Continued......In 'Bad News from Israel,' a 2011 book documenting the findings of extensive research on the BBC's coverage of Israel's occupation of Palestine, authors @greg_philo (X) and Mike Berry showed that the broadcaster did not provide viewers with in-depth context or include the perspective of Palestinians. International media has continued to publish this skewed portrayal.

Let us know your thoughts in the comments

SOURCES:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/45243578_Bad_News_from_Israel

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/jul/08/greg-philo-obituary

https://www.plutobooks.com/author/greg-philo/

https://profiles.cardiff.ac.uk/staff/berrym1

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/world/western-media-frames-events-of-oct-7-as-having-triggered-israeli-palestinian-conflict-expert/3371128

https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/09/1154496

MEDIA DOWNPLAYS ISRAELI FANS’ BEHAVIOUR

The mainstream media’s reporting on the recent attacks on Israeli football fans in Amsterdam has been criticised not only for failing to provide the full context but also for its condemnation of a pogrom that never happened. While picking up American and European leaders’ allegation of anti-Semitism, outlets downplayed the behaviour of Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters in the lead-up to, and during, the match.

For example, Sky News retracted and re-edited a report posted on the network’s social-media pages that had depicted Israeli fans as instigators - alleging they’d shouted racist chants. This report had also noted that “Israeli far-right ultras are notorious for their racism and physical violence.” Meanwhile, Reuters used double standards when describing the abuse shouted by Israelis and Arabs - using ‘slurs’ in the one case, and simply ‘slogans’ in the other.

Continued... There are also accusations of ‘manufactured anti-Semitism’ - spread to justify alleged initial violence by Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters. Some would argue that the flawed media coverage has only reinforced a supposed Israeli ‘monopoly’ on victimhood - one that some Israelis allegedly exploit to license bad behaviour in the streets of Amsterdam as well as in Gaza. (In July, British medical journal The Lancet reported Gaza's death toll could be over 186,000 and climbing, given Israel has not relented since the October 7 escalation of violence in the ongoing 76-year-old occupation.)

Sources:

https://www.thecanary.co/uk/news/2024/11/10/sky-news-maccabi-tel-aviv-amsterdam/

https://www.reuters.com/pictures/pictures-israeli-soccer-fans-attacked-by-antisemitic-squads-amsterdam-2024-11-08/

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/amsterdam-violence-an-explosion-of-anti-semitism-says-citys-mayor/vi-AA1tKee8

https://x.com/POTUS/status/1854953886328799588

https://x.com/EmmanuelMacron/status/1854865167181308409

https://mondoweiss.net/2024/11/no-there-were-no-antisemitic-pogroms-in-amsterdam-heres-what-really-happened/

https://www.yahoo.com/news/more-60-arrested-amsterdam-attack-234941255.html

https://x.com/SMohyeddin/status/1854756872982581396/video/3

https://9gag.com/gag/a7oWr5L

https://x.com/i/status/1854720159077872104

EQUATORIAL GUINEA SEX-TAPE LEAKS A GAME OF THRONES?

Reports have surfaced alleging the leaked sex tapes involving Baltasar Engonga, a prominent official and the 54-year-old nephew of Equatorial Guinea’s 82-year-old president, Teodoro Obiang Nguema, may be part of a power struggle in the ageing president’s administration.

Engonga’s intimate videos with women who reportedly are connected to people close to the government spread online a few days after authorities seized his devices during an investigation into alleged embezzlement. The reports suggest the leaks may be politically motivated by Nguema’s son, Vice President Teodoro Obiang Mangue, 56, and his mother, who are allegedly sidelining rivals to secure Obiang’s succession according to Equatoguinean activist Esimi Cruz of the rights organization GE Nuestra.

Continued……. Sources
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cr4ledr19nyo

Poverty in E. Guinea
https://www.unfpa.org/data/transparency-portal/unfpa-equatorial-guinea

Obiang, Engonga all represent the decadent elite class
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-58001750

KENYAN POLICE ‘JUST TOURISTS’
IN HAITI

When Kenyan police were first deployed to Haiti back in June, Haitian gang leader Jimmy ‘Barbecue’ Cherizier branded them ‘invaders,‘ saying their presence would not be tolerated.

Two months into the US-funded mission, the 400 Kenyan officers were still waiting to be paid and were reportedly complaining about a lack of resources.

Kenyan president William Ruto has announced that the contingent’s size will be doubled in the coming weeks. However, he also said that he was in talks to transform the mission into a UN one.

Was that an admission that the deployed Kenyan forces in Haiti are overwhelmed? In this clip, former Haitian colonel Himmler Rébu tells DW that the officers are mere tourists, lacking the means to properly police the island nation’s rampant gangs.

Video Credit: DW News

Continued……SOURCES:

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXUg3qv3Thc

https://nation.africa/kenya/news/police-in-haiti-facing-pay-delays-relatives-say-4738970

https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/national/article/2001506068/kenya-led-haiti-mission-to-transition-into-a-un-peacekeeping-operation

https://www.citizen.digital/news/ruto-engages-us-secretary-of-state-on-fate-of-haiti-mission-following-trump-election-n352622

Continued….. The UK’s position is at odds with that of other Commonwealth nations. A 2023 report for the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) concluded that Britain owes $19.6 trillion for the European slave trade. The Chairwoman of CARICOM’s reparations commission says ‘the crime is huge’ and therefore ‘the responsibility for what happened is huge.’

SOURCES:

https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/british-lawmakers-accuse-starmer-colonial-mindset-slavery-reparations-debate-2024-10-27/

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn01ljdl07xo

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

https://taxjustice.net/2020/06/09/slavery-compensation-uk-questions/

https://reparationscomm.org/reparations-news/britains-colonial-shame-slave-owners-given-huge-payouts-after-abolition/

https://sites.manchester.ac.uk/global-social-challenges/2021/05/04/the-impact-of-the-past-how-british-colonialism-affects-the-modern-world/

https://heritagecollections.parliament.uk/stories/the-transatlantic-slave-trade

Continued….. https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zc92xnb/revision/1

https://medium.com/lessons-from-history/all-britons-benefited-from-colonialism-regardless-of-class-42cd2777949

https://theconversation.com/five-ways-the-monarchy-has-benefited-from-colonialism-and-slavery-179911

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd6vy79p750o

https://caricomreparations.org

https://www.brattle.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Report-on-Reparations-for-Transatlantic-Chattel-Slavery-in-the-Americas-and-the-Caribbean.pdf

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/caribbean-countries-seek-trillion-slavery-reparations-b1106585.html

OUTRAGE AS GHANA PREZ UNVEILS STATUE OF HIMSELF

Ghanaians have been reacting with anger and mockery after the country’s outgoing president unveiled a giant statue of himself - branding it a huge waste of desperately needed funds. Nana Akufo-Addo has served the constitutional maximum of eight years (two consecutive four-year terms) and won’t be on the ballot in the West African country's 7 December election. One of his MPs says the new monument is a tribute to his achievements in office - among them, free secondary schooling. However, the country is in the grip of a debt crisis. Ghana has $51 billion in external debt.

Continued……. The national currency, the cedi, has performed poorly against the dollar, particularly since 2022, when it lost 55% of its value between January and October. And it’s not the first time Nana Akufo-Addo’s extravagance has riled Ghanaians. When he commissioned a $400 million state-funded national cathedral, critics scoffed that it was just an expensive swimming pool after rains flooded the excavated foundation.

SOURCES:

https://allafrica.com/stories/202411080135.html

https://www.modernghana.com/news/1138177/ghana-to-spend-almost-ghs5-million-on-akufo-addos.html

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/4/18/cathedral-of-scandals-how-a-presidential-promise-divided-ghana

https://www.fact-checkghana.com/national-cathedral-changing-cost-and-contradictions/

https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/06/26/ghana-akufo-addo-economic-crisis-overspending-imf/

During colonialism, indigenous African languages and ways of life were obliterated by White European settlers. Africans were denied all knowledge of self and robbed of their own identities, which were replaced with colonial values and an inferiority complex. Narratives of who and what White people were in comparison with Africans were penned by Europeans - and, right up to the present, these fabrications remain the standard by which many Africans judge themselves. A large chunk of their own history, civilisation and self-knowledge is hidden from them. These White-supremacist narratives are responsible for Africans remaining in perpetual cycles of exploitation, while ironically looking to their Western oppressors for 'salvation.’

Continued……Western powers, colonialists and neo-colonialists have always sought to suppress knowledge because ignorance facilitates oppression. Keeping the masses un- or mis-informed makes it easier to control them.

In today's digital age, the West's war to impose a monopoly on information could not be more clear.

Those who deny us truth and keep us in darkness do so to keep us on a leash because to deny people knowledge is to ensure their minds remain enslaved. Thus, those who block the African sun do not want our seeds to sprout and are, undoubtedly, our enemies.

BLACKS IN U.S. RECEIVE RACIST TEXTS AFTER TRUMP WIN

News reports say Black people—including children—in about half of the 50 US states recently received racist text messages stating that they had been ‘selected to pick cotton at the nearest plantation.’ These mass texts were sent from unrecognised numbers a day after Donald Trump declared victory in the 5 November US presidential election. Some messages referenced recipients by name and included ‘Trump supporter’ as a signature.

TextNow, a service that allows people to send text messages for free, said several users had sent out these messages and that it had shut down those accounts.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) condemned the incident and blamed Trump’s team. However, the president-elect’s campaign denied involvement.

The FBI announced it was investigating and is in touch with the US Department of Justice and other federal authorities.

U.K. SURGEON: ISRAEL TARGETS CHILDREN

Nizam Mamode, a retired British National Health Service transplant surgeon who worked in Gaza with the British charity, Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP), shocked UK MPs when he testified on 12 November about children he operated on describing to him that Israel deliberately targeted them.

Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor also has documented Israel's military using small drones (quadcopters) to fire directly at Palestinians.

Mamode told members of the UK Parliament's International Development Committee that, while working in Nasser Hospital—formerly one of Gaza's largest hospitals that Israel's attacks turned non-functional—children recounted that after an Israeli bombardment injured them, quadcopters flew in, hovered above and fired at them.

Continued……. In an 8 November press release, the UN Human Rights Office reported that close to 70 per cent of casualties in Gaza are children and women, 'indicating a systematic violation of the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law, including distinction and proportionality.'

Israel's military onslaught on the Palestinian people in Gaza, including their children, is one of the reasons that prompted South Africa to file a g*nocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. In its provisional ruling on 26 January, the ICJ found it 'plausible' that Israel has committed acts violating the UN G*nocide Convention and ordered it to do everything in its power to prevent acts of g*nocide in Gaza.

As of 13 November, the Gaza Health Ministry reports Israeli military operations have killed more than 43,000 Palestinians (primarily women and children). However, the British medical journal The Lancet estimated a death toll of at least 186,000 by early July.

To paraphrase South African liberation hero, the late Nelson Mandela (1918-2013), 'There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way it treats children.'

Video credit: @ukparliament (X)

SOURCES:

https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/gaza-israel-systematically-uses-quadcopters-kill-palestinians-close-distance-enar

https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/98/international-development-committee/news/203748/idc-chair-responds-to-shocking-evidence-on-gaza-healthcare/

https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/6357/Gaza:-Israeli-army-expands-its-use-of-quadcopters-to-kill-more-Palestinian-civilians

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/footage-shows-gaza-strike-hitting-a-group-of-men-trying-to-help-stranded-wounded-boy/

https://www.axios.com/2024/11/08/un-report-70-gaza-dead

https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/10/1156016

https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/11/there-must-be-due-reckoning-horrific-violations-possible-atrocity-crimes

https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/192/192-20240126-ord-01-00-en.pdf

https://www.npr.org/2024/01/26/1227078791/icj-israel-genocide-gaza-palestinians-south-africa

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/11/12/live-israeli-drone-attack-kills-10-in-gaza-cafe-as-tanks-enter-nuseirat

https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/latest/how-israeli-army-besieged-nasser-hospital

https://www.middleeasteye.net/live-blog/live-blog-update/death-toll-gaza-rises-43665?fid=537746&nid=405861&topic=Israel%2527s%2520war%2520on%2520Gaza

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)01169-3/fulltext

'WE WANT TO GO HOME' - DRC REFUGEE

This refugee’s cry for help shows the human cost of foreign powers destabilising the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in a nearly three-decade conflict over natural resources. She is one of 6.9-million people pushed off their land and forced to live in tent camps.

The DRC’s estimated $24 trillion in mineral wealth has not benefitted its people. Instead, more than 100 armed groups control the mines.

Continued……. This arrangement has upended the lives of millions, but guaranteed the supply of crucial minerals, like cobalt and coltan, to the Western tech sector. Firms like Apple and Google have been accused of profiteering from child labour, but a recent lawsuit failed in a US court.

UN experts have accused regional actors Uganda and Rwanda of fuelling the fire through their support of rebel groups like M23. Despite an August ceasefire, M23 has been accused of going on an offensive in October. The group now controls about 70 per cent of North Kivu province in eastern DRC, and it reportedly brings in an estimated $300,000 a month from taxes on coltan production.

Credit: @pappyorion (TikTok)

Sources
Congolese resources controlled by militias
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/21/a-guide-to-the-decades-long-conflict-in-dr-congo

Western tech firms profiteer off blood minerals
https://apnews.com/article/apple-iphones-congo-blood-minerals-b1f20aa7bd3a3f4f8cf7fcde19c6f053

Rwanda Uganda back M23
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c134kgdpd6do

M23 controls 70% of N. Kivu
https://www.newsminimalist.com/articles/m23-rebels-expand-control-in-eastern-dr-congos-mineral-rich-north-kivu-province-6a1cc8fc

Estimated earnings from Cobalt
https://www.newsminimalist.com/articles/m23-rebels-expand-control-in-eastern-dr-congos-mineral-rich-north-kivu-province-6a1cc8fc

Lawsuit
https://abcnews.go.com/International/us-court-absolves-top-tech-companies-congos-child/story?id=107839639

Mineral wealth
https://gsphub.eu/country-info/Democratic%20Republic%20of%20Congo

Displacement figure
https://www.iom.int/news/record-high-displacement-drc-nearly-7-million

More than 100 groups control mines
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/m23-rebels-seize-key-smartphone-mineral-mining-town-in-eastern-congo

More journalists have been k*lled in the last two years than during any other time since media monitoring organisations first began gathering data.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) reported that, on average, one journalist was killed every four days in the line of duty between 2022-23. The latest escalation of Israel's 76-year occupation of Palestine has k*lled 137 media workers in Palestine, Israel and Lebanon.

UNESCO reports 85 per cent of cases globally remain unsolved, with no perpetrators held to account. 

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said it is investigating cases in which Israeli forces' specifically targeted' at least five journalists and 'deliberately targeted' at least 10 others.