'DO YOU HAVE YOUR PAGER ON YOU?' U.S. CONGRESSMEMBER MOCKS ACTIVISTS

US congress member Harriet Hageman recently shocked many when CodePink activists caught her on camera mockingly asking if they had their pagers on them, appearing to allude to last week's attacks that k*lled at least 37 people and injured more than 3,250 people in Lebanon and Syria.

Unnamed sources in news reports said Israel appeared to carry out the attacks. However, the focus has turned to US elected officials like Hageman because the US has funded Israel since 1948. To many people's dismay, the US continues to arm Israel amidst its military onslaught in the Gaza Strip since 7 October 2023, which has so far killed at least 41,000 Palestinians and as many as 186,000 as of early July, according to the Lancet medical journal.

Continued......Last week's attacks appeared to detonate thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies held by Hezbollah members, but it impacted non-Hezbollah members, too. 

Meanwhile, Lebanon's Ministry of Health said Israel's airstrikes over the past two weeks have also k*lled more than 1,000 Lebanese and wounded 6,000.

Video credit: @codepink

SOURCES:

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/27/middleeast/israel-pager-attack-hezbollah-lebanon-invs-intl/index.html

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240930-1640-killed-by-israel-in-lebanon-including-104-children

https://www.barrons.com/news/health-ministry-in-hamas-run-gaza-says-war-death-toll-at-41-615-424f56d6

DIPLOMATS WALK OUT AHEAD OF NETANYAHU'S UN SPEECH

Delegations appeared to walk out in protest when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took to the podium to address the 79th session of the UN General Assembly on 27 September. The move could be a manifestation of frustration with Israel's flagrant violation of UN resolutions. For example, earlier last week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan condemned the UN for allowing a 'criminal' like Netanyahu to address the General Assembly.

The UN's high court, the International Court of Justice, ordered Israel in January to stop its activities in the Gaza Strip that amount to g*nocide, ordered Israel in May to stop its invasion of Rafah, and it issued an advisory opinion in July calling for Israel to end its occupation of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. However, Israel has not abided by any of this. Instead, Netanyahu referred to the UN General Assembly as a 'swamp of anti-Semitic bile' after the delegations walked out..

Continued.........
More than a year before the events of 7 October, the UN condemned Israel via resolutions more than other countries combined in 2022. Meanwhile, in 2020, the General Assembly heaped almost three times the number of resolutions condemning Israel.

In the past year, Israel has conducted a military onslaught in the besieged Gaza Strip, k*lling more than 41,000 and as many as 186,000 as of early July, according to the Lancet medical journal. Israeli soldiers have k*lled UN staff providing humanitarian relief, destroyed Gaza’s healthcare and tortured hospital workers. Despite UNSC and UN resolutions, as well as ICJ orders, Israel has expanded illegal settlements in the West Bank. In recent months, it has turned its attention to Lebanon, with airstrikes on residential areas, including one k*lling Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah. According to Israeli officials, Nasrallah was targeted for his refusal to engage in negotiations with Israel unless it included the Gaza Strip. Unnamed news sources claimed Israel sabotaged pagers and walkie-talkies with explosives that detonated last week. 

Much of this has only been possible with Western complicity. Countries like the US and the UK have vetoed multiple ceasefire resolutions at the UN and provided billions of dollars of arms and funding

SOURCES:

Israeli most condemned 2022
https://www.timesofisrael.com/un-condemned-israel-more-than-all-other-countries-combined-in-2022-monitor/

Israel most condemned 2020
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/12/24/un-condemns-israel-most-in-2020-almost-three-times-rest-of-world

Lancet report on casualties
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/7/8/gaza-toll-could-exceed-186000-lancet-study-says
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)00135-1/fulltext

Israel killing UN staff
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/12/24/israeli-strikes-kill-un-staff-more-than-70-of-his-extended-family-in-gaza
https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/03/middleeast/world-central-kitchen-strike-analysis-intl/index.html

Israel destroys Gaza healthcare
https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/04/1148316
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/26/world/middleeast/gaza-israel-hospitals-medical-system.html

Israel tortured medics
https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/08/26/israel-palestinian-healthcare-workers-tortured

Israeli settlements in West Bank
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2024/7/19/how-israeli-settlements-are-taking-over-the-west-bank-as-gaza-war-rages

Israeli sabotage of pagers
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/18/world/middleeast/israel-exploding-pagers-hezbollah.html

Israeli killing of Hassan Nasrallah
https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/28/middleeast/hezbollah-nasrallah-killed-israel-strikes-intl/index.html

Why Israel targeted Nasrallah
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/live-blog/lebanon-live-updates-rcna173122#rcrd57180

Complicity of West
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-has-undeniable-complicity-gaza-war-killings-say-former-us-officials-2024-07-03

Anti-Semitic bile comment
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/netanyahu-un-israel-antisemitism-gaza-lebanon-hezbollah-rcna172977

ICJ provisional ruling in January
https://www.icj-cij.org/node/203454

ICJ order in May on Rafah
https://www.icj-cij.org/node/204091

ICJ advisory opinion
https://www.icj-cij.org/node/204176

Members of West Africa's anti-imperialist bloc - the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) - have made multiple headlines this year by taking back control of their mining resources. Burkina Faso recently nationalised two gold mines; Niger expelled French mining company Orano from its uranium mines earlier this year; and now Mali is coming for one of the biggest exploiters of gold in the country - Canadian company Barrick Gold.

On 25 September 2024, four of its employees were arrested for alleged financial crimes. The company and the government are reportedly in a dispute concerning a new audit that states that Barrick Gold owes Mali hundreds of millions of dollars. Barrick Gold labels the audit “legally and factually flawed and without merit.” The company owns 80% of Mali’s Loulo-Gounkoto Gold Mine Complex, while the Malian state owns the remaining 20%.

Continued........According to a recent Business Insider article, Mali is Africa's second-largest gold producer, yielding 105 tonnes between 2010 and 2024. The Observatory for Economic Complexity determined that gold made up 95.9% of Mali's exports in 2022, the latest year on record.

SOURCES:

https://africa.businessinsider.com/local/markets/top-gold-producing-countries-in-africa/z3kmxbz

https://oec.world/en/profile/country/mli

https://www.barrons.com/news/canadian-mining-firm-employees-arrested-in-mali-sources-3e682292


https://en.sputniknews.africa/20240928/four-employees-of-canadian-miner-barrick-gold-reportedly-arrested-in-mali-for-financial-crimes-1068456430.html


https://archive.ph/BDsaN

HAITI PUNISHED FOR INSPIRING HUMAN RIGHTS

Haiti's transitional leader, Edgard Leblanc Fils, says it is time for France to pay reparations to the island nation, whose slave rebellion inspired the idea of universal human rights.

He emphasised that Haiti, whose historic anti-slavery revolution triumphed in 1804, was still paying for the punishment inflicted by colonial powers through decades of underdevelopment and crushing poverty. In July 1825, France forced Haiti at gunpoint to pay 150-million francs to secure its independence, or suffer the consequences. For context, that exorbitant amount was 10 ten times what the US paid France in 1803 to purchase the state of Louisiana. It took Haiti more than a century to pay off their former oppressors and slave-owners.

Continued........A group of 20 non-governmental organisations met in Geneva, Switzerland, in April for a UN Permanent Forum on People of African Descent (PFPAD) to seek ways of recovering the money paid by Haiti, which they referred to as a ransom.  Jemima Pierre, a professor of global race at the University of British Columbia, estimates the ransom could be as high as $200 billion or more, taking into account 200 years of interest since 1825.

In his UN speech, interim president Leblanc Fils reminded the world that the bicentenary of "history's greatest heist" (in the words of Marlene Daut, a scholar at the University of Virginia) is around the corner, and now would be a good time for the UN to ensure justice is done.

What do you think?

SOURCES:

https://www.gu.se/en/news/haitian-revolution-shows-that-human-rights-do-not-protect-against-inequality#:~:text=The%20origins%20of%20human%20rights,for%20these%20ideas%20and%20institutions.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/05/23/world/haiti-france-ransom

https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/louisiana-purchase-treaty#:~:text=In%20this%20transaction%20with%20France,size%2C%20expanding%20the%20nation%20westward.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/18/haiti-france-reparations

https://www.bankingonsolidarity.org/citibank-and-haitians-a-violent-history/

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2021/10/05/1042518732/-the-greatest-heist-in-history-how-haiti-was-forced-to-pay-reparations-for-freed

https://jacobin.com/2017/01/haiti-reparations-france-slavery-colonialism-debt/

https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/09/14/haiti-crisis-intervention-gangs-colonialism-france-us-history-monetary-policy/

A WORLD FREE OF VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN


Actress Viola Davis - who starred in The Woman King - uses her voice to champion women’s rights, drawing on her own experiences growing up to highlight the profoundly negative impact of violence against women. In this clip, she shares her insights into, as well as some disturbing stats on, violence against women.

In the devastating war in Congo, women are bearing a heavy burden. According to MSF, near the city of Goma, North Kivu, around 48 women a day report having been victims of sexual violence - most, within the last 72 hours. Those who manage to escape often seek refuge in makeshift tent camps lacking proper facilities and security, leaving them vulnerable to further assault. According to a UNICEF report, sexual violence in Congo surged by 37% in the first three months of 2023 compared with the previous year, with over 38,000 cases of gender-based violence reported in North Kivu alone in 2022.

Continued.......Sudan’s civil war has also seen widespread sexual violence against women and girls, with a Human Rights Watch report detailing cases amounting to ‘war crimes’ in the Khartoum region, involving victims as young as nine and as old as 60.

In Gaza, over 41,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have suffered the consequences of the conflict.

Davis emphasises that creating a world free of violence against women starts with love, a crucial element missing from every ongoing war in Africa and the world at large.

Video credit: @violadavis and @keringfoundation

SOURCES:

https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/07/28/sudan-widespread-sexual-violence-capital

https://www.msf.org/msf-survey-shows-scale-violence-against-displaced-women-eastern-drc

https://reliefweb.int/report/democratic-republic-congo/alarming-numbers-sexual-violence-victims-camps-around-goma

https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/unicef-calls-urgent-action-respond-alarming-levels-increasing-sexual-violence-0#:~:text=Reports%20of%20gender%2Dbased%20violence,2022%20in%20North%20Kivu%20alone

https://www.africanews.com/2023/05/10/drc-around-goma-48-victims-of-sexual-violence-per-day//

GOOGLE BANS AFRICAN STREAM

Gmail has become the latest instrument of tech giant Google to censor African Stream. On 1 October, the multinational US corporation locked us out of its Workspace application, causing us to lose access to two years of email messages and files stored in the giant's cloud-based storage facilities.

Like other technology and social media platforms, such as YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram and Threads, all of which have given us the boot in the last two weeks, Google did not provide any credible reason for banning us other than saying we 'violated Google Workspace policy,' which includes 'sending spam or using the account for any kind of fraud.' We have never at any point engaged in the activities mentioned above.

Of course, we did not expect a reasonable explanation because there is simply none; we can only conclude they took us down based on US Secretary of State Antony Blinken's unsubstantiated allegation on 13 September that we are 'Kremlin propagandists.'

Continued... Is this the rules-based order the US and other Western states passionately discuss? How can Big Tech bow down after one speech by a US official? How is that democratic?

WIKIPEDIA WEAPONISED AGAINST AFRICAN STREAM

Search for ‘African Stream’ on Wikipedia. Notice how the first line immediately alleges that our pan-African, anti-imperialist outlet is a Kremlin proxy? As far back as July, The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal explained that the barrage of media attacks on African Stream from outlets such as NBC was designed to provide a fund of information to be used by Wikipedia. Regarded by many as a reliable source, this Wiki info is then used to shape public perceptions and even fed into AI models.

Since the Max Blumenthal interview, apart from NBC, African Stream has been attacked by the US state-funded Voice of America, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and the Stanford Internet Observatory. No evidence has been provided for any of the allegations pressed.

Continued...
While disappointing, Western hypocrisy and double standards are not surprising. We only need to look at the treatment of figures like Julian Assange and Edward Snowden to realise that US claims of being a bastion of democracy and a defender of media freedom are mere posturing. The empire maintains a tight grip on the views and opinions it will tolerate, silencing any voices - like our own - that challenge its imperialist interests.

Sources:

Wikipedia on African STream
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Stream

VOA article
https://www.voanews.com/a/african-stream-distorts-u-s-military-s-mission-in-somalia/7762717.html

NBC article
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/black-americans-disinformation-election-social-media-rcna157096

Blinken presser
https://www.state.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-remarks-to-the-press-29/

Stanford article
https://cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/io/news/african-stream

Julian Assange’s treatment
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68282613

Edward Snowden treatment
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-23123964

'FIRST AMENDMENT BLOCKING CONTROL OF FREE SPEECH'

Former US Secretary of State John Kerry has faced heavy criticism for lamenting that the First Amendment right to free speech gets in the way of a so-called 'democracy' where a select few determine policies for millions of people.

Kerry, formerly the US Special Presidential Envoy on Climate (2021-24), made these remarks at the recent World Economic Forum 'Sustainable Development Impact Meetings' on the sidelines of the 79th UN General Assembly in New York.

Kerry proposed a truth arbiter to regulate speech under the pretext of combating 'disinformation,' saying this approach would help so-called democracies (or capitalist dictatorships) convince their populations to accept top-down policies.

Continued......However, it looks to be too late for Kerry's tears. A 2023 Pew research poll found only 16 per cent of US citizens trust their government to do what is right 'just about always,' while a June 2024 Washington Post-Schar School poll in six swing states (those US states whose populations have not voted consistently for Democrats or Republicans) found that 7 in 10 voters don't trust the media to report on politics objectively.

Since softer measures to ensure oligarchic control thus far have not worked, the imperialist establishment has de-platformed independent media outlets like ours, African Stream. In the past two weeks, we have been banned by Meta (Facebook, Instagram and Threads), Google (YouTube and Workspace [email accounts and files]), and TikTok. The bans came after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken falsely accused us on 13 September of being 'Kremlin propagandists.'

Your voice matters in strengthening the dam against tyranny flooding the world. Join our Patreon, Rumble, Telegram and X (Twitter) pages to help keep the flame of free speech burning for Africans trying to free our continent and our diaspora kin of colonialism.

Video credit: World Economic Forum (@wef on X)

SOURCES:

https://www.weforum.org/events/sustainable-development-impact-meetings-2024/sessions/it-s-not-easy-trading-green

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/06/24/public-trust-in-government-1958-2024/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/06/26/new-measure-americans-deep-distrust-media/

https://www.thecrimson.com/column/little-nuances/article/2019/10/22/singh-objective-journalism/

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/06/24/public-trust-in-government-1958-2024/

https://news.gallup.com/poll/403166/americans-trust-media-remains-near-record-low.aspx

https://newideal.aynrand.org/killing-free-speech-snowflakes-censorship-sit-ins-and-social-media/

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/04/07/voter-age-biden-trump-2024-election-00150923