GOALDEN PRESIDENT TRAORE RALLIES BURKINABE

Burkina Faso President Ibrahim Traoré has been showing off his leadership skills on the football pitch. The military captain skippered a side that beat the country’s national team 3-2 in a friendly and even got on the scoresheet. However, his ultimate goal remains the transformation of his country.

Since coming to power, he’s overhauled geopolitical alignments within the West African region. He’s teamed up with Russia, Iran, Venezuela, and Nicaragua over neocolonial powers such as France and other EU states. He’s also formed an Alliance of Sahel States with neighbours Niger and Mali and wants to build a Pan-African federal state in the future.

Continued….. According to the Pew Research Centre, he’s the world’s youngest president at 36 years old. And he’s certainly on the ball when it comes to inspiring Burkina’s young population, whose average age is just 17. After the game, Traore said he loved sports for instilling national pride and would always encourage people to compete for the country.

It makes you wonder which other world leaders could do this. Most are over 60, with Cameroon’s Paul Biya the oldest at 91!

video credit: FasoSports/X

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SACHS MASTERCLASS ON US AGGRESSION

Economist Jeffrey Sachs pulls no punches schooling British journalist Piers Morgan on U.S. aggression over the last few decades. He points out the NATO-led destruction of Libya was just one of a long list of illegal wars waged by Washington. And he says it’s that persistent aggressive stance that’s led to instability around the globe. Sachs is known for his intellectually detailed discourses and, to be fair, host Piers Morgan gives him a good crack of the whip. Sachs was responding to allegations he panders to the worldview of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Moscow’s position on Ukraine. Have a listen.

Video credit: Piers Morgan Uncensored

NBA LEGEND APOLOGISES FOR ‘DISRESPECTING’ SOUTH SUDAN

Watching humble pie get eaten is satisfying. Former NBA star and pundit Paul Pierce has apologised after ridiculing South Sudan’s basketball side ahead of their narrow defeat to USA.

Laughing with studio guests, he said the African nation didn’t have a chance or anyone taller than six feet three inches, despite South Sudanese being amongst the tallest people in the world. The Bright Stars then almost produced one of the biggest sporting upsets, losing by one point in the dying seconds in the pre-Olympic friendly.

Pierce now says he’s sorry for not having ‘any knowledge of the country’ and excused himself by saying South Sudan ‘hasn’t been on the map for that long.’ Whether he could find it on a map is another matter, although at least he’s returned his scoffing remarks.

Continued….. However, the episode again reveals an all too common North American exceptionalist attitude. Okay, it’s only a game, but you get our point.

For South Sudan and Africa at large, the slimmest of defeats to the basketball superpower was a source of pride—a demonstration of what can be achieved. It certainly whets the appetite for the clash between the two sides at the Olympics on July 31st. I wonder how Pierce & Co. will preview that one?

Video credit: @UNDISPUTED (YouTube)

XENOPHOBIA CLOUD DAMPENS MISS SOUTH AFRICA COMPETION

A 23-year-old South African beauty queen has hit back at xenophobic abuse on social media. Chidimma Vanessa Onwe Adetshina will compete for the crown of Miss South Africa 2024 next month. But her route to the final has hardly been pretty. Even though she was born in the country, online trolls say she’s ineligible to compete because of her parents’ foreign heritage. What nonsense.

The young law student from Cape Town calls it ‘Black-on-Black hate’, and event organisers and a host of celebs have rallied behind her. We wish her luck for the final on August 10th.

U.S. MEDIA STRATEGY FOR AFRICA EXPLAINED

The US does what it accuses China and Russia of doing, but on an ‘industrial’ scale. That is The Grayzone (@thegrayzonenews on IG, X and TikTok) founder Max Blumenthal’s read on US media strategy in Africa. 

The independent media outlet’s founder and editor (@maxblumenthal on X) argued during a ‘Pan-African Attitude’ episode that US media campaigns advance US interests by shaping perceptions to reflect US views on geopolitical issues. Key among them has been pushing anti-China and anti-Russia messaging.

Continued….. For instance, organisations funded by US government agencies, such as the Pentagon’s Minerva Institute and various National Endowment for Democracy-funded NGOs, train and develop professional networks for young African journalists. While these opportunities may appear beneficial, they often come with strings attached, steering these journalists towards promoting narratives that support US foreign policy interests.

That’s just one aspect of US media strategy. Have a watch to find out more. And, please share your thoughts in the comments.

CHAOTIC SCENES: KENYA PROTESTS ENTER WEEK 6

There’s no let-up in Kenya’s Gen Z-led anti-government protests, as the latest round, dubbed ‘Occupy JKIA’ (Jomo Kenyatta International Airport) shut down traffic to the country’s biggest aviation hub.

Army personnel were deployed to block protesters from accessing the airport amid growing concerns over a murky deal to lease the hub for three decades to India’s Adani Airport Holdings, which will also get an 18% stake in JKIA shares thereafter. Many see it as ‘selling off’ a key public asset.

Continued….. Meanwhile, police officers spent Tuesday, July 23rd, battling protesters using water cannon, tear gas and live bullets in the capital. Eyewitnesses claim that hired pro-government protesters on motorcycles were unchallenged by police. As night fell, police swooped in on Nairobi’s peripheral districts of Zimmermann, Githurai, Fedha, Mirema and Pipeline. They allegedly brutalised people, blanketing them with tear gas inside their houses and firing live rounds in some cases.

President William Ruto has announced the make-up of his supposedly inclusive new ‘broad-based’ government in response to the unrest, but many of those out protesting are angry he’s re-appointed a number of the hated ministers he’d fired just a week earlier.

How do you see week six playing out?

STATE CRACKDOWN AS UGANDANS PROTEST CORRUPTION

Brave Ugandans have felt inspired by their brothers and sisters in neighbouring Kenya - to come out and protest against misgovernment and corruption, despite the risk of a heavy-handed security response.

Much of their anger is directed at parliamentary speaker Anita Among. She and other members of a parliamentary commission allegedly paid themselves $459,000 from the budget. The obscenity of that kind of misuse of public funds becomes even clearer when you realise that 41% of the population lives on less than $2.15 a day.

Continued….. Another grievance is that former ministers have been accused of stealing from the poorest communities in Karamoja.

Despite the right to protest being enshrined in Uganda’s constitution, the state - as feared - unleashed its security services to harass and arrest the protesters. The scenes were reminiscent of those we’ve seen over the last weeks in Kenya. And while troubling, perhaps it’s a sign that Ugandans too can make change happen.

African Stream will be monitoring developments closely. Your thoughts and insights in the comments into what’s happening are appreciated.

THE QUIET PART OUT LOUD

In this viral clip, former Israeli football player and sports commentator Danny Neuman stated, ‘On the first day or two, we should have killed 100,000 Gazans.’

Neuman previously said on Israeli national television that ‘they must be exterminated, all of them k*lled.’ 

Over nine months into Israel’s military onslaught on Gaza, Israel has k*lled more than 39,000 Palestinians, with a recent Lancet medical journal report saying the civilian casualties could be as high as 186,000. 

Meanwhile, according to a recent Pew Research Study, 39 per cent of Israelis say Israel’s military response has been sufficient, while 34 per cent say it has not gone far enough.

Does Neumann adequately represent the sentiment in Israel? Let us know what you think in the comments.

Video credit: Channel 14 (@now14israel on X and IG)

WHY WORLD IGNORES CONGO CRISIS

Resource-rich eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has long been overrun by armed groups seeking a share of the region's strategic natural resources and carrying out massacres in the process. Over 120 militias are currently active in the region.

With an estimated 7-million Congolese internally displaced (many of whom are beyond the reach of aid), countless killed, masses in poverty and swathes of the population exploited in slave-like conditions for decades, the world rarely hears anything about it.

That’s in sharp contrast to global coverage of, for example, the war in Ukraine, which is still making front pages around the world.

Kinshasa told UN peacekeeping forces to leave DRC after it accused them of failing to resolve the conflict, despite more than two decades in the country. Since then, the carnage in eastern Congo has only worsened, even though South Africa stepped in with 2,000 troops.