Emily H Johnson

Radio story for The World, aired on April 27, 2022. "Many of the 3 million Ukrainians who found safe harbor in Poland amid war at home now find themselves at a crossroads: Build a new life in Poland or return to Ukraine?"

In 1922, a Ukrainian choir sang the song “Shchedryk” at New York’s Carnegie Hall. The tune became a Christmas sensation known as “Carol of the Bells.” This Sunday, a Ukrainian choir will once again perform the famous song at Carnegie Hall.

Radio story for The World, aired October 25, 2022. "The Cayuga Nation has ordered a series of demolitions and evictions over the last few years in western New York, which has stirred controversy within the community."

Radio story for The World, aired May 6, 2022. "The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense granted special permission for the male musicians to leave the country, calculating that the world will be more motivated to protect Ukraine if it sees its culture as something precious and worth saving."

Radio story for The World, aired April 28, 2022. "In recent weeks, some Ukrainians in Warsaw have opened their own schools to let displaced children finish the school year in their own language and according to their own education system."

On November 3, 2020, as the United States was preoccupied with the presidential election, Mearg “Magi” Tareke had just returned home to Washington, D.C. from the Pennsylvania resort where she had been filming season 25 of The Bachelor.

Excited to tell her mother about her experience as the first Ethiopian contestant ever to appear on ABC's blockbuster reality dating show, Tareke picked up the phone but couldn't get through. It was her first clue something was wrong back home in Tigray.

“All the connections were cut off,” she says. “I didn't even get to talk to her about what happened. Now I was freaking out about her safety, my entire family's safety.”

Government forces in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa had launched a military offensive in Tigray, the northernmost region of the country and the home to an ethnic group known as Tigrayans (or “Tegaru”), an estimated 7 million people with a distinct language and culture. Thirty years ago, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) political party overthrew the Mengistu dictatorship, and has dominated Ethiopian politics for much of the last three decades. Their refusal to be part of a 2019 merger of ethnic parties into the countrywide Prosperity Party set the stage for the current conflict: In early November, the regional government—controlled by the TPLF—besieged a key Ethiopian military base in the Tigrayan capital Mekelle. In response, the Ethiopian National Defense Force (EDNF) quickly ousted the militia and took control of the city.

Since then, reports have emerged of rape and massacres of Tigrayan civilians committed by Ethiopian and allied Eritrean soldiers, including hundreds killed on November 28 at the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion. The church, believed to be the home of the Ark of the Covenant, is located in the holy city of Aksum, about 15 miles from Tareke’s hometown of Adwa.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed—who won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2019—has denied the atrocities, but recently U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken used the term “ethnic cleansing” to describe the violence. “We are seeing very credible reports of human rights abuses and atrocities that are ongoing,” Blinken said during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on March 10. The Ethiopian government released a statement calling his accusations “unfounded and spurious” and expressing willingness to cooperate with international human rights investigations. (In February, the United Nations had announced the Ethiopian government’s approval to allow humanitarian aid in the Tigray region.)

But with no journalists or aid workers allowed unrestricted access into Tigray, the conflict has been slow to receive the kind of international attention that tends to accompany such dire warnings. Activists in the Tigrayan diaspora have been working to amplify videos and witness accounts on behalf of those back home who have been muzzled by the communications blackout—and in recent weeks, thanks to Tareke, they have received a boost from a seemingly unlikely place: the fandom collectively known as “Bachelor Nation.”

"Episode Description: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejects forty percent of Kevin McCarthy's picks for a committee investigating January 6th. A $26 billion opioid settlement promises to reshape the prescription pain pill industry. And refugees are fleeing the Ethiopian region of Tigray amid a brutal civil conflict."

In my segment with Start Here podcast (ABC News), which starts at 14:40, I helped host Brad Mielke break down the conflict in northern Ethiopia's Tigray region and reported on the conditions in the refugee camps of eastern Sudan. I provided firsthand observations and audio gathered on the scene during my ten-day trip to Um Rakuba and Tunaydbah refugee camps in July. I ended with some analysis of the latest developments and talked about the potential for an independence referendum that could split the bitterly divided country.

A look into transformative impact of trade and transportation infrastructure in Africa. This episode looks at the promise and potential of infrastructure projects to facilitate transportation and trade on the continent. In the first half, reporter Laura Rosbrow-Telem takes listeners to the Gambia for a ride over the Senegambia Bridge, an important new gateway for Senegal and the Gambia for facilitating trade and commerce in Africa.

Then in the roundtable, co-host Carol Pineau leads a conversation on how investments in roads, bridges, ports, and airports can have a dramatic impact on trade. She also delves into how the newly established African Continental Free Trade Area, the world’s largest trading bloc by number of participants, will galvanize trade on the continent and help make African countries less reliant on the West for economic stimulation.

Participants in this discussion include:
Benedict Oramah, President of the African Export-Import Bank
Juliet Anammah, chair of Jumia Nigeria and head of institutional affairs for Jumia Group
Allan Kilavuka, CEO of Kenya Airways

About Africa Forward: Africa Forward, the latest podcast from FP Studios and Africa50, tackles the infrastructure challenges and opportunities facing countries in Africa. With reporting from across the continent, the show examines why the big facilities that transform societies—including roads, energy supplies, and communications—are under-resourced and what Africans and others are doing about it. Africa Forward is hosted by journalists Isha Sesay and Carol Pineau, who both bring years of experience covering and reporting on Africa.

A look at infrastructure financing in Africa.

Big infrastructure projects require big financing deals. But getting to that point often involves ingenuity and innovation. In this episode, we explore new methods for financing infrastructure projects in Africa. Co-host Carol Pineau looks at how the Azura Edo power plant in Nigeria overcame a slew of obstacles to get a deal signed.

Later, Pineau hosts a roundtable featuring Alain Ebobissé, CEO of Africa50, Acha Leke, chairperson of McKinsey’s Africa Region, and Ibukun Awosika, chairperson of First Bank of Nigeria.

About Africa Forward: Africa Forward, the latest podcast from FP Studios and Africa50, tackles the infrastructure challenges and opportunities facing countries in Africa. With reporting from across the continent, the show examines why the big facilities that transform societies—including roads, energy supplies, and communications—are under-resourced and what Africans and others are doing about it. Africa Forward is hosted by journalists Isha Sesay and Carol Pineau, who both bring years of experience covering and reporting on Africa.

A look at how innovations in information and communications technology are transforming Africa.Africa is not only building new roads and airports but also getting wired up for a vast expansion of digital services. Innovations in information and communications technology (ICT) are helping to fill in the gaps when it comes to things like banking and education and are the engine behind creative new businesses throughout Africa. This episode features stories from the tech campus Seme City in Benin, coders like Betelhem Dessie, and start-ups like Poa Internet.

In the second half of the show, co-host Carol Pineau leads a roundtable discussion with Paula Ingabire, Rwanda’s minister of ICT and innovation; Brian Herlihy, the founder of SEACOM; and Omosalewa Adeyemi, the global head of expansion and partnerships at Flutterwave.

About Africa Forward: Africa Forward, the latest podcast from FP Studios and Africa50, tackles the infrastructure challenges and opportunities facing countries in Africa. With reporting from across the continent, the show examines why the big facilities that transform societies—including roads, energy supplies, and communications—are under-resourced and what Africans and others are doing about it. Africa Forward is hosted by journalists Isha Sesay and Carol Pineau, who both bring years of experience covering and reporting on Africa.

A look into how energy projects in Africa are creating opportunities across the continent.

This episode of Africa Forward highlights how Africans are finding new ways to fund energy projects and how this is creating transformational change on the continent. The episode begins with a story from the reporter Laura Rosbrow-Telem looking at the financing and construction of the Benban Solar Park in Egypt.

Later, co-host Carol Pineau leads a conversation on creating the best energy mix and how to properly fund large-scale projects. Her guests include Vera Songwe, the executive secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa; Hafez El-Salmawy, a professor of energy engineering at Zagazig University in Egypt; and Ernest Moniz, a former U.S. energy secretary.

About Africa Forward: Africa Forward, the latest podcast from FP Studios and Africa50, tackles the infrastructure challenges and opportunities facing countries in Africa. With reporting from across the continent, the show examines why the big facilities that transform societies—including roads, energy supplies, and communications—are under-resourced and what Africans and others are doing about it. Africa Forward is hosted by journalists Isha Sesay and Carol Pineau, who both bring years of experience covering and reporting on Africa.

How governments, journalists, and activists are all trying to change the narrative when they talk about climate change. The goal? Make the conversation more inclusive, less hostile, and frankly less boring.The dialogue surrounding climate change is often passionate and sometimes contentious, especially when it touches on people’s livelihoods, religion, or political beliefs. So how can those seeking action get past the rancor and have a constructive dialogue? In this episode ofHeat of the Moment, host John D. Sutter speaks with Katharine Hayhoe, a professor of political science at Texas Tech University, who regularly engages with audiences in deep-red states and other places where going green is seen as political treason. Hayhoe also hosts a digital video series for PBS called Global Weirding that seeks to present the discussion on climate change in an inclusive way.
Later on in the episode, Belgian journalist Jan De Deken discusses why he created the Polar Project, an effort to tell the story of those impacted by climate change using a wide range of mediums including virtual reality and live performances.

Heat of the Moment looks at the origins of the global climate crisis and finds areas of optimism.In our premiere episode, we climb aboard an audio time machine with the reporter Adam Cole to look back at pivotal moments in climate change history. Host John D. Sutter speaks with the actor and climate activist Ed Begley Jr. about the first Earth Day 50 years ago and the things he has done over the years to promote eco-friendly living and policies. And we hear from Christiana Figueres, former U.N. climate chief and author of The Future We Choose, on how hope can lead to change.

Young climate activists in the United States and the Philippines are pushing for change and getting their governments to take notice.The Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg has helped ignite a global youth climate movement that’s energizing a new generation of activists. In this episode we profile two young climate leaders. First, host John D. Sutter talks with Varshini Prakash, a co-founder of the Sunrise Movement, a U.S.-based organization whose mission is to get young people to advocate for climate action. We’ll then travel to the Philippines with reporter Avery Thompson and meet Marinel Ubaldo, an activist who is helping her country evolve toward a sustainable future.

I served as producer and editor on this episode.

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Climate change is forcing people from their homes, especially in island nations. How can the world change its policy toward climate migrants, and what can be done to assist those who want to stay not only survive but thrive?

In this episode of Heat of the Moment, climate change is forcing people from their homes, especially in island nations. Host John D. Sutter speaks with Ama Francis, a native of Dominica and a climate law fellow at Columbia Law School’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law about ways to change immigration policy to help those whose homelands have been destroyed.

In the second part of the episode, the reporter Philip Nii Lartey takes us to Ghana, where the Climate Investment Funds’ Forest Investment Program (FIP) is helping to persuade cocoa farmers stay on their land. With the aid of FIP, farmers are improving yields and mitigating climate change by planting shade trees to protect their cocoa fields.

How rethinking urban design can have a major impact on carbon emissions and the quality of city life.

If you want to talk about the climate crisis, you’ve got to talk about cities. By 2050, two-thirds of humanity is expected to live in urban areas. And importantly for those of us who care about global warming, cities consume two-thirds of the world’s energy and are responsible for 70 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions.

In this episode, host John Sutter speaks with Peter Calthorpe, a pioneer in sustainable urban design, about his work in China, Mexico, and the United States. Also, the reporter Preethi Nallu heads to Oslo, Norway—the EU Commission’s 2019 European Green Capital.

I gave a live interview on an Australian news show about the Black Lives Matter protests from the previous night. They aired my footage of burning, smashed police cars and the violent NYPD response while I reported what I had seen.

Saving the Amazon rainforest is not just about raising alarms but also about finding ways to make harvesting its trees more profitable than tearing them down.

The Amazon rainforest has been called “the lungs of the planet” as it plays an outsized role in absorbing the Earth’s carbon dioxide output. But industrial interests have led to rapid deforestation in parts of the Amazon, which is not only disrupting ecosystems but also indigenous communities. To get a better sense of the human impact of deforestation, host John Sutter speaks with the climate activist Nina Gualinga. Gualinga is from the Kichwa community of Sarayaku in the Ecuadorian Amazon.

Later in the program, what if the forest itself could become more profitable than logged timber and meat? The journalist Paula Moura brings us a story from the Brazilian Amazon on how local communities, NGOs, and scientists are combining conservation and technology in search of ways to make sure that trees are more valuable if they’re kept alive.

How food production contributes to climate change and what individuals and the agricultural industry can do to make food production, distribution, and disposal more eco-friendly.It’s easy to forget that what we eat has a massive impact on global warming and the health of the planet. Take the example of livestock production, which accounts for nearly 70 percent of all agricultural land use and is responsible for nearly a fifth of all greenhouse gas gas emissions. How food is manufactured, what pesticides were used, and how it was transported to market—all of that shapes its contribution to global warming.
In this episode of Heat of the Moment, host John Sutter speaks about circular agriculture and ways to make food production and consumption more sustainable with Ernst van den Ende, the managing director of plant sciences at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. Then the reporter Julia Mitric visits a farm in northern California where agricultural waste is being used to feed maggots, which are then being sold as eco-friendly animal feed.

A look at why it’s critical for the world to move toward more renewable energy sources and how innovations like concentrated solar power are helping us get there.

As the world looks to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, there’s hope in the growing renewable energy market. In this episode of Heat of the Moment, Daniel Schrag, the director of Harvard University’s Center for the Environment, speaks to host John Sutter about the benefits of renewable energy and the policy challenges involved in moving to greener power sources. Later, the reporter Sebastian Bouknight travels to Morocco and the Noor Ouarzazate Solar Complex to get a firsthand look at the remarkable advances being made in concentrated solar power.

A look at how many of the innovations that will be needed for a cleaner, greener future are actually available today—and what's needed to get them activated on a larger scale.There are plenty of people sitting around waiting for some magical new or improved technology to come along and fix the mess we’ve made for ourselves with the climate emergency. That’s probably not going to happen—and, anyway, we have the tools we need to ditch fossil fuels now. In the first part of the episode, reporter Molly Schwartz looks into some of these solutions, including wind farm construction and carbon capture, utilization, and storage.
In the second part of the program, host John D. Sutter speaks with Mafalda Duarte, the head of the Climate Investment Funds. (The Climate Investment Funds is FP Studios’ partnering organization for Heat of the Moment.) Duarte explains that her group’s goal is not only to give loans for solar farms and other green projects but also to help tip the scales in favor of a clean energy revolution.

I served as producer and editor for this episode.

How climate change is increasing the intensity of storms, and what the world can do to be more resilient.

All of the weather these days is forming in an atmosphere that humans have warmed on average by about 1 degree Celsius. It’s not that fossil fuel pollution is causing all the bad weather, but it does play an inextricable role. In this episode of Heat of the Moment, host John D. Sutter speaks with MIT professor Kerry Emanuel, a leading expert on hurricanes and climate change, about how the crisis has evolved.

Later in the episode, reporter Dhashen Moodley shares the story of how officials in Mozambique responded to extreme weather by fortifying key elements of their infrastructure to make their country more resilient.

A look into how green investments and economic policy changes can be a driver for a healthier planet. How much would it cost to fix climate change—and who should pay? Should it be the United States—the biggest polluter historically? Should it be China—the largest annual polluter these days? Is the entire industrial world to blame? These are some of the thorny questions the Heat of the Moment host John D. Sutter discusses with Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz. Stiglitz is a top expert on how economic policy can play a leading role in steering the world away from fossil fuels.

Later, Emily Johnson reports on real-life examples of how investments can kick-start change. She looks at projects supported by our partners at the Climate Investment Funds in Jamaica, Tajikistan, and Turkey.

An exploration of the wider ramifications of water scarcity and what’s being done to help those affected.

Water is our most vital resource, but climate change is making weather patterns and seasonal rainfall less predictable. Now, drought and water scarcity are increasingly threatening the lives and livelihoods of vulnerable communities around the planet. In this episode of Heat of the Moment, host John D. Sutter speaks with Peter Gleick, president emeritus of the Pacific Institute, and a leading global thinker on the relationship between water scarcity and violent conflict.

Later on, reporter Portia Crowe travels to Niger to see how investments in drip irrigation are helping farmers adapt to more volatile weather patterns. She visits a few sites set up by the International Finance Corporation and Netafim.

Multiple people were killed in a terror attack in Nairobi, Kenya, as gunmen stormed a luxury hotel complex on Tuesday. @EmilyJReports recounts the tense scene. https://twitter.com/StartHereABC/status/1085561137524035585

The group al-Shabaab has claimed responsibility for an attack on a luxury hotel complex in Kenya. Several people in nearby restaurants and offices were caught in bomb blasts and gunfire. Host Marco Werman talks to reporter Emily Johnson in Nairobi, where the situation is still unfolding.

I worked as a producer on this episode of Tiny Spark where Anand Giridharadas talks about his new book "Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World," in which he argues that philanthropic efforts by the super-wealthy are often self-serving and prop up an unjust system.

The tiny kingdom of Bhutan, tucked away in the Himalayas between China and India, is known for its innovative Gross National Happiness Index, a measurement tool used to incentivize policies that increase the well-being of its people. When Bhutan became a constitutional monarchy 10 years ago, the index was written into the new constitution as a guiding principle of governance, one deeply rooted in Buddhism. The country’s tourism council paints an image of a real-life Shangri-La, where visitors seeking a high-altitude paradise will find chiming bells, fluttering prayer flags, crimson-robed monks, staggering mountain views and one of the world’s most unspoiled cultures. But this idealized view of Bhutan lies at odds with some realities. The country known as the world’s happiest — and the only officially Buddhist country on earth — had a suicide rate that measured at roughly 20th in the world, the nation's first comprehensive suicide survey found in 2014. It's impossible to say how much this has increased in recent years because the data wasn't tracked until that year. The country did not even get its first psychiatrist, Dr. Chencho Dorji, until 20 years ago. What is clear is that Bhutanese identity has been undergoing a seismic shift as it is thrust into a modern age that is more connected, technologically speaking, but also more isolating. Together with high rates of alcoholism and domestic violence, this shift has created a mental health crisis in a country that is struggling to keep up, according to interviews with Bhutanese mental health professionals like Dorji — known as Dr. Chencho. Resources dedicated to mental health are stretched thin, and ingrained cultural traditions sometimes prove difficult to overcome.

As part of an hour-long radio program examining US trade policy under the Trump administration, Emily Johnson reports from Galax, Virginia, where the furniture industry successfully fought against Chinese competition. Story begins at the 34-minute mark.

Last month, the UN and the World Food Program officially declared a famine in South Sudan, brought on by drought combined with three years of civil war. The number of refugees fleeing the war has now passed the 1.5 million mark. It's become Africa’s largest refugee crisis and the world’s third largest, after Syria and Afghanistan. Northern Uganda has received about half a million South Sudanese refugees since the conflict reignited in July. Anywhere else, the sheer number of arrivals might cause discord — and yet in Uganda, it works. Speaking at the headquarters of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees in the town of Yumbe, in the West Nile region of Uganda, Senior Emergency Coordinator Nasir Fernandes said the crisis has stretched the resources of the UN’s underfunded refugee agency. His team is working with just 36 percent of the funds required to deal with a situation of this magnitude. “This has been a large scale emergency,” Fernandes said. “We’ve been able to do very well in terms of life saving but we have not been able to do beyond life saving. You’ve seen the structures in the settlement, they’re all very temporary.” Still, Fernandes said, there is reason for optimism, and it all comes down to Uganda’s unusual and progressive refugee policy. “They get 30 by 30 meters(nearly 100 by 100 feet) of residential plots and now they will be getting 50 by 50 meters of agricultural plots so they can be self-sustaining,” he said. “And once a person is registered as a refugee, [he or she] has all the documents, freedom of movement, they can go anywhere, can be employed. And that is really an example for the world.” More than 2,000 people are crossing into Uganda every day, most of them on foot in a journey that can take days or weeks. They’re fleeing government soldiers who have been burning their homes and slaughtering anyone who isn’t Dinka — that’s the ethnic group of South Sudanese President Salva Kiir.

I contributed all of the video footage, interviews, and reporting in this report for CNN's The Lead with Jake Tapper, which aired on Feb. 10, 2017.

My story is part of an hour-long radio program that looks at the topic of US special forces in depth. You can listen to the radio version of my story, reported in Mogadishu, Somalia in June and July of 2017, at this link at 26:16: https://www.pri.org/programs/america-abroad/warrior-diplomats-look-us-special-operations In May, Navy SEAL Kyle Milliken was killed in a raid on a terrorist compound in Somalia. He was the first US service member to die in combat in the Horn of Africa nation since the infamous Black Hawk Down incident in 1993, when 18 Americans were killed. That disaster played a significant role in minimizing US involvement in Africa in the years that followed, affecting then-President Bill Clinton’s decision not to intervene in the Rwandan genocide. But the rise of Somalia-based terror group al-Shabab in the late 2000s has made the Horn of Africa an important front in the war on terror, and US forces are very much a presence in Somalia once again. This time, though, to look around, you wouldn’t really know it. Decades of war have pummelled the once-stunning capital city of Mogadishu, where despite a new government and relative stability, periodic hit-and-run attacks by al-Shabab keep residents on edge. But all that is “outside the wire,” as they say at Mogadishu International Airport, a fortified, sprawling base that is home to the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), various United Nations agencies, and assorted military forces from around the world. With its scorching, sandy backdrop and rough and tumble cast of characters — a mix of grizzled British military guys, UN personnel and journalists — it feels a bit like the cantina scene in the original Star Wars. But conspicuously missing are Americans. In May, VICE News published a US Africa Command memo that described involvement in as many as 98 operations a day in Africa, calling it America’s “shadow war.” It's a good description of US clandestine activities in the region — according to AFRICOM media relations officer Capt. Jennifer Dyrcz, the US mission in the region mainly consists of training and advising partners in AMISOM and the Somali National Army, and she clarified that the "98 operations a day" includes things like routine meetings and assessments. "Due to the location of some of our advisory and training activities, SOCAFRICA’s personnel are occasionally exposed to some of the same risks as our partners and defend themselves appropriately," she added. Maj. Ali Dhuuh Santur Guled of the Somali National Army is responsible for training, and in this capacity, he has worked a great deal with US special forces. He says it’s largely due to US assistance that his army has dealt some major blows to al-Shabab in the last few years.

The segment, which aired on the BBC World Service's Newsday program on July 14, 2017, is no longer live on their website but I have republished it on my own portfolio website. In late June 2017, a ship's anchor cut the fiber optic cable that provides Somalia with its internet, causing a countrywide web blackout for weeks. Emily Johnson spoke to the BBC World Service about the impact this has had on on the Horn of Africa nation.

For years, Kenya has been dealing with the problem of Islamic extremism. The country’s high unemployment rate and prevalence of drug use have left young men purposeless, resentful, and vulnerable to extremism. Experts say that after Somalia, Kenya is one of the biggest sources of fighters for the terror group known as Al-Shabaab, which — along with other extremist groups — has been carrying out deadly attacks for nearly 20 years. Increasingly, the Kenyan government has been taking steps to root out extremists on its own soil, but the crackdown has been marked by disappearances and extrajudicial killings, which has only inflamed the simmering resentments of young men in the coastal city of Mombasa. In 2014, Kenyan police raided a mosque in Mombasa that was believed to have ties to Al-Shabaab, and 250 people were arrested. Police said they recovered a small cache of grenades and other weapons. Many Muslims now see themselves engaged in a struggle with overzealous local cops, eroding their city’s true character of storied Islamic history and distinct Swahili culture. One young Muslim man in Mombasa, Ahmed (his real name is being withheld due to security concerns), defended the mosque and characterized the police raids as religious persecution by a predominantly Christian government and police force. But he also defended some troubling teachings of that mosque. “Whatever was being preached there, these guys were just trying to say that you should defend your religion in case somebody is talking ill about your religion in any way, whether in fighting or what. And what the religion teaches, when you die while trying to defend your religion, you go to paradise. So that was one of the beliefs that those guys were trying to say,” he said, though he distanced himself from Al-Shabaab. Ahmed’s brother is in hiding, his family says, fearful of being taken by police. Many young men from this neighborhood have disappeared, allegedly dragged from their homes by police in the middle of the night and never seen again. It’s probable that some of these young men were only guilty of being young and Muslim and idle; for others, it’s very likely that they were involved in terrorism.

I filmed and scripted this video for AJ+, the social media/mobile video news arm of Al Jazeera. In Kenya, the Garissa University attack by Al Shabab left 142 students dead. A year later, two students open up to AJ+ about what they're going through now.

I filmed this breaking news footage for AFP, the world's third-largest news agency. "Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta set fire Saturday to the world's biggest ivory bonfire, after demanding a total ban on trade in tusks and horns to end "murderous" trafficking and prevent the extinction of elephants in the wild."

Radio story for America Abroad's hour-long documentary show about Tibet: Imagine living across the world from your family and friends and not being able to use Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp and other social media and messaging apps to communicate. Player utilities PopoutShare 00:0000:00 download Listen to the Story. Because the Chinese government blocks many social media and messaging platforms, this is the reality for Tibetans whose loved ones live abroad. So, to stay in touch, Tibetans are using WeChat. WeChat is a lifeline, except for one thing: it’s a Chinese app, and the messages are very likely being monitored. If Tibetans are caught saying the wrong thing, the consequences for those people living in Tibet could be dire. In 2009, a team of researchers from the University of Toronto discovered a massive cyber spying operation they called Ghostnet. They say the ring was based in China and infiltrated mostly political targets, including the office of the Dalai Lama. But they say the information of all Tibetans is at risk. Tsering Tsondue left Tibet in 1998, and he uses the popular app to communicate with his parents back home in Lhasa. His mother just let him know she was sending some money, but they have to be careful about what they discuss. “I only talk, greeting words: ‘Good morning, how is your day,'” Tsering says, hunched over his iPhone in a cafe in McLeod Ganj, India, where the Tibetan government in exile is based. “I didn’t talk about politics or something like this.” Lhadon Tethong is the founder of the Tibet Action Institute, an organization that teaches Tibetans how to protect themselves and their information while using technology. She says they “assume the Chinese government is monitoring everything.” "At sensitive times or when they deem peoples' behavior on WeChat too risky, they try to make examples of people,” Lhadon says. And one phone call from a politically active exile can mean the disappearance of that person's whole family back in Tibet.

I filmed this breaking news footage for AFP, the world's third-largest news agency. "Eleven giant pyres of tusks will be set on fire Saturday as Kenya torches its vast ivory stockpile in a grand gesture aimed at shocking the world into stopping the slaughter of elephants."

I shot the photos that accompanied this magazine feature. "Over 600 million Indians defecate outside every day. Although India is not the only country where the practice of open defecation occurs, more than half of the people worldwide who relieve themselves in the open live in India. The practice has disastrous and well-recognized public health consequences. It results in premature death from diarrheal illness. It also leads to opportunistic violence against women and girls as they search for a place to relieve themselves, often alone at night. In 2012, a Bihar police official estimated that 400 rapes would have been avoided had women had a toilet in their homes. Furthermore, the economics of poor sanitation astound. In 2006, inadequate sanitation cost India an estimated 6.4 percent of its GDP ($53.8 billion USD) due to losses in education, productivity, time and tourism. Tragically, poor sanitation contributes to physical and cognitive stunting of children. UN statistics estimate that 48 percent of Indian children under the age of 5 are stunted—this equates to more than 60 million children. The association between poor sanitation and stunting is complex and not completely understood. However, it is believed that repeated exposure to germs found in fecal matter during infancy causes permanent changes to the structure of the intestines, impeding absorption of essential nutrients and causing long-term inflammation throughout the body. This impairs growth of the body and brain."

Radio story for America Abroad's hour-long documentary show about drones: A small drone mounted with a GoPro camera lifts off, hovering over a field in the outskirts of the Kenyan capital of Nairobi. The drone operator keeps it low; the highest he normally flies it is 100 meters. The drone belongs to two men who run an aerial photography company. They’ve asked me to withhold their names, because what they’re doing is technically illegal. In January of this year, Kenya placed restrictions on drones that, for all intents and purposes, have amounted to a complete ban on their use. Anyone who wants to fly one has to secure permission from both the Ministry of Defense and the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority (KCAA). “There’s a friend of mine who applied in March and still today he hasn’t gotten feedback from KCAA,” the drone operator says. The ban has certainly caused headaches for small businesses, like the one run by these photographers. But it’s also put the brakes on bigger initiatives, like a drone journalism project called African SkyCam. Its founder, Dickens Olewe, recently returned from a John S. Knight journalism fellowship at Stanford University. As part of that, he organized Silicon Valley’s first drone journalism conference. He has plenty of thoughts on how drone journalism could change the news landscape in Kenya, for example, giving journalists access to commercial drones to independently survey flood damage, separate from government-run surveys. Olewe has used drones in other ways too: creating interactive features with 3D models by stitching together hundreds of images taken with drones, and using the technology to explore live-casting virtual reality content. “We’ve done all that, but as I speak to you today, we are not doing anything,” he says. This, of course, is because of the ban — a ban that, by all accounts, was caused by a news drone that flew a little too close to the sun.

Radio story for PRI's The World's "Across Women's Lives" series: Sitawa Wafula had two strikes against her. But the Kenyan woman is making a huge difference for thousands in her nation in an area that receives scant attention: Mental health. Despite suffering from bipolar disorder and epilepsy herself, Wafula has been able to create a route to help others. According to the Africa Mental Health Foundation, there are only 79 working psychiatrists in the East African nation. That’s one for every 500,000 people. Short of training more, Wafula wanted to find a way to make mental health resources more widely available. In September 2014, Wafula launched an SMS-based helpline called “My Mind My Funk.” People can text in for free from any mobile network. General inquiries get an automated response, but desperate or suicidal messages are answered with a call from a licensed therapist. Wafula knows all too well what it’s like to have no one to turn to for help. She was diagnosed with epilepsy, a condition that's often stigmatized in Kenya, when she was a teenager. Then a sexual assault sent her into a downward spiral. “I got really, really depressed. I was suicidal. I didn’t have anyone to talk to tell what had happened to me,” Wafula says, speaking at her small, bare office in Ngong, a town on the outskirts of the capital city Nairobi. As she began learning how to manage her conditions, Wafula says she found an outlet and through it, a purpose.

I’m on a bumpy dirt road leading out of Tarime in rural, northern Tanzania. With me is local child rights activist Kambibi Kamugisha. As we leave the city behind, we notice small processions of people decked out with crowns and sashes. They're blowing whistles and dancing. It’s December, and for the Kurya people who live around here, that means it’s time for both boys and girls to be circumcised. Celebrations follow the procedure. The girls who have been cut walk slowly, shaded beneath colorful parasols, their faces painted white. I see people covered in leafy branches while others dance with machetes. It’s all very joyous — infectious, even. But for Kambibi, the celebrations are a reminder of what she’s up against. Tradition says these children are now officially ready for marriage. About 15 percent of Tanzanian women have been subjected to FGM, according to the country’s 2010 demographic survey. “You might be 14, but they regard you as someone who can take responsibility for a family,” Kambibi says. If female genital mutilation, or FGM as it’s known, is so inextricably linked to early marriage, then disrupting one practice could put a halt to the other. Which is why we’re headed to Masanga, a small village in the hills near Serengeti National Park. We pull into a yard where hundreds of young girls are running around, playing, or sprawled on the grass. The blue and white building looks like a typical school — and for most of the year, that’s what it is. But in December, when school is out, it becomes a safehouse.

I filmed breaking news footage for AFP, the world's third-largest news agency, in the wake of the terrorist attack on Kenya's Garissa University. "Kenyans in shock after Somalia's Shebab Islamists massacred 147 in a university in the country's northeast."

The families of the students killed by Islamist terrorists in last week's attack on Garissa University College didn't just lose their children. They lost their best hope for the future. "There was one young man, a 22-year-old named Gideon Kirui, and his whole village had raised the money for him to go to university," says Emily Johnson, a Nairobi-based reporter. Frances Ochode lost his son, James. James was Ochode's first-born son, Johnson says. He had hopes James would do better than him. James and Gideon were among the people, mostly students, who were gunned down last week by members of the Somali extremist group, Al-Shabaab. Gunmen from the terrorist group stormed the college early last Thursday morning, targeting Christian students while sparing the Muslims. The assault shocked the country. Today, hundreds marched in Nairobi to remember the victims. Johnson, who attended a separate vigil, says there were "hundreds of people planting crosses in the ground, putting up photos of the students, writing messages of hope and peace, lighting candles."

I filmed this breaking news footage for AFP, the world's third-largest wire service. "Thousands of Kenyans gather in the rain, in Nairobi's Uhuru Park, to watch the live broadcast of Pope Francis' papal mass. The mass at the University of Nairobi was the pope's first major public appearance and a highly-anticipated part of his three-day visit to Kenya."

I filmed and scripted this video news piece for AFP, the world's third-largest wire service. Kenyan climate refugees have been living in a village called "El Nino" ever since they were displaced by devastating mudslides during the El Ni-o rains of 1997. Another year of heavy El Ni-o rain is approaching, and these families are once again in the line of fire.

In Banda Aceh, a dozen young people are having a ukulele jam session beneath the lights of a basketball court. In Aceh's capital city, unmarried men and women aren't supposed to congregate after 9 p.m., but that hasn't stopped a few girls from joining in. Like the boys, they favor Chuck Taylors, patched jeans and band T-shirts. A guy named Taufik said they may call themselves punks, but they're not doing anything wrong. "We're not breaking Sharia by being punk. It's just how we dress. We're not whores, we're not gay, and we're not corruptors," Taufik said. Aceh is the only province in Indonesia governed by Sharia or Islamic law. Aceh's government adopted Sharia in 2005, shortly after gaining some political autonomy from Jakarta. Now some critics say the local government is going too far. Case in point is a police raid on a punk rock concert in Banda Aceh in late December. Authorities arrested 65 concertgoers. They shaved off the punks' hair and threw them into a pond for symbolic cleansing. Police held them for 10 days for "moral rehabilitation." Taufik now has stubble covering his head. So does Yudi – both were among the dozens who were shaved in the mass arrest. "The police punched us and stomped on us," Yudi said. "We were treated like animals. It hurt a lot because we didn't know what we did wrong."

The original story is no longer live so I've linked to my own portfolio site, where you can listen to the radio piece I reported. The results of Kiobel vs. Royal Dutch Petroleum could have major implications for other multinational corporations accused of complicity in human rights violations and for the victims who have been seeking justice. One of those cases centers on ExxonMobil, the world's largest private oil company and accounts of a handful of villagers in the Indonesian province of Aceh.

The radio program World Vision Report no longer exists so I've linked to the radio story where it's hosted on my own portfolio site. In January 2011, the people of southern Sudan voted in a referendum to split from the Arab Muslim north. One man did more than just vote. Simon Deng, a southern Sudanese who was kidnapped into slavery in the north as a child, walked from New York to Washington, D.C. and strode barefoot through the halls of Congress. His message was this: without American intervention, Sudan could soon return to full-blown civil war.