Award-winning Nigerian singer Adekunle Gold rose to international fame when his debut album “Gold” reached number seven on the Billboard World Charts. Since then, the 37-year-old has released four more albums, amassing hundreds of millions of streams worldwide.

Behind the scenes, however, he has been quietly battling sickle cell disease, an inherited blood disorder that leads to abnormally shaped red blood cells, causing severe pain, anemia, and potentially life-threatening complications. It affects children who inherit two copies of the sickle cell gene, one from each parent.

The disease is most prevalent in Africa, which accounts for 66% of cases worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. Nigeria bears the highest burden, where as many as 150,000 babies are born with sickle cell disease annually – the most of any country.

Adekunle Gold first wrote of his woes with sickle cell disease in 2022 in his song “5 Star.” Now, he is readying himself for a long-term commitment to advocacy, announcing the establishment of the Adekunle Gold Foundation, which will focus on addressing the needs of children battling sickle cell disease on the African continent.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

Larry Madowo: Why are you speaking up about sickle cell disease now and especially being very aggressive about this awareness?

Adekunle Gold: I just really got the courage to come out and speak about it. You know, a lot of people can’t share their stories like I can. I was writing the song “5 Star” and reflecting on my life, the journey, and how I’m a miracle. I was reflecting on that song, and I thought, maybe it’s time to learn my voice. People are dying, people are going through it. People can’t afford basic things that they need to sustain their health, and if the international organizations are not doing anything about it, it’s time to force their hands to do it.

Larry Madowo: What challenges have you had to overcome while living with sickle cell?

Adekunle Gold: I constantly put myself in situations that made me sick as a child. For example, doing strenuous activities as a child that I was not supposed to do and there were always consequences, you know? But I always knew that I didn’t want this thing to define me. So, if it means that I need to exercise more, take my drugs, eat well, rest well, and take more water, then I need to do that always.

Larry Madowo: Are there any memorable things that you’ve come through during your advocacy work when people are not even aware of what they’re facing?

Adekunle Gold: Just speaking up about it on social, I realized that a lot of people are ignorant about it. This is something that I inherited, and you’re trolling me for it. So, you realize people don’t even know these things. I just need more people to be aware.

Larry Madowo: What are some of the barriers to receiving proper care for sickle cell patients in West Africa? In Nigeria?

Adekunle Gold: Listen, people don’t have money, bro. The last outreach I did people came to Lagos to take drugs, to check their BP (blood pressure), to check their children all the way from Ilorin [300 kilometers away from Lagos]. And I’m like, this is insane. We don’t have facilities where you can just be in your place.Other countries like the UK and Canada have policies for sickle cell. Where it affects us the most, we don’t have (accessible care). People can’t afford to buy folic acid and folic acid is the smallest of things that you should be able to get.

Larry Madowo: What do you hope to achieve by adding your voice to this, by speaking up publicly?

Adekunle Gold: I want everybody to, first of all, be aware of it and know how to treat people that have it.  I also want people to understand that it is important to check your genotype.

Larry Madowo: You’re the embodiment that you can live with sickle cell and have a full, healthy, and powerful life. Will you keep talking about this in your music and your public appearances with your shows?

Adekunle Gold: I started the foundation, so you know it’s real. It’s game time from now on. So, I am constantly learning my voice, constantly doing outreach, and constantly fighting for it. I want the international community to pay attention just like they do to other diseases. Sickle cell is a big one. It affects my people the most, and I want the world to do something about it.

Watch Larry Madowo’s full interview with Adekunle Gold on African Voices Changemakers.

Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar has written a rare letter to Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, according to the Lebanese militant group, in which he reaffirms his commitment to fighting Israel and supporting the Iran-backed alliance of regional militants known as the “Axis of Resistance.”

Sinwar, Hamas’ political leader who is believed to be hiding underground in Gaza, told Nasrallah that the group is committed to the path of resistance taken by his slain predecessor Ismail Haniyeh and to the “unity of the Ummah (Islamic nation), at the heart of which is the Axis of Resistance, in the face of the Zionist project.”

The letter, shared by Hezbollah’s Telegram channel, was written to show gratitude for Hezbollah’s ongoing fight against Israel, which began on October 8, just a day after Hamas-led militants attacked Israel that triggered a devastating Israeli assault on Gaza.

Sinwar was named political leader of Hamas after Haniyeh was assassinated in the Iranian capital Tehran in July. He is seen as more hardline than his predecessor in dealings with Israel and favors cooperation and closer ties with Iran and allied Islamist groups such as Hezbollah.

He vowed to continue defending Islamic holy sites, particularly Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa Mosque “until the expulsion and eradication of the occupation from our land, and the establishment of our independent state with full sovereignty and its capital Jerusalem.”

The October 7 attack, he said, was “one of the most honorable battles in the history of our Palestinian people.”

Hundreds of posters have appeared on billboards across Italy this summer, bearing the slogan: “Russia is not our enemy” and depicting a handshake in the colors of the Italian and Russian flags.

Some, including those that appeared in Rome this week, also feature the words, “Enough money for weapons for Ukraine and Israel. We want peace. We reject war.”

The posters, which first appeared in northern Italy in June and have been seen in Verona, Modena, Parma, Pisa and several cities in the southern region of Calabria, were paid for by associations that were formed to protest the country’s Covid-19 lockdowns, according to Sovranita Popolare, the group organizing the billboard campaign in Rome.

Ukraine’s embassy in Rome was unhappy about the development. “We are deeply concerned by the arrogance of Russian propaganda in the Eternal City,” it posted on X, adding: “We ask @comuneroma to reconsider granting permits for such posters that have a clear purpose of rehabilitating the image of the aggressor state.”

Official reaction to the posters has varied from region to region. In some places, the posters were removed by local officials, while in others they have been allowed to remain until the expiry of their payment.

In Rome, the posters drew ire from the mayor’s office because they featured both the city’s name and its official symbol. In a decree to local police and the advertising company that owns the billboards in Rome, it ordered the removal of all posters.

Group cites Italian constitution

On Friday, Sovranita Popolare posted a lengthy article on its website, taking responsibility for the campaign and quoting Article 11 of the Italian constitution, which reads: “Italy rejects war as an instrument of aggression against the freedom of other peoples and as a means for the settlement of international disputes.

“Italy agrees, on conditions of equality with other States, to the limitations of sovereignty that may be necessary to a world order ensuring peace and justice among the Nations. Italy promotes and encourages international organisations furthering such ends,” the constitution continues.

It goes on to say, “For two years, Italian warmongers have been fueling Russophobia, a feeling of hatred towards Russian people, culture and art.”

Officially, the Italian government under Giorgia Meloni backs the country’s continued military support to Ukraine, under a resolution agreed by the European Union. Meloni and Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, have met several times in Rome. Earlier this month, they met at the European House’s Ambrosetti Forum in Cernobbio, northern Italy.

But several members of Meloni’s ruling coalition have privately shown sympathy for Russia, including the late former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi – whose close friendship with Russian President Vladimir Putin was well documented – and her deputy prime minister and transport minister, Matteo Salvini, who was famously photographed wearing a Putin T-shirt in Moscow’s Red Square, before the war began.

A survey carried out in May for the European Council of Foreign Relations think tank showed that the majority of those polled in Italy, along with Greece and Bulgaria, opposed increasing aid to Ukraine.

The Russian propaganda posters have not caused notable outcry among the Italian public, in part because they started appearing during the summer months, when most Italians take their vacations.

Most of the comments on the Ukrainian embassy’s post on X argue that Italy should not be subject to censorship, and that free speech should be allowed.

A military court in Congo handed down death sentences Friday to 37 people, including three Americans, after convicting them on charges of taking part in a coup attempt.

The defendants, who also included a Briton, Belgian, Canadian and several Congolese, can appeal the verdict on charges that included terrorism, murder and criminal association. Fourteen people were acquitted in the trial, which opened in June.

Six people were killed during the botched coup attempt led by the little-known opposition figure Christian Malanga in May that targeted the presidential palace and a close ally of President Felix Tshisekedi. Malanga was fatally shot while resisting arrest soon after live-streaming the attack on his social media, the Congolese army said.

Malanga’s 21-year-old son Marcel Malanga, who is a US citizen, and two other Americans were convicted in the the attack. His mother, Brittney Sawyer, has said her son is innocent and was simply following his father, who considered himself president of a shadow government in exile.

The other Americans were Tyler Thompson Jr., who flew to Africa from Utah with the younger Malanga for what his family believed was a vacation, and Benjamin Reuben Zalman-Polun, 36, who is reported to have known Christian Malanga through a gold mining company.

The company was set up in Mozambique in 2022, according to an official journal published by Mozambique’s government, and a report by the Africa Intelligence newsletter.

Thompson’s family maintains he had no knowledge of the elder Malanga’s intentions, no plans for political activism and didn’t even plan to enter Congo. He and the Malangas were meant to travel only to South Africa and Eswatini, Thompson’s stepmother said.

The reading out of the verdict and sentencing before the open-air military court were broadcast live on television.

Last month, the military prosecutor, Lt. Col. Innocent Radjabu. called on the judges to sentence to death all of the defendants, except for one who suffers from “psychological problems.”

Earlier this year, Congo reinstated the death penalty, lifting a more than two-decade-old moratorium, as authorities struggle to curb violence and militant attacks in the country.

Sufyan Jaber Abed Jawwad, who worked as a sanitation worker in El Far’a Camp in the West Bank, “was shot and killed on the roof of his home by a sniper during an overnight Israeli military operation in the early morning of September 12,” the United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) said in a statement.

But the Israeli military has accused Jawwad and the others killed of being “terrorists.”

Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), confirmed Friday that Jawwad was killed in an operation in the West Bank’s Far’a area and alleged that he was “hurling explosive devices that posed a threat to the forces operating in the area.”

“IDF troops opened fire toward him to remove said threat, and he was killed,” Shoshani said. He added that Jawwad was “known to Israeli security forces and he had been complicit in additional terrorist activities.”

The IDF said in an earlier statement on Friday that its troops had located and dismantled “a vehicle rigged with explosives, explosives laboratories, operational communications rooms, and weapons” during the operation that killed Jawwad.

Jawwad – the first UNRWA staffer to be killed in the West Bank in more than 10 years – is survived by his wife and five children, according to UNRWA.

In Gaza, at least 220 staff have been killed since October 7, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said in a post on X on Wednesday.

Jordan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned Jawwad’s killing in a statement on Friday, calling it “a heinous crime.”

The IDF has voiced distrust of some UNRWA staffers before. In January, it accused several UNRWA members in Gaza of direct involvement in the Hamas-led October 7 terror attack on Israel. A UN investigation in August found that nine UNRWA employees “may have” been involved in the October 7 attack and no longer work at the agency.

The other people killed in the Israeli operation over the past 48 hours were killed in the areas of Tulkarem, Nur Shams and Tubas, according to the IDF.

Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of Islamic Jihad, said the five killed in Tubas were members of the Tubas Battalion in the West Bank who were “preparing ambushes and explosive devices against” Israeli forces.

Operations in the West Bank

The death comes amid increasing Israeli military action in the West Bank.

Recent Israeli operations have had a heavy impact on humanitarian resources in the area, leaving the refugee camps of El Far’a, Tulkarem, Nur Shams and Jenin “especially affected” and destroying basic infrastructure including water and electricity, UNWRA said.

The agency said it had been forced to suspend its services to refugees in the area because of the “unacceptable risk” posed to both staffers and aid recipients by Israeli and Palestinian groups, including the danger posed by “improvised explosive devices by Palestinian armed actors.”

Earlier this week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called for “fundamental changes” to the way Israeli forces operate in the occupied West Bank after the killing of American activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi at a protest last week.

The sharply worded rebuke came after the IDF said on Tuesday that it was “highly likely” that Eygi was “hit indirectly and unintentionally by IDF fire.”

Nearly 700 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since October, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah and the UN. The figures do not distinguish between militants and civilians.

Rainbow flags rippled in the wind as gay and lesbian couples walked hand in hand down a makeshift aisle in Bangkok’s busy Siam shopping district.

Thailand’s Senate had just passed a marriage equality bill, and the local LGBTQ+ community was in the mood to celebrate.

While the ceremonies were symbolic enactments of same-sex weddings, the real thing could be just around the corner.

“Now I can freely say that I am gay,” said Pokpong, who can’t wait to marry his partner Watit Benjamonkolchai.

The law, passed in June, still requires the thumbs-up from the king, but that is expected soon, clearing the way for Thailand to become the first jurisdiction in Southeast Asia to legalize same-sex marriage, and Asia’s third after Taiwan in 2019 and Nepal last year.

But the recent flurry of progress for marriage equality in Asia could stop there, with no other government in the region looking likely to follow suit anytime soon.

The winning formula

More than 30 jurisdictions worldwide now recognize same-sex marriage, according to the Pew Research Center. Since the first same-sex marriage law was passed in the Netherlands in 2001, progress has been made mostly in Europe, the Americas and Australasia.

Just across Thailand’s borders, homosexuality is illegal in Myanmar and Malaysia. Bans also exist in Sri Lanka, Brunei, Bangladesh and Indonesia’s ultraconservative province of Aceh. Maximum penalties range from lengthy jail terms to caning, according to the Human Dignity Trust, a United Kingdom-based body that supports strategic litigation worldwide against laws prejudicing the LGBTQ+ community.

“Despite some historic wins in the region… the human rights of LGBTI people across Asia continue to be denied,” said Nadia Rahman, policy advisor at Amnesty International’s Global Gender, Racial Justice, Refugees and Migrants Rights Programme. She added that people from these communities face “criminalization, threats of arrest, discrimination, digital surveillance, harassment, online abuse, stigma and violence.”

While liberalization in Thailand, Nepal and Taiwan was propelled by those places’ unique cultures and socio-political circumstances, scholars and activists said, most other Asian governments are held back by conservative social attitudes, influential religious groups and the lack of robust democratic systems.

Campaigners and academics in Asia say Nepal has long had a liberal judiciary willing to side with the LGBTQ+ community, while its deeply embedded culture of third-gender “hijras” laid the groundwork for liberal changes. In Thailand and Taiwan, many attribute progress to a combination of democratic development and a robust civil society.

Assistant professor Kangwan Fongkaew, who researches LGBTQ+ issues at Burapha University, said despite political instability in recent decades, Thailand’s political system was functional enough to channel popular demands into legislation.

“The majority of people in Thailand want marriage equality,” Kangwan said. “And now it’s time for Thailand to have that,” he added, calling it “the victory of the people.”

Unlike in mainland China – where LGBTQ+ activism is taboo and can draw backlash from authorities – the movement has thrived in Taiwan. Campaigner Jennifer Lu, director of gay rights advocacy Outright International in Taiwan, noted the importance of the island’s functional democratic system in the process of liberalization.

“This kind of democratic practice really creates the foundation of this progressive vibe,” Lu said.

Acceptance of non-traditional gender identities has grown stronger since. In May, Taiwan’s then President Tsai Ing-wen invited homegrown drag queen Nymphia Wind to perform at the Presidential Office to celebrate her win on hit TV talent show “RuPaul’s Drag Race.”

Asia’s next best bets

While other Asian jurisdictions have the potential to be the fourth to allow LGBTQ+ couples to marry, according to experts, they are not convinced changes will come anytime soon.

India is also a democracy, and – like neighboring Nepal – has laws protecting transgender people, so is a legitimate contender. But campaigners there say authorities are lukewarm on the need for change.

Activist Anish Gawande, who co-founded Pink List India, a group tracking politicians’ stance on LGBTQ+ issues, said understanding for sexual minorities is growing in the world’s most populous nation. He has recently been appointed the first openly gay national spokesman of a political party. But he said the government refuses to do more than it needs to please the international community.

LGBTQ+ activists petitioned India’s highest court for the right to marry, only to be told it should be decided by the government.

The government, run by India’s third term Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has set up a committee to look into the issue, but without any notable outcome, Gawande said, adding that with neither New Delhi nor the courts taking the lead on the issue there was “a stalemate for LGBTQ+ rights in the country.”

Japan – the only G7 country that does not recognize same-sex relationships – has seen piecemeal victories for LGBTQ+ rights through multiple court cases and at the prefecture level.

In early July, Hiroshima’s high court approved a trans woman’s request to alter her birth gender status without undergoing gender-affirming surgery. And some local governments, including Tokyo, have issued certificates to honor de facto same-sex relationships for administrative purposes, such as housing subsidies.

But on the national level, Japan does not recognize same-sex marriage and local courts have returned conflicting verdicts on the issue.

Polls suggest popular backing. Up to 68% of Japan’s adults support same-sex marriage, the highest share in Asia, according to the Pew Research Center. But in a country where the government takes pride in traditional values, change can be slow.

And in neighboring South Korea, traditionally conservative views on sexuality persist.

Scuffles broke out last year in the city of Daegu as local officials led by the mayor clashed with police during a protest against an LGBTQ festival. Organizers of the flagship Seoul Queer Culture Festival also lost their venue last year to a Christian youth concert.

There have been some progressive successes, however. The country’s Supreme Court ruled last month that same-sex partners should be entitled to spousal benefits from national health insurance.

Professor Andrew Kim, from Korea University’s College of International Studies, said religious groups are influential in the country. “The missionaries who came to Korea from the US … they are largely conservative protestant missionaries,” he said.

Uncertainties in the region

One argument for legalizing same-sex marriage is the economic advantages of doing so, especially if neighboring economies aren’t.

Multinational companies need to move their staff around – including those who aren’t heterosexual – and have been lobbying for changes in financial hubs such as Singapore and Hong Kong, which would both like to attract and retain major company HQs.

“If you’re a country that welcomes these high-tech companies with very liberal policies, yet the rest of the society is repressive, like Singapore for example, where same-sex partners cannot get visas, the governments will have to think about how it manages these things,” said Shawna Tang, senior gender studies lecturer at the University of Sydney.

But even in the face of such pressure, neither Hong Kong’s nor Singapore’s government seems particularly keen to liberalize.

Singapore’s parliament decriminalized sex between men in 2022, but amended the constitution to effectively block court challenges that could lead to same-sex marriage.

In Hong Kong, the Court of Final Appeal ordered the city’s government last September to create a legal framework to recognize the rights of same-sex couples. But months have lapsed, and the government has not yet responded.

The court also stopped short of granting same-sex marriage, meaning this could be as far as the efforts get. And with Beijing tightening its grip on the city in recent years, activists said, the political space needed to facilitate change is shrinking.

Professor Peter Newman, from the University of Toronto’s Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, said while things are improving in Asia, progress has been “extremely uneven.”

“In at least six Asian countries, same-sex intimacy and relationships remain criminalized, as well as the gender expression of transgender people, with punishments on the books from eight years and ’100 lashes’ in Indonesia and Malaysia, to life imprisonment in Bangladesh,” he said.

Even in places where same-sex marriage has been legalized, widespread challenges persist from school to workplace bullying to stigma in health care services, he said.

But Suen, from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said across Asia, public discussions have bloomed, and that Thailand’s move to legalize same-sex marriage was an encouraging sign.

“The outlook is positive, but it’s going to take a while,” Suen said.