FREE CONGO FROM GERTLER AND GLENCORE!

DRC is going though so much pain at the moment, it’s easy to get overwhelmed - the genocidal violence in the east, the refugee crisis, the poverty, the child labour (slavery!) in the mines, the grim legacy of colonial rule…

In this video, African Stream’s Brenda Mwai focuses on two major thorns in DRC’s side, two arch exploiters of the country: diamond magnate Dan Gertler and multinational mining behemoth Glencore.

Her message is clear: Congo needs to be free of them if it is to lift itself out of its multiple crises. What do you think?

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MANDELA'S LIFELONG SOLIDARITY WITH PALESTINE

South African anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela took his last breath on 5 December 2013, closing the curtain on a life marked by the struggle against racial oppression and injustice.

Ten years after his death, Mandela's legacy looms large. What stands out is his solidarity with the people of Palestine, who fight Israeli aggression and occupation to this day.

Mandela's solidarity was not only in words, but in deed. During his presidency (1994-99), he hosted several Palestinian leaders, including Yasser Arafat, then-leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO). In 1999, Mandela travelled to the occupied territories, including the Gaza Strip, which Israel has been bombarding since 7 October.

Several years before that trip, he gave this historic interview in the United States, in which he drew parallels between South Africa's struggle and the Palestinian cause.

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At least 85 civilians have been killed and dozens more injured in northern Nigeria following an accidental drone strike by the Nigerian Army. Many of the victims were women, children and the elderly who were celebrating the Muslim festival Maulud.

The army acknowledged that they mistakenly struck the village of Tudun Biri after they wrongly analyzed and misinterpreted patterns and activities resembling that of terrorists and bandits. The strike has caused outrage as President Bola Tinubu calls for a thorough investigation into the deadly incident.

Continued….This “error” is not the first for Nigeria. In January 2017, at least 112 people were killed when a fighter jet struck a camp housing 40,000 people displaced by terrorist violence in the town of Rann. The Nigerian military blamed the airstrike on "lack of appropriate marking of the area" in a report issued six months later.

Nigeria's armed forces often rely on air strikes in their fight against the militias who’ve terrorized civilians living in the northwestern region. Operating in the country for over a decade, these groups are based deep inside the forests and conduct raiding expeditions to loot and kidnap residents for ransom.

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VILE COP TASES, TAUNTS AFRICAN IN U.S.

A video’s gone viral for all the wrong reasons - as the US proves incapable of immunising itself against the virus that is cop brutality against Africans in America.

In it, we see 24-year-old Alabama resident Micah Washington being tasered point blank and taunted by a foul-mouthed female police officer during an arrest. Washington is compliant, but all the same she inflicts enough pain on him to reduce him to tears.

His girlfriend says he was just changing a burst tyre - though he was booked with drugs and weapons charges, as well as for resisting arrest. Dana Elmore, the officer in the video, was put on leave - but only after it was widely shared and condemned.

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AFRICA'S FORGOTTEN SCIENTIFIC HISTORY

Ivan Gladstone Van Sertima (1935-2009) was a Guyana-born professor of Africana Studies at Rutgers University in the United States.

He was best known for the pre-Columbian contact theory he presented in his 1976 book, They Came Before Columbus. While popular among Africans in the United States, the predominantly white academia dismissed the theory as 'Afrocentric.'

In this clip, he discusses ancient Africans' scientific contributions and the consequences of the great library of Alexandria burning down more than two millennia ago.

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AFRICANS ‘SOLD’ INTO ISRAELI ‘SLAVERY’?

Malawi’s done a shocker of a deal with Israel - the African country will provide cheap labour to work farms in the Middle Eastern state… farms abandoned by foreign workers after October 7th. The deal stinks to high heaven. Here’s African Stream’s Ahmed Ghoneim to explain why. What’s your reaction to this?

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Typical. The British army thinks African justice doesn’t apply to it.

A Kenyan court recently opened (but then immediately adjourned) a case into the 2012 death of Agnes Wanjiru - a 21-year-old mother who went missing in her hometown of Nanyuki. She was found months later in the septic tank of a local hotel with stab wounds.

Her family allege she was murdered by one or more British soldiers serving in Kenya - and a 2019 inquest agrees. A soldier was reported in The Sunday Times in 2021 to have confessed to the crime.

But the British Army has now asked the Kenyan High Court to dismiss the new case.

Continued….It claims the unit in question - BATUK, or ‘British Training Army Unit, Kenya’ - enjoys the immunity given to the British government.

Wanjiru’s 19-year-old niece wrote to Britain’s King Charles III ahead of his state visit to Kenya in October. She urged him to help bring about justice and closure.

But judging by the UK military’s latest intervention, her words fell on deaf ears. What is it trying to hide and why is it trying to stall justice for Wanjiru and her family?

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PLO EXPLAINS SAHEL COUPS,
ROLE OF FRANCE AS IMPERIAL POWER

The military takeovers of governments in the Sahel are a revolution. The French never left. These are key takeaways from PLO Lumumba during an African Stream roundtable discussion we were honoured to host. During our talk, the Pan-African scholar and lawyer explains how the French still manage the affairs of their former colonies, including printing their currency, the CFA franc, and the level of underhanded tactics employed, such as the assassination of Burkina Faso’s president Thomas Sankara, to ensure the continuance of French interests.

Continued….PLO Lumumba raises the issue of the ongoing insecurity crisis in the Sahel, as France, formerly dubbed the region’s ‘military partner’, is accused of backing the very terrorist groups it claims to fight. While this might sound a bit far-fetched, a lot of progress has been made in the battle against terrorism following France’s expulsion from the region, such as the recapture of Kidal in Mali and Djibo in Burkina Faso.

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UGANDA'S WAR ON SECOND-HAND CLOTHES

Although no official figures exist, the Uganda Dealers in Used Clothing and Shoes Association estimates that 16 million people, or one in three Ugandans, wear second-hand clothes. However, a potential government ban on the importation of used clothing may change that. The objective is to promote consumption of locally produced African-wear and Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni says that by protecting its local textile industry, the move will create thousands of new local jobs.

In 2016, Museveni sought to ban used clothing as part of an East African initiative to develop domestic industries. The policy faced significant opposition at the time.