Africa, the World Cup and rooting for everybody Black
The world's most viewed sporting event happens every four years during the World Cup. Estimates suggest this year it will garner 3.2 billion viewers. In a recent commentary discussing who to root for during this global soccer match, subtitled “A Diasporic Black Man's Guide to the World Cup,' Maulud Sadiq wrote since his “family,” obviously due in great part...
Biden’s African policy must embrace proposed African Economic Community Free Trade Area
The quest for African solidarity as is suggested by the formation of the African Economic Community Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) goes back to African leaders like Kwame Nkrumah and his desire for continent-wide economic decolonization. “The hasty launch of AfCFTA without addressing critical challenges will not fulfill the intended objectives of structural transformation of African economies,” a recent editorial in...
Biafra leader faces trial for secessionist activities
(GIN)--The leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), has been arrested in London and returned to Nigeria where he faces trial for leading a secessionist movement in south-east Nigeria in 1967 which was met with a declaration of war by the Nigerian government, 30 years of fighting and more than a million deaths. Nnamdi Kanu, a British national who...
‘We can’t allow our martyred countrymen to have died in vain’
The death toll from Sudan’s political uprising had reached 39 fatalities, reported a pro-democracy doctors union at Final Call press time. Hundreds of thousands of Sudanese, twice in less than one week, hit streets to keep protesting a military coup by Sudan’s Sovereign Council Chief General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and call for the installation of a civilian run democratic...
Why U.S.-led NATO & its complicit press framing Africa as being in bed with Russia
Western media outlets in many cases have wrongly accused Africa of siding with Russia in its war against Ukraine. No mention is ever made of NATO’s involvement in provoking Russia’s recent invasion. “The war could have been avoided if NATO had heeded the warnings from amongst its own leaders and officials over the years that its eastward expansion would lead...
Healthy life expectancy in Africa grows by nearly 10 years
Healthy life expectancy among Africans living in mainly high and upper middle-income countries on the continent, has increased by almost 10 years, the UN health agency, WHO, said on Aug. 4. The World Health Organization announced the good news Aug. 4 after examining life expectancy data among the 47 countries that make up the WHO African Region from 2000 to 2019, as part of...
Africa occupies a ‘marginal place’ in U.S. foreign policy
In recent months, Africa has received much in the way of “optics” and symbolic gestures, but little in the way of substance. Africa is historically like a wealthy woman that gives her all to an abusive, unappreciative no-good man. While being interviewed by the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), Kenyan native and Loyola University law professor, James Gathii, said Africa...
Africa’s 2023 awakening has been dramatic but also inspirational
Africa’s awakening in 2023 has been perplexing, at times disturbing and dramatic, but also inspirational. It can be summed in the “twoness” or duality of the sojourn of American Black folks as expressed in the sudden awaking to their colonial and neocolonial past. This “twoness” was defined by Pan-Africanist and activist scholar W. E. B. Du Bois in his...
South Africa’s case against Israel at the ICJ gains momentum, support
South Africa’s legal team in the genocide case against the Zionist state of Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague arrived to a hero’s welcome where they were met with loud cheers of “Free Palestine” from throngs of pro-Palestine supporters at OR Tambo International Airport. What a difference a court case makes. The birthplace of Nelson...
Kenya’s repressive tax policies, derived from IMF austerity programs, spark protests
Thousands poured into the streets in Kenya for a second time in less than a week as the country’s majority youth population engaged in peaceful demonstrations to protest a government bill to hike taxes. Media outlets reported that live gunfire and tear gas was being used by police in the capital city Nairobi and Kisumu—the country’s third largest city—as...