My essay on laïko, the Greek popular music that kept me company through four years of illegal work, police raids, deportations, and heartbreak in Patras and Athens in the 1990s, is out in The Quietus. It is a love letter to Mitropanos, Karras, Alexiou, and Marinella - and to a language I learned from supermarket... Continue Reading →
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Si Shqipëria, dhe më pas Kosova, hynë në vëmendjen e Uashingtonit – How Albania, and then Kosovo, entered Washington’s attention — a review published in Gazeta Tema
The book corrects a persistent myth in Albanian historical memory: that Woodrow Wilson, moved by the justice of the Albanian cause, used his moral authority to protect Albania's borders at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. Nahzi's research, drawing on declassified CIA files, State Department cables, and congressional documents, tells a more complicated and more honest... Continue Reading →
Albania’s AI Moment – Analysis in Exit.al
Albania's decision to appoint Diella, an AI-driven virtual assistant, as a symbolic "AI Minister" drew international attention and raised a question that goes beyond Albania: can an algorithm hold public office, and if so, who bears responsibility for its decisions? This piece, published in Exit.al, looks at Albania's digital momentum — from the e-Albania portal... Continue Reading →
Diella’s Eclipse – Paper on Albanian AI Minister Diella
Based on interviews with local and international experts, available literature and an analysis of Albania's draft National AI Strategy, it was written before the AKSHI (local overseeing authority) scandal broke and updated since, with findings that only became harder to argue against. To put it mildly, Diella's story is an argument for getting the institutional... Continue Reading →
Final report of the UN Panel of Experts on DRC
It includes my modest contribution and can be found http://www.undocs.org/en/S/2018/531
Beloved – Aimee’s Story
She was “the most beautiful girl in the world,” “shy and smiley,” and “a fierce commander,” according to various accounts. It feels difficult reconciling these statements with all other descriptions of ‘Aimee, the Congolese,’ the small-bodied young girl with a radiant smile and a sense of humor incongruous with the harsh environment she was forced... Continue Reading →
Seven Reasons for Joseph Kony’s Survival
The withdrawal of US and Ugandan forces pursuing rebel leader Joseph Kony in Central Africa raised the question of how the Lord’s Resistance Army leader has eluded capture for three decades. Based on almost a decade of experience researching the LRA here is a seven-part answer. 1) Resilience Kony is without doubt one of the... Continue Reading →
New Cover for South African Book Version Leaked!
Here is the cover jacket for the South African edition of When the Walking Defeats You to be published by HSRC Press under their Best Read imprint, in late August, 2017. To be distributed in South Africa only. Still figuring out how to provide more copies to East and Central Africa.
Book review and my Q&A in the Washington Post
Here is my Q&A (and book review) with Professor Laura Seay in Washington Post's Monkey Cage. I am grateful to Professor Seay for reading and reviewing the book as well as her thoughtful questions and comments. She later tweeted about the difficult choices those in violent movements face, and our own moral dilemmas when confronted... Continue Reading →
My report on poaching and trafficking of wildlife in central Africa
A report on wildlife poaching and trafficking in Congo, South Sudan and Uganda, I researched and wrote months ago is finally out! I travelled to Congo's Garamba Park, South Sudan's Juba and various places in Uganda (as well as some interviews in Nairobi) to find out how elephants, rhinos and pangolins are poached and illegally... Continue Reading →
Ledio Cakaj 