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?

FORGOTTEN: DRC’S DISPLACED MILLIONS

Today marks the 65th anniversary of the Democratic Republic of the Congo's (DRC) independence, commemorating the end of Belgian colonial rule on 30 June 1960.

Yet, for approximately 7.3 million Congolese, today is just another day of displacement, forcefully driven from their homes due to a three-decade-long foreign-backed resource conflict, fuelled by greedy Western corporations and supported by complicit imperialists who use local proxies. Unfortunately, the world has largely ignored the Congolese people’s suffering.

In December 2023, African Stream's Erick Gavala visited a camp for displaced people in Kanyaruchinya village, Goma, located at the base of the Nyiragongo volcano, to speak with those affected.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that from January to November 2024, the war had displaced over 3 million Congolese, with 96 per cent occurring in the eastern region.

Continued……. Among the 658,000 newly displaced individuals in North and South Kivu provinces, women comprised approximately 380,000, and children under the age of five represented more than 100,000. In addition to the humanitarian crisis and conflict, some women shared experiences of abuse and r*pe.

As the war rages on, the world continues to turn a blind eye to the Congolese people's suffering. One possible reason for the silence from Western media is that affluent states benefit from the instability in the Congo. In January 2025, M23 rebels, backed by Rwanda and Uganda, seized control of vast swaths of the mineral-rich provinces of North Kivu and South Kivu, including the provincial capitals of Goma and Bukavu. They now oversee the illegal mineral trade through Rwanda, earning about $800,000 each month, which fuels the greed of tech industries at the cost of impoverished Congolese.

Despite the DRC and Rwanda signing a US-brokered and Qatari-hosted peace deal on 27 June, the suffering of displaced Congolese continues, while the root causes of their troubles—exploitation by foreign-backed interests and complicity by the ruling elite—remain unaddressed.

Sources

https://reliefweb.int/report/democratic-republic-congo/unicef-dr-congo-humanitarian-flash-report-2-upsurge-violence-north-and-south-kivu-24-january-2025

https://www.unocha.org/publications/report/democratic-republic-congo/democratic-republic-congo-internally-displaced-persons-and-returnees-april-2024

https://www.news24.com/world/africa/rebel-group-m23-hits-mining-jackpot-in-drc-generating-800-000-per-month-20250312

https://www.nrc.no/news/2025/february/eastern-dr-congo-hundreds-of-thousands-displaced-in-wave-of-extreme-violence

AFRICA IS NOT YOUR BATTLEFIELD

Foreign boots were back on African soil in April and May for African Lion 25, the largest US-led military exercise on the continent. It was in full swing across Morocco, Ghana, Senegal and Tunisia, with over 10,000 troops from more than 40 countries. 

And here's the shocker: Israel’s military is right in the mix, training on African land while actively oppressing Palestinians, occupying their land and subjugating them to a system of apartheid. Let that sink in. Meanwhile, Morocco, the primary host, is using this exercise to consolidate its control over Western Sahara, a territory whose people have fought for decades for independence. Algeria has refused to take part because to include Israel while Gaza is still burning is not ‘cooperation.’ 

This exercise isn’t just a military drill. It’s part of a larger noscript, one where Africa remains the chessboard, and global powers continue to play games with our borders, our people, and our sovereignty.

77-YEAR-OLD ASSATA SHAKUR NEW JERSEY'S #1 FUGITIVE

The New Jersey State Police recently issued its 2025 ‘Most Wanted’ list of fugitives. Headlining the group with a $2 million reward for information leading to her capture is Assata Shakur. However, at the age of 77, Shakur had long since received political asylum in Cuba, became a Cuban citizen, and earned a master's degree from the University of Havana. 

Just two months after US authorities shot and arrested Shakur on 2 May 1973, she wrote a letter noscriptd, ‘To My People.’ In it, she expresses her revolutionary stance on US imperialism.

Shakur’s letter remains as relevant today as when it was first written over 50 years ago.

Sources

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEmcCP7vWLM

https://sites.williams.edu/jjames/files/2019/05/FramingthePanter2009.pdf

http://assatashakur.org/mypeople.htm