Continued….The World Food Programme is warning that Gaza is on the brink of famine. Yet hundreds of trucks loaded with food and medical aid are stuck on the border with Egypt.

The death toll from Tel Aviv’s destructive war now exceeds 30,000 - including 21,000 women and children. Israel has also vowed to attack the southern city of Rafah, where 1.4-million Palestinians are stuck on the border with Egypt.

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RABAT STANDS WITH PALESTINE

On Saturday, people in the Moroccan capital Rabat rallied again in support of the Palestinians - demanding a ceasefire and urging their government to break ties with Israel.

March 2nd was designated a Global Day of Action for Palestine - with rallies held all over the world, including New York and Kuala Lumpur, while in some countries, events were held on Sunday, for example, in Australia.

Since October 7th, numerous similar rallies have been held across Africa.

Did you show support for Palestine this weekend?

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UK’S GALLOWAY WINS ON PRO- PALESTINE TICKET

British politician George Galloway has won a landslide victory in the northern English town of Rochdale - after running a pro-Palestine campaign, promising to advocate for Gaza.

Galloway represents the Workers’ Party of Britain. Rochdale was a Labour Party stronghold, but voters appear to have punished it (and the governing Conservatives) for its pro-Israeli stance, demanding a Gaza ceasefire only belatedly and still refusing to call what’s happening in the Strip genocide.

Galloway backed South Africa’s recent push to have Tel Aviv held to account at the International Court of Justice.

Continued….The veteran politician has a history with South Africa, having travelled the length and breadth of the country during the apartheid era in support of the ANC and other liberation groups in their struggle against White-minority rule and racist segregation.

In 2003, he was expelled from the Labour Party for his vocal opposition to the US-led war on Iraq - differing with the then-Labour prime minister, Tony Blair. Two years later, he embarrassed a US Senate committee in a now-viral clip, which claimed he profited from Saddam Hussein’s oil-for-food programme, when in reality it was the U.S who had profited from Iraq’s vast oil fields since the invasion in 2003.

How significant do you think Galloway’s win is, given his platform was highly pro-Palestine? Does it reflect people’s mood in the wider West?

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KENYA AND HAITI SIGN DEPLOYMENT AGREEMENT

Kenya’s president Ruto and Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry have signed an agreement to deploy Kenyan police to the Caribbean island nation as part of a UN-backed security mission to restore order. In a speech made on Friday at Nairobi’s State House after the signing, Ruto said he and Ariel Henry had discussed ways to fast-track the deployment - even though Kenya’s High Court recently ruled that sending the planned 1,000 officers would be unconstitutional.

Critics of the envisaged mission say it would violate Haitian sovereignty - and is really just a US operation with a Black face. While gang violence is rampant in Haiti, many of the guns used originate from the US, and previous meddling by Washington has fanned instability in the country. Ruto insists sending officers is an act of solidarity, not occupation. But African Stream has done vox pops in both countries and the people disagree.

What are your thoughts?

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DON’T BLAME SLAVERY ON AFRICA

Who’s to blame for the European slave trade?Apparently, some Africans are blaming themselves and say their ancestors were the ones who sold slaves to the Europeans. Here, our sister outlines how and why the role of colonial powers in the appalling practice should never be forgotten. In the 1400s, Europeans scouted for land occupied by indigenous people and abducted, abused and enslaved around 13 million.

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DEL MONTE’S TRAIL OF AFRICAN BODIES

Guards at American food giant Del Monte’s large farm in Kenya are accused of culpability in a number of suspicious deaths. With families failing to find justice, some suspect outright murder and a cover-up. African Stream’s William Sakawa reports.

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GENOCIDE SURVIVORS EVICTED

​Rwanda is less than a tenth the size of the UK but is home to about 14-million people - that’s almost one-fifth of the UK’s population. However, the British government still wants to push ahead with a controversial scheme to deport asylum seekers to the East African country.

Despite a fierce backlash from rights groups, international agencies, Rwandan opposition politicians and even the UK Supreme Court - which has ruled the plan unlawful - the two governments are hellbent on implementing it. In Kigali, a hostel that has been housing survivors of the 1994 genocide for nearly three decades has had them evicted to make room for asylum seekers who arrive on England’s coast.

Continued….According to the UK’s National Audit Office, it will end up costing about 600-million pounds (760-million dollars) to deport the first 300 refugees. There is no cap on the number of migrants, and thousands could potentially pour into Kigali within the first five years of the plan. The only opposition party that ran against Rwandan President Paul Kagame in the last election, the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda, is accusing the UK of violating its international obligations by shipping its unwanted migrants 4,000 miles away to Rwanda.

Check out our exclusive report from the ground in Rwanda, where we explore the devastating consequences that this policy is having in Rwanda itself. And please share your views and insights into this issue.

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VENEZUELA BLASTS KENYA’S U.S.-BACKED HAITI MISSION

In a twist of irony, while African countries are scrambling to enforce Western imperialism in Haiti through a planned deployment of Kenyan police, a country further south is standing up for the predominantly Black state.

In this 1 March clip, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro stated his opposition to the move, pointing to the failures of past foreign interventions.

In one of the most famous cases, UN occupation forces caused the deaths of at least 10,000 Haitians after they dumped sewerage in Haiti’s water supply. Extrajudicial killings and child rapes were rampant during previous deployments, too. During the US military occupation in the early 20th century, it conducted what may have been the first US aerial bombardment in Haiti.

Continued….With Haiti’s estimated $20 billion in precious metals, farmland, as well as its strategic location, some suspect the deployment is meant to aid Western looting. The same countries financing the operation are responsible for the dysfunction. For example, France forced Haiti to pay ‘reparations’ for winning freedom from enslavers. The United States has looted Haiti’s gold, deposed democratically elected leaders like Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and supported unpopular presidents like François’ Papa Doc’ Duvalier and his son, Jean-Claude’ Baby Doc’ Duvalier.

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KAMALA HARRIS CALLS FOR 6-WEEK GAZA CEASEFIRE

Too little, too late? That’s the sentiment online after cheers emanated from the crowd as US Vice President Kamala Harris called on 3 March for an ‘immediate ceasefire’ in Gaza. A recent US poll shows 65 per cent of people support a comprehensive ceasefire; Harris touted one lasting six weeks.

Many see the 6-week duration as a way to entice Arabs and Muslims to support US President Joe Biden, given that the timeframe would coincide with the almost 5-week Muslim holy month of Ramadan. After weeks of mobilising Arab and Muslim communities in Michigan, more than 100,000 people cast ‘uncommitted’ ballots during the state’s Democratic Party primary held on 27 February. However, that did not prevent Biden from sweeping the majority of delegates as he continues on to other state primaries ahead of the November election.

Continued….The surge in action against the Democratic Party’s presumed presidential nominee has come as Israel has killed more than 30,000 Palestinians—more than 70 per cent of whom are women and children—since the 7 October escalation in the 75-year Palestine-Israel conflict. Despite this, Tel Aviv has continued to say the bombardments are meant to eliminate H*m*s militants.

In January, the International Court of Justice slapped provisional measures against Israel, saying its actions were ‘plausibly’ in violation of the 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention.

The vice president was speaking in Selma, Alabama, during the commemoration of ‘Bloody Sunday.’ That is when Alabama state troopers and a common-law posse used batons and tear gas to attack about 600 primarily Black civil-rights marchers 59 years ago on the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

What do you think of Harris’ call for a ceasefire? Let us know in the comments.

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The United States has sanctioned Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa; his wife, Auxillia; nine government officials and three companies for alleged human rights violations and corruption. In a twist, the US lifted 2003 sanctions imposed in response to late President Robert Mugabe's 2000-01 land redistribution campaign.

US Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo announced the fresh sanctions on 4 March, saying they were meant to punish the 'criminal network' around Mnangagwa. However, Zimbabwean spokesperson Nick Mangwana doubted the country's pain would dissipate, saying on X, 'We are all under sanctions.'

Continued….Some online have asked why Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not being sanctioned for overseeing a five-month military operation in Gaza, despite the International Court of Justice imposing provisional measures in January to stop what it has referred to as 'plausibly' genocidal acts. Further, the United Nations has alleged that US-aligned Rwandan President Paul Kagame backs militant group M23, whose attacks have been blamed for displacing millions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Let us know if you think the new 'targeted sanctions' will ease Zimbabwe's economic crisis.

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NETANYAHU: A TERRORIST BY HIS OWN DEFINITION?

A much younger Benjamin Netanyahu once defined ‘terrorism’ as “the murder, maiming and menacing of civilians for political goals.”

Speaking in 1986 about his book ‘Terrorism - How the West Can Win,’ the then-36-year-old Permanent Israeli Ambassador to the UN added that those who use terrorism as part of their policy end up becoming “masters of terrorist states.”

Continued….Now 74, Netanyahu has overseen a brutal five-month campaign to purportedly eliminate H*m*s in Gaza, killing over 30,000 Palestinians, 21,000 of them women and children. The International Court of Justice ruled in a case brought by South Africa against Israel that Tel Aviv’s actions in Gaza are plausibly genocidal. The blockade of Gaza - beginning in 2007 and intensified since October 7th, 2023 - has harmed thousands of innocent children through hunger and lack of medicine. And the World Food Programme is warning that Gazans are now on the brink of famine.

Has Prime Minister Netanyahu - and the State of Israel - become an example of his own, almost-40-year-old definition of ‘terrorism’?

Let us know in the comments.

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U.S. SANCTIONS AGONIZE ZIMBABWEANS

On 4 March, the US government announced it had lifted sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe more than two decades ago. According to a US Treasury press release, the discarded measures are being replaced with ‘targeted’ measures that purportedly only affect President Emmerson Mnangagwa, his wife, nine officials and three entities.

Some see a long struggle bearing fruit. For years, African leaders and activists had been calling for 2003 sanctions to be done away with because they had been hurting ordinary Zimbabweans and causing migration into neighbouring countries. However, one Zimbabwean official doubted the country’s pain would dissipate with targeted sanctions. “We are all under sanctions,” government spokesperson Nick Mangwana reiterated on X.

African Stream published an exclusive interview in October with Xavier Zavare, chairperson for the United Kingdom district of the ruling party, Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF).

Continued….He broke down the history of sanctions and how they detrimentally affect ordinary Zimbabweans.

Officially known as the ‘Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act’ (Zidera), they were put in place to ‘support the people of Zimbabwe in their struggle to effect peaceful, democratic change.’ However, many see the sanctions as retribution for the country’s land reform program that was carried out in the late 1990s to redress British settlers seizing more than two-thirds of Zimbabwean land, despite making up less than 4 per cent of the population. Land reform was a key part of the 1979 Lancaster House Agreement that led to the independence of Zimbabwe in 1980. During the talks, the British and US governments committed to help fund a program to ensure equitable land distribution in the southern African nation. However, they later reneged on their promise, forcing the government of Zimbabwe to go it alone.

According to a US-based group called Sanctions Kill, 39 countries—or one-third of humanity—suffer under some form of US sanctions. The group says 19 sanctioned countries are in Africa.

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