Continued……. African Stream is not the first to call their bluff. In 2020, Amnesty International published a scathing report noscriptd, ‘Somalia: Zero accountability as civilian deaths mount from US air strikes.’ The report quotes Deprose Muchena, Amnesty International’s director for East and Southern Africa, who stated, ‘The evidence is stacking up and it’s pretty damning. Not only does AFRICOM utterly fail at its mission to report civilian casualties in Somalia, but it doesn’t seem to care about the fate of the numerous families it has completely torn apart.’

Furthermore, airwars.org lists several instances of AFRICOM’s civilian casualties, some of which the US military has admitted to. Even if you filter the reports only to include deaths confirmed by the ‘belligerent’ (that is, the US military) and not the many unaddressed alleged civilian deaths, you will find pages of reported incidents of fatal civilian casualties. Hence, the civilian death toll is far greater than three.

HOW WEST BUYS AFRICAN JOURNALISTS EXPOSED!

A leaked document noscriptd the ‘Adaptive Country Plan Research’ - obtained by West Africa Weekly’s @DavidHundeyin - reveals the extent of the on-going information war in Africa. In this clip, Hundeyin details how African journalists are used by NGOs to smear anti-imperialist individuals such as himself, as well as platforms like African Stream.

The document was assembled by the Centre for Information Resilience (CIR) and circulated to 10 Nigerian journalist who took part in a private retreat at the Kempinski Hotel in Accra, Ghana. In it, unfounded claims by former US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken - that African Stream is a Russian propaganda outfit - are regurgitated, citing sources that fail to produce any evidence.

Continued……. To ‘demonstrate’ that we are doing the Kremlin’s bidding, the document points, for example, to a story we did on the 1995 Nigerian government’s execution of the ‘Ogoni 9’ - environmental activists who opposed the destruction of the Ogoni people and their lands by large conglomerates such as British oil-and-gas company Shell. The absurd logic here seems to be that highlighting Western-backed corporate crimes against Africans is now pro-Russian!

CIR, as Hundeyin mentions, is a London-based NGO founded by Adam Rutland and Ross Burley, who are both former employees of the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). It claims to be independent but is funded by the FCDO and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

USAID has recently come under scrutiny, following President Donald Trump’s funding freeze. The organisation has been accused of being a tool of US foreign policy, dressed up as humanitarian efforts. On 4 February, the Columbia Journalism Review reported that over 6,000 journalists in some 30 countries were USAID funded.

Video credit: @DavidHundeyin (X)

Sources:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Hzyk4UorAxzUHKCBHZAWmnhx5O9gbr8v/view

https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/usaid-and-the-media-in-a-time-of-monsters.php

https://www.info-res.org/

PROTESTER STORMS SUPER BOWL HALFTIME FOR PALESTINE & SUDAN

During Grammy Award-winning rapper Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime show performance on 9 February in New Orleans, one of the approximately 400 ‘field cast’ members pulled out a combined Palestine-Sudan flag, with the words ‘Gaza’ and ‘Sudan’ prominently displayed. The man, who the National Football League’s spokesperson reportedly told CNN had the flag ‘on his person,’ then rushed onto the field before security detained him. Police have not yet charged the person, who the NFL said would be banned for life from NFL stadiums and events. ‘No one involved with the production was aware of the individual’s intent,’ the league said in a statement.

The Super Bowl is the most-watched event in the United States, drawing more than 120 million viewers in 2024.

Continued……. The protester called for people to continue advocating for Palestinians oppressed under the Western-backed Israeli occupation in Gaza and those affected by the devastating foreign-backed proxy war in Sudan.

Israel’s military onslaught has k*lled 61,000, according to the Gaza government information office, which also noted that thousands are still missing or presumed dead. It further stated that the bodies of 76 per cent of the victims had been recovered and brought to medical centres. Meanwhile, the office estimated at least 14,222 people are trapped under rubble or in areas inaccessible to rescuers. The Lancet medical journal estimated that by July 2024, the death toll may have exceeded 186,000. Reports indicate that by the end of 2024, around 1.8 million Palestinians experienced critical levels of hunger.

In Sudan, recent estimates released by researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine indicated that over 61,000 people died in Khartoum State in the first 14 months of the proxy war. However, the US envoy to Sudan estimated as many as 150,000 Sudanese k*lled by May 2024. Sudan is experiencing the world’s largest humanitarian crisis ever recorded, with nearly 25 million people—more than half of the country’s population—requiring aid, according to the United Nations.

Sources:

https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/10/1155836#:~:text=More%20than%201.8%20million%20Palestinians,released%20on%20Thursday%20has%20revealed.

https://theatlantavoice.com/kendrick-lamar-super-bowl-performance-2

https://www.dw.com/en/sudan-facing-biggest-humanitarian-crisis-recorded-report/a-71018990

https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2024/invisible-and-severe-death-toll-sudan-conflict-revealed

https://www.wfp.org/emergencies/sudan-emergency

https://apnews.com/article/super-bowl-protester-whats-happening-gaza-sudan-dd79957e52b06212044cae6d4ce9e87e

https://x.com/geoffreyyork/status/1786073142475075756

https://truthout.org/articles/gaza-officials-update-death-toll-to-over-61000-adding-thousands-presumed-dead

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

Continued……. When Malema made the comments, his Economic Freedom Fighters party was pushing for a vote of no confidence against Athol Trollip, the-then mayor of the city of Nelson Mandela Bay. The EFF accused Trollip - a member of the White-led Democratic Alliance - of neglecting the city’s Black citizens. They wanted his head to roll - for him to be axed - not for any White people’s throats to be slit.

Malema says he will continue fighting for the rights of Black people despite threats from Musk. In a reply on X, he accuses the Space X founder of being a spoilt and racist beneficiary of apartheid.

WHY JOHN LEGEND’S CONCERT IN RWANDA MATTERS

In this clip from Episode 18 of our ‘Pan-African Attitude’ podcast on the three-decade-long, Western-backed proxy war over natural resources in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), African Stream Editor-in-Chief Ahmed Kaballo (@ahmedkaballo on X) elaborated on how ruling elites use entertainment to exert soft power in politics. Kaballo’s explanation came in response to some audience members, who have questioned why Congo activists have asked @JohnLegend (X) to cancel his concert on 21 February in Kigali, Rwanda, in collaboration with NGO Global Citizen (@glblctzn on IG and X).

Continued……Rwanda- and Uganda-backed M23 rebels’ offensive on 27 January in the eastern DRC’s Goma city—home to over 2 million people—has k*lled around 3,000 Congolese and left at least 700,000 internally displaced. This figure includes more than 100,000 people who fled the 200,000-person Kanyaruchinya refugee camp on the outskirts of the city.

In Rwanda’s case, a concert can sanitise the country’s image, given its well-documented role in fueling the resource war in the Congo. For example, Rwandan President Paul Kagame appeared on stage during @KendrickLamar’s December 2023 concert in Kigali.

What do you make of Kaballo’s analysis?

Sources:

https://reliefweb.int/report/democratic-republic-congo/dire-health-and-humanitarian-crisis-eastern-democratic-republic-congo-prompts-escalation-efforts-who-partners

https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2025/2/3/dr-congo-near-goma-displaced-people-begin-long-journey-home

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2024/5/2/blood-minerals-what-are-the-hidden-costs-of-the-eu-rwanda-supply-deal

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2025/02/06/africa/dr-congo-goma-violence-deaths-intl-hnk

https://efe.com/en/latest-news/2025-02-07/dr-congo-conflict/

https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/afr62/9016/2025/en/u

USAID SHUTDOWN PAVES WAY FOR REVOLUTIONARY SHIFT

The Trump administration recently shut down the US Agency for International Development (USAID), arousing scrutiny of the agency’s mandate, which many argue extends beyond humanitarian aid to clandestine operations financing US imperial interests. The USAID’s stated goal was to ‘advance US foreign policy interests.’ 

About 40,000 direct and indirect employees in Kenya have lost their jobs, and two-thirds of international staff are being recalled to the United States, effectively ending USAID’s operations in Kenya. 

USAID invested approximately $436 million in aid for ‘democracy, human rights and governance’ in Somalia, Nigeria, Sudan, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Kenya during the 2022-23 fiscal year. According to the UN, the US government was Kenya’s largest foreign donor, contributing $207 million, or 58.8 per cent of total donations, followed by the United Kingdom and Germany.

Continued……As @drmumbiseraki (X), host of @drmumbishow (X), expounds in this video, Kenyans could do without the colonial whiff of foreign interference, both economically and socially. The deep infiltration of Kenya’s institutions has stifled the country’s independence and forced Kenyans to rely on foreign aid. That meant that the US had the last say on many issues affecting the country. According to Seraki, a revolutionary shift is about to take place. Listen in and share your thoughts.

Video credit: @drmumbishow (X)

Sources:

https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2025-02-06-usaid-exit-spells-doom-for-kenyan-jobs-and-funding

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01436590120084575

https://fts.unocha.org/countries/116/donors/2024?order=total_funding&sort=desc

https://www.developmentaid.org/news-stream/post/190784/impact-of-us-90-day-aid-suspension-on-kenya

https://sgp.fas.org/crs/row/R46368.pdf

HOW THE IMF KEEPS AFRICANS POOR

Financial-rights activist Alex Gladstein dissects the IMF’s African operations in this video. Drawing on the case of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo), he reveals a pattern of the institution appointing its own officials to oversee African treasuries, fostering export-led economies, devaluing local currencies and striking deals with dictators.

In Kenya, protests erupted in June 2024 against an IMF-backed finance bill, with demonstrators accusing the government of jeopardising the nation’s future by succumbing to the organisation’s neocolonialist tactics. Currently, Kenya is in talks with the IMF to establish a new lending programme, following a $606 million loan granted in October 2024, further diminishing public confidence.

Continued……Instead of pursuing comprehensive solutions to Africa’s escalating debt crisis or considering viable alternatives, such as progressive tax reforms, the IMF continues to implement policies that weaken the economies of African nations.

One way it does this is by granting them loans - but only on condition they privatise their economies and allow Western corporations almost free access to their raw materials and markets, the perfect way to lock African nations into poverty.

Video Credit: @Robert Breedlove

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

ANOTHER RACIST BBC HEADLINE

Let’s be clear - this was no mistake. The BBC’s decision to use the image of 16-year-old Ismail Moradi, a witness to the mass shooting in Sweden, under a headline about a police manhunt wasn’t just irresponsible. It was calculated.

As content creator @ani.says2 (TikTok) explains in this clip, this isn’t just sloppy journalism, it’s part of a systemic pattern in Western media where people of Colour are criminalised by association, while White perpetrators are shielded.

Continued….. The BBC, with all its editorial checks, didn’t just accidentally mislead its audience into thinking Moradi was a suspect. They made a choice to perpetuate the same racist framing that has justified everything from police brutality to state violence against Black and Brown people. Whether through biased language, selective images or outright disinformation, these narratives serve a purpose.

What do you think, was this innocent oversight or yet another example of mainstream media propaganda at work?

Video credit: @ani.says2

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

Continued……The movement claims it is a cultural project, not race-based. However, many people say the town and its policy of not allowing non-white residents is nothing but a racist endeavour to maintain vestiges of the apartheid system.

Critics argue the Orania Movement’s pearl-clutching conveniently ignores significant economic advantages enjoyed by Afrikaners in the world’s most unequal country, where white settlers, who make up 8 per cent of the population, own more than 70 per cent of privately owned land.

Sources
News
https://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/we-belong-in-africa-orania-rejects-donald-trumps-offer-insists-on-staying-in-south-africa-667b7433-ee86-423e-a603-f9a03c281978

South Africa inequality
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/10/south-africa-most-unequal-country-in-the-world-report

Land inequality
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/the-stark-divide-that-south-africa-s-land-act-seeks-to-bridge/ar-AA1yI3QG