Continued…. Khalil's arrest was amongst the first in a series of arrests of pro-Palestine student activists. Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish PhD student at Tufts University, was detained by immigration authorities on 25 March. Yunseo Chung, a US permanent resident born in South Korea and a Columbia University student, was arrested on 5 March. More recently, on 14 April, another Colombia student and a permanent resident, Mohsen Madawi, who co-founded the Palestinian Student Union with Khalil, was also arrested. US agents reportedly lured Madawi into a citizenship interview, upon which he was detained. 

The Trump administration has said it has revoked hundreds of other students’ visas over what it calls their 'anti-semitic' stance, an umbrella term used to delegitimise those who denounce Israel’s military onslaught. So far, Israel may have k*lled at least 186,000 as of early July 2024, according to the Lancet medical journal.

Since World War II, Israel has been the largest recipient country of US aid.

Sources

https://www.uscis.gov/newsroom/news-releases/dhs-to-begin-screening-aliens-social-media-activity-for-antisemitism

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=854e49b0-9704-4bdc-831c-443b4d15aead

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/additional-measures-to-combat-anti-semitism/

https://apnews.com/article/mahmoud-khalil-columbia-university-trump-c60738368171289ae43177660def8d34

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/04/11/zjrk-a11.html

https://www.cfr.org/article/us-aid-israel-four-charts

https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/8369

https://www.tuftsdaily.com/article/2025/04/rumeysa-ozturk-describes-detainment-poor-conditions-at-ice-detention-center-in-declaration

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/24/nyregion/columbia-student-ice-suit-yunseo-chung.html

https://abcnews.go.com/US/columbia-university-associate-mahmoud-khalil-arrested-dhs/story?id=120800223

https://theintercept.com/2025/04/14/ice-columbia-student-mohsen-mahdawi-citizenship-interview/

MACKLEMORE DEFENDS DETAINED PALESTINIAN MAHMOUD KHALIL

On 22 March, rapper and activist Macklemore (@macklemore on Instagram) spoke out in support of the people of Palestine and Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia graduate, Syrian-born Palestinian activist and US permanent resident, who US authorities illegally arrested and detained over his pro-Palestine organising. The US State Department recently announced immigrants and those seeking visas would be rejected and deported for espousing supposed anti-Semitic viewpoints.

At an event called ‘Free Mahmoud!Free Palestine!’ at The People's Forum (@peoplesforumnyc on Instagram) in New York, the artist took listeners on a journey of what it was like for him, learning about the true history of Palestine, the systemic injustices and the fear of losing out on a livelihood for the possibility of being labelled 'anti-Semitic.’ However, he overcame that fear after he could no longer be silent in the face of Palestine’s oppression.

Continued……. It's been nearly 77 years after the 1948 Nakba, when Z*onist settler-colonial forces forced about 800,000 Palestinians off their land to establish the state of Israel. Between 1947 and 1949, Israel k*lled over 15,000 Palestinians through more than 70 massacres that destroyed 531 villages.

Many experts, including the UN, say Palestinians in Gaza live in the ‘world’s largest open-air prison.' Human-rights monitoring organisations have referred to Israel as an apartheid state, with Palestinians facing movement limitations, calorie and water restrictions, executions, arbitrary arrests, s*xual violence and other abuses. 

Macklemore reminded the world that the history of Palestine did not begin on 7 October 2023 and that US tax dollars that continue to fund Israel’s onslaught against Palestinians make those who choose to remain silent complicit in the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. 

Video credit: @btnewsroom (X)

Sources

https://peoplesforum.org/events/fight-for-our-rights-free-mahmoud/

https://www.globaljustice.org.uk/blog/2024/05/remembering-the-nakba-a-70-year-struggle-for-justice/

https://www.nrc.no/news/2018/april/gaza-the-worlds-largest-open-air-prison

https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-44124396

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2017/5/23/the-nakba-did-not-start-or-end-in-1948

https://www.asawinstanley.com/2010/10/our-dreams/

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190420-why-zionism-has-always-been-a-racist-ideology/

https://www.ejiltalk.org/beyond-discrimination-apartheid-is-a-colonial-project-and-zionism-is-a-form-of-racism/

https://www.fidh.org/en/region/north-africa-middle-east/israel-palestine/israeli-apartheid-the-legacy-of-the-ongoing-nakba-at-75

https://www.icj-cij.org/node/203447

https://www.cfr.org/article/us-aid-israel-four-charts

Continued….. https://agoa.info/news/article/16541-letting-a-trade-act-expire-won-t-fix-the-us-africa-trade-deficit.html

https://agoa.info/data/total-trade.html

https://www.cnbcafrica.com/2025/steep-us-tariffs-on-africa-signal-end-of-trade-deal-meant-to-boost-development/

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1222625/value-of-exports-from-africa-to-china/#:~:text=For%20instance%2C%20in%202000%2C%20African,only%204.9%20billion%20U.S.%20dollars.

https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/360deg-view-african-growth-and-opportunity-act-agoa

https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/business-tech/us-formally-removes-uganda-from-agoa--4480314

https://www.cgdev.org/blog/renewing-agoa-wont-do-much-africas-exports-heres-what-could
https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economic-issues-watch/renew-agoa-address-its-limitations

https://gfmag.com/economics-policy-regulation/africa-china-trade-debt-loans/
https://agoa.info/about-agoa/kb/article/16166-how-does-a-country-qualify-to-become-an-agoa-beneficiary-country.html

https://www.africanmining.co.za/2025/04/04/key-sa-mineral-exports-to-the-us-excluded-from-damaging-tariffs/

https://archive.uneca.org/publications/how-%E2%80%98agoa-20%E2%80%99-could-be-different

NO TIME TO DYE? INDIGO, GO, GOING FOR 500 YEARS!

Fashions come and go, but some stick around for hundreds of years. For over five centuries, people in the city of Kano have dyed cloth in open-air pits and sold it across the region. At Kofar Mata, dyers use a time-honoured procedure of mixing ash, potash, natural indigo and water - to create stunning indigenous patterns.

We travelled to northern Nigeria to witness the indigo-dye tradition of the people of Kofar Mata first hand. And to bag ourselves a few designs!

Hear Us Roar: https://news.1rj.ru/str/AfricanStream

MUGABE OWNS UK JOURNO

45 years ago on this day, Zimbabwe became an independent state - ending decades of British settler-colonialism.

Independence came after a bitter and protracted armed struggle, waged against the racist regime of Ian Smith by two liberation movements: the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) and the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU).

In December 1979, the warring parties signed the Lancaster House Agreement, which paved the way for the country’s first democratic elections. ZANU’s Robert Mugabe won those, and officially became the country’s first post-independence leader on 18th April, 1980.

To commemorate that momentous occasion, here’s a flashback to when Mugabe put a condescending British journalist in his place. At an African Union summit held in Egypt’s Sharm El Sheikh resort in 2008, the ITN correspondent tried to get a reaction out the Zimbabwean president. Mugabe did not hold back.

Which of today’s African leaders do you think are equally ‘no nonsense’?

A South African court has ruled that two apartheid-era police officers can be prosecuted for crimes against humanity. They are suspected of the 1982 murders of three young anti-apartheid activists and the attempted murder of a fourth.

The two men, Christiaan Rorich and Tlhomedi Mfalapitsa, had argued that it was too late, as the Criminal Procedure Act states that offences can only be prosecuted within 20 years of being committed. But the court ruled that there is no expiration date for prosecuting crimes against humanity.

Rorich and Mfalapitsa were allegedly part of an apartheid-era death squad (whose other members are deceased) that, on 15 February 1982, lured Eustice Madikela, Peter Matabane, Fanyana Nhlapo and Zandisile Musi to a water-pumping station rigged with explosives.

Continued……As well as secretly working for the police, Mfalapitsa was a member of the African National Congress’ military wing. The students were told he would help them leave the country to undergo military training in exile.

Once they arrived at the pump house, he is said to have left the students alone in the building under the pretext that he was going to bring additional training gear. Once outside, Rorich and the now-deceased Jan Coetzee allegedly detonated the explosives, killing three of the students and seriously wounding the fourth.

The incident was made to appear as if the students had blown themselves up while training to use explosives.

Hear Us Roar: https://news.1rj.ru/str/AfricanStream

SHUT THE MINES AND CONGO CAN FEED AFRICA

When we talk about the Congo’s resources, we tend first to think of its mineral wealth - worth an estimated $24 trillion. But as the ongoing conflict (aided and abetted by outside actors) in the east of the country shows, this wealth has brought more war than welfare for the Congolese people, who, in addition to suffering the ravages of a minerals war, work for a pittance in dangerous conditions in mines controlled by exploitative multinationals who are reaping all the profits. Yet Congo’s riches extend far beyond its mines. As Maurice Carney from Friends of the Congo argues, even if we shut all of DRC’s mines, the country is still extremely rich - for example, it has enough agricultural capacity, he claims, to feed the entire continent twice over.

Continued……Congo has everything it needs to flourish and, as the heart of Africa, to help our continent unite and prosper. But Congo’s wealth is not allowed to serve its people. Unfortunately, a system of imperialist plunder, enabled by corrupt elites and the legacy of colonialism, are ensuring it - and with it Africa - continues to bleed.

Credit: @praywithourfeet

Sources

https://discoveryalert.com.au/news-article/natural-resources-democratic-republic-congo-2025/


https://wrsc.org/story/how-drcs-inga-project-could-solve-much-africas-power-problems

https://data.worldbank.org/country/congo-dem-rep

https://worldhistoryedu.com/atrocities-committed-in-the-congo-free-state-under-king-leopold-ii/

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/20/world/africa/m23-goma-congo-rwanda.html

ARE PALESTINIANS UNREASONABLE?

For nearly 77 years, Western governments and media have helped justify Israel’s occupation of Palestine, often blaming Palestinians themselves for supposedly rejecting peace.

Listen to US comedian Dave Smith dismantle the argument while speaking in 2024 to environmental lawyer Robert F Kennedy Jr (@robertfkennedyjr on IG, @RobertKennedyJr on X), who later became US President Donald Trump's Health and Human Services Secretary. Kennedy has long defended Israel, a point of contention for people who had looked to him as a progressive candidate in the 2024 US presidential election.

Smith criticised Kennedy’s argument that Arab states refused to recognise Israel, saying Kennedy left out the root causes.

Continued……. For example, the UN's 1947 partition plan allocated 56 per cent of the land to the Jewish population despite their demographic and land ownership minority, arguing that Palestinian resistance was a legitimate rejection of ethnic cleansing, land theft and settler-colonial expansion beyond UN-assigned borders. Then, Z*onist forces expelled Palestinians before the official 1948 war, leading to displacement of 57 per cent of Palestinians, or more than 800,000 out of 1.4 million people. Israel continues to justify k*lling defenceless civilians, including saying everyone in Gaza supports H*mas.

This context remains relevant given Israel’s military onslaught had k*lled more than 186,000 Palestinians between 7 October 2023 and early July 2024, according to the Lancet medical journal. In January 2024, the International Court of Justice provisionally ruled that Israel’s action could plausibly amount to g*nocide. 

Video credit: Dave Smith (@comicdavesmith on X, @theproblemdavesmith on IG)

Sources

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/middle_east/israel_and_the_palestinians/key_documents/1681322.stm

https://arabcenterdc.org/resource/the-dangers-of-arab-normalization-with-israel/

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/5/15/the-nakba-five-palestinian-towns-massacred-75-years-ago

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/nakba-palestine-catastrophe-explained

https://www.npr.org/2024/01/26/1227078791/icj-israel-genocide-gaza-palestinians-south-africa

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/7/8/gaza-toll-could-exceed-186000-lancet-study-says

https://www.pcbs.gov.ps/portals/_pcbs/pressrelease/press_en_nakba65e.pdf

https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-206581

FRENCH ‘CHARITY’ - KIDNAP OR CHILD RESCUE?

In 2007, a French charity called L'Arche de Zoé claimed it was rescuing orphans from the war-torn Darfur region. Its mission, it said, was urgent and compassionate: to save children who had lost everything. Here's the story of how that charity, in reality, was trying to abduct African children and give them up for adoption to Europeans.

Hear Us Roar: https://news.1rj.ru/str/AfricanStream

TRADING PLACES: AFRICA’S CHINA PIVOT

Trump may have paused his tariff hikes, but when they are unleashed, African countries look set to be among the hardest hit. South Africa is bracing for 30%, Botswana for 37%, Madagascar 47%, and Lesotho - 50%. However, looking at trade flows over the last two decades, our continent is clearly reorientating away from the US and towards China.

The US was the main trading partner for 37 African countries in 2003. By 2023, almost all of Africa (52 nations, up from 18 in 2003) had China as its top trade partner.

Total trade between China and Africa hit $292 billion in 2024 compared with less than $80 billion for the US. The China-Africa figure is likely to increase further after Beijing announced duty-free access to the Chinese market for 33 African countries.

Continued…….. China-Africa ties are driven by mutual self-interest. With Africa in need of Chinese expertise in fields such as infrastructure development, and the Chinese being a major consumer of African resources such as oil, Beijing’s entry to Africa provided an alternative to Western finance’s exploitative approach to the continent: decades of debt accumulation with little to show, versus 100,000 km of roads and over 10,000 km of railways constructed over the past 25 years.

The bigger story, however, is the failure of African governments to boost intra-African trade, which stood at 16% of total Africa trade in 2023. In contrast, intra-EU trade stood at 70% and intra-Asian trade at 60%. The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), despite being signed in 2018, hasn’t seen much progress.

Sources

https://carnegieendowment.org/carnegie-africa-program-newsletter/should-africa-brace-for-trumps-tariffs?lang=en

https://carnegieendowment.org/carnegie-africa-program-newsletter/should-africa-brace-for-trumps-tariffs?lang=en

https://mcbgroup.com/think/post/trade-report-2025-intra-trade

https://www.law.georgetown.edu/international-law-journal/wp-content/uploads/sites/21/2020/11/THE-AFRICAN-CONTINENTAL-FREE-TRADE-AREA.-TOWARD-A-NEW-LEGAL-MODEL-FOR-TRADE-AND-DEVELOPMENT.pdf

https://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/international/214270-american-and-chinese-trade-with-africa-rhetoric-vs-reality/

TRUMP NOT SORRY FOR WANTING INNOCENT BLACK TEENS DEAD

On this day, 36 years ago, a group of teenagers were hanging out in New York’s Central Park. On the same day, a 28-year-old woman, Trisha Meili, was jogging in the park. She was later found beaten and r*ped, and was in a coma for 12 days.

Thus came about the case of the Central Park 5, a group of Black and Hispanic teenagers falsely accused and jailed for sexual assault. It illustrates how the odds are stacked against our people as they struggle against injustice and oppression in the United States. None other than future US president Donald Trump would seek to subvert the justice system against them.

The businessman-cum-politician is known for his controversial statements, and Africans, in particular, have been on the receiving end of some of Trump’s most derogatory vitriol - for example, his branding Haiti and African nations’ sh*thole countries.’