African groups discuss goals ahead of U.S.-Africa summit
A collective of organizations met days ahead of the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit to discuss several pressing crises on the African continent that they said the Biden Administration should focus on during and after the gathering. At Final Call presstime 49 African heads of state, civil society, diaspora communities across the United States, and the private sector were gathering for...
South Africa’s ruling party backs motion in parliament to close Israeli embassy
According to media reports, South Africa’s ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), “given the unfolding atrocities in occupied Palestine …” is backing the country’s opposition party’s motion to shut down its embassy. The ANC said in a statement it would support the motion “to close the Israel Embassy in South Africa and suspend all diplomatic relations with Israel...
Mandela’s visit to Libya raises questions about U.S. policy
Mr. Young, emcee of the glitzy fund-raising dinner honoring Dr. Dorothy Height, president of the National Council of Negro Women, at first seemed to echo official U.S. anger over the visit that week in Tripoli by Africa's most popular president with the African leader Americans most love to hate. Continuing, Mr. Young said he then realized that President Mandela's action-like...
Africa endorses nominees for 2025 election of AU Commission chair
The process has begun for the February 2025 election of a new African Union Commission chairperson. According to the commission, the consideration for nominees will be made based on vision statements outlining how candidates intend to advance the “transformative agenda of the African Union.” Nominees will also be considered based on their game plan for addressing existing and emerging...
Africa and China’s growing alliance and the de-Westernization of the continent
China’s new foreign minister Qin Gang made his first trip abroad January 9-16 to the continent of Africa. His trip comes amid changes in how the continent views the West. It is the decoupling of Western hegemony is how Dr. Tony Monterio describes Africa’s growing dissatisfaction with the U.S.-led Western powers. He told Africa Watch that it was Gang’s first...
Anger, labor struggles spread in South Africa
(FinalCall.com) - South Africans are “reeling in horror” at the killing of 34 miners by police August 16, which to many brought back the darkest memories of the country’s apartheid past. The African National Congress expressed similar horror and outrage at what is being called the “Marikana massacre,” according to Open Democracy.net. Wading into a sea of platinum miners...
Africa should dictate terms of its relationships with U.S.
U.S. President Joe Biden has dispatched Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.) to Ethiopia to meet with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to express the administration’s “grave concerns” about the humanitarian crisis in the country’s Tigray region. Sudan and Egypt, because of their water dependence on the Nile River, asked the Biden administration, the UN and the African Union to intervene...
U.S. created the atmosphere in Sudan for military coup: Journalist
The United States created the political atmosphere in the Republic of Sudan that led to the military coup in the African country, according to African American journalist Abayomi Azikiwe. Mr. Azikiwe, editor at the Pan-African News Wire, warned in an interview with Press TV on Oct. 26 that there is no solution to the African crisis as long as imperialist...
Farrakhan, Mandela and Jewish leaders
The similarities between the interactions with Jewish leaders and organizations of influence—whether in person or upon reflection, by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan and Nelson Mandela—are worth looking back on. Mandela was sentenced in 1964 by prosecutor Percy Yutar, who used his increased fame in the Apartheid State of South Africa to become attorney general and later the president...
Landmark report highlights untapped potential of Africa’s film industry
Africa’s film and audiovisual industries could create over 20 million jobs and contribute $20 billion to the continent’s combined Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the UN cultural agency, UNESCO, said on Oct. 5 in a new report highlighting this untapped potential. The African Film Industry: Trends, Challenges and Opportunities for Growth is the first-ever mapping of the sector, which currently employs...