ANOTHER PRO-PALESTINE COLUMBIA STUDENT ARRESTED

The unjust 14 April detention of Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian student at Columbia University who holds US permanent residency, comes amidst growing international condemnation of Israel’s military onslaught in Gaza.

While the US has never been pro-Palestine by any measure, government suppression of domestic dissent inside the United States has escalated in recent years. Now, the Trump administration has unleashed a new phase, whereby the government is attempting to codify into law punishment for denouncing what many human rights groups have called Israeli apartheid and what the International Court of Justice (ICJ) finds as ‘plausible’ gen*cide. In November 2024, the International Criminal Court (ICC) also issued arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his former minister of defence, Yoav Gallant.

Continued……Despite this, the US continues to back Israel by providing financial and military assistance, enabling the settler-colonial state’s almost 77-year occupation. Tel Aviv has received the most foreign funding from Washington since World War II. Plus, former US Secretary of State Alexander Haig (1924-2010) referred to Israel as ‘the largest American aircraft carrier in the world that cannot be sunk, does not carry even one American soldier, and is located in a critical region for American national security.’ 

Video credits: @chrishelali (X), @mohsen.of.palestine (IG), @vtforpalestine (IG), @jeffkrasno (IG), @thenation

Sources

https://x.com/ChrisHelali/status/1911816880559431899

https://abcnews.go.com/US/columbia-student-mohsen-mahdawi-arrested-ice-naturalization-interview/story?id=120829883

https://apnews.com/article/columbia-university-mahmoud-khalil-ice-15014bcbb921f21a9f704d5acdcae7a8

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

https://runnermag.ca/2015/03/israel-is-americas-aircraft-carrier-in-the-middle-east

On 22 April 2025, representatives from across the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) gathered together in Accra, Ghana to celebrate the 50th anniversary of their organisation’s founding. However, despite Ghanaian President John Mahama’s invitation, Alliance of Sahel States (AES) members Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger were noticeably absent from the reunion. The three countries completed their withdrawal from ECOWAS on 29 January 2025 after announcing their plans to exit the bloc one year prior.

President Mahama, who recently completed a tour of the three AES countries promising to serve as a bridge between the two blocs, referred to the AES-ECOWAS split as “a regrettable development” during the 50th Anniversary event. Other ECOWAS leaders, including Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara and Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye, have previously expressed a desire for the revolutionary Sahel trio to return to their bloc.

Continued……On 1 February 2024, Burkinabe President Ibrahim Traoré stated, “We are leaving [ECOWAS], but we remain pan-African. Anyone, any African who wants to come to Burkina, is welcome to do so.”

Similarly, upon Senegalese President Faye’s plea that the three countries reintegrate into ECOWAS, Niger’s Prime Minister Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine stated, "I can't be too provocative, but I want to ask ECOWAS to join the AES. There are ECOWAS countries that would probably want to join the AES because the culture of sovereignty and dignity of the continent exists within the AES."

Supporters of the AES see the bloc as being more self-determining, more pan-African and more critical of neo-colonialism than ECOWAS, which is widely seen as being overly under Western influence. When Niger’s Western-backed government was overthrown in 2023, ECOWAS threatened military intervention, yet remained silent on France’s continued control of uranium contracts and economic levers in Niamey. All three AES member countries broke their military ties to France prior to forming their confederation. They say that the ultimate objective of their confederation is to form a unified pan-African federal state.

Which club would you rather belong to?

Sources

https://www.capmad.com/diplomacy-en/50-years-of-ecowas-ghana-reaches-out-to-the-aes/

https://amaniafrica-et.org/the-withdrawal-of-aes-from-ecowas-an-opportunity-for-re-evaluating-existing-instruments-for-regional-integration/

https://dailytrust.com/ghanas-mahama-initiates-diplomatic-bid-to-reintegrate-aes-bloc-into-ecowas/#google_vignette

https://www.sidwaya.info/capitaine-ibrahim-traore-president-de-la-transition-nous-quittons-la-cedeao-mais-nous-restons-panafricains/

https://en.sputniknews.africa/20240530/niger-invites-ecowas-countries-to-join-alliance-of-sahel-states-1066799471.html

ISRAELI FORCES BLOCK PALESTINIAN CHRISTIANS DURING EASTER

Palestinian Christians marked Easter under a cloud of sorrow and fear as Israeli forces set up checkpoints in Jerusalem’s Old City for the Easter weekend while preventing many of the West Bank's 45,000 Palestinian Christians from attending Easter services. 

Reports indicate that Israeli police blocked worshippers and clergy attempting to access holy sites.

The International Court of Justice issued a non-binding advisory opinion in July 2024 ruling Israel's occupation of East Jeruselem and the West Bank as 'unlawful.'

Continued………This comes as Israel's military onslaught that began on 7 October 2023 continues in the besieged enclave of Gaza. As of early February, the Gaza Health Ministry reported that Israel’s military campaign had k*lled at least 61,000 Palestinians, most of whom were women and children. However, as of July 2024, the British medical journal The Lancet projected the actual death toll could exceed 186,000.

Video credit: @AlasimaN (X)

Sources

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/4/20/palestinians-in-gaza-west-bank-mark-sorrowful-easter-amid-israeli-attacks#:~:text=Israeli%20authorities%20prevented%20many%20Christians,Sepulchre%20in%20occupied%20East%20Jerusalem

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/4/18/deadly-sombre-good-friday-as-50-people-killed-in-israeli-attacks-on-gaza?traffic_source=KeepReading

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

https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-195301

https://www.aljazeera.com/program/quotable/2025/2/3/qt-mohamad-elmasry-030225

https://embraceme.org/christians-in-israel-palestine

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3/29/palestinians-barred-from-celebrating-easter-in-jerusalems-old-city

https://www.licas.news/2025/04/21/israel-faces-criticism-after-vatican-diplomat-barred-from-sacred-easter-event

https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-195301/https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-44124396

https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-195301/https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-44124396

SUDANESE REFUGEES REBUILDING LIVES ‘BRICK BY BRICK’

Millions of Sudanese have fled their home country to escape the devastating proxy war being fought there and the massive humanitarian crisis it’s created. Many have ended up in Chad, where work and food rations are scarce. In our video, we look at how even Sudanese children who fled are turning to physically demanding, underpaid work to survive.

Continued……. The humanitarian crisis in Sudan is the worst globally. According to the International Organization of Migration, 11-million people have been internally displaced - with 4 million seeking refuge abroad. The country is in the grip of a hunger emergency, with 25-million people facing acute food insecurity according to the UN. The ongoing proxy war is thought to have killed tens if not hundreds of thousands of people, though with the destruction of the health system, the real number is impossible to determine. In May 2024, US envoy for Sudan Tom Periello suggested 150,000 had already died.

Video credit: @BSonblast on X

Sources

https://x.com/BSonblast/status/1914800081892729190

https://www.voaafrica.com/a/sudanese-refugees-in-chad-suffer-from-shortage-of-rations-shelter/7569470.html

https://www.voaafrica.com/a/sudanese-refugees-in-chad-suffer-from-shortage-of-rations-shelter/7569470.html

https://crisisresponse.iom.int/response/chad-crisis-response-plan-2025-2026

https://www.npr.org/sections/goats-and-soda/2024/11/12/g-s1-31046/refugees-teenagers-sexual-assault-sudan-chad

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/mar/22/sudan-chad-darfur-refugees-aid-europe-rsf-masalit

https://operationbrokensilence.org/blog/us-senate-foreign-relations-committee-hearing-on-sudan-may-2024

https://dtm.iom.int/reports/two-years-conflict-sudan-visualizing-worlds-largest-displacement-crisis

https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/12/1158511

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewelinaochab/2025/04/19/sudanthe-biggest-humanitarian-crisis-in-the-world-today/

YALE PULLS PLUG ON PRO-PALESTINE STUDENT GROUP

On one side, someone who advocates for the ethnic cleansing of a group of people and for the bombing of food and aid depots visits a university. On the other, a group of people protested his presence. Who do you punish? If you’re one of the most prestigious institutions of higher education in the US, it’s apparently the latter.

Yale University has announced it had withdrawn Students for Justice in Palestine’s campus chapter’s (@Yalies4Palestine on IG) status as a registered student group for organising a tent encampment on 22 April against the visit of Israeli far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir. The university said the tent encampment violated Yale’s policies on using outdoor spaces and added that it was investigating alleged anti-Semitic conduct.

Continued……The attacks on Palestine solidarity at US universities continue a battle for the right to free speech and assembly that has escalated since Israel’s military onslaught began on 7 October 2023 in Gaza. US President Donald Trump’s administration has sought to deport non-citizen pro-Palestine university protesters who have a legal right to live in the US, and his administration has frozen or threatened to freeze federal funding for several top educational institutions if they do not agree to a series of policy changes. Before Trump, the Biden administration sat back as universities called police on student protesters in early 2024 and the administration’s FBI collaborated with universities, law enforcement leaders and Israel supporters in the summer of 2024—according to @mondoweiss—to further clamp down on student dissent in late 2024.

In 2007, a Jerusalem court convicted Ben-Gvir for inciting r*cism and supporting t*rrorism. His recent post on X says US Republican Party legislators supported his idea for Israel to bomb food and aid depots in Gaza. Lancet medical journal figures in July 2024 estimated Gaza’s death toll could exceed 186,000.

Post credits: @assalrad (X) / @prem_thakker (X)

Sources
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/4/24/deepest-contradictions-yale-bans-pro-palestine-group-amid-ben-gvir-visit

https://news.yale.edu/2025/04/23/yale-maintains-calm-campus-and-takes-disciplinary-action

https://mondoweiss.net/2024/09/u-s-universities-spent-the-summer-strategizing-to-suppress-student-activism-here-is-their-plan

https://www.timesofisrael.com/high-court-rejects-petition-to-disqualify-far-right-ben-gvir-as-a-minister

https://x.com/itamarbengvir/status/1914922576033337481

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)01169-3/fulltext

S. AFRICA OPPOSITION PARTIES PROTEST ZELENSKY VISIT

Rainy weather was not enough to stop South African political opposition members from protesting the visit of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on 24 April.

Economic Freedom Fighters (@effsouthafrica) and uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party (@MkhontoweSizwex on X, @mkhontowesizweofficial on IG) gathered outside the Union Buildings, the office of the South African president in the capital, Pretoria, where a meeting took place between the Ukrainian leader and his host, President Cyril Ramaphosa.

Continued……. They carried placards denouncing Ramaphosa for hosting Zelensky, who they accused of being a NATO puppet and an agent of imperialism.
The visit, Zelensky’s first to the country and the continent as president, has been controversial since Ramaphosa’s office announced it in February.

In early April, the South African Communist Party (SACP), a long-term ally of the ruling African National Congress (ANC), had called on Ramaphosa to cancel Zelensky’s invitation, describing it as ‘ill-considered.’ The party also warned that the visit risked putting South Africa on the ‘wrong side of history and the global class struggle.’

However, the government remains adamant that the visit was necessary in the search for a peaceful resolution to the Russia-Ukraine war.

Video credits: @PresidencyZA (X), @NatashaN_Phiri (X), @SABCnews (X), @ewnreporter

Sources

https://iol.co.za/news/politics/2025-04-24-ukrainian-president-zelensky-abruptly-ends-south-african-visit-as-russian-strikes-hammer-kyiv

https://iol.co.za/news/politics/2025-04-06-sacp-criticises-ukrainian-president-volodymyr-zelenskys-upcoming-state-visit-to-south-africa

https://x.com/SABCNews/status/1915628207715295574

https://x.com/ewnreporter/status/1915326554994774412?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1915326554994774412%7Ctwgr%5E6166011f9cce52f765f0b74aabfec8e5ad43e58e%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ewn.co.za%2F2025%2F04%2F24%2Fmk-party-members-protest-outside-union-buildings-against-zelenskys-sa-visit

https://www.rfi.fr/en/international-news/20250424-s-africa-welcomes-ukraine-s-leader-in-diplomatic-shift

https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/sa-has-not-compromised-its-neutral-stance-in-russia-ukraine-war-magwenya

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/africa/south-africa-remains-non-aligned-in-russia-ukraine-conflict-president/2898251

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2025-02-25-un-resolution-highlights-diplomatic-shift-as-south-africa-votes-for-ukraine-amid-us-retreat

https://dirco.gov.za/south-africa-participates-in-a-general-assembly-meeting-commemorating-the-third-anniversary-of-the-conflict-between-russia-and-ukraine

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2024-11-05-misinterpreting-non-alignment-south-africas-firm-stance-against-geopolitical-bias

https://apnews.com/article/united-states-south-africa-weapons-russia-ukraine-17e8a32a592e9372463c9e037496da0e

https://www.ewn.co.za/2025/04/06/govt-extending-invite-to-zelensky-was-ill-considered-says-sacp