FACES IN AFRICA

Africa is a continent full of beauty — not just in its landscapes, but in its people. We hit the streets of Nairobi and asked locals if we could take their portraits. These are just a few of the everyday faces we met for our Faces of Africa series — Nairobi edition. The dream was to do this in every capital city across our beloved continent. Who knows, maybe one day we still will.

DRC-US MINERAL DEAL EXPLAINED

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is offering the US exclusive access to its critical minerals. In return, Washington promises to help 'stabilise' eastern Congo. We sat down with two powerful voices, Kambale Musavuli (@kambalem on IG), political analyst at the Center for Research on the Congo-Kinshasa and Maurice Carney one of the co-founders of Friends of the Congo (congofriends on IG) to help unpack what this deal really means. They challenge the mainstream narrative and expose how US interests have long fueled the very instability they now claim to solve. Is this another neocolonial play cloaked in diplomacy?

Have a watch, and please let us know what you think.

POWELL AND LANGLEY: HIRED KILLERS

Colin Powell was a ‘hired killer.’

That was Kwame Ture’s (1941-1998) assessment of the first Black US Secretary of State, who famously helped manufacture consent for the US war in Iraq with a vial of powdered anthrax, later revealed to be fake.

Ture would have turned 84 today. Born on 29 June 1941 in Trinidad and Tobago, Ture moved to the US as an 11-year-old and later settled in the African country of Guinea.

In this 1991 clip, filmed during the first Gulf War (2 August 1990-28 February 1991), Ture argued that Powell (1937-2021) was an enemy of and traitor to Black people for accepting a high position in the US military, a key instrument of imperialism.

Powell oversaw the destruction of Iraq twice: In 1991, as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and in 2003, as Secretary of State when he used the vial of anthrax to claim Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.

Continued…….. In much the same vein, a Black US military commander, General Michael Langley, has painted a target for US imperialism on an anti-imperialist African leader: Burkina Faso President Ibrahim Traoré. Langley, whom US President Donald Trump is seeking to replace by nominating Air Force Lieutenant General Dagvin R.M. Anderson, alleged that Traoré is using Burkina Faso's gold reserves to protect a ‘junta regime’ at the people's expense. His comments sparked worldwide rallies in solidarity with Traoré and Burkina Faso’s revolutionary process, proving that our people are aware of the imperialists' nefarious plans for our motherland.

Just as revolutionary Malcolm X (1925-65) put it, 'They will pay one of us to kill one of us, just to say it was one of us'.

Video credit: Howard University TV (1991)

Sources

https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2021/10/20/as-a-patriot-and-black-man-colin-powell-embodied-the-two-ness-of-the-african-american-experience/

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/10/20/stop-being-polite-colin-powell-was-a-killer

https://www.todaysmilitary.com/education-training/rotc-programs

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/4/28/at-least-8-killed-in-latest-us-air-attacks-on-yemens-capital-saana

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/powell-mlk-freed-all-of-america/

https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/02/1146332

HOW WEST DESPISES AFRICAN
SOVEREIGNTY

In 2011, as NATO-led forces went in to topple pan-African Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, a group of African leaders made a last-ditch attempt at diplomacy. They proposed flying into Libya to negotiate an orderly change of leadership. Their goal: to prevent all-out war. But they were bluntly told by Western powers that their safety could not be guaranteed if they flew into Libyan airspace. These were African presidents in transit, refused passage through an African state, on their way to attempt to stop a war that would destabilise the continent for more than a decade.

Their efforts, however, were sidestepped. Foreign bombardments continued. Gaddafi was assassinated. Libya fell into chaos. Since then, there has not been a functioning central government for the nation. It has disintegrated into rival administrations, and human trafficking, arms dealing and militia rule have taken hold.

Continued…….
This incident is a case study in the marginalisation of African diplomacy and the dominance by external powers in African affairs. It poses uncomfortable questions: Who decides the future of African states? Why are solutions born of African minds so easily rejected? And what does it say about international systems of multilateralism?

The call today is not merely for representation but for influence. Africa must progress beyond asking for a place at the table and take one on the merit of its own political, strategic and economic power. Political, security and social frameworks must be claimed by the continent first. Africans must refuse to be shoved into alliances or roles for the benefit of others. The future is about Africa determining its path and being heard when it does.

VIDEO CREDITS: @RwandaTV (YT)

Sources

https://www.youtube.com/live/pJLG7I-0gtg?si=pQglqOzfvIX7MGx6

https://www.youtube.com/live/pJLG7I-0gtg?si=tysCzLNuEVynfZZm

https://www.tawergha.org/docs/libya-african-union-report-responsibility-to-protect-nov-2011-english.pdf

https://www.paulkagame.rw/president-kagame-reiterates-stand-on-foreign-intervention-in-libya-3/

https://au.int/sites/default/files/pressreleases/24509-pr-final_communiq_ad_hoc_cmtee_on_libya_-_pretoria_14_sept_1.pdf

Z*ONISM VS. JUDAISM: KWAME TURE'S MASTERCLASS

It is not uncommon for our audience to wonder why African Stream has advocated for Palestinians. As we honour the life of our great Pan-African ancestor, Kwame Ture, who was born on this day, 29 June 1941, we share this powerful 1995 clip where he speaks about how the Zionist ideology uses religion to further its imperial aims. 

Ture (1941-98), relayed that atheist Europeans conceived of the imperialist ideology of Z*onism. The last 20 months of Israel's onslaught on Palestinians have shown the world how violent Israel’s founding ideology is.

Just like Ture predicted in this clip, the world, particularly people in the US, are understanding that the their government has been supporting and funding a colonial project with their tax dollars for over seven decades. 

Continued…….
To him, any African who aided and abetted Zionism worked against the interests of Africa. Our forefathers understood that the oppression of all peoples across the world is interconnected and ultimately rooted in the same capitalist expansion. 

During Ture's time as the Honorary Prime Minister of the Black Panther Party, the FBI secretly identified him as the man who would succeed Malcolm X (1925-65) and began a targeted counter-intelligence campaign. Ture moved to Africa, where he lived in Ghana and then Guinea between 1968 and 1969. It was there that he changed his name from Stokely Standiford Churchill Carmichael to Kwame Ture in honour of Ghana’s first leader, Kwame Nkrumah (1909-72), and Guinea’s first president, Ahmed Sékou Touré (1922-84). He later founded the US chapter of the All-African People's Revolutionary Party. 

Happy birthday to one of the most influential figures of the 20th century!

Sources

https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/carmichael-stokely-kwame-ture-1941-1998/

https://mobile.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/Kwame-Ture-The-U-S-civil-rights-activist-who-changed-his-name-to-honor-Kwame-Nkrumah-and-Sekou-Toure-1742279

https://thedig.howard.edu/featured-people/kwame-ture

https://www.archives.gov/research/african-americans/individuals/stokely-carmichael

https://www.biography.com/activists/stokely-carmichael

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Stokely-Carmichael

AFRICA NEEDS OWNERSHIP OF ITS ECONOMY

Zimbabwe-born public speaker Joshua Maponga explains where true power lies: The economy. Without control of it, it would be misguided to claim sovereignty. An apt example of this would be South Africa, which, despite formally declaring independence in 1994 from white-minority rule, its economy is still in the hands of a small white elite. 

He also poses the question of what happens the day after a revolution in the face of increasing African awareness of the global systems of subjugation. That requires a plan, organisation, and ideological clarity, not just running on vibes. Building a state, after all, is a monumental task.

Do you agree with him? Let us know in the comments. 

Video Credit: Wake Up Blaq (YouTube) @wakeupblaq_ on TikTok

Sources
https://theconversation.com/white-people-in-south-africa-still-hold-the-lions-share-of-all-forms-of-capital-75510