AfricanStream

Washington University typifies what students across the U.S. are protesting about. The institution has a long history with weapons manufacturer Boeing, which arms Israel. It has a research partnership with the aerospace firm which recruits WU graduates and donates millions to the college. Students now want these ties cut, following Tel Aviv’s destruction of Gaza that’s killed 34,000 Palestinians. Police arrested around 100 demonstrators who’d set up encampments on campus at the weekend. It’s a picture repeated across the U.S. where similar protests are taking place at dozens of universities. While it’s hard to know precisely how colleges manage their finances, one database from the U.S. Department of Education shows American colleges and universities reported about $342 million in gifts and contracts from Israel from 2014 to 2024.

Do you know where the world’s top mathematician comes from? Well, he’s a 38-year-old Cameroonian, Abdon Atangana. Inspired by the lack of references to African people in scientific literature or mathematics, he challenged the field’s Eurocentrism with his mathematical theorems. Now at the top of his field, his formulas are essential in their real-life application in science, technology and engineering. Here’s more from tech entrepreneur Sandra Babu-Boateng. Tell us which other ground-breaking African mathematician you want to see on our page.

The global student movement in solidarity with Palestine has received a boost. On Monday, 29 April, Tunisian students answered the call for demonstrations. Engaging in sit-ins at the French embassy in Tunis and the capital's municipal theatre, they condemned the French and US role in aiding Israel to k*ll more than 34,000 Palestinians, most of whom have been women and children. They further called for criminalising the normalisation of ties with Israel. So far, Tunisia has not recognised Israel, unlike a few of its North African neighbours, Egypt and Morocco. The student protests are most visible in the US, where universities have called for police and military crackdowns in response to demands that US universities divest millions of dollars from Israel.

The global student movement in solidarity with Palestine has received a boost. On Monday, 29 April, Tunisian students answered the call for demonstrations. Engaging in sit-ins at the French embassy in Tunis and the capital's municipal theatre, they condemned the French and US role in aiding Israel to k*ll more than 34,000 Palestinians, most of whom have been women and children. They further called for criminalising the normalisation of ties with Israel. So far, Tunisia has not recognised Israel, unlike a few of its North African neighbours, Egypt and Morocco. The student protests are most visible in the US, where universities have called for police and military crackdowns in response to demands that US universities divest millions of dollars from Israel.

We hear Black people in the United States uttering with more frequency, 'Not all skin folk are kinfolk' and 'Black faces in high spaces won't save us.' In 2020, many people celebrated the election of Ritchie Torres, the first openly gay Afro-Latinx elected from the south Bronx to the US Congress. Yet, Torres chooses to side with the imperialist system for his gain. He once stated, 'There are few people in American politics who have been as visibly and vocally supportive of Israel as I've been.' As pointed out in this @codepink video, the pro-Israel lobby generously funds Torres. Not only does Torres consider pro-Palestine protests anti-Semitic, he opposes a ceasefire, disputes the EU's foreign policy chief's opinion that Israel is starving Gaza, and denies the International Court of Justice ruled Israel is 'plausibly' violating the 1948 UN Genocide Convention. We should have known that identity does not determine ideology.

In this clip from the Club Random Podcast, TV host Bill Maher sits down for a discussion with West Coast rapper Ice Cube. @icecube explained how the same people who own US private prisons own the labels and how they directly or indirectly make sure that the music feeds the US prison system. In the US, Black people are five times more likely to be incarcerated than white people. In Ice Cube’s words, this is a process of social engineering that musicians unwittingly take part in, contributing to the cycle of imprisonment affecting young Black men.

No Tech for Apartheid (@notechapartheid), a project of M Power Change (@mpower_change) and Jewish Voice for Peace (@jvplive), has accused Google of retaliation for firing as many as 50 workers the tech giant says protested Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion cloud computing contract with Israel's military. Nine workers filmed their sit-in protest and arrests on 16 April at the company's offices in New York and California. That included a protest in Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian's office. Protests also have taken place at US universities to hold institutions accountable for investing their endowments in Israel. Frustration has grown because the United States has vetoed three ceasefire proposals at the UN Security Council, and it has been supplying weapons to Israel. Just a few days after reports emerged of mass graves at two Gaza hospitals, President Joe Biden signed off on $26 billion of unconditional military aid to Israel. In January, the International Court of Justice ruled in South Africa's case against Israel that Israel's acts are 'plausibly' violating the 1948 UN Genocide Convention. More than 34,000 Palestinians, most of whom are women and children, have been killed since the 7 October escalation in the 75-year Israeli occupation of Palestine.

He was no fortune teller but the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) party's Johnson Mlambo correctly predicted a partial overhaul of South Africa's apartheid system would not lead to the total emancipation of the country's people. In his words, 'Apartheid cannot be reformed.' Lo and behold, his words ring true some three decades after racial segregation officially ended. Despite achieving what many see as political freedom, South Africa is still characterised by high levels of poverty among its majority Black population and currently ranks as the mos unequal country in the planet. It’s the result of apartheid-era economic systems and structures that were never properly dismantled by successive governments.

Ever wondered what Africa would be like now had the European colonisers never come? What kind of societies would we have, and what kind of leaders? This is no mere exercise in fantasy. According to Pan-African scholar PLO Lumumba, we need to think hard about the kinds of government we really want on our continent - because, right now, we are making do with systems inherited from the colonisers, which are not fit for our purposes. He goes further. We need to see beyond the artificial borders imposed on our lands. Division doesn’t help us on the global stage. What’s the point of 54 nations with little clout when united? They’d hit the ball out of the park. Lumumba is the first to admit that it’s easier to talk about all this in grandiose terms than actually making it happen. Watch him here passionately plea to Africa’s young to seize this ‘inter-generational project’ by the horns. Are you on board? So what’s the plan?

In this video, 23-year-old rapper and Pan-Africanist based in Kenya @realsensicalsense ranted about many African leaders upholding the neo-colonial system. For centuries, the world's industrial powers have treated Africa as an open market for cheap raw materials to fuel their economies. At the end of the European slave trade and throughout the colonial period, Europeans forced Africans into a global economy that disadvantaged Africa and other colonised regions of the world. Today, most African countries are nominally free. Yet, African states still find themselves beholden to unfair trade deals, widening the gap between the industrialised Global North and the extractivist economies of the Global South. It's a race to the bottom at the expense of our lands and people. Every country is looking out for its interests. In some cases, two countries can strike a mutually beneficial deal. New collaborations between Russia and African countries like Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger are allowing these Sahelian states to move away from France's stranglehold and develop new industries.

Pro-Palestinian protests continue at colleges across the US, with students remaining defiant. They include Jared Kannel, who gave this viral interview at Columbia University in New York. He believes authorities are labelling the rallies ‘anti-Semitic’ to deflect from Israel’s ‘non-stop massacre of Gaza.’ Jared also reveals he was raised a Zionist, but realised he was on the ‘wrong side’ after understanding the Palestinian perspective. He was speaking after police began arresting students and dismantling their camp on college grounds. Despite police crackdowns, similar protests keep going across the country, with students staying resolute. They say they want their schools to divest funds from entities connected with Israel and cut ties with Israeli institutions. Jared typifies the mood during this interview with TRT World, the Turkish news outlet.

The mainstream media describes former US football player OJ Simpson as someone who got away with murdering his ex-wife and her friend in 1994 in Los Angeles. Approximately 95 million people worldwide watched this ‘trial of the century’ on television. The case highlighted the racial split in the United States, with 75 per cent of white people believing Simpson was guilty, while 70 per cent of Black people said he was innocent. In light of Simpson’s 10 April death from cancer at the age of 76, we re-visit this @fallenstateTV interview with Judge Joe Brown, a former lawyer and TV personality who ran for mayor of Memphis, Tennessee. His insights on the contradictions he saw in the prosecution's case might pique your interest. Do you agree with him? Let us know in the comments.

Who should be arrested? The party committing massacres or the party protesting said massacres? For US universities, it’s the latter. In this 25 April video, an Atlanta police officer threw to the ground and handcuffed Emory University economics professor Caroline Fohlin after twisting her arm. This CNN video shows, just prior to her arrest, @carolinefohlin had raised questions about how Georgia state troopers had arrested a student. US universities have called on police and the National Guard (civilians who serve in the military) to arrest students amid a wave of campus occupations (or encampments), most notably at Columbia University in New York. Students demand universities divest from their investments related to the Israeli occupation. US university endowments were valued at $839 billion in fiscal year 2023. Universities invest these endowments in financial securities, real estate and in other ways. Endowments fund student scholarships and operating expenses. Emory University has the 13th highest endowment at $10.24 billion. No information is available on how much Emory has invested in Israeli companies. However, Harvard has invested $194 million in companies connected to Israeli settlements in Palestine, according to the Islamic Circle of North America. Universities have said they are trying to clamp down on anti-semitism despite many Jewish students participating in these sit-ins in solidarity with Palestine. Images of the police presence and arrests have gone viral online. Interestingly, US police forces have benefited from Israeli training, highlighting how the struggles in the US and Palestine are connected.

As Sierra Leone celebrates Independence Day, the country’s First Lady warns the nation’s still controlled by ‘Big Brother’ And in this frank interview, Fatima Maada Bio explains how international powers continue to exert control. Every single mining company in Sierra Leone is foreign owned. And despite breaking free from British colonial rule on April 27th, 1961, the UK still runs the country’s electricity. So what can be done? If you try to change the status quo, she says, external forces fund opposition uprisings and sow chaos. The country then becomes ungovernable. But whatever happens, Sierra Leone’s First Lady says things can’t remain as they are. After all, if you can’t control your electricity, how can you make sure you can educate your people?

Throughout US history, vibrant Black communities have often faced the devastating force of so-called ‘progress.’ One poignant example occurred in Willard, Virginia, an unincorporated Black settlement that formerly enslaved people seeking freedom and opportunity founded after the Civil War. By the early 20th century, Willard had blossomed into a bustling town with businesses, schools and churches, away from the apartheid Black folks had to endure in white-run cities and towns. However, as in the case of many other Black towns in the United States, impending construction of a new international airport displaced Black residents, with the US government handing one Willard family just $8,000 to leave by 19 September 1958, according to a survivor. Authorities bulldozed the town to make way for Washington Dulles International Airport, which serves diplomats, politicians and civilians just 40 kilometres (25 miles) west of Washington DC. The airport was named after anti-communist US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles (1953-59), who implemented US Cold War policy in Korea, Vietnam, Iran, Guatemala, Africa and many other places where US interventions, coups, proxy wars and military interventions took place. His brother, Allen Dulles, served as CIA director from 1953 to 1961. During that time, he oversaw coups in Iran and Guatemala, as well as the Project MKUltra mind control program and the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, among other ‘feats.’ Video credit: @moorthreads_store

Why are Africans making life hard for themselves by closing colonially-imposed borders to each other? Why does an African from one part of the continent need a visa to visit any other part? It makes no cultural or economic sense - hindering trade and intra-African relations. Here’s South African entrepreneur Vusi Thembekwayo making the point powerfully to an audience in Nigeria. He relates his absurdly roundabout travel route from South Africa and compares it with the effortless ease with which he can move around Europe. Is this a leaf we should be taking out of Europe’s book?

Remember when the CIA investigated itself for links to drug trafficking, and concluded it was innocent? That’s what the British government is asking the Israeli government to do to itself. The West could be seen as complicit as Israel in the deaths of 34,000 Palestinians since 7 October. The US and UK have vetoed multiple ceasefire resolutions at the UN, the UK has conducted 50 spy flights for Israel over Gaza, Germany has sent 10,000 tank shells to Israel, and the US has approved $26 billion in military aid in addition to its annual $3.8 billion provision, since the 7 October escalation in the 75-year Israeli occupation of Palestine.

Israel has long claimed it needs to protect itself using deterrence. That has meant when an enemy strikes, it would hit back so hard to ensure no one would dare touch it. That policy forms the basis of the Dahiya Doctrine, named after a Shi’ite suburb in Lebanon that the Israeli Air Force carpet-bombed during the 2006 war with Hezbollah. Watch as Israeli historian, professor and politician Ilan Pappé vividly illustrates the doctrine. In the first 89 days of Israel’s onslaught on Gaza, it had dropped 65,000 tonnes of explosives on the besieged enclave, the equivalent of three atomic bombs. Since the 7 October escalation in the 75-year Israeli occupation of Palestine, Israel has so far k*lled over 34,000 Palestinians, many of them women and children. Tel Aviv accuses militant group H*mas of using Palestinians as human shields, but this video reveals the deaths are part of a deliberate Israeli policy.

When British journalist Piers Morgan asked TYT Network founder Cenk Uygur what Israel’s response should be to Iran’s recent drone attack, Uygur reminded Morgan that Israel provoked Tehran by bombing Iran’s consulate in Syria. The 1 April attack killed 16 people, including two high-ranking Iranian military officials. Uygur added that Israel should not respond. Do you think Israel is to blame for this escalation? Let us know in the comments.

The Lion Sleeps Tonight uses perhaps Africa’s most famous melody and made millions of dollars - but not for its original creator, Zulu singer Solomon Linda. The melody did not belong to Disney, yet it helped turn The Lion King into a huge box-office success. The US entertainment giant held out crediting the South African singer until it was sued by his descendants. Nothing wrong with African music being enjoyed and appreciated beyond the continent, of course, but credit where it’s due, please. Can you think of other examples of appropriation without acknowledgement? This is the story of the song whose real name is Mbube.

Egyptian comedian Bassem Youssef (@bassem) spoke with @olidugmore on the @PoliticsJOE_UK podcast about Israel’s ongoing bombardments and escalated siege against the Palestinians, the West’s complicity in Israel’s war crimes, and how the media needs to be more responsible in its coverage. He said Global North leaders expressed outrage over the 2015 Charlie Hebdo attacks in France. Still, the media and politicians have been silent about Israel k*lling more than 34,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Let us know if you agree with @byoussef.

Economic Freedom Fighters (@EFFSouthAfrica) President @Julius_S_Malema spoke with Kaya FM radio host @PhemeloMotene about the South African economy, education, and the continent's future ahead of the South African provincial and national elections on 29 May. In this 27 February clip, Malema made the case for unifying Africa by eliminating colonial borders and creating a continent-wide governance, military protection and currency. He said this is how Africans will win genuine respect when dealing with the international community and benefit from Africa's natural mineral wealth. What do you think about Malema's plan to unify Africa? Let us know in the comments.

Some people actually still think that White privilege is a myth - created by ‘angry’ people of colour as a tool to bash Whites. They believe, for example, that poverty rates are higher among Africans because they make the racist assumption that we are somehow lazy. Never do they entertain the possibility that we are, in fact, hindered every step of the way by systemic political and economic oppression rooted in slavery, colonialism and neo-colonalism. In this clip, spoken-word artist Kyla Jenée Lacey breaks down the concept of White privilege for those who still do not get it or believe in its existence.

When it comes to breaking records, Nigerians have few equals. This time, 29-year-old Tunde Onakoya smashed the world chess marathon record by playing for 60 hours on 19 April against US chess champion Shawn Martinez. Cheered on by fellow Nigerians and well-wishers at New York's Times Square, Onakoya broke the previous record of 56 hours, 9 minutes and 37 seconds that Norwegians Hallvard Haug Flatebø and Sjur Ferkingstad had set in 2018. Onakoya hopes to raise $1 million for children's education in Africa through his feat. His non-profit, Chess in Slums Africa, works to uplift poor children by teaching the game. More than 10 million Nigerian children are out of school, one of the highest rates in the world, as one out of every 5 children who is not in school lives in Nigeria. Onakoya credits chess with saving him from the poverty he endured growing up in Lagos's infamous floating slums. The Guinness World Records has yet to confirm his success.

Activists, online and off, have been working tirelessly to bring global attention to the catastrophe in the Democratic Republic of Congo - yet the world’s governments and publics remain mostly unmoved by the genocidal violence, mass internal displacement and the millions of Congolese facing food insecurity (not to mention child labour and exploitation). Why is that? @marylaurakato is one of those campaigning, and admits it can be emotionally difficult. In this clip, she connects the lack of reaction to White supremacy. Blacks and other non-Whites are seen as ‘expendable’ and their suffering isn’t taken as seriously - they are deemed, she says, bottom of the hierarchy when it comes to moral considerations. (Compare reactions to the attacks on Israel and Ukraine.) And, of course, there’s the fact that the rest of the world actually depends on Congo’s resources. Keeping Congo down keeps prices down - helping Congo would incur Western economic pain. The exploitation of Congo goes back to - and hasn’t stopped since - the days of King Leopold II. Millions were killed under the Belgian monarch’s reign of terror, as the population was turned into his private army of slave labourers, whose bodies could be mutilated and dispensed with at will. Later, Pan-African icon Patrice Lumumba was killed by the Belgians in cahoots with the CIA and Britain. In his place, the West installed puppet Mobutu Sese Seko, who pilfered the country’s resources for decades. Other Western allies - Rwanda’s Paul Kagame and Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni - then helped overthrow him once he was no longer useful. In the process and aftermath, millions of Congolese were killed, with millions more turned into refugees. As this is ongoing, DRC’s minerals leave the country and find themselves in the custody of multinational giants like Apple, Google and Tesla. As this sister says, the reason the suffering of the Congolese people doesn’t get any traction globally is that a racial hierarchy exists - and Africans are at the bottom. Do you agree with her?