“My life? I don’t have one. Explosions, blast walls blocking the ways, no services. And because of all this my business has stopped.” –Firas Younis, an Iraqi retail store owner in Mosul, Iraq “They’…

He recalls the popular challenge now underway against Omar al-Bashir’s rule in Sudan; the deaths of Kofi Annan, the first African secretary General of UN, and Winnie Mandela, a flawed leader of the South African liberation movement; the highly positive emergence of the reform-minded Abiy Ahmed, the Ethiopian prime minister; and the international attention to Congolese surgeon Denis Mukwege, who won a Nobel Peace prize for his work with rape victims.

Andrew Mlangeni was the last living defendant of the 1963 Rivonia trial, which resulted in the sentencing of Andrew and ten others, among them, Ahmed Kathrada, Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki and, most famously, Nelson Mandela.

While the Nairobi agreement offers hope for a resolution to Ethiopia’s Tigray conflict, uncertainties remain, and the damage done will reshape U.S.-Ethiopia relations.