Continued……Now, this Trump toilet serves as the perfect spot to flush away some of those less-than-savoury remarks and policies that have targeted people of African descent, like the cancellation of reserved asylum hearings and the US refugee resettlement programme.

While Maillu’s tribute might bring a chuckle, the reality is far from funny for millions affected by US actions in Africa. For instance, take Libya, which US-led NATO forces bombed in 2011 under the pretence of protecting civilians from its Pan-Africanist leader, Muammar Gaddafi (1942-2011). Now, the once-prosperous country is a mess with militias fighting for territorial control, human trafficking run amok, slave markets having sprung up, a shattered economy, and an influx of migrants taking the dangerous journey across Africa and the Mediterranean Sea into Europe.

So, if you ever find yourself in Kenya, don’t forget to add the Trump toilet statue to your travel itinerary. It’s a real ‘crapper’ of a monument that’s sure to leave you in stitches!

Video credit: @vioryvideo / @2nacheki (X)

Sources:

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/05/bidens-asylum-app-cbp-one-broken.html

https://www.rescue.org/article/what-do-president-bidens-border-policies-mean-asylum-seekers

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-referred-haiti-african-countries-shithole-nations-n836946

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyn2p8x2eyo

CONGOLESE ABANDONED BUT $1 BILLION RAISED IN 24H FOR NOTRE-DAME?

It is essential to recognise that the crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has been ongoing for some time. The M23 rebel group capturing wide swaths of eastern DRC territory this month, pushing about 500,000 Congolese off their land, is just the latest escalation in a foreign-instigated proxy conflict over natural resources that has dragged on for close to 30 years since Western-backed Rwanda and Uganda forces invaded Congo in 1996, destabilising the country. 

DRC neighbours have since acted as a conduit for Western multinationals, like Apple and Tesla, that rely on the minerals extracted from eastern Congo. 

Continued….. In this clip from a 2024 round-table discussion with Pan-Africanist activist and fundraiser @Chakabars, he pointed out how the world has ignored the ongoing genocide in the DRC, in which we are all somehow complicit due to the devices we use. Yet, the West rallied to stump up $1 billion within days after Paris’ iconic Notre Dame Cathedral burnt down.

Cultural preservation is a wonderful and essential thing, but you’d have thought human life is—or rather, millions of human lives are—a more urgent priority.

As always, your input in the comments is appreciated.

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

U.S. EMBASSY IN DRC CLOSED FOLLOWING PROTESTS

The US embassy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) closed on 28 January amidst outraged protesters attacking the property in Kinshasa. The US is among the countries regarded as complicit in neighbouring Rwanda’s support for the M23 rebel group, which has recently seized more territories in the DRC’s mineral-rich east, symbolising US hypocrisy as it preaches democracy while enabling Rwanda’s proxy war in the DRC.

The embassy was among several (French, Belgian, Kenyan, Rwandan and Ugandan) that protesters attacked over these states’ perceived complicity, fueling resentment about the M23’s recent success in capturing vast swaths of eastern DRC territory. Once M23 entered North Kivu province’s capital, Goma, on 27 January, hundreds of thousands of people reportedly fled for safer terrain.

Continued……. The M23’s campaign comes amidst a three-decades-long conflict over natural resources that foreign powers like the US have their hands in by financially supporting Rwanda, which arms and trains M23.

In 2012, international pressure cancelled aid to Rwanda, forcing the M23 underground. However, in 2021, the M23 renewed its campaign. Meanwhile, Rwanda received $1.25 billion in official development assistance in 2021, equivalent to 74 per cent of central government spending. It also boasts $20 million in security partnerships with the EU over Mozambique and deals with France and the UK in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Many have also accused US tech giants of using minerals looted to make products like smartphones and electric vehicles. In 2024, child miners and their guardians lost a child-labour case against five tech giants in a US court. The plaintiffs have since launched a case against Apple in Europe.

Sources:

News
https://cd.usembassy.gov/security-alert-increased-violence-in-kinshasa

https://www.dw.com/en/dr-congo-people-flee-homes-2025/a-71440536

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

US tech giants complicit in looting
https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2019/12/17/us-tech-giants-sued-over-drc-cobalt-mine-child-labour-deaths/

TRUMP HALTS GLOBAL HIV FUNDING

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on January 29 issued a waiver for some life-saving humanitarian assistance that was underway worldwide, following US President Donald Trump's cancellation of aid and withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO). Trump also ordered the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to end cooperation with WHO, and halted funding initiatives like the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).

Rubio's waiver should provide some relief following alarm across the globe. Critics argued the Trump's move jeopardised the lives of people who receive HIV prevention and treatment through the global programme, especially in Africa, where 25.6-million people live with HIV, according to WHO.

Continued….. Launched by Republican President George W Bush in 2003, PEPFAR provides lifesaving antiretrovirals for more than 20 million people, according to International AIDS Society President Dr Beatriz Grinsztejn. It has reportedly saved 26-million lives and prevented nearly 8-million cases of mother-to-child HIV transmission since its inception with a $6.5 billion budget. It also provided HIV testing services for nearly 84-million people in low- and middle-income countries in 2024.

A disruption in medication could lead to drug resistance, people with a detectable viral load transmitting HIV to their partners, and pregnant women passing the virus to foetuses.

But, why should Africa rely on US aid, so many decades after independence? A 2014 New York Times article admitted the US Agency for International Development (USAID) was sometimes ‘used as a front for CIA operations and operatives.’ The same applies to other US agencies, like the National Endowment for Democracy, whose co-founder and acting president, Allen Weinstein, said, ‘A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.’

Ultimately, as Burkina Faso’s assassinated leader and Pan-Africanist icon Thomas Sankara (1949-87), said, ‘He who feeds you, controls you.’ Africa is immensely wealthy in natural resources and people. While US programmes have provided much-needed life-saving assistance, what excuse do African leaders have for the lack of self-sufficiency in sectors as crucial as healthcare?

Sources

https://www.state.gov/emergency-humanitarian-waiver-to-foreign-assistance-pause-2

https://apnews.com/article/trump-foreign-assistance-freeze-684ff394662986eb38e0c84d3e73350b

https://www.ebar.com/story.php?ch=news&sc=health&id=337614

Africa
https://files.aho.afro.who.int/afahobckpcontainer/production/files/iAHO-HIV_Regional_Factsheet_November2022.pdf

USAID / CIA
https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/04/15/when-is-foreign-aid-meddling/secret-programs-hurt-foreign-aid-efforts

NED / CIA
https://archive.org/stream/ned-cia-and-the-orwellian-democracy-project-by-chip-berlet-holly-sklar-covert-ac/NED%2C%20CIA%2C%20and%20the%20Orwellian%20Democracy%20Project%2C%20by%20Chip%20Berlet%20%26%20Holly%20Sklar%20%28CovertAction%20Information%20Bulletin%2C%20No.%2039%2C%20Winter%201991%29%20pp.%2010-13-1_djvu.txt

Thomas Sankara
https://newsreel.org/video/THOMAS-SANKARA-THE-UPRIGHT-MAN

TEMS CANCELS RWANDA CONCERT AMID DRC ESCALATION

Nigerian singer Tems has cancelled her upcoming concert in Kigali, Rwanda, which was scheduled for 22 March at the BK Arena. She says she made this decision upon learning about the ongoing conflict between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which has witnessed an escalation between the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group and the Congolese military. Hundreds of thousands have been displaced since M23’s resurgence in 2021.

Tems said she had previously been unaware of the situation and said sorry: “I never ever intend to be insensitive to real-world issues, and I sincerely apologise if this came across that way.” She extended her heartfelt wishes to those affected, emphasising that “conflict is no joke.”

Continued……A primary driver of the conflict is Congolese minerals. M23 have been used as a proxy to acquire crucial resources, including gold and coltan. Rwanda has provided the rebels with training and material. According to the UN, up to 4,000 Rwandan soldiers are fighting alongside M23 in Congo.

Sources
https://x.com/temsbaby/status/1885009308527505832

Escalation
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckgyzl1mlkvo

Rwanda backs M23
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckgyzl1mlkvo

4,000 Rwandan soldiers alongside M23
https://cic.nyu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/The-Resurgence-of-the-M23-EN.pdf

On 30 January, Chad announced the completion of the phased withdrawal of French troops from the Central African country, following the full handover of their last base. N’Djamena had set a 31 January deadline.

Chad becomes the fourth African country to be free of France’s military after a six-decade-plus presence (following Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger).

Continued….. Ivory Coast and Senegal also recently ordered the French army to leave their lands - with Dakar confirming the withdrawal from its territory would happen by the end of 2025.

For decades, France justified its military presence under the guise of ‘counter-terrorism’ and ‘stability.’ But amid rising anti-colonial sentiment directed at Paris in francophone Africa, it’s widely felt that the real agenda had little to do with securing Africans. So which county will be next to break free?

Sources:

https://apnews.com/article/chad-france-military-bases-withdrawal-bd1c1e5a075f3a4b0dba01801c081728

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250130-france-hands-over-last-base-in-chad-amid-withdrawal

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/11/29/chad-ends-military-cooperation-with-france

https://www.rfi.fr/en/international-news/20250130-france-hands-over-last-base-in-chad-amid-withdrawal

https://mg.co.za/thought-leader/2023-08-20-former-french-colonies-are-still-paying-a-colonial-tax/

https://theconversation.com/what-france-loses-by-closing-its-military-bases-in-africa-247898

KAGAME AND RAMAPHOSA RATTLE SABRES

Rwanda’s president has fired off a belligerent series of tweets at his South African counterpart - warning that Kigali is ready for war with Pretoria.

It comes after 13 South African soldiers were killed in eastern DRC as Rwanda-backed M23 rebels advanced on the Congolese city of Goma.

In response, Cyril Ramaphosa told Paul Kagame that there’d be consequences if any more of his troops perished at the hands of Rwandan troops or proxies.

Or so he tweeted. Kagame tweeted back that that’s just bluster and that no such warning had in fact been issued during their recent call.

Nevertheless, the Rwandan leader said his country was prepared for any ‘confrontation’ with South Africa. He also mocked Ramaphosa for posing as a peacemaker while allegedly backing his own proxies in DRC.

Continued……Kagame was referring to Pretoria’s participation in SAMIDRC - the Southern African Development Community (SADC) peacekeeping mission in the DRC, which he claims is actually one of the belligerents in the war.

He also has a historical axe to grind with soldiers from the southern part of Africa: when Rwanda and Uganda invaded the DRC during the second Congo war in the late ‘90s, it was troops from Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe (i.e., from southern Africa) that drove out the invaders.

Sources:

https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/09/13/rwandans-charged-murder-exiled-critic
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/africa/rwanda-denies-using-pegasus-spyware/2318398

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/assassins-linked-to-kagame-regime-9700529.html

500K PALESTINIANS RETURN TO RUBBLE IN NORTH GAZA

About 500,000 hopeful Palestinians have made their way back to Northern Gaza following the recent ceasefire agreement between H*mas and Israel that went into effect on 19 January.

This report features exclusive footage from Gaza captured by Libra X. Sankara, an Afro-Puerto Rican who has been working as a logistics coordinator with the Glia International medical solidarity organisation (@glia_intl on X) since May 2024.

Continued……. Israeli forces opened the Netzarim Corridor on 27 January to allow residents back into Northern Gaza, but without shelter to call home. According to the UN, approximately 92 per cent of housing in the Gaza Strip—around 436,000 homes—has been either destroyed or severely damaged following 15 months of Israel’s continuous bombardment. The military onslaught also impacted roads, power lines and essential water and fuel supplies. 

Many Palestinians remain buried beneath rubble that marks the landscape of Northern Gaza. The Palestinian Ministry of Health reports that over 47,000 Palestinians, including nearly 17,500 children, lost their lives. A study published in July 2024 by the Lancet, a British medical journal, estimated the death toll to be as high as 186,000, with many still unaccounted for.

Like Libre, many hold onto the hope that Israeli settler-colonialism in Palestine will eventually come to an end through the united efforts of people around the world.

Video credit: Libre X. Sankara (@afroaboriginal47 on Instagram)

Sources:

https://abcnews.go.com/International/reborn-gazans-express-joy-returning-home-north/story?id=118177265

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c79dv3ppw7yo

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/31/middleeast/northern-gaza-return-destruction-intl/index.html

https://www.firstpost.com/world/92-per-cent-homes-in-gaza-destroyed-or-damaged-in-gaza-says-un-13854619.html

https://www.voanews.com/a/gaza-is-in-ruins-and-it-s-unclear-how-it-will-be-rebuilt-/7940413.html

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/15/the-devastating-impact-of-15-months-of-war-on-gaza

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/hundreds-of-thousands-of-palestinians-in-north-gaza-defy-israeli-evacuation-orders-in-fear-of-bombings

https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-gazas-netzarim-corridor-idf-establishes-temporary-bases-for-an-indefinite-stay

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2023/10/9/israel-hamas-war-in-maps-and-charts-live-tracker

https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0140-6736%2824%2901169-3

https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/09/1154391

PLO LUMUMBA’S FRIENDSHIP WITH PAUL KAGAME

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is once again drowning in bloodshed. In the last month alone, Rwanda-backed M23 rebels have seized multiple towns, displacing over 500,000 people and tightening their grip on the DRC’s mineral-rich east.

For years, Kinshasa has accused Kigali of providing financial, political and military support to M23, accusations backed by mounting evidence from the United Nations, human rights organisations and intelligence reports. Yet, Rwandan President Paul Kagame has always denied involvement, skillfully masking US and European imperialist aggression behind Pan-Africanist rhetoric.  

Continued….. However, PLO Lumumba, one of Africa’s most revered Pan-Africanist scholars, calls himself a ‘friend’ of Kagame. How do we reconcile Pan-Africanism with friendship with a man accused of destabilising an African state on behalf of imperial powers? This question took centre stage during the ‘Pan-African Attitude’ podcast’s eighth episode at African Stream’s Nairobi studios. We put Lumumba on the spot, where he revealed some of their private conversations, specifically who Kagame thinks is to blame for the long-standing crisis in the Congo.

Give it a watch, and let us know if you’re satisfied with Lumumba’s response.

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

U.S. 2024: HIGHEST POLICE KILL RATE IN 10 YEARS

US police killed a total of 1,364 people in 2024—8 more people than in 2023—according to data analysed by Mapping Police Violence, a project set up to ‘provide accurate numbers on the number of lives taken at the hands of police’ which US law enforcement and government agencies fail to do. The 2024 figure is the highest Mapping Police Violence that has been obtained since it began analysing data in 2013.

In this clip, Tiktok user @rachellapointe, a student of policing and gender-based violence, breaks down the project’s 2024 data. Mapping Police Violence reports that only 11 days in 2024 did not involve US police forces k*lling someone. As of 24 January, of the 1,364 people police k*lled in 2024, 310 were Black, a 4.62 per cent year-on-year decrease but still showing a demographic overpresentation in those killed.

Continued…….. While making up 13 per cent of the US population, Black people made up 22.72 per cent of 2024 police k*llings. This shows that although the Jim Crow era of discriminatory laws may have ended in 1965 following the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Black people continue to be disproportionately affected by the US justice system. We are systemically racially profiled and targeted in all facets of the judicial system—from policies to policing to discriminatory incarceration—in what author and civil rights activist Michelle Alexander calls ‘The New Jim Crow.’

Years of mass activism calling for respecting Black people’s human rights and accountability culminated in the most significant uprising in the country following police k*lling George Floyd in 2020. However, they have yet to yield any systemic transformation. Most police officers involved in extrajudicial k*llings of unarmed Black people in the US are never charged with wrongdoing. The first Trump administration (2017-21), the Biden administration (2021-25) and both parties rejected popular demands to ‘defund the police’ during the George Floyd protests, instead funnelling billions of dollars to hire and arm more police, including overseeing the construction of ‘Cop Cities,’ police training facilities, in many US states.

Video credit: Rachel LaPointe (@rachellapointe on TikTok)

Sources:

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/01/03/xymt-j03.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/24/us/police-killings-prosecution-charges.html

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/report-black-people-are-still-killed-police-higher-rate-groups-rcna17169

https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2024/study-of-fatal-and-nonfatal-shootings-by-police-reveals-racial-disparities-dispatch-risks

https://www.amazon.com/New-Jim-Crow-Incarceration-Colorblindness/dp/1595586431

https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/24/us/police-killings-prosecution-charges.html

https://mappingpoliceviolence.org

DEATH OF AFRICANS ‘GOOD’ FOR PLANET

With the slaughter in DRC escalating again, let’s remind ourselves of the time The Atlantic - in a fit of callous idiocy - tried to convince us that there was a good side to the mass killing of Africans. It ran a headline proclaiming that the war in eastern Congo has “kept the planet cooler” back in December 2023!

Apparently, the suffering of millions - over 6 million killed, over 7 million displaced (500,000 in January) - is just a minor footnote when it comes to virtue-signalling your green credentials.

To be fair, they did add a subheading: “The grim ironies of climate change.” But that grimness has nothing to do with climate change. It has everything to do with a 30-year resource war that, to a large extent, is fuelled by the West’s continued hunger for cheap resources and has created one of the biggest humanitarian crises on the planet.

Continued……The article’s author, Ross Anderson, casually noted that war had slowed down the economic exploitation of the Congolese rainforest. But he forgot to mention that the illicit timber trade is one of the very things driving this conflict.

Meanwhile, as Congo's war rages on, Western corporations continue their relentless exploitation of the Congolese people, sending them into perilous, pollution-spewing mines. Villages are being erased, forests are disappearing and rivers are turning into toxic soup - all in the name of greed. All very good for the environment - not!

So here’s a thought for Western editors and journalists: how about treating Africans with the dignity they deserve in your stories?

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