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

NELSON MANDELA: WEST’S ENEMIES ARE NOT OURS

This clip of Nelson Mandela’s 1990 interview with PBS journalist Charlayne Hunter-Gault (@charlaynehg on X, @charlaynehg_ on IG) could not be more timely given the ongoing geopolitical tensions between South Africa and the West, particularly the US. 

At the time, Mandela told Hunter-Gault that the West was being unreasonable in expecting South Africa to align with the former’s interests and disavow Cuba, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) and their respective leaders at the time, Yasser Arafat and Fidel Castro. He pointed out that in the fight against apartheid, South African freedom fighters could not enlist the United States’ support. Cuba and the PLO, on the other hand, aided the African National Congress party and its armed resistance wing, Umkhonto weSizwe (MK). Therefore, South Africa would not forsake its allies.

Continued….. Over three decades later, not much has changed when it comes to how the West expects the rest of the world to treat its allies and foes. In February, the US suspended HIV/AIDS funding to South Africa, a move Julius Malema (@julius_s_malema on X, @julius.malema.sello on IG), president of the Pan-African party, Economic Freedom Fighters (@effsouthafrica), recently argued is simply ‘revenge’ for the strong stance it has taken against Israel’s onslaught against Palestinians in Gaza. In December 2023, South Africa filed a case with the International Court of Justice, charging Israel with violating the UN G*nocide Convention. Since then, the US and Israel have manoeuvred via lobbying and threats to place pressure on South Africa to drop the case.

Video credit: @pbs

Sources

https://www.newarab.com/news/explainer-how-s-africa-palestinian-struggles-are-linked

https://tribunemag.co.uk/2024/08/how-cuba-helped-end-apartheid-at-cuito-cuanavale

https://dirco.gov.za/south-africa-delivers-evidence-of-israel-genocide-to-icj/

https://pepfarwatch.org/pepfar-funding-freeze/

TUPAC ON WHY WE’RE RIGHT TO BE ANGRY!

In this clip from a 1994 MTV News interview, hip-hop legend Tupac Shakur (1971-96) explains how frustration with a defunct system can build up - and boil over. At first, people ask politely for change… but when nothing is done to address their distress, over time, politeness turns to rage.

The Civil Rights Act outlawing race-based discrimination was signed in 1964. Over six decades later, policies rooted in centuries of racism and White-supremacism continue to impact Black people in the US.

For example, in the prison-industrial complex, Black people are disproportionately incarcerated: while they make up only 13% of the US population, they account for nearly 40% of all people in jail.

Continued…. In 2024, Black people accounted for almost 23% of those killed by police.

Instead of finding solutions to such urgent matters, the US continues to ignore its obligations to the descendants of those whose enslaved labour it benefitted from for over 400 years. Worse, the current Trump administration took the retrograde step of scrapping policies such as Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) that were introduced as attempts at redress.

sources

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/research/racial_and_ethnic_disparities

https://mappingpoliceviolence.org

https://www.sentencingproject.org/reports/the-color-of-justice-racial-and-ethnic-disparity-in-state-prisons-the-sentencing-project/

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/06/30/1964-civil-rights-act-turns-60/73892426007/

https://apnews.com/article/trump-dei-executive-order-diversity-inclusion-f67ea86032986084dd71c5aa0c6b8d1d

https://www.opb.org/article/2025/02/18/trump-administration-gives-schools-deadline-end-dei-programs-risk-losing-federal-money/

AFRICA LOSES MORE THAN IT RECEIVES IN AID

Following the announcement that USAID would end operations, the Sputnik news outlet hosted African Stream’s William Sakawa for an African perspective on the issue.

While some see the ending of aid from Washington as a loss for Africa, others point to the fact that more wealth leaves our continent (around $192 billion a year) than enters it (some $134 billion - of which around $30 billion is aid).

Much of this loss can be put down to illicit outflows, and if these were curbed, aid would hardly be necessary. That would be even more true if Africa were fairly compensated for its abundant natural resources, rather than relentlessly exploited by the same multinationals that dodge our taxes.

Credit: https://en.sputniknews.africa/20250307/usaid-in-africa-development-partner-or-trojan-horse-1070959784.html

Sources

https://www.medact.org/app/uploads/2014/09/Honest-Accounts-report-v4-web.pdf

BRAZIL CARNIVAL SHOWS SOLIDARITY WITH CONGO

Brazil’s annual carnival is truly a spectacle to behold. Vibrant costumes, lively samba music and impressive displays dominate the streets before the 40-day Christian observance of charity, fasting and prayers called Lent.

Carnival’s Afro-centric indulgences make clear the impact of Afro-Brazilians, who comprise more than half of Brazil’s population. Their ancestors had been kidnapped in what is now Angola and the Congo, dragged onto ships and forced to labour in the former Portuguese colony starting in the 16th century.

Continued……That’s why it was heartening for many of our people to see Congolese flags flying on a parade truck this year as a show of solidarity. It comes during a time when many still don’t know about the heartbreaking Western-backed violence that creates the conditions necessary for looting the mineral-rich eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Between 1998 and 2010, the conflict k*lled about 6 million people. Amidst a recent escalation to capture the DRC’s east, the Rwanda- and Uganda-backed M23 militia had k*lled more than 8,500 people between January and late February 2025, according to Congolese authorities. Meanwhile, more than 7 million Congolese live in refugee camps after being forced off their lands.

Tech giants like Apple, Dell, Google, Microsoft and Tesla use the DRC’s minerals to power smartphones, laptops and electric cars, among other technologies, which has led many to call out Western powers.

Video credit: @tonton.gloire.98 (TikTok)

Sources

https://www.caritas.org/2010/02/six-million-dead-in-congos-war

https://x.com/trtworld/status/1891713201529585939?t=fzTl_dqH4ZpCPa3HtAkfwA&s=19

https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/01/1159541

https://www.riocarnaval.org

https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-430?p=emailAkOMNUDrTod0o&d=/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-430

https://apnews.com/article/brazil-slavery-angola-quilombo-rio-de-janeiro-valongo-48e614e15b317a3ee96a0422c8d7317a

https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/violence-democratic-republic-congo

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/africa/over-8-500-people-killed-since-january-in-fighting-in-eastern-democratic-republic-of-congo/3495683