Category: Uncategorized

by B. R. GOWANI

VIDEO/OAN/Youtube

our Universe has between hundreds of billions and two trillion galaxies

scientists are busy uncovering an infinite number of mysteries

though science is too young but is now progressing at a very fast pace

the vastness of our Universe requires time for things to unfold

but some people, for whatever reason, see various non-existent things

such as UFOs or unidentified flying objects

also known as UAPs or unidentified anomalous phenomenons

those people also include racist US congressman Tim Burchett

Republican Rep. Burchett told former US congressman Matt Gaetz:

“They tell me something’s moving at hundreds of miles an hour underwater… It was large as a football field, underwater.”

both right-winger Republicans, Burhett and Matt, look like fools

a year and a half back, Burchett told Fox News Host Jesse Waters:

Some of these craft that you’re watching right there, they have no heat trail. They defy every bit of physics that we know about. They can fly underwater or swim underwater, […] And they basically have no friction and there is no heat trail. […] We don’t have any idea what’s propelling them. […]

If Putin had a U F O, he’d land the thing on the White House lawn, probably get out, ride a unicorn bare-chested over to the president and punch him in the mouth and then ride back to Mother Russia. If the Chinese had it, they’d own us. […]

So you’re left with one other conclusion. These things are coming from somewhere else, and this has been covered up since 1947 or sooner. [… ] We’ve been dealing with this at least since 1947, probably since about 1893, I believe, was the Aurora, Texas [UFO sighting incident].

Snopes.com

now Burchett sounds like a conspiracist

the Feb 2024 Pentagon report stated that no proof of UFO was found

“[The Department of Defense: All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office or] AARO found no evidence that any USG investigation, academic-sponsored research, or official review panel has confirmed that any sighting of a UAP represented extraterrestrial technology. All investigative efforts, at all levels of classification, concluded that most sightings were ordinary objects and phenomena and the result of misidentification. Although not the focus of this report, it is worthwhile to note that all official foreign UAP investigatory efforts to date have reached the same general conclusions as USG investigations.”

The Department of Defense: All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, p.7.

there is no such thing as UFO or UAP

many a times lenticular clouds are mistaken for UFOs or UAPs

here I should correct myself — there is one UFO on our planet

the UFO or Unrestrained Furious Object resides in the White House

this is a real UFO overground traveling at the speed of light

issuing execute orders

deporting people

threatening Mexico and Canada with tariffs

threatening Peru with tariffs

wants to grab Greenland (the stolen United States, it seems, is not enough)

wants to rename Panama Canal as “United States Canal“

one could go on and on

suffice it to say

the real danger to our planet is this white UFO in the White House

not the non-existent imaginary UFOs or UAPs

B. R. Gowani

A lifelong feminist and rights activist, the senior PFLP figure has been an Israeli target for decades

Palestinian prisoner Khalida Jarrar was freed by Israel on Sunday as part of the first wave of prisoner exchanges agreed with Hamas in the Gaza ceasefire deal.

The 61-year-old, an MP, feminist and prisoners’ rights advocate, had been held in administrative detention – a policy that allows Israeli authorities to hold individuals without charge or trial – since 26 December 2023.

Jarrar’s detention was renewed multiple times.

In August she was moved to solitary confinement as a “form of punishment”, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Club, and held for six months in a 1m-by-1.5m cell at Ayalon (Ramla) prison.

Rights group Addameer reported that the cell had “barely enough space for a mattress”, and that her clothes, hygiene products, food and water were all severely restricted.

Jarrar’s long career as an activist has meant she has spent the last three decades in and out of detention, losing her father, daughter and nephew while she was behind bars.

Her sister Salam Altratot told Middle East Eye that the latest detention was the hardest Jarrar had endured.

A life-long activist

Originally from Nablus, Jarrar is a prominent political leader and human rights and feminist advocate.

Her activism began early. As a teenager, she reportedly volunteered with a group that cleaned the local community and public schools against the wishes of many in her family, who believed the work was more suited for boys.

She went on to become one of the most prominent leaders of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a nationalist and Marxist-Leninist group that is the second-largest faction in the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and has been designated as a terrorist group by Israel the US. 

In 2006, she was elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council, which is the Palestinian Authority’s parliament, and was appointed to lead the prisoners’ committee.

She is credited with playing a leading role in cementing Palestine’s accession to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 2015.

Jarrar has also been a relentless campaigner for the rights of Palestinian prisoners, serving as the director of Addameer, a prisoners’ rights organisation based in Ramallah, between 1993 and 2005.

Repeated detention

Jarrar’s work has made her a repeated target for Israeli authorities, who have arrested her several times over the past three decades, often placing her under administrative detention.

Her first arrest was in March 1989, when she participated in a demonstration on International Women’s Day.

Middle East Eye for more

PROJECT CENSORED

The US military is taking the old adage “sex sells” to another level by using sexually suggestive social media posts on TikTok and Instagram—known as thirst traps—in an effort to recruit members of Generation Z in response to military recruitment numbers falling below goals in recent years. The main subject of Alan MacLeod’s MintPress News investigation is Army Psychological Operations Specialist Hailey Lujan, who has amassed more than nine hundred thousand TikTok followers and three hundred thousand followers on Instagram, based on her videos which feature “sexually suggestive content alongside subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) calls to join up.”

This drastic change from soldiers bringing pull-up bars for recruitment sessions during high school lunch periods to using female sexuality online to lure teenage boys into an institution with a horrendous record of sexual assault against female soldiers adds new questions about what exactly the military seeks to accomplish with these videos. Lujan’s videos seemingly violate the code of conduct of the image-conscious US military, and it is unclear what role the military has in producing Lujan’s content. Nonetheless, Lujan appears to remain an active member of the army. According to MacLeod, “Multiple videos suggest Lujan is connected with the 101st Airborne Division. Location data shows she is based at Fort Campbell, a large military installation on the Tennessee-Kentucky border that houses the storied division.”

The self-aware nature of these accounts sticks out. Lujan frequently references the allegations that she is a federal agent and a psyop (a psychological operation), captioning her videos with comments such as, “My handlers made me post this” or “Not endorsed by the DoD [Department of Defense] :’) :3,” MacLeod reported. Videos often include Lujan flaunting heavy weapons, modeling high-end clothes she supposedly bought with her signing bonus, and one of her in Donald Trump Jr.’s penthouse. None of these videos explain the actual responsibilities of military life. “Lujan’s content appears to be a part of a weird new strategy of military outreach, shocking academics and military experts alike,” MacLeod reported. Lujan is not the only online military influencer, but her overt use of her sensuality and her constant encouragement of her followers to enlist make her noteworthy.

“I can’t believe she’s getting away with posting some of this stuff,” said journalist and veteran Rosa del Duca in an interview with MintPress News, “Everyone learns in boot camp that when you are in uniform, you cannot act unprofessionally, or you get in deep trouble.” MacLeod reached out to the Department of Defense for clarification but received no response.

Additionally, the Army has been sponsoring various popular content creators—such as YouTube stars Ben Azelart (27 million subscribers) and Michelle Khare (4.5 million)—to “join” for a day. These videos portray military training as nothing but fun obstacle courses similar to those featured on some television game shows. Unlike Lujan’s videos, these “join for a day” videos make clear that the US Army has total control of production, with the obvious goal of rebranding the military’s image for a generation that sees military service in increasingly negative light. The branches of the US military are no stranger to partnerships with entertainment giants that traditionally engage viewers from all walks of life—as in armed forces’ partnerships with the National Football League. But this new attempt to appeal to niche youth audiences has not been scrutinized, which is especially troubling because studies show the young targets of these videos often have trouble distinguishing between sponsored and un-sponsored content.

“It is now well-established (if not well-known) that the Department of Defense also fields a giant clandestine army of at least 60,000 people whose job it is to influence public opinion, the majority doing so from their keyboards,” MacLeod reported, noting that, in doing so, “this troll army was likely breaking both domestic and international law.”

Using social media for military recruiting is not a new strategy, and the military’s venture in e-sports has received previous corporate coverage, notably when Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sought to bar the use of funds for recruiting efforts on live-streaming websites, such as Twitch, and in e-sports. However, this new psychosexual recruiting method has not received the same level of pushback from the media or politicians.

Projecct Censored for more

by CONRAD LANDIN

Could a break-up proffer the end of the empire? Conrad Landin weighs up the arguments.

Picture the scene. It’s 2028, and Donald Trump has been re-elected US president. Having abolished term limits and charmed and connived his way to victory again, he is set to become the first US president since Franklin D Roosevelt to serve a third term in office.

Except… there is no United States left to govern. Piece by piece, the jigsaw has shrunk to the point that even the District of Colombia has declared independence, and the boundary fence of Trump’s White House now forms the US border. Trump can extend his tiny hands all he likes, but he’s the only human being in reach. Wouldn’t it be swell?

The US, we should remember, is a rather young country, and contemplating its unsustainable nature is nothing new. But Trump’s election in 2016 raised the stakes. In his 2021 book, Splitsville USA, Christopher F Zurn advocates for a ‘political divorce’ to address ‘serious institutional problems’ that ‘will quite likely lead either to electoral authoritarianism or massive ungovernability’. He proposes to ‘harness our divisions – our mutual suspicions and hatreds – in the service of a solution whereby all current Americans can live in functioning constitutional republics’.

The foundation of the United States in 1776 was the culmination of a white settler-colonial project which oversaw the genocidal removal of Indigenous Americans and their nations. Since then, and especially since the Second World War, the US has grown to be the world’s dominant imperial power. The death toll of its completed and attempted conquests in countries including Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq is estimated to be as high as 55 million.

Zurn’s is a liberal democratic solution to a crisis of liberal democracy, one he attributes to the vulnerabilities of the US Constitution. But internationalists will instead recognize this crisis as an inevitable outcome of the capitalism so valued by US liberals. As guest editor Nanjala Nyabola put it in New Internationalist’s podcast The World Unspun: ‘Neoliberalism is the handmaiden of fascism.’

Nevertheless, many anti-imperialists believe that the dismantling of colonial nation-states can be a catalyst for a more equitable world order. It’s for this reason that many socialists support the cause of Scottish independence, in the name of ‘breaking up the British state’. Others disagree, citing the dangers of embracing nationalist movements and the barriers that separation would place upon achieving working class unity.

US hegemony in global politics is not achieved by the elected government alone, however. The country has successfully asserted its dominance in military affairs through the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), now held up as a defender of democratic values globally, but whose founding members included the authoritarian Portuguese dictatorship. How would US successor states manage its continuity? Potentially with more difficulty. But in its eight decades of existence, NATO has developed an authority independent of the current US government. It would no doubt survive, and would only become less accountable still – while preserving North American imperial interests – if overseen by multiple successor states. Zurn explicitly states that these ‘would band together productively in exerting diplomatic power in international institutions and relations’.

Indeed, if breaking up the US were a means of maintaining the pre-2016 liberal order, then maintaining NATO’s hegemony would surely be central to that purpose. The same is surely true of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, set up by – and headquartered in – the US.

There are no shortcuts – especially constitutional fixes – in the struggle for global justice

Whither anti-imperialists? A national divorce could still drive a wedge through the dominant ruling class unity which has allowed a huge transfer of power and resources from the poor to the rich, and which sacrifices millions of people, predominantly in the Global South, for the latter’s further enrichment. Others may hope that the recklessness of a president like Trump will do serious and lasting damage to US hegemony in global affairs.

What is clear, however, is that there are no shortcuts – especially constitutional fixes – in the struggle for global justice.

New Internationalist for more

by HARVEY WASSERMAN

Los Angeles is now being destroyed by fire. 

Next will be the “Big One” earthquake everyone knows is coming. 

And then—unless we take immediate action—Diablo Canyon’s radioactive cloud will make this region a radioactive dead zone.  

My family is now besieged by four fires raging less than four miles away.  We don’t know how long our luck will hold. 

We are eternally grateful to the brave fire-fighters and public servants who are doing their selfless best to save us all. 

We are NOT grateful that Gavin Newsom has recklessly endangered us by forcing continued operation at two unsafe, decrepit nuclear power plants perched on active earthquake faults, set to pour radioactive clouds on us from just four hours north of here. 

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s resident site inspector—Dr. Michael Peck—after five years at Diablo warned that it cannot withstand the earthquakes we all know are coming.  

 In 2006 the NRC confirmed that Unit One was already seriously embrittled.  Its fragile core makes a melt-down virtually certain to cause a catastrophic explosion, shooting a lethal apocalyptic cloud right at us…and then across the state and continent.   

These wildfires make clear that these city, state and federal governments—maybe NO government ANYWHERE—can begin to cope with these kinds of mega-crises.  

 Imagine watching our public servants trying to cope while dressed in radiation suits, knowing everything around us has been permanently contaminated.

 Imagine leaving all you own forever behind while racing to get yourself and your family out of here under the universal evacuation order demanded by radioactive clouds like those that decimated the downwind regions from Chernobyl and Fukushima, not to mention Santa Susanna and Three Mile Island, Windscale and Kyshtym.

 Pre-empting such a catastrophe was a major motivation for the 2018 plan to phase out the two Diablo nukes in 2024 and 2025, 

That landmark blueprint was crafted over a two-year period with hundreds of meetings, scores of hearings involving the best and brightest in energy, the economy, the ecology and the hard engineering realities of aging atomic power reactors.

 It was signed by the then-Governor (Jerry Brown), Lieutenant Governor (Gavin Newsom), state legislature, state regulatory agencies, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, plant owner (PG&E), labor unions, local governments, environmental groups and many more, .  

 The economic and energy security goals of this plan have been far exceeded by advances in renewable generation and battery storage.  California now regularly gets 100% of its electricity from solar, wind and geothermal.  Battery back-up capabilities exceed Diablo’s capacity by a factor of four or more.  Its inflexible baseload productions unfortunately interferes with far cheaper renewables filling our grid. 

The grid’s most serious blackout threats now come from disruptive malfunctions and potential disasters at Diablo Canyon. 

 All this has been well known since 2018, when Newsom signed the Diablo agreement. 

The phase-out proceeded smoothly for four years, largely exceeding expectations.

 But in 2022, Newsom strongarmed the legislature into trashing the phase-out plan.  His Public Utilities Commission decimated the statewide rate structure, costing our solar industry, billions in revenues and at least 17,000 jobs. 

Instead Newsom fed PG&E about $1.4 billion in public subsidies and $11 billion in over-market charges to keep Diablo running through 2030.

 Neither the NRC nor state nor PG&E have done the necessary tests to guarantee Diablo’s safety, refusing to re-test for embrittlement even though such defects forced the NRC to shut the Yankee Rowe reactor in 1991. 

Diablo has no private liability insurance.  Should it irradiate Los Angeles, NONE of us can expect compensation.   

So as we shudder amidst the horrors of this firestorm, we know that our loss of life, health and property will be orders of magnitude—literally, infinitely—more devastating when, by quake or error, the reactors at Diablo Canyon melt and explode.

Responsibility for this needless, unconscionable threat lies strictly with Gavin Newsom.  There is no sane economic, electric supply or common sense reason for him to impose this gamble on us.   

Free Press for more

Muslims have been present at every defining moment in American history, including the Civil War. Malika Bilal (Senior Presenter., Al Jazeera English) tells the recently discovered story of Muhammad Kahn, an immigrant from Afghanistan who traveled to the United States in 1861, fought in the Union Army, and left behind a 200-page pension file documenting his experiences. While piecing Kahn’s story together, Malika also discovers the stories of other Muslims involved in the conflict. These include Nicholas Said, an African immigrant who fought in the United States Colored Troops, and a senior Tunisian official who wrote to the U.S. government in 1864, urging them to end slavery. This letter made its way to Senator Charles Sumner, a leading abolitionist in the United States, who referred to Islam in his speeches on the floor of the U.S. Senate.

American Muslims: A History Revealed

A series of six short documentary films that reveal and explore the early history of Muslims in America. The series is hosted by three leading American Muslim journalists: Malika Bilal, Aymann Ismail, and Asma Khalid. Over the course of the series, they travel the country to piece together stories spanning over 200 years. from the first Muslims to arrive as enslaved people from Africa to the establishment of early South Asian, Syrian-Lebanese, and Black American Muslim communities. The series weaves key moments in U.S. history with the unexpected but essential story threads of Muslims whose lived experiences offer us new insight into how race, religion, and nationality are intertwined in the American fabric. Actors reading the part of historical characters include Hiam Abbas, David Rasche, Kamal Khan, and Faarshad Farahat.

Youtube for more

by MARK WOODWARD

Originally known as the Ambarrukmo Palace or Kedhaton Ambarrukmo, the Ambarrukmo Hotel in Yogyakarta is one of four international standard hotels Sukarno ordered to be constructed in the 1960s. The others are Hotel Indonesia in Jakarta, The Bali Beach Inter-Continental in Sanur and the Samudra Beach Hotel in Pelabuhan Ratu. For Sukarno, building them was much more than a series of construction projects. It was a nationalist strategy focused on attracting international attention for the new nation. All four hotels house important examples of modern Indonesian art. Sukarno used art, architecture and monuments as revolutionary, ideological and diplomatic tools. 

Sukarno was well suited for the task of symbolic nation building, both known as a nationalist, a revolutionary and an ideologue. He was also an art aficionado, collector and an accomplished amateur painter. As president he was also the most important patron of the arts and a trendsetter who did much to shape the development of a distinctive Indonesian modernist style. Sukarno was so fond of art that after his fall from power in 1966 he is said to have missed his collection and his association with artists more than anything else. He continued a centuries old Southeast Asian tradition in which art works and monuments are not only representations of cosmological orders but also serve to establish them as socio-political realities. Sukarno built on this tradition to construct what Robert Bellah called a ‘civil religion’ – a constellation of quasi-sacred rituals and symbols that binds a nation together. Sukarno’s Indonesian civil religion included romanticised, idealistic portraits of what Indonesia had been, was then, and the modern society it was becoming. The overarching theme was that of Indonesia as a modern, revolutionary, postcolonial society deeply rooted in the country’s traditional cultures.

Inside Indonesia for more

by JIANQING CHEN

TikTok refugees fled by the millions to RedNote, a Chinese app, in response to the TikTok ban, which went into effect Jan. 19, 2025. The company shut down the app shortly before midnight on Jan. 18 but restored service the following day. The app was unavailable to download from the Apple and Google app stores on Jan. 19.

Through cat memes, shared jokes about the ban and honest conversations about usually avoided topics, former TikTokers and RedNote natives are bridging years of U.S.-China digital separation. This spontaneous convergence recalls the internet’s original dream of a global village. It’s a glimmer of hope for connection and communication in a divided world.

I’m a researcher who studies Chinese and transnational digital media. I’m also a Chinese person who lives in the U.S. I’ve been a RedNote user since 2014.

On Tuesday morning, Jan. 14, 2025, my usual RedNote morning scroll revealed a transformed For You Page. Mixed in with my typical TV drama, celebrity and makeup content were new posts from self-proclaimed “TikTok refugees,” with U.S. IP addresses. As I continued scrolling, the recommendation algorithm flooded my feed with more and more of these posts from new U.S. users seeking to rebuild their community on RedNote.

Rapid influx

The phenomenon exploded rapidly: within 24 hours, the hashtag #TikTok Refugee# on RedNote had garnered 36.2 million views and sparked millions of discussions. RedNote topped Apple’s App Store’s free app charts.

According to these TikTok refugees, with the Jan. 19, 2025, ban looming, users feared losing not just their platform access but their content and income streams as well.

Rather than switching to U.S.-based alternatives like Meta’s Instagram or X, they chose to flee to another Chinese platform as their protest against U.S. tech giants, whom they blamed for lobbying for the ban. Their platform of choice was RedNote.

This unexpected shift largely stems from TikTok influencers like @whattheish recommending RedNote as the new TikTok. Given that the app Douyin is China’s version of TikTok, the exodus to RedNote might seem surprising. However, most other Chinese apps, including Douyin, are only available in Chinese app stores and require Chinese phone numbers to register. RedNote is uniquely accessible to users outside China through app stores in various regions, without requiring a Chinese phone number.

Instead of segregating users by geographical regions with different versions as TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance Ltd., did, RedNote – called Xiaohongshu in Chinese – provides access to the same platform globally. ByteDance is based in China but launched TikTok as a U.S. subsidiary in 2015. TikTok partnered with Oracle in 2022 to handle Americans’ user data to address data security concerns. In contrast, RedNote owner Xingyin Information Technology Ltd. is a Shanghai-based company and so remains free from direct U.S. oversight.

RedNote’s global accessibility

This global accessibility aligns with the original vision for Xiaohongshu. The name Little Red Book – its literal English translation – often leads people in the West to draw parallels with Mao’s revolutionary text, suggesting a communist focus. Yet the platform’s true aspirations couldn’t be more different.

The app, created in 2013, emerged with a rather bourgeois focus. The app’s founders, Qu Fang and Mao Wenchao, met while shopping in the U.S. They positioned Xiaohongshu as a platform that combined social media, lifestyle content and e-commerce, all centered around global travel and shopping.

The Conversation for more

by MAX BLUMENTHAL

Emails obtained by The Grayzone reveal how leading “anti-hate” campaigner Imran Ahmed collaborated with Israeli embassy officials to censor pro-Palestine social media accounts — and courted them for donations to his censorship-obsessed Center for Countering Digital Hate.

Since emerging in America from seemingly out of the blue in 2020, the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) has become one of the trans-Atlantic establishment’s most effective tools for censoring online speech. Its founder, Imran Ahmed, has nurtured close ties with the Biden White House since moving to Washington DC, targeting its political enemies with calls for their removal from social media. Back in his hometown of London, Ahmed was an influential advisor to the neoliberal wing of UK Labour, helping sabotage the leftist insurgency of Jeremy Corbyn and place his ally, Keir Starmer, in charge of the party. 

Ahmed has been embroiled in controversy since journalists Paul D. Thacker and Matt Taibbi published internal CCDH documents showing he held private meetings with influential Democratic lawmakers throughout 2024 to advance a plan to “kill Elon Musk’s Twitter.” The billionaire Twitter/X owner and his allies in president-elect Donald Trump’s inner circle retaliated by accusing the British operative of violating laws against foreign interference in American politics.

Ahmed, for his part, has dismissed the charge that he colludes with foreign governments as a kooky conspiracy. “The Center for Countering Digital Hate researches conspiracy theories. We don’t engage with them,” he said.

However, internal CCDH emails obtained by The Grayzone reveal that while Ahmed nurtures ties to the Labour government in Britain, the self-styled “anti-hate” campaigner also enjoys a secret, “collaborative” relationship with a rogue foreign government whose leadership currently stands accused of genocide by the International Court of Justice, and is wanted for crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court.

Provided by a CCDH insider who requested to remain anonymous out of fear that Ahmed and his allies would retaliate against him, the emails reveal that top officials in the Israeli Embassy in Washington DC helped introduce Ahmed to potential funders, and were even invited to review a CCDH report before its publication. The report urged Meta to remove pro-Palestine Facebook groups on the grounds that they promoted “anti-Jewish hate.” 

Ahmed seemed agitated when The Grayzone reached him by phone and asked him to confirm his email exchanges with the Israeli officials. “I have no idea which emails you’re talking about,” he stated. “You’ll have to send them through to us and have a look at them and come back to you.”

When asked if he had collaborated with the Israeli government, Ahmed did not deny the relationship. “We work with all governments,” he claimed. 

Asked a second time about whether he had colluded with Israeli officials, he responded, “In what respect?” 

The Gray Zone for more

by ANN GARRISON

Rwandan colonization of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) proceeds apace.

On Obama’s 2009 Inauguration Day, the Congrès national pour la défense du peuple (CNDP)—a Rwandan militia—was “integrated” into the Congolese army. This was a de facto concession of territory to longtime US/EU ally Rwanda, which the US State Department applauded.

The CNDP renamed itself the March 23 Movement (M23) and started fighting again three years later, in 2012, horrifying the world with their atrocities as the CNDP had. They said they hadn’t gotten all they’d been promised and resumed Rwanda’s expansionist project. Some members of M23 were reporting to Uganda, but Rwanda led the aggression, a gross violation of DRC’s sovereignty that the world has tolerated for the past 30 years.

Sixteen years later, on Trump’s Inauguration Day, the Rwandan Defense Forces (RDF) were openly fighting alongside M23, and Rwanda controlled far more territory. The day before Trump’s inauguration, Defense Post reported that M23 had taken Lumbishi, a key mining settlement in the DRC’s South Kivu Province, and that they were advancing on Numbi and Shanje, two other locations in the surrounding Kalehe territory.

On the day after Trump’s inauguration, Reuters reported that M23 had seized Minova, a key supply route to Goma, the capital of Congo’s North Kivu Province, which sits on its border with Rwanda.

The December 2024 UN Group of Experts Report noted that from April to early November 2024, M23 and the RDF increased the area they controlled by 30 percent, advancing on multiple territorial fronts and on political, administrative, and ideological fronts as well.

The Experts also describe the systematic support from the Rwanda Defence Force to M23 and Rwanda’s administrative control of Congolese territory it has seized, including administration of the minerals traffic from DRC to Rwanda and taxation by M23. “At least 150 tons of coltan were fraudulently exported to Rwanda and mixed with Rwandan production, leading to the largest contamination of mineral supply chains in the Great Lakes region recorded to date.”

They estimate that M23 collects $800,000 per month in taxation alone, amounting to $9,600,000 per year. The minerals traffic itself supports rich Rwandan traders and Rwanda’s ruling elite.

M23 and the Rwandan Defense Force are equipped, the experts report, with advanced weaponry far better than that possessed by the Congolese army. This weaponry is manufactured far from Africa and smuggled across the Rwandan-Congolese border in violation of the longstanding, long-ignored UN arms embargo.

According to David Himbara, a Rwandan exile and former advisor to Rwandan President Kagame, these weapons are purchased with profits from the illegal minerals traffic.

The experts also report more of the mass displacement and civilian suffering that has been part of this story since its beginning.

US and EU Support for Rwanda Is Unwavering

There’s no doubt where this situation is headed. Rwandan President Kagame and the Tutsi elite surrounding him intend to annex all of DRC’s resource-rich North and South Kivu Provinces, formally if possible. The displacement of Congolese people and Rwandan migration into the Kivus may make it possible for Rwanda to demand a referendum on whether or not the people of the Kivus want to be part of DRC or part of Rwanda.

The US and EU have tolerated and collaborated with Rwanda’s invasion and colonization project since Rwanda first invaded DRC, at that time Zaire, in 1996, and it goes on. The minerals traffic is so profitable and convenient that the European Commission shocked Congolese in February 2024 by announcing a “Memorandum of Understanding on Sustainable Raw Materials Value Chains ” between the EU and Rwanda. 

Kagame hobnobs with the Davos set and opens Rwanda to its experiments in world government, from digital IDs and “sustainable cities ” to mandatory or even forced vaccination .

He also offers the Rwandan Defense Force in service to Western military objectives on the African continent.  

Between Two Inaugurations

The US has sustained its support and collaboration with Rwanda since the Rwandan Patriot Army led by Paul Kagame invaded Rwanda from Uganda in 1990.

It’s a long, tragic history, but this week I began with Obama’s Inauguration since that was the date of the de facto concession of Congolese territory to Rwanda that eventually led to the CNDP reconstituting itself as M23 and waging the war, which it has continued off and on since 2012. 

On that day the world exulted in the rise of the first Black president in the most powerful country in the world, imagining that he would usher in a new age of liberation for the world’s dark-skinned colonized and neocolonized peoples, and Africa was especially hopeful. Code Pink was dancing the “Yes We Can Can,” and the world was mesmerized by the sight of Aretha Franklin singing a gospel version of “My Country Tis of Thee” in a hat topped with a giant bow outlined in rhinestones.

Obama came in with a huge mandate, nationally and globally, with Democratic majorities in both Houses of Congress and, in short order, a Nobel Peace Prize. He could have conditioned aid and political support to Rwanda on withdrawal from DRC, but instead he sustained the alliance, even as one UN report after another documented Rwanda’s violence and resource theft in DRC.

In 2014, still on Obama’s watch, Congo’s army, led by the heroic Colonel Mamadou Mustafa Ndala , defeated Rwanda, driving M23 combatants back into Rwanda and Uganda. The US/EU, however, engineered farcical “peace talks ” in which the Congolese victors conceded everything to the Rwandan and Ugandan losers.

Fast forward to Trump’s inauguration, and Rwanda’s colonization project proceeds apace with no reason to expect any change in policy. For Democrats or Republicans, Black or white, neocolonization is the name of the game, and the Congolese people continue to suffer.

Black Agenda Report for more