Continued……. In this 2024 report, African Stream's Kenneth Kaigua delves into the jaw-dropping prices the US paid for subpar goods. He also pulls back the curtain on the revolving door that links politicians with arms manufacturers.

Washington's 2025 $848.3 billion defence budget dwarfs the combined spending of the next 10 biggest country budgets. 

Maybe it's high time we rebranded the US military headquarters as the Penta-con!

Sources

https://pulitzercenter.org/stories/exclusive-inside-secret-world-us-commandos-africa

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/capitalbusiness/the-air-forces-10000-toilet-cover/2018/07/14/c33d325a-85df-11e8-8f6c-46cb43e3f306_story.html

https://insidedefense.com/insider/austin-discloses-financial-ties-defense-contractors

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/13/us/politics/lloyd-austin-private-public.html

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2000/08/cheneys-multi-million-dollar-revolving-door/

https://www.wired.com/2008/09/dumb-as-a-bag-o/

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/07/hegseth-trump-1-trillion-defense-budget-00007147

https://archive.ph/iczyt

KWAME TURE: AFRICAN UNITY COMING SOON

On 29 June 1941, Stockley Carmichael was born in Trinidad before moving to the US at the age of 11. There, he would grow to become a revolutionary figure. In 1968, Carmichael adopted the name he is famously known for, Kwame Ture, in honour of his friends and political allies, the great pan-Africans, Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana's founding father and Guinea's Sekou Touré, encompassing his ideals, which connected the struggles of Black people in the US to the continent. 

For Ture, a founding member of the All-African People's Revolutionary Party, a revolution in the diaspora would have to be linked to a revolution - and the sovereignty of Africans - on the continent. 

In this clip, he offers a compelling perspective on the evolution of Pan-Africanism within the broader context of societal development. Drawing on his deep study of history, Ture observed that human societies typically follow a distinct pattern of growth:

Continued……Beginning as families, expanding into clans and villages, then forming nations, and ultimately organising on a continent-wide scale. 

While this trajectory is common to all peoples, Ture argued that Africa’s path would accelerate significantly due to the disruptive forces of capitalism and colonialism. While imperialism violently interrupted Africa's natural progression, he argues, it also strengthened ‘the force and desire for continental unity.’ 

Today, we celebrate Kwame Ture as one of the greatest Pan-Africanists of the 20th century who left us blueprints on liberation and unity in the ongoing struggle for African self-determination and sovereignty.

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

THE MOTHER OF ALL KARENS

A UK tribunal has just ruled that calling someone a Karen is “borderline racist, sexist and ageist.” That’s right — a term created to describe racialised ennoscriptment is now being reframed as a slur.

But what about the original Karen — Karen Blixen?

The Danish aristocrat and author once owned a 6,000-acre coffee plantation at the foot of Kenya’s Ngong Hills during British colonial rule. The land had belonged to the Maasai, who were forcibly removed to make way for settlers like her. Blixen lived in luxury, waited on by African servants, while penning books soaked in white-saviour tropes and colonial nostalgia.

Yet today, Nairobi still honours her legacy — with a suburb, a museum, and a certain colonial snobbery that persists in the spaces named after her.

Continued….. If we’re going to talk about Karens, let’s start with the ones whose privilege was written into law, backed by violence, and still defended in polite society.

African Stream’s Wambura Mwai went to explore the legacy she left behind.

This week's African proverb encapsulates the awakening of Africa. Our people are moving to a new beat - no longer following the imperialist pied piper. This is most striking in the Sahel, where revolutionary rhythms have been shaking things up for a few years now in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger - where, for example, the French national anthem is no longer heard ringing out from military bases occupied by the former coloniser. The West used to play their leaders like fiddles, but the puppets are gone, and a new generation of African chiefs is now in charge.

DRC TO PALESTINE: GLENCORE’S GLOBAL WEB OF DESTRUCTION

As the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) celebrates 65 years since flag ‘independence’ on 30 June 1965, we maintain it was a sham and sovereignty is non-existent, like for many African countries. 

African Stream tells the story of Glencore, the shared adversary Palestine and the DRC have, profiting from misery on both sides, a clear case for international solidarity.

The Swiss-based commodity trader and miner helps fuel Israel’s military onslaught in Gaza by selling coal to Israel from South Africa and Colombia. Elsewhere, it makes millions from the extraction of minerals in the DRC. However, corrupt deals have allowed it to avoid DRC taxes, and its activities have left a trail of environmental destruction.

Continued……African Stream’s William Sakawa examines the web of suffering that this conglomerate has rained on the world and the need for a unified response.

Sources

https://mediareviewnet.com/2024/08/glencores-israeli-bound-coal-becomes-the-next-test-of-south-africas-anti-genocide-stance/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2022/05/26/bribery-scandal-to-cost-glencore-11b---billionaire-execs-avoid-blame-for-now/

IMF’S GAME OF LOANS

Kenyans have just marked one year since protesters, angry at tax hikes designed to please the IMF and a brutal cost of living crisis, stormed their parliament - triggering a deadly response from security forces. The anger at austerity hasn’t abated. In this short skit, we expose the economic warfare the IMF has waged in ramming austerity down Africans’ throats. It boils down to neocolonial debt slavery, pure and simple - a system designed to keep us down, while oiling the wheels of otherwise faltering Western economies.

Continued…….
Sources

https://roape.net/2025/06/25/youthquake-how-kenyas-gen-z-took-on-imf-austerity/

https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/10/12/how-imf-driven-policies-make-some-kenyans-poorer#:~:text=Rather%20than%20pursuing%20a%20path,government%2Dfunded%20subsidies%20to%20instead

https://towardfreedom.org/story/archives/africa-archives/africans-rise-up-against-imf-imposed-neocolonial-debt/

https://www.britannica.com/topic/neocolonialism#:~:text=International%20financial%20institutions%20such%20as,of%20participating%20in%20neocolonialism%2C%20by

https://www.thoughtco.com/challenges-african-states-faced-at-independence-43754

https://publicservices.international/resources/news/imf-tells-countries-facing-critical-health-worker-shortages-to-cut-public-employment-funding?id=10904&lang=en

https://www.numberanalytics.com/blog/trade-liberalization-deep-dive#:~:text=A%3A%20Trade%20liberalization%20is%20the,and%20fair%20trade%20among%20countries.

https://malawi.actionaid.org/opinions/2023/ugly-face-imf-austerity-measures-developing-countries


https://thenonviolenceproject.wisc.edu/2025/04/29/kenya-finance-bill-protests/

https://erlassjahr.de/en/news/rejectfinancebill2024-protests-in-kenya-when-austerity-leads-to-human-rights-violations/

https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/opinion/2025/06/26/kenya-police-violence-colonial-institutional-political-protest

GOOD NEWS SUNDAY

We apologise for sharing our 'Good News Sunday' post a little late, but better late than never, as they say. We'd like to start your week with stories of brilliance and bold reinvention. From Sierra Leone, a visionary is transforming discarded tyres into stunning, handcrafted furniture. And in Ghana, a tech innovator has created earbuds that can translate over 40 languages. Proof that African ingenuity never takes a day off. Let’s dive in.
in.

Image/video credits: @Mohamed A Kamara Official (YT), @mohamed_a_kamara (IG) , @officialdannym(IG)

Continued……However, what really pulls the rug from under the racists is that 89% of the record crop was produced by Black small-scale farmers. That’s a departure from the past, when tobacco-growing was seen as a niche area for commercial White farmers.

The bumper harvest is also a testament to the success of the country's Land Reform programme, which saw millions of hectares of land transferred from White settlers to indigenous Zimbabweans in the early 2000s. Mainstream media outlets have frequently touted the programme as an epic failure that destroyed the country's agricultural industry. But the numbers don’t lie. This year's tobacco data show that the programme is anything but a failure. The harvest will see more than $1 billion flow into the pockets of farmers, thereby improving rural livelihoods and the national economy in general.

Swipe through for the key facts.

AFRICA WARNS CITIZENS UK IS
TOO RA… RAINY?

As African Stream wraps up operations, we're trying to go out with a bang - by revisiting one of our boldest skits. Written by @ahmedkaballo and presented by @erickgavala, it envisioned a world where African governments, such as Nigeria and Kenya, or even institutions like the African Union, had the courage to issue travel warnings against the UK, especially after the dreadful 2024 race riots. We're accustomed to the former colonial power issuing travel advisories for far less to African nations. This skit flipped the noscript and made us ask: What if our leaders stood up for Africans in the diaspora?