huneeus & Pablo Rueda-Saiz From Business Plans to International Rights By Andrew Larkin R…

Daniel Levine-Spound has published a legal analysis of Rwanda's war in DRC in Harvard's International Law Journal. However long these things take - and God knows the international climate is hardly propritious - there is eventually a legal reckoning. journals.law.harvard.edu/ilj/volume-6...

So here's Kagame admitting he lied a year ago when he told CNN he didn't know if Rwanda had troops in DRC. His audience laughs sycophantically. When I said in "Do Not Disturb" that Rwandan culture regarded lying to outsiders as an admirable art form, it caused an uproar. x.com/larrymadowo/...

‘It’s an absolute bloodbath’: Washington Post lays off hundreds of workers Former Post executive editor blasts owner Jeff Bezos’s ‘sickening efforts to curry favor’ with Trump

Washington Post puts the frivolous and time wasting activity of serious journalism behind it, announcing a "strategic reset" as, err, well, hmm, something or other..... www.theguardian.com/media/2026/f...

The Bloody Reality of the Green Energy Revolution - Panel Discussion YouTube video by Frontline Club

Debating the contest for critical minerals in DRC with Nicolas Niarchos, author of the fascinating "Elements of Power" - just out - and Henry Sanderson, author of "Volt Rush". It was a full house at Paddington's Frontline Club last night. youtube.com/live/T9JsT5j...

Aksum massacre: Ethiopia Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed hits out at Eritrea over atrocities in Tigray Abiy Ahmed admitted for the first time in parliament that Eritrean troops had killed people in Aksum.

Whenever a figure in authority “discovers” an atrocity in this belated way, the public is reminded of just how much gasp-inducing lying we are normally subjected to. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Isaias Afwerki’s Paranoid Nationalism Over time, Eritrea’s paranoid nationalism has hardened into a permanent state ideology. It functions to normalise repression, justify isolationism, and foreclose the possibility of political plural…

Poignant essay by Eritrean dissident Dawit Mesfin on the claustrophobic paranoia on which Isaias Afewerki's regime is built. What he describes comes straight from the pages of Orwell's "1984" and Eritrea is far from being the only country thus afflicted. martinplaut.com/2026/02/02/i...

Feeding the furnace: Tracing opaque gold supply chains and deals in Central Africa The report examines the activities of Primera Gold DRC SA, a joint venture established in December 2022 between the Congolese government and a UAE-registered company, and which came to a close in 2024...

When talking about the smuggling of minerals from Democratic Republic of Congo, people tend to think in terms of coltan, cobalt and diamonds. In fact, the key mineral at the moment is gold. This is an important, overdue report. globalinitiative.net/analysis/tra...

‘John le Carré: Tradecraft’ Review: The Spy Novelist Decoded An exhibition at the University of Oxford’s Weston Library uses a wealth of personal possessions, manuscripts and more to examine the writer’s career and the line of autobiography that ran through his...

WSJ review of "Tradecraft" - the exhibition dedicated to John le Carré, currently showing at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. It includes a few photos I took visiting Congo with him in 2006 and I'll be talking about my brief role as his researcher on Friday. www.wsj.com/arts-culture...

Panel discussion: The Elements of Power The bloody consequences of the green energy revolution

I'm taking part in this event at London's Frontline Club on February 3. We will be discussing Nicolas Niarchos' latest book. All welcome. www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/panel-disc...

The UN Group of Experts has published its latest report on eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, which - as expected - makes Trump's entire peace process in that country look like a work of pure fantasy. documents.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GE...

Sweden and Germany slash aid budgets to focus on Ukraine and defence spending Echoing the dismantling of USAID, other countries are changing funding priorities and health and hunger programmes in Africa will lose out

www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

What has gone wrong at the Museum of West African Art? With protests marring the opening of the first exhibition at the new museum in Benin City, Barnaby Phillips asks what went wrong

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Fascinating story highlighting just how tricky making amends for the colonial theft of African cultural artefacts can prove. apollo-magazine.com/museum-west-...

A late Congolese ruler with a new following | The Spectator Australia At the exit of the National Museum in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), is a whiteboard…

What lies behind the nostalgia Gen Z have started feeling for departed African Big Men in countries like DRC and Uganda? My piece in the Spectator magazine: www.spectator.com.au/2025/12/a-la...

The M23 announcs it is withdrawing from the occupied Congolese town of Uvira just days after Marco Rubio accuses Rwanda of violating the Washington peace accords by seizing the town. So much for any notion that Rwanda has no connection with the rebel movement. www.newtimes.co.rw/article/3200...

Rwanda's actions in eastern Congo violate accords, Rubio says Rwanda's actions in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo clearly violate the peace deal signed in Washington under U.S. President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Saturday in the l...

Did Rwanda's Paul Kagame make a fundamental misjudgement in sending his troops to attack Uvira just days after signing a peace deal in Washington? It certainly made Donald Trump look extremely silly and naive, which is not a look he appreciates. www.reuters.com/world/africa...

Remarks at a UN Security Council Briefing on the Situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo  - United States Mission to the United Nations However, peace processes require parties to uphold their commitments to that very process. And the United States is profoundly concerned and incredibly disappointed with the renewed outbreak of violen...

US Ambassador Mike Waltz's statement before the UN Security Council yesterday was incredibly hard-hitting. It's worth reading the detail. Rwanda's b*****t has been called out for what it is, in public, by the US. There's no going back from that. usun.usmission.gov/remarks-at-a...

US accuses Rwanda at UN of leading region toward war The United States accused Rwanda on Friday of fueling instability and war as a Rwanda-backed advance of the M23 rebel group in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo threatens to derail U.S. President D...

Has the penny finally dropped? www.reuters.com/world/africa...

Books of the Year II – further recommendations from our regular reviewers Philip Hensher I have a theory that Mick Herron’s Slow Horses novels are an ingenious variation on Shakespeare’s Henry IV plays. If, in a future episode, River Cartwright ascends to his kingdom renoun...

Thank you @michelawrong.bsky.social and @niaolainf.bsky.social for selecting Chasing Shadows as your 2025 book of year recce in @thespectator1828.bsky.social (www.spectator.co.uk/article/book...) and @justsecurity.org (www.justsecurity.org/126111/just-...) respectively.

I appreciate it very much!

Reuters Africa on X: "Over the weekend, Rwanda-backed M23 rebels advanced in an area close to the border with Burundi. https://t.co/T26vjB3rOJ" / X Over the weekend, Rwanda-backed M23 rebels advanced in an area close to the border with Burundi. https://t.co/T26vjB3rOJ

Why did Paul Kagame bother going to Washington?https://x.com/ReutersAfrica/status/1998037419157815352

‘There was rage and pain and iron in him’: Patrick Marber on the great hits – and fond smokes – he had with Tom Stoppard The director worked with theatre colossus Tom Stoppard on two smash hits. Here, he remembers their heated rehearsals, the night they stayed up watching Jaws – and the last four cigarettes they smoked ...

Magnificent tribute. www.theguardian.com/stage/2025/d...

How X's new location feature exposed big US politics accounts Dozens of pro-Trump accounts are being accused of misleading followers after the social media site began showing user locations.

This article's focus on Trump and MAGA is inevitable, I guess, but this new facility is also opening up thousands of "sock puppet" troll accounts run by Rwanda's dictatorial regime to public scrutiny - finally. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

X's new location transparency feature unleashes questions about origins of MAGA accounts The function, which shows that a slew of MAGA-branded accounts are apparently based outside the U.S., also stirred speculative outrage over where the Department of Homeland Security account was create...

This a good time for those who have been systematically harassed/abused for criticising the Rwandan regime to check out where those trolls are based. The answer, in many cases, will be "Rwanda". Which is amusing when they are pretending to be Austrlian surf babes. www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...

At Cambridge, three brave students are taking on the trans bullies I met the young women fighting for a return to gender sanity. One returned from sick leave to find ‘Terf’ on her door

By God, it would be nice to see British academic institutions showing just a hint of spine on this issue. www.thetimes.com/article/4b37...