Continued….Cash-strapped Zimbabwe has been buckling under the weight of Western sanctions but is increasingly looking to the mining sector, which contributes almost 20% to the country’s $66 billion GDP, to help solve its budgetary constraints. Lithium is set to become the nation’s third-biggest mineral export after gold and platinum, which registered $2.46 billion and $2.27 billion respectively in export receipts last year.

A decade ago, President Robert Mugabe made headlines by forcing the country’s platinum miners to refine their product in-country, rather than exporting raw material for processing in South Africa, in return for a sweetened deal on an indigenisation law that required mining firms to hand over a majority of their shares to Black Zimbabweans. It appears Zimbabwe is finally starting to live up to its potential.

Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Hear Us Roar: https://t.me/AfricanStream

GERMANY ISSUES APOLOGY FOR COLONIAL-ERA ABUSES

A day after the UK’s unelected head of state, King Charles, refused to apologise for Britain’s atrocities during his long-awaited trip to Kenya, Germany did the opposite in Tanzania. During a visit, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier extended apologies for colonial-era atrocities and to the descendants of local war hero Songea Mbano. He was hanged and beheaded, alongside his fighters, for staging the Maji-Maji rebellion against German forces in the early 1900s.

Germany’s colonisation of Tanganyika, the name of present-day Tanzania, was marked by the same level of depraved violence characteristic of European colonisation throughout Africa. During the Maji-Maji rebellion, for instance, Germany killed as many as 300,000 Africans, nearly a third of Tanganyika’s population. The German colonial government also forced indigenous people to work on plantations and in mines, often under dangerous conditions.

Continued…..Germany carried out mass executions of suspected rebels and dissidents and burned villages and crops.
However, Tanzanians speaking out on social media want more than an apology. They want cash to the families of those who suffered.
To compensate for the early 20th-century genocide in Namibia, where more than 100,000 Herero people and 10,000 Namaqua people were massacred, Germany promised to pay around $1.3 billion. But it will be spread across different projects over 30 years. The genocide of Jews during World War II, in comparison, has been compensated to the tune of more than $86 billion. Despite the genocide in Namibia occurring decades before the Jewish genocide, Namibia reparations were announced in 2021, while Jewish reparations were given nearly immediately after the war.

But is it a case with Tanzania and Namibia of better late than never? Let us know in the comments.

Hear Us Roar: https://t.me/AfricanStream

CHARLIE WON’T SAY SORRY

The destructive legacy of Britain in Kenya has loomed large over King Charles’s four-day visit. But he’s again stopped short of giving an official apology for his country’s colonial crimes.

Countless voices have called for one together with reparations - pointing to land dispossession, murder, torture, and concentration camps at the hands of the British. However, as usual, London struggles to accept its history.

Maybe Charlie fears how much it could cost the country he rules over. An apology could open the floodgates to compensation claims everywhere. In Kenya, for example, Samburu elders are demanding tens of millions of dollars.

Continued….Then there’s the Caribbean where millions of Africans were shipped as part of the transatlantic slave trade (real name European slave trade). And we haven’t even mentioned India, where it’s estimated the British Empire syphoned trillions of dollars of wealth.

Interestingly, the king arrived in Nairobi on the birthday of Dedan Kimathi - the leader of the Mau Mau resistance movement which the British violently suppressed in the 1950s.

It should have been a fitting occasion to say the hardest word.

Hear Us Roar: https://t.me/AfricanStream

BURKINA FASO NATIONALISES SUGAR

Burkina Faso appears to be having a relatively great year! For even more good news from this Sahelian state in west Africa, President Ibrahim Traoré’s administration has announced it will be nationalising the sugar sector. The SN SOSUCO sugar company, which was once state-owned, was privatised during the term of the counterrevolutionary president, Blaise Compaoré (1987-2014). Now, Burkina Faso’s largest employer will be back in the hands of the people, providing even more jobs and benefiting the local economy.

Let us know what you think of Burkina Faso’s latest move.

Hear Us Roar: https://t.me/AfricanStream

ISRAELI POLICE ATTACK ULTRA-ORTHODOX JEWS

Watch the moment Israeli police attack ultra-Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem.

The incident occurred on November 1st, in the anti-Zionist Jewish neighbourhood of Mea Shearim. Israeli policemen were filmed knocking a resident to the ground and beating him, as well as hitting and shoving bystanders.

Police violence against ultra-Orthodox Jews is not new and tensions with the community are high. One reason is that they are against conscription, the illegal expansion of settlements and the far-right government’s war-mongering.

Continued…..Ultra-Orthodox Jews both inside and outside of Israel are often staunch supporters of Palestinian statehood, and anti-Zionist in principle - criticising their current government, as well as the actions that brought about the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948.

Despite the epicentre of Israel’s war being Gaza, tensions in the West Bank and Jerusalem have mounted, with videos and reports suggesting that Israel is arming extremist settlers and carrying out operations and alleged extra-judicial killings against Palestinians across the land.

Hear Us Roar: https://t.me/AfricanStream

DO AFRICANS IN U.S. & GAZANS FACE SIMILAR RISKS?

Black nationalist and Nation of Islam chief Louis Farrakhan has warned that Africans in America are vulnerable in ways that Palestinians in Gaza are.

Speaking at the recent, virtually convened 9th Nubian Leadership Circle, the influential religious figure observed that African communities in America are not in control of basics like water and electricity.

This means that - if those communities are ever deemed a threat by the prevailing (White-centric) system - they can be denied access to these essentials, just as Tel Aviv has cut off Palestinians in Gaza.

He goes further: control of roads means control of food deliveries, so Black-majority cities like Jackson and Detroit could be starved like Gaza.

Continued…..Farrakhan even indicates that there is a risk of targeted poisonings - via the contamination of food and water supplies serving African communities in America - claiming that “death is what they want for you”!

There’s a lot in this clip, some of the claims perhaps more surprising than others. Which of his points do you agree with?

Hear Us Roar: https://t.me/AfricanStream

BEHEADED BY THE BRITISH

King Charles is in Kenya, but won’t apologise for the many crimes committed there in his family’s name.

In the Rift Valley, as the British were constructing a railway to Uganda, they met stiff resistance from the Nandi community, led by Orkoiyot (chief) Koitalel Arap Samoei. They sprang a trap for him - inviting him to negotiations, only to kill and behead him when he came. His head was sent to London as a trophy.

His people have not forgotten, nor forgiven. As calls for a reckoning from other quarters of the independence struggle overshadow King Charles’ visit, Koitalel’s descendants too are calling for compensation and the return of his skull.

Britain is not willing to go that far, not even an apology. For now, the king says he feels regret - but claims there’s nothing he can do to change the past.

Do you think there’s nothing he can do?

Hear Us Roar: https://t.me/AfricanStream

MONEY FOR ISRAEL, NOTHING FOR AFRICANS

Why does the United States give so much money to Israel while refusing to pay reparations to African people? The answer is simple: Supporting Israel advances US imperial interests, but the same cannot be said about reparations. African people kidnapped and trafficked to the United States during the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade (real name European slave) were not brought over to be made citizens. They were meant to be exploited. Time and time again. It's hard to put a figure on how much is owed on generations of exploitation, enslavement, and other impacts of white supremacy that Africans in the United States have survived.

Continued….On the other hand, the US relationship with Israel is quite different. Both are settler colonies that became states through the continual encroachment, annexation and ethnic cleansing of indigenous people's lands. Because of this shared history, they have a natural affinity so that the United States can rely on Israel as a strategic ally located at the crossroads of Africa and Asia.

In 2021, Bishop Talbert Swan, president of a local chapter in the US state of Vermont of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), spoke about reparations as money owed to Africans in the United States.

Let us know what you think about reparations.

Hear Us Roar: https://t.me/AfricanStream

COLONIAL HANGINGS CAST SHADOW ON KING'S VISIT

90,000 executed, tortured, abused, maimed or detained under inhuman conditions - this is Britain's colonial legacy during the State of Emergency in Kenya (declared in 1952 in response to the growing Mau-Mau rebellion).

African Stream’s Brenda Mwai digs deeper into this dark past and uncovers the courage of Kenya's freedom fighters, who gave their lives for their beloved land.

As Kenyans celebrate their heroes 60 years on, they are demanding a formal apology from visiting King Charles III for the atrocities committed by British colonial authorities.

Back in 2013, the British government offered a token £19.9 million in compensation to 5,228 elderly victims but stopped short of a full formal apology. Will His Majesty have the courage to close this bitter chapter by atoning for imperial crimes through an official apology?

Join the conversation and share your thoughts on the royal visit to Kenya.

Hear Us Roar: https://t.me/AfricanStream

SLAVE-TRADE KINGS: A ROYAL BUSINESS

King Charles of England is on a four day visit to Kenya at the invitation of President Ruto. Aside from heading the country that dispossessed and killed countless Kenyans in the 20th century, his family actively participated in the slave trade. Just to paint the picture, he inherited $500 million dollars upon his mother’s death, and a significant portion of that is proceeds from the enslavement of Africans. It goes deeper, as the king’s ancestors directly used slave labour.

He is a descendant of Edward Porteus, a 17th-century tobacco plantation owner in Virginia, who received a shipment of at least 200 enslaved people from the Royal African Company in 1686. The Royal African Company (RAC) was a British trading company established in 1672 during the reign of King Charles II of England. It held a monopoly on English trade with West Africa for the transportation of enslaved Africans, gold, and other commodities.

Continued….The company played a significant role in the Atlantic slave trade, as it was responsible for shipping tens of thousands of enslaved Africans to the British colonies in the Americas during the late 17th century and the early 18th century.

The RAC was granted a royal charter, which gave it exclusive rights to trade along the west coast of Africa and between Africa and the English colonies in the Americas. The company’s primary goal was to profit from the sale of enslaved Africans to work on plantations and in other industries in the Caribbean and North America.

Despite all this, Kenya has ironically blocked the airing of allegations of UK Army abuses before the king’s visit. Before a news conference could be held at a hotel in the capital Nairobi, a lorry with at least 20 police officers and two smaller trucks blocked access to the venue, according to a Reuters reporter. The police also allegedly gave the hotel’s management a letter that warned them not to host the event.

This will worryingly hamper efforts at reparations even as calls are growing in the country for the monarch to address the historical crimes whose consequences are still felt today.

Hear Us Roar: https://t.me/AfricanStream

Luxury yachts aren’t known for their usefulness in combat at sea. Yet Nigeria’s presidential office is trying to convince the nation that the Nigerian Navy needs one!

When the Navy’s budget was being reviewed by lawmakers, they spotted a 6-million-dollar super yacht on the proposed shopping list. They vetoed the idea - slamming it as a complete waste of government money, and a testament to the Tinubu administration's insensitivity to the plight of ordinary Nigerians battling with the skyrocketing cost of living.

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu - one of Nigeria’s richest individuals - campaigned on a platform of fiscal discipline, promising to turn around the country's ailing economy. However, things have only got worse under his leadership - with inflation approaching 30% - while the national currency, the Naira, has been on a downward spiral for months.

His office claims to have had nothing to do with the Navy’s luxury-yacht request - claiming there must be an “operational need” for one. Do you buy that?