Category: Africa

Food, Farming, and Africa: An Open Letter to Bill Gates

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thursday, 17 November 2022 — Origin: Climate & Capitalism

Billionaire Arrogance

Food sovereignty activists challenge a wealthy white man’s flawed assumptions, hubris, and ignorance

Source: Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-NC-SA

We, 50 organizations focused on food sovereignty and justice worldwide, want you to know there is no shortage of practical solutions and innovations by African farmers and organizations. We invite you to step back and learn from those on the ground. —Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa

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Africa Does Not Want to Be a Breeding Ground for the New Cold War: The Forty-Fourth Newsletter (2022)

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Thursday, 3 November 2022 — The Tricontinental

Chaibia Talal Morocco Mon Village Chtouka 1990Chaïbia Talal (Morocco), Mon Village, Chtouka, 1990.

Dear friends,

Greetings from the desk of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

On 17 October, the head of US Africa Command (AFRICOM), US Marine Corps General Michael Langley visited Morocco. Langley met with senior Moroccan military leaders, including Inspector General of the Moroccan Armed Forces Belkhir El Farouk. Since 2004, AFRICOM has held its ‘largest and premier annual exercise’, African Lion, partly on Moroccan soil. This past June, ten countries participated in the African Lion 2022, with observers from Israel (for the first time) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).
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Ibrahim Traore takes over as Burkina Faso’s leader amid worsening crisis and anti-French sentiment

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Saturday, 22 October 2022 — Peoples Dispatch

Captain Ibrahim Traore came to power after deposing his senior officer Lt. Col Paul-Henri Damiba in a military coup on September 30. He faces the challenge of rising attacks by Islamist groups which have taken over 40% of the country’s territory

by Pavan Kulkarni

Ibrahim Traore

34-year-old Capt. Ibrahim Traore, who deposed his senior Lt. Col Paul-Henri Damiba in a military coup on September 30, was sworn in as the new president of the transitional government of Burkina Faso on Friday, October 21.

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The Other Russia-West War: Why Some African Countries are Abandoning Paris, Joining Moscow

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Monday, 17 October 2022 — MintPress News

Africa mpn

The moment that Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba was ousted by his own former military colleague, Captain Ibrahim Traore, pro-coup crowds filled the streets. Some burned French flags, others carried Russian flags. This scene alone represents the current tussle underway throughout the African continent.

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When Will the Stars Shine Again in Burkina Faso?: The Forty-First Newsletter (2022)

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Thursday, 13 October 2022 — The Tricontinental

Wilifried Balima Burkina Faso Les Trois Camarades 2018 768x768Wilfried Balima (Burkina Faso), Les Trois Camarades (‘The Three Comrades’), 2018.

Dear friends,

Greetings from the desk of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

On 30 September 2022, Captain Ibrahim Traoré led a section of the Burkina Faso military to depose Lieutenant Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, who had seized power in a coup d’état in January. The second coup was swift, with brief clashes in Burkina Faso’s capital of Ouagadougou at the president’s residence, Kosyam Palace, and at Camp Baba Sy, the military administration’s headquarters. Captain Kiswendsida Farouk Azaria Sorgho declared on Radiodiffusion Télévision du Burkina (RTB), the national broadcast, that his fellow captain, Traoré, was now the head of state and the armed forces. ‘Things are gradually returning to order’, he said as Damiba went into exile in Togo.

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Exclusive: How Shell and BP financed Britain’s Cold War propaganda machine

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31 August 2022 — Declassified UK

Formerly top secret files show how the two oil corporations bankrolled UK covert propaganda operations during the 1950s and 60s. The goal was to secure British access to key oil supplies across the developing world.

Uk shell bpBP directors meet in London, 1960. (Photo: Central Press / Getty)
“Handsome” sums were provided by BP and Shell to the Information Research Department (IRD), which was Britain’s Cold War propaganda arm between 1948 and 1977, declassified files show.

The IRD used the secret subsidies to fund British covert propaganda operations during the 1950s and 1960s across the Middle East and Africa, where Britain’s oil interests were substantial. Today, the value of the payments would be in the millions of pounds.

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The Intricate Fight For Africa: The Legacy of the Soviet Union vs Western Colonialism

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Monday, 8 August 2022 — MintPress News

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s recent tour in Africa was meant to be a game changer, not only in terms of Russia’s relations with the continent, but in the global power struggle involving the US, Europe, China, India, Turkey and others.

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Once Led By a Fierce Champion of Anti-Colonialism in Patrice Lumumba, the Democratic Republic of Congo Has Effectively Been Recolonized by Western Capital

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Wednesday, 3 August 2022 — CovertAction Magazine

By Owen Schalk

Image[Source: twitter.com]

The United States does the heavy lifting, but Canada provides consistent behind-the-scenes support to enable the plunder of Congo and other nations in the Global South.

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Africa, China, and US Imperialism

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Saturday, 30 July 2022 —  Internationalist 360°

This important essay by US scholar Joel Wendland-Liu, originally published on the CPUSA website, provides a serious and detailed comparison of the US-Africa relationship and the China-Africa relationship. Referencing numerous recent studies indicating that Africans – and particularly younger Africans – have a more favorable opinion of China than of the US, the author contrasts the West’s record of military, economic and political coercion on the continent with China’s record of extensive, mutually-beneficial cooperation.

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Going to Samarkand

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Saturday, 30 July 2022 — Strategic Culture Foundation

Pepe Escobar

The SCO and other pan-Eurasian organizations play a completely different – respectful, consensual – ball game. And that’s why they are catching the full attention of most of the Global South.

The meeting of the SCO Ministerial Council  in Tashkent this past Friday involved some very serious business. That was the key preparatory reunion previous to the SCO summit in mid-September in fabled Samarkand, where the SCO will release a much-awaited “Declaration of Samarkand”.

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Lavrov is on Blinken’s list of people to call

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Thursday, 28 July 2022 — Indian Punchline

by M. K. BHADRAKUMAR

Russian FM Sergey Lavrov rounded off a tour of African states in a blaze of media publicity despite US hopes to “isolate” him

The US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at a press availability at the State Department on Wednesday made the dramatic announcement that he intends to speak to his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov “in the coming days … for the first time since the war began” in Ukraine on February 24.

Interestingly, he gave an alibi that harks back to the Soviet era — prisoner exchange.

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Will Our Children Be Literate? Will They Look Forward to the Future with Dignity?: The Twenty-Eighth Newsletter (2022)

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Thursday, 14 July 2022 — The Tricontinental

Nu Barreto Guinea Bissau Vultos 2019 768x766Nú Barreto (Guinea-Bissau), A Esperar (‘Waiting’), 2019.

Dear friends,

Greetings from the desk of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

The world is adrift in the tides of hunger and desolation. It is difficult to think about education, or anything else, when your children are not able to eat. And yet, the sharp attack on education during this past decade forces us to consider the kind of future that young people will inherit. In 2018, before the pandemic, the United Nations calculated that 258 million, or one in six, school age children were out of school. By March 2020, the start of the pandemic, UNESCO estimated that 1.5 billion children and youth were affected by school closures; a staggering 91% of students worldwide had their education disrupted by the lockdowns.

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New Bill That Passed House Reinvokes Old Russian Bogeyman as Pretext For More U.S. Intervention in Africa

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Tuesday, 14 June 2022 — CovertAction Magazine

By Richard S. Dunn

Map warns of growing Russian influence in Africa—shades of the Cold War. [Source: vifindia.org]

Liberal Democrats shamefully all voted for the “Countering Malign Russian Influence Activities in Africa” Act—seems like relic from bygone era

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Africa, the Collateral Victim of a Distant Conflict: The Twenty-Second Newsletter (2022)

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Thursday, 2 June 2022 — The Tricontinental

Amadou Sanogo Mali You can hide your gaze but you cannot hide that of others 2019Amadou Sanogo (Mali), You Can Hide Your Gaze, but You Cannot Hide That of Others, 2019.

Dear friends,

Greetings from the desk of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

On 25 May 2022, Africa Day, Moussa Faki Mahamat – the chairperson of the African Union (AU) – commemorated the establishment of the Organisation for African Unity (OAU) in 1963, which was later reshaped as the AU in 2002, with a foreboding speech. Africa, he said, has become ‘the collateral victim of a distant conflict, that between Russia and Ukraine’. That conflict has upset ‘the fragile global geopolitical and geostrategic balance’, casting ‘a harsh light on the structural fragility of our economies’. Two new key fragilities have been exposed: a food crisis amplified by climate change and a health crisis accelerated by COVID-19.

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How China’s 1942 Yan’an Forum Inspired the Culture of National Liberation in the Third World

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Tuesday, 17 May 2022 — The Tricontinental

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Contact: Tings Chak
tings@thetricontinental.org

Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research releases a new dossier on the legacy of the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art eight decades later.

On 2 May 1942, hundreds of China’s top writers, artists, and communist leaders gathered to discuss the most urgent cultural questions of the time. Dossier no. 52, Go to Yan’an! Culture and National Liberation, explores the history and enduring legacy of the three-week forum as well as the text that Mao Zedong published the following year summarising the fruit that it bore, entitled Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art. Why did tens of thousands of artists and writers make the long journey to the remote city of Yan’an, what were the intellectual debates of the time, and how did the cultural developments help bring the Chinese people and nation to revolution?

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The US Government Truly Believes The Entire Planet Is Its Property

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Monday, 14 February 2022 — Caitlin Johnson

by Caitlin Johnstone

Listen to a reading of this article:

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The Wall Street Journal has an article out titled “U.S. Aims to Thwart China’s Plan for Atlantic Base in Africa“, subtitled “An American delegation wants to convince Equatorial Guinea against giving Beijing a launchpad in waters the U.S. considers its backyard.”

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