WHITE COUPLE ON TRIAL FOR ‘ENSLAVING’ BLACK KIDS

A multi-day trial began on 14 January for a white couple in the US state of West Virginia who face 16 charges on allegedly enslaving five Black children they had adopted.

Authorities accuse Jeanne Kay Whitefeather and Donald Ray Lantz of child neglect, trafficking of a minor and employing children in labour, among other charges.

The prosecution opened the case by presenting evidence of child abuse. Text messages allegedly exchanged between Lantz and Whitefeather showed the couple discussing how to force the children to stand for extended periods and confining the two teenagers in an outbuilding.

Continued……The couple reportedly denied proper food and hygiene to the children, who ranged in age between 5 and 16 at the time of the police raid in October 2023. They were indicted in June 2024 and remain under house arrest.

Sources:

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/teenager-describes-tumultuous-life-trial-adoptive-parents-accused-117817252

https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/27/us/west-virginia-adopted-black-children-slaves-reaj/index.html

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/trial-starts-west-virginia-couple-234905844.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAIdqpV8njAhEkAvyRSNtiPPGqQU12rdcudoy3shA3scedAorrLCWM8pZ0ajFzKE0dXLtciba6SqlUH8PXZ7Y0sUZTmwDCrssqMAet-p5dxrbRhAapYr8ABkFTFbAWBS00Nh6KLF3ZYQ5zHBM98Mgl0n3Z61LvaXIr3PlUopB2qkn

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjtou3OM7Lk

BILLIONAIRE VS. BALLER: THE ADL EDITION

On 20 January, during US President Donald Trump’s post-inauguration rally, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, a close ally, appeared to perform a N*zi salute. This action sparked widespread outrage across the internet. However, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), an organisation that claims to combat anti-Semitism, notably downplayed the incident, describing it as merely an ‘awkward moment of enthusiasm.’

The ADL’s leniency toward Musk was particularly glaring compared to the group’s harsh response to Brooklyn Nets player Kyrie Irving in 2022. After Irving shared on X the film, ‘Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America,’ which allegedly contains anti-Semitic tropes, the ADL swiftly demanded accountability. The Nets suspended Irving and required him to meet six conditions to return. 

Continued….. Did Musk’s status as a wealthy, powerful individual shield him from the same level of scrutiny? Did race and privilege influence the ADL’s reactions? Have a watch and let us know.

Hear Us Roar: https://news.1rj.ru/str/AfricanStream

Sources:

https://x.com/i/status/1881433327779168614

https://x.com/ADL/status/1881474892022919403

https://www.blackenterprise.com/kyrie-irving-six-items-required-to-rejoin-the-brooklyn-nets/

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/08/anti-defamation-league-surveillance

REACTION: WHO ARE THE TERRORISTS IN DRC?

Rwanda’s minister of foreign affairs has argued at the UN Security Council that branding the Kigali-backed M23 rebels fighting in the Democratic Republic of Congo terrorists distracts from the human rights violations being committed by another militia fighting in eastern DRC - the Islamist ADF (Allied Democratic Forces).

Olivier Jean Patrick Nduhungirehe portrays the M23 as a protector of marginalised Tutsis in the Congo. However, this narrative is contested by reports showing the M23’s involvement in grave human rights abuses, including forced recruitment, r*pe and mass displacement. Critics suggest the resurgence of the M23 - rather than being a reaction to - exacerbated anti-Tutsi violence in the region.

Continued……While Rwanda condemns the marginalisation of Tutsis in the DRC, the M23’s economic activities, such as controlling lucrative mining areas, reveal motives beyond so-called ethnic protection. There is also evidence of Rwanda’s involvement in the looting of Congolese resources.

Our man William Sakawa gives his take on Nduhungirehe’s speech. Who do you agree with?

Sources:

https://icct.nl/publication/m23-forgotten-war-and-overshadowed-ceasefire

https://cic.nyu.edu/resources/the-resurgence-of-the-m23-regional-rivalries/

https://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/50/5040402_-africa-rwanda-drc-kagame-s-hidden-war-in-the-congo-.html

https://apnews.com/article/congo-mining-m23-un-security-council-b11207ba887b352d702c3e4603d0c891

https://www.blackagendareport.com/rwanda-exports-2163-kg-gold-uae-imports-12539-kg-it

On his third day in office, US President Donald Trump used the day to issue full pardons to two Washington DC police officers found guilty in 2024 for an unauthorised chase that led to the death of an unarmed Black motorist.

In the same year that 20-year-old Karon Hylton-Brown was k*lled in the high-speed chase, officers in Louisville, Kentucky, used a no-knock warrant to enter 26-year-old Breonna Taylor’s apartment in 2020. A jury acquitted the officer who fired the fatal shot on all three counts of endangering her neighbours, whilst no charge was slapped on him for Taylor’s murder. Similarly, when 27-year-old Carlos Ingram Lopez died in 2020 in police custody while handcuffed and held down under plastic covers for 12 minutes in Tucson, Arizona, a court ruled that there wasn’t enough evidence to convict the officers, despite the police chief admitting it was a policy violation.

Continued….. These are just a few out of thousands of examples illustrating how most US police officers do not face consequences for abuses of power that k*ll civilians in the line of duty. Thus, officers Terence D. Sutton, Jr., and Andrew Zabavsky were in the minority of those who do and Trump’s pardon only indicates that calls for more police accountability will fall on deaf ears yet again without an effective people-driven movement.

Sources:

https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/two-mpd-officers-sentenced-2020-murder-karon-hylton-brown-and-subsequent-coverup

https://www.police1.com/legal/trump-pardons-d-c-police-officers-convicted-in-case-of-motorist-killed-during-pursuit

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/trump-pardons-two-dc-officers-convicted-fatal-chase-20-year-old-man-co-rcna188920

Continued….. https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-protests-for-racial-justice/2020/09/22/915733112/no-charges-against-tucson-police-officers-in-death-of-carlos-ingram-lopez

https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-protests-for-racial-justice/2020/09/22/915733112/no-charges-against-tucson-police-officers-in-death-of-carlos-ingram-lopez

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/03/us/brett-hankison-trial-closing/index.html

Continued….. His 2022 parole opened wounds in South Africa, with Hani’s family saying it made a mockery of the country’s justice system.

Sources:

https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/janusz-walus-i-would-kill-chris-hani-again-1d5b12b3-dc1f-4257-b8f6-2ed8eaf8460f

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2025-01-26-cold-cold-heart-chris-hani-assassin-janusz-walus-has-no-regrets/?dm_source=dm_block_list&dm_medium=card_link&dm_campaign=main

https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/index.php/site/q/03lv02424/04lv02730/05lv03005/06lv03006/07lv03051/08lv03053.htm

DRC CRISIS: REBELS CLAIM TO CAPTURE GOMA

A significant development in the ongoing conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo: Rwanda-backed M23 rebels say they have captured Goma city - the provincial capital of North Kivu. The announcement follows a rapid offensive by the group, which a UN experts’ report in July 2024 said has been bolstered by Ugandan and Rwandan support.

M23 say they are fighting to protect ethnic Tutsis in DR Congo against attacks by the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), extremist rebels linked to the Islamic State group. Yet many Congolese are not buying this since the ADF forces are indiscriminately attacking all Congolese, not just ethnic Tutsis.

Rwanda has not refuted the UN report alleging the deployment of up to 4,000 troops and advanced weaponry to support M23’s operations in the mineral-rich Kivu provinces.

Continued……In a recent attack on Goma, M23 forces reportedly killed Major-General Peter Cirimwami, the province’s military governor, during his visit to frontline troops on January 23. According to UN and military sources, 13 peacekeeping troops lost their lives in confrontations with M23, including nine South African soldiers serving under the Southern African Development Community (SADC) mission, alongside three Malawians and one Uruguayan soldier.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has urged Rwanda to withdraw its forces from the DRC and halt its support for M23.

The situation escalated following the breakdown of peace talks between Rwandan and DRC leaders, which were set to take place on December 15 in Luanda, Angola. Since the start of 2025, the UN Refugee Agency reports that over 400,000 individuals have been displaced, exacerbating an already critical humanitarian crisis in the Great Lakes region.

The ongoing resource conflict in the DRC, which has raged for three decades, has resulted in approximately 6 million deaths and the displacement of over 7 million people.

Sources:


https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0qwlkydxxko

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/1/26/un-chief-calls-for-rwandan-forces-to-leave-drc-as-rebels-press-offensive

https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/01/1159401

https://www.unhcr.org/news/briefing-notes/unhcr-gravely-concerned-worsening-violence-and-humanitarian-crisis-eastern-dr

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/1/24/military-governor-drc-north-kivu-province-killed-m23-rebel-offensive

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2l07e550qko

https://apnews.com/article/congo-united-nations-peacekeepers-649174404c6b638bb0fb24dd2edc1ea6

https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/statement/2025-01-26/statement-attributable-the-spokesperson-for-the-secretary-general-%E2%80%93-the-democratic-republic-of-the-congo-scroll-down-for-french-version

https://documents.un.org/doc/undoc/gen/n24/118/80/pdf/n2411880.pdf

https://documents.un.org/doc/undoc/gen/n24/118/80/pdf/n2411880.pdf

Local sources have accused the UAE-backed Rapid Support Forces of attacking a hospital in Darfur, killing about 70 people and leaving 29 more injured. North Darfur's capital of El Fasher has been under RSF siege for 8-months now and is the last of the state's five capitals not under full RSF control.

The RSF is accused of mass atrocities in the state of Darfur. On 2 November 2023 for example, it was reported that the RSF, in a single massacre, had killed 1,300 people and injured 2,000 in West Darfur.

Continued……. The people of Darfur have been subjected to ethnic cleansing throughout all the vicious cycles of wars in Sudan. For instance, between 2003 to 2008, the Sudanese government's military and their armed militias (the Janjaweed or 'devils on horseback') waged a g*nocide in Darfur that k*lled about 300,000 civilians and displaced around 2.7 million people.

Most of the RSF are former Janjaweed militia responsible for the genocide in the 2000s. Their current atrocities are not only a product of the proxy war that began on 15 April 2023, but also part of a long-standing ethnically motivated war waged predominantly against Sudan’s non-Arab peoples for decades, with the people of Darfur continuously targeted.

Sources:

https://sudantribune.com/article296469

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/26/hospital-attack-sudan-besieged-el-fasher-who

https://theconversation.com/sudans-army-has-been-battling-to-keep-darfurs-el-fasher-from-paramilitary-forces-why-the-citys-so-important-236168

https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/12/sudan-alarming-el-fasher-siege-hostilities-must-end-un-report

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/1/25/dozens-killed-in-drone-attack-on-hospital-in-sudans-darfur-medical-source

https://theconversation.com/sudans-army-has-been-battling-to-keep-darfurs-el-fasher-from-paramilitary-forces-why-the-citys-so-important-236168

https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/horn-africa/sudan/b198-halting-catastrophic-battle-sudans-el-fasher

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/10/corpses-on-streets-sudans-rsf-kills-1300-in-darfur-monitors-say

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/jul/24/rsf-janjaweed-hemedti-out-to-finish-darfur-sudan-genocide-uk-cannot-stand-by

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/darfur

Burkina Faso announced on 16 January that over 1 million internally displaced people had made their way back to 165,375 households and 697 localities by 31 December 2024 after the new government eliminated t*rrorist death squads in the country’s west, notably the Cascades and Southwest regions. Burkina Faso’s revolutionary government now has its eyes on liberating the northeast. 

Burkina Faso President Ibrahim Traoré considers the fight against terrorism a war of decolonisation. Alliance of Sahel States (AES) member states—Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger—have accused former coloniser France and Ukraine of providing support for t*rrorist organisations, an issue that the AES has brought before the United Nations Security Council. The 2011 NATO invasion of Libya destabilised the country, allowing its arms to flood the Sahara Desert, leading to a spike in t*rrorism-related deaths.

Continued…. Sources:

https://www.aujourd8.net/burkina-faso-1-010-136-deplaces-sont-retournes-dans-697-localites/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C96QQ28PJNc

https://www.un.int/mali/sites/www.un.int/files/Mali/rev_allocution_mali_agnu_24_septembre_2022_2.pdf

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/africa/burkina-faso-mali-niger-accuse-ukraine-of-supporting-terrorism-in-sahel/3308995

https://www.visionofhumanity.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/GTI-2022-web-09062022.pdf

DRC QUESTIONS RWANDA’S ROLE IN UN AFTER
PEACEKEEPERS KILLED

Asked whether Kinshasa now regrets demanding the (still incomplete) withdrawal of the UN peacekeeping mission in the country (MONUSCO) - in light of the advances being made by Rwanda-backed M23 rebels in eastern Congo - DRC’s foreign minister Therese Kayikwamba Wagner responded by saying that areas no longer under UN jurisdiction have seen greater stability than MONUSCO-administered areas.

If she is right, what was one of the UN’s biggest and best funded ($1 billion annually) missions really about?

She accuses the international community of complicity in destabilising the DRC. M23 would not be able to wage war so successfully if not for Kigali’s backing, and Rwanda itself would likely not possess the capacity to back the M23 without international support.

Continued…. Despite issuing condemnation, the West - in particular, the US, UK and France - have refrained from taking concrete measures against Rwandan president, Paul Kagame.

Rwanda is heavily reliant on external funding. According to the World Bank, Kigali received $1.25 billion in official development assistance in 2021 - equivalent to 74% of central government spending. The EU in 2022 announced it would fund a Rwandan military campaign in Mozambique at $20 million. In 2024, Paris announced $400 million in funding for health, the environment and education. The UK also agreed a deal with Rwanda to host deported migrants worth $310 million in 2022.

All these initiatives have been undertaken with the full knowledge of Rwanda’s involvement in DRC’s destabilisation. Might economic interests be a consideration, especially considering how crucial Congolese minerals such as cobalt and gold are to global markets, and the role Kigali plays in acquiring them from the DRC?

Sources:

News:
https://x.com/sherwiebp/status/1883580216188301772

Rwanda and Int’l community
https://cic.nyu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/The-Resurgence-of-the-M23-EN.pdf

M23 economic interests
https://apnews.com/article/congo-mining-m23-un-security-council-b11207ba887b352d702c3e4603d0c891