Continued……In 1964, in a bid to change things, she gave a powerful testimony to the Democratic National Convention, explaining her hardships and why the Mississippi Democrats needed to reform.

This was televised - or it was supposed to be - until President Lyndon B. Johnson cut her off air during an ‘urgent’ TV press conference. This turned out to be a complete distraction - Johnson merely reminded reporters that it had been nine months since Kennedy’s assassination! That gave the game away: LBJ simply didn’t want Hamer’s words to reach the wider nation.

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

THE COLONISER NEVER LEFT

This week, world leaders gathered to celebrate the Commonwealth - a club of 56 nations supposedly united by shared values and mutual prosperity. But behind the fanfare lies a brutal truth - the Commonwealth is simply the British Empire in new clothes. Pan Africanist scholar PLO Lumumba has long called out this illusion. In this clip, he argues that the Commonwealth was simply a way for the British Empire to rebrand while still maintaining the oppressive, exploitative system it benefited from.

Indeed, Commonwealth Day was known as Empire Day before the name was changed in 1958. While the Commonwealth promotes itself as a vehicle for unity and justice, there is nothing ‘common’ in the ‘wealth.’ Britain, like many colonial powers, refuses to atone for historical injustices.

Continued……The Caribbean, for instance, has demanded $24 trillion for Britain’s role in slavery. By some estimates, the UK owes India alone $45 trillion for its colonial-era plundering of the nation. Despite this, various administrations across Britain’s political spectrum have rejected calls for apologies and reparations.

The UK also perpetuates the oppressive status quo left in place after flag independence. It’s one of the IMF’s richest members, yet in 2021, the Fund granted London $27.5 billion in Special Drawing Rights - more than was allocated to all low-income countries combined ($21 billion). The IMF is hellbent on implementing neoliberalism on our continent, cutting funding for critical sectors such as healthcare and education, while deregulating labour and imposing privatisation - to disastrous effect.

Why, then, would any self-respecting sovereign country choose to be a part of the Commonwealth?

Video Credit: Africa Web TV (YouTube)

Sources
Caribbean demands
https://reparationscomm.org/reparations-news/trillions-owed-in-reparations-for-slavery-says-report/

India bill
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2018/12/19/how-britain-stole-45-trillion-from-india/

Rejection of reparation
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65401579
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crlnrjd3087o

Britain in the IMF
https://debtjustice.org.uk/news/joint-statement-on-uks-re-channelling-of-special-drawing-rights-sdrs-allocation

IMF in Africa
https://actionaid.org/publications/2023/fifty-years-failure-imf-debt-and-austerity-africa

GHANA PRESIDENT MEETS REVOLUTIONARY SAHEL LEADERS

Ghana’s newly elected president, John Mahama, recently completed a tour of the three Alliance of Sahel States (AES) countries, namely Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger. The friendliness between Ghana and its northern neighbours may be no surprise after Burkina Faso President Ibrahim Traoré received an illustrious welcome at Mahama’s inauguration on 7 January.

Nevertheless, certain regional players, like Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Ghana, have attempted to ensure envoys draw the AES states back into the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Instead, the AES countries finalised their exit from the ECOWAS bloc on 29 January 2025.

Video credits: @joynewsontv (X), @rtburkina (X + IG), @faso7_bf (X + IG), @ortntele (X), @bf1tele (X) / @bf1tv (IG)

Continued…. Sources

https://en.sputniknews.africa/20250309/ghanas-president-mahama-vows-to-rebuild-trust-between-aes-and-ecowas-1071002970.html

https://www.anp.ne/fin-de-la-visite-de-travail-et-damitie-du-president-john-dramani-mahama-au-niger/

https://www.senenews.com/en/africa/john-dramani-mahamas-mediation-effort-between-ecowas-and-aes-6923.html

https://trtafrika.com/africa/burkina-fasos-traore-trends-after-ghana-loudest-applause-18252294

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/01/29/sahel-states-exit-ecowas-launch-regional-passport-and-joint-military/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-xLB3PfcXI&t=3s

https://statehouse.gov.ng/news/president-tinubu-receives-president-bassiruo-faye-of-senegal-says-west-africa-must-work-in-unison-to-defeat-terrorism-human-trafficking/

https://en.sputniknews.africa/20240530/niger-invites-ecowas-countries-to-join-alliance-of-sahel-states-1066799471.html

Sudan has banned all imports from Kenya. It comes after Nairobi infuriated Khartoum by hosting the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary - which is engaged in a brutal proxy war with the Sudanese army - for talks on setting up a rival government in Sudan.

A decree issued by Sudan’s acting Trade Minister, Omar Ahmed Mohamed on 13 March, states that Kenyan goods will be banned from entering the country via ports, airports and border crossings - effective immediately until further notice.

Continued…. In late February, Kenya facilitated discussions involving the (United Arab Emirates-backed) RSF and its alleged allies, which signed a political charter and another for a transitional constitution, paving the way for the formation of a parallel authority in areas controlled by the RSF.

Kenya’s hosting of the signing drew sharp criticism from Sudan’s foreign ministry, which recalled its ambassador from Nairobi in protest, accusing Kenyan President William Ruto of acting on “his commercial and personal interests with the militia’s regional sponsors.” In mid-January, Kenya and the United Arab Emirates signed an economic agreement, which they called a “historic milestone in economic relations between the two nations.” The UAE has been accused by the UN of supplying weapons to the RSF.

Sudan ranks as the tenth-largest global importer of Kenyan tea and the second-largest in Africa. According to the Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC), Kenya exported goods worth $48.2 million to Sudan in 2023, with tea accounting for $29.6 million, processed tobacco for $3.66 million and seed oils for $1.84 million.

Sources

https://sudantribune.com/article298532/

https://eastleighvoice.co.ke/regional/125735/sudan-bans-imports-from-kenya-in-retaliation-for-nairobi%27s-support-of-rsf

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/2/23/sudans-rsf-allies-sign-charter-for-rival-government-despite-criticisms

https://www.voanews.com/a/sudan-s-rsf-allied-groups-to-sign-charter-to-form-parallel-government/7984593.html

https://nation.africa/kenya/news/africa/sudan-junta-threatens-to-cut-tea-imports-from-kenya-4937894

https://oec.world/en/profile/bilateral-country/ken/partner/sdn

https://mfa.go.ke/kenya-and-uae-sign-landmark-comprehensive-economic-partnership-agreement

https://www.reuters.com/world/uae-flights-flood-airstrip-un-says-supplies-weapons-sudan-rebels-2024-12-12/

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crln9lk51dro

MIA MOTTLEY NOT SCARED OF U.S. VISA BAN, STANDS WITH CUBA

One Caribbean island nation is not amused by US threats of visa restrictions against officials facilitating Cuba’s medical internationalism.

In this recent video clip, Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley said if a US visa ban is the price for enjoying Cuba’s medical solidarity, so be it. She urged the rest of CARICOM (regional bloc Caribbean Community) to join her by standing on principle.

Cuba has been a pillar in the region’s healthcare. It has dispatched doctors to Haiti since 1998, has at least 400 medics in Jamaica and, as Mottley attests, played a crucial role in Barbados’ COVID-19 efforts. 

Continued……Cuba has also benefited Africa, with Algeria boasting links as far back as when French colonial doctors exited during Algeria’s hard-fought independence struggle in 1961. A few years later, Cuba formalised its medical solidarity work, helping people as far away as Ghanaians and South Africans to enjoy increased rural healthcare. 

The small island nation that has survived under an increasingly restrictive US economic blockade since 1960 provides more medical assistance than the G7 member-states (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States) and the World Health Organization combined.

While many have related to Mottley as a beacon of progressive politics for advocating for climate-change mitigation and reparations for crimes against humanity during the European slave trade and indigenous genocide, some have raised concerns about her. For instance, in 2024, Mottley’s government dropped an agreement to pay $3.88 million to the heir of a slavemaster, British aristocrat Richard Drax, after critics worldwide denounced the plan.

Mottley also pledged to send Barbados’ troops to Haiti under a US-funded occupation led by Kenya that is still underway. Such a move misses or conveniently ignores the economic and sociopolitical factors—including the role of the US, France and Canada, among others—that led to Haiti’s crisis. 

Let us know what you think.

Video credit: @PMOBarbados on YouTube (@miaamormottley on X, @mamottley on IG)

Sources
News
https://cayman.loopnews.com/content/watch-barbados-pm-mia-mottley-stands-cuban-doctors-nurses-732155

Cuba Haiti
https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.13169%2Fintejcubastud.15.2.0203

Cuba Jamaica
https://amsterdamnews.com/news/2025/03/13/cuban-doctors-in-caricom-are-not-trafficked/

Cuba Barbados
https://www.foreign.gov.bb/barbados-cuba-sign-a-health-cooperation-agreement/

Cuba Algeria
https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.13169%2Fintejcubastud.15.2.0203

Cuba Ghana/South Africa
https://www.plenglish.com/news/2023/05/20/ghana-grateful-for-cuban-doctors-40-year-professionalism/

Barbados to pay slaveowner heir
https://caribbeanempowerment.wordpress.com/2024/04/23/barbados-mia-mottley-to-pay-reparations-to-slave-master

Mottly
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/24/barbados-leader-halts-3m-payout-to-uk-mp-for-drax-hall-plantation

US destabilisation of Haiti
https://haitisolidarity.net/haitians-struggle-to-survive-under-us-destabilization-policies

US blockade of Cuba
https://www.cfr.org/timeline/us-cuba-relations

Barbados troops to Haiti
https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-44023-haiti-flash-barbados-suspends-its-decision-to-send-troops-to-haiti.html

US congressmembers call medical internationalism 'slavery'
https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/foia/Cuban_Medical_Professional_Parole_Program-Representative_Schultz.pdf

REST IN PEACE, BREONNA TAYLOR (JUNE 5, 1993-MARCH 13, 2020)

This week marked the fifth anniversary of the tragic shooting of 26-year-old Breonna Taylor (1993-2020) during a 2020 police raid in the US city of Louisville, Kentucky. Plain-clothed officers entered her home using a controversial ‘no-knock’ warrant, which allowed them to avoid announcing their presence or purpose. In the chaos, they discharged their weapons 32 times, with one officer firing 10 shots through a covered window and glass door.

Taylor’s murder ignited nationwide protests, with many rallying under the banner #SayHerName.

In August 2022, federal prosecutors charged three officers—Kyle Meany, Joshua Jaynes, and Kelly Goodlett—for knowingly using false information to obtain the no-knock warrant.

Continued……. A judge dropped the federal charge on Meany and Jaynes two years after Goodlett pleaded guilty. However, by October 2024, the US Department of Justice brought a new indictment against Meany and Jaynes. Then, on 1 November 2024, Brett Hankison became the first convicted officer, found guilty of violating Taylor’s civil rights through the use of excessive force.

Although Black people represent 13 per cent of the US population, our people account for about one-quarter of those killed by police each year. According to statista.com, the rate of fatal police shootings of Black people from 2015 to December 2024 was 6.1 per million annually, compared to 2.4 per million for white people. Many of these fatalities are unjustified, unarmed and unprovoked, highlighting a troubling disparity. Despite centuries of struggle, these issues persist for an internally colonised group like Black people in the US.

On a more hopeful note, US Senator Rand Paul reintroduced a bill in 2024 aimed at instituting a nationwide ban on no-knock warrants, known as the Justice for Breonna Taylor Act.

May she rest in peace.

Sources

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz6jp80dx4no

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/8/4/us-charges-four-police-officers-in-breonna-taylor

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

https://fox59.com/news/washington-dc-bureau/kentucky-sen-rand-paul-reintroduces-breonna-taylor-act/

https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/3900

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/23/us/federal-judge-dismisses-felony-charges-louisville-officers-breonna-taylor-raid/index.html

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/breonna-taylor-federal-charges-filed-2-ex-officers-joshua-jaynes-kyle-meany

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1123070/police-shootings-rate-ethnicity-us

MALEMA BERATES RAMAPHOSA OVER MUSK MEETING

Parliamentary affairs in South Africa are rarely dull, with this being no exception.

Listen to a fuming MP, Julius Malema, president of the Economic Freedom Fighters (@effsouthafrica), chide South African President Cyril Ramaphosa over his 3 February phone call with Elon Musk, a South Africa-born tech billionaire who is a senior advisor to US President Donald Trump. Malema (@julius_s_malema on X, @julius.malema.sello on IG) said the call, as well as a reported meeting in a hotel room in September outside the UN General Assembly, was outside official diplomatic channels and undermined South Africa.

Continued……In response, Ramaphosa said it was impossible not to engage with specific figures and that he keeps his colleagues abreast of developments.

South Africa has been in the White House’s crosshairs since Trump learned of a new South African law that expropriates land to address long-standing inequities in a country where the white minority, making up less than 8 per cent of the population, owns more than 70 per cent of private farmland. European settlers in South Africa ran across the Atlantic to get support to pressure South Africa’s government. It seems to have worked, as so far, Trump has cut HIV/AIDS funding to South Africa and offered refugee status to South African white settlers. Plus, a US congressman, Andy Ogles, is calling for the removal of South Africa from a US duty-free trade initiative for 'sub-Saharan' African countries called the Africa Growth and Opportunities Act.

Video credit: @newslivesa (X) / @ParliamentofRSA (X)

Sources

Sources
https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/04/world/south-africa-ramaphosa-musk-intl/index.html

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg9w4n6gp5o

https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/look-afriforum-meets-trumps-administration-in-the-us-pleads-for-help-to-change-ancs-radical-views-4aa113f9-b86d-44af-b61b-3864f219cd29

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-signs-executive-order-aimed-south-africa-white-house-official-says-2025-02-07/

https://www.msn.com/en-za/news/other/us-congressman-calls-for-south-africa-s-agoa-expulsion-amid-racial-controversy/ar-AA1ACnZT

https://apnews.com/article/trump-musk-south-africa-funding-cut-aid-adf4db9dfe9eeafa3f4bac79b3d77137

https://www.ewn.co.za/2025/03/11/theres-nothing-sinister-about-speaking-directly-to-businesspeople-like-musk-ramaphosa

BELGIAN MP BLASTS E.U. DISREGARD FOR PALESTINE

On 12 March, Belgian member of the European Parliament Marc Botenga (@BotengaM on X) slammed Polish member of the EU Parliament Adam Szlapka for laughing during the EU debate on the humanitarian situation in Gaza. According to Botenga’s X post, Szlapka had joked and laughed several times before this moment, displaying what he called ‘contempt for Palestinian lives.’

Taking a closer look at the EU and Poland’s support for Israel backs Botenga’s argument. Israel’s military onslaught of Palestinians in Gaza had k*lled more than 186,000 as of early July 2024, according to the Lancet medical journal. Yet, in October of the same year, Poland’s chief of mission in Israel, Maciej Hunia, denied the possibility of a g*nocide in the occupied Palestinian territories. Additionally, he called for the ‘entire democratic world’ to support Israel ‘against t*rrorists.’  

Continued……Meanwhile, EU member, Germany, is Israel’s second-largest arms supplier after the US. The EU Working Party on Conventional Arms Export database gathers that between 2018 and 2022, EU member states sold arms to Israel worth $1.9 billion. It was not until pressure from civil societies and activists that some European Union states like Italy and Spain heeded calls for an arms embargo on Israel.

All EU members are signatories to the Rome Statute, which established the International Criminal Court in 2002. However, the EU as an organisation is not a party. The EU has not come out against Israel’s onslaught, even after the ICC issued arrest warrants for the country’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant on 21 November 2024.

Video credit: @Europarl_EN (X)


Sources

https://www.timesofisrael.com/polands-new-envoy-rejects-gaza-genocide-claims-says-democracies-must-back-israel/

https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2024/10/09/are-european-countries-still-supplying-arms-to-israel

https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/situation-state-palestine-icc-pre-trial-chamber-i-rejects-state-israels-challenges

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/CRE-10-2025-03-11-INT-2017017772510_EN.html

https://app.asana.com/1/1202653485297959/inbox/1208659796957295/item/1209664610603190/story/1209665371788985

https://asp.icc-cpi.int/states-parties

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

https://theconversation.com/why-the-eus-stance-on-israel-is-starting-to-change-241763

https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/13/europe/israel-arms-exports-europe-netherlands-f35-intl/index.html

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20250102-far-from-ignorant-the-european-union-arms-exports-and-israel

https://x.com/BotengaM/status/1899877995441250551

‘FOREIGN AID’ IS A BRIBE

Many people outside of Africa would be surprised to hear that some Africans were glad about the recent US foreign aid cuts. To understand why, here’s a very short 2022 video by activist and content creator @mariamtheugandan (Instagram) in which she calls out this so-called aid for what it really is - namely, a bribe paid to ‘underdeveloped’ countries for the right to keep on exploiting their resources.

A report published 2017 by UK and African equality and development campaigners and NGOs noscriptd ‘Honest Accounts 2017: How the World Profits from Africa’s Wealth’ detailed how Africa loses far more than it receives. While African countries get around $19 billion in aid in the form of grants annually, $68 billion is “taken out in capital flight, mainly by multinational companies deliberately misreporting the value of their imports or exports to reduce tax.”

Continued……Meanwhile, an “estimated $29 billion a year is being stolen from Africa in illegal logging, fishing and the trade in wildlife/plants.”

As former African Union envoy to the US Arikana Chihombori-Quao said in a 2018 interview with Voice of America, “They [the West] loot from us at night, and during the day, they come back and give us a pittance of the loot in the name of aid.”

This looting is only made possible by the African political elite, which pockets the supposed ‘development aid’ while rolling out the red carpet for their Western sponsors to come and extract resources. The aid rarely invests in infrastructure projects, which the continent is crying out for; instead, it prioritises vanity projects that serve the donating country far more than the recipient.

Video credit: @MariamTheUgandan (instagram)

Sources

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbSkljFfAJ8

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/may/24/world-is-plundering-africa-wealth-billions-of-dollars-a-year

https://curtisresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/honest_accounts_2017_web_final.pdf

PT. 2: GRENADA’S EDUCATION REVOLUTION 🇬🇩

This week marks 46 years since one of the most progressive revolutions in the Western Hemisphere occurred on the Caribbean island of Grenada. 

The New Jewel Movement (NJM), led by Grenadian President Maurice Bishop (1944-83), toppled the Western client state of Eric Gairy (1922-97). The new government quickly embarked on wide-reaching reforms to free the predominantly Black country from Western control.

This video, part 2 in a series on Grenada’s revolution, highlights how the government’s move to transform its education system helped shape the socio-political landscape from 1979 to 1983. After a summit of teachers and other stakeholders introduced a new curriculum in 1980, the government launched other programmes: The National In-Service Teacher Education Programme (STEP) and the Community School-Day Programme (CSDP).

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

BRITISH EMPIRE RE-LOADED

On 10 March, Commonwealth Day celebrations in the UK were led by King Charles. But with the British monarchy’s influence dwindling, how long can this club of former British colonies survive? Members are now, more than ever, reconsidering their ties to the barbaric ex-empire and demanding reparations for decades of brutal colonial rule.

Sources

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/21/caribbean-leaders-slavery-reparations

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c778zpmxk56o

https://caricomreparations.org/

DEBUNKING TUCKER: ARE WHITE SOUTH AFRICANS VICTIMS?

South Africa's ruling party, the African National Congress, is “genocidal” and “more racist” than the apartheid regime - that’s the outrageous claim made recently by right-wing podcaster and commentator Tucker Carlson during an interview with South African White-supremacist leader Ernst Roets. The latter has for years been instrumental in peddling falsehoods about the alleged persecution of White South Africans by the ANC government.

Among those taken in by such narratives is Donald Trump, who recently accused the government in Pretoria of doing “horrible things” to its White citizens.

Continued….. In February, Trump suspended all forms of aid to South Africa and offered refugee status to White South Africans, particularly so-called Afrikaners (descendants of Dutch-colonial settlers).

The US president’s remarks and actions have given oxygen in the media to the falsehood that White South Africans are being persecuted - with Carlson only adding to the half-truths and outright lies in circulation.

In this reaction video, we debunk some of the ludicrous things he and Roets say. As we note, White South Africans still control the lion's share of the economy and own more than two-thirds of the country's farmland.

Video credit: The Tucker Carlson Show/YouTube

Sources

https://sundayworld.co.za/business/corporate-south-africa-top-jobs-still-a-preserve-of-white-boys-club/
https://time.com/6087699/south-africa-wealth-gap-unchanged-since-apartheid/


https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-29/whites-own-73-of-south-africa-s-farming-land-city-press-says

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-29/whites-own-73-of-south-africa-s-farming-land-city-press-says


https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/research-news/2020-08-05-in-south-africa-access-to-urban-green-areas-remains-a-white-privilege.html