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africa
Calls Grow to Boycott 'The Odyssey,' Filmed in Moroccan-Occupied Western Sahara
One critic noted that Sahrawis "are beaten, arbitrarily arrested, and have their equipment confiscated for trying to make their own films of life under occupation."
Jul 15, 2026
Sahrawi activists and filmmakers are leading renewed calls to boycott the big-screen adaptation of Homer's ancient Greek epic The Odyssey over filmmaker Christopher Nolan's decision to shoot the film in the Western Sahara, whose people have suffered Moroccan occupation for over half a century.
"It is deeply disturbing that while Sahrawi journalists are imprisoned for exposing abuses, an international film production can use our homeland as a cinematic backdrop without addressing the reality of the occupation," Sahrawi journalist and filmmaker Mamine Hachimi told Middle East Eye (MEE) in an interview published on Wednesday.
Hachimi, who co-directed the short documentary Three Stolen Cameras about the oppression of people who document human rights crimes committed by Moroccan occupiers, told MEE's Alex MacDonald that calls to boycott The Odyssey—which was filmed in the Western Saharan city of Dakhla and opens on Friday—"is not a campaign against cinema or artistic freedom, it is a call for ethical responsibility."
"Two of my colleagues, Abdallah Lhafaouni, who is serving a life sentence, and Bachir Khadda, who is serving a 20-year sentence, are political prisoners simply because they documented human rights violations in occupied Western Sahara," Hachimi said.
Another Sahrawi filmmaker, Mohamedsalem Werad, told MEE that "choosing to film in occupied Western Sahara was not a politically neutral production decision—it meant operating with the permission of the occupying power in a territory where the Sahrawi people have long been denied the opportunity to exercise their right to self-determination."
"A boycott sends a clear message that filmmakers cannot expect audiences to overlook decisions that risk legitimizing an occupation," he added.
Sarah Yerkes, a senior fellow in the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote last week that The Odyssey "has a colonialism problem."
"For Morocco, the territories that make up Western Sahara are referred to as the 'southern provinces' and are an indisputable part of the kingdom," Yerkes noted. "But... Dakhla is part of what is considered the occupied and non-self-governing Western Sahara under existing international law."
"The Sahrawi people, who are indigenous to the region and currently have no meaningful self-determination, have not consented to the film’s production—and the Moroccan government is reaping the rewards at their expense," she added.
The renewed calls to boycott The Odyssey follow last year's appeal, led by the Western Sahara International Film Festival and signed by hundreds of artists, journalists, activists, and other human rights defenders, urging Nolan, Universal Pictures, and producers of the film "to break their silence and cease to be accomplices to Morocco’s 50-year illegal occupation."
The government of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, which claims sovereignty over Western Sahara but is not recognized by the United Nations, has also condemned what it called "an attempt to film a cinematic work in occupied Dakhla, considering it a violation of international legitimacy and the ethics of cultural and artistic work."
Morocco has occupied Western Sahara since 1975, when Spanish forces withdrew from their former colony in the dying days of longtime dictator Francisco Franco's regime. Moroccan warplanes bombed Sahrawis, many of whom fled into neighboring Algeria as the government under King Hassan II orchestrated a “Green March” of hundreds of thousands of Moroccan civilians into the phosphate- and fishery-rich territory.
Western Sahara is today known among locals and human rights advocates as “Africa’s last colony.” Moroccan forces have brutally oppressed the Sahrawi people under their rule, severely restricting freedom of expression, movement, association, and the press, and utilizing arbitrary arrest and torture as tools of repression, according to human rights groups.
Moroccan occupation forces also built a 1,700-mile mostly sand wall to keep Algerian-backed Sahrawi militants led by the Polisario Front out of the territory, while denying people inside their occupied homeland a United Nations-backed referendum they’ve been awaiting for decades.
During his first term, US President Donald Trump recognized Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara, essentially in exchange for Morocco’s decision to normalize relations with Israel under the Abraham Accords.
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Despite Court Protection Orders, Trump Admin Deports Refugees to War-Torn Central African Republic, Putting ‘Lives at Risk’
“It’s hard to fathom how deeply evil this is,” said Sen. Chris Murphy.
Jun 12, 2026
The US government advises Americans not to travel to the Central African Republic "for any reason." But it just deported nearly two dozen people to the war-torn country, including several refugees who fled persecution in other nations.
On Friday morning, Human Rights First's deportation flight tracker reported that a plane used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had landed in Accra, Ghana, after departing from Louisiana the previous day and was believed to be en route to the CAR's capital, Bangui.
Per The New York Times on Thursday, the administration was preparing to deport "at least two Iranian women who had sought refuge in the United States" as well as "migrants from Afghanistan and Syria."
According to their lawyers, several of the migrants had received court orders from judges prohibiting their deportation to their home countries, citing the risk of persecution there.
A lawyer for one of the Iranian women told the Times that neither of them has a criminal record and that they both have been granted court protection due to fear of threats to their freedom or lives if they returned to Iran. One is a Christian convert, and the other is a pro-democracy activist.
According to Reuters, just the activist ended up on the flight from Louisiana. But the Christian woman is still at risk, along with another Iranian national.
Human Rights First's @ICEFlightM is monitoring this egregious situation, and we urge our policy makers to decry this life-threatening flight and other deals that send people seeking safety back to the very harms from which they fled.
https://t.co/ABZZMTQNuS
— Human Rights First (@humanrights1st) June 11, 2026
The burden of proof to receive what is known as a “withholding of removal” status from an immigration judge is even higher than that needed for migrants to qualify for asylum.
Those seeking their deportations to be halted must demonstrate that it’s more likely than not that their life or freedom would be threatened if they returned to a specific country due to their race, religion, nationality, or political or social affiliation.
In order to get around orders protecting these migrants from deportation to their home countries, the administration is instead dumping them in what have been described as "third countries."
The flight departed on Thursday is the first US deportation flight to the CAR, which is one of the poorest countries in the world and is reeling from a civil war that's displaced more than a million people both inside and outside the country.
The country is under the State Department's highest travel advisory, warning US citizens not to go there "due to risk of unrest, crime, kidnapping, landmines, health, and terrorism."
This is the @StateDept travel advisory for the Central African Republic.
The United States—a self-proclaimed nation of refuge—is about to send refugees here. https://t.co/uxfexS5S73 pic.twitter.com/pvYyxIQHdN
— Sarah Pierce (@SarahPierceEsq) June 11, 2026
"People on this flight proved to a judge that they were likely to be persecuted in their home countries," said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council. "This is profoundly unjust."
Human rights law experts Anjli Parrin and Savi Arvey wrote on Wednesday for Just Security that the administration was putting "lives at risk" by sending these migrants to a dangerous country where they know nobody and where basic healthcare infrastructure hardly exists.
They said the administration's deportation of these migrants "is the latest example of its dangerous and potentially life-threatening strategy: using secretive deals with countries to expel asylum seekers and migrants with no legal or personal connection to the places where they are being sent."
"Since early last year, the US government has signed a growing number of third-country forced transfer agreements with over 30 countries worldwide to expel and deport people to places where they have no legal or personal ties," they said.
"These deportations are often carried out in secrecy and without any semblance of due process," they added. "Individuals are often not given any advance warning or the opportunity to challenge their deportation to a third country—with many only discovering they are being sent to a country they may have never heard of while airborne."
Emily Trostle, a lawyer for the Iranian activist, told Reuters that the migrants facing deportation to the CAR "have absolutely no connection to this place."
“These individuals are being removed from the United States and abandoned in a country where they have no status, no connection, and no support network,” she said. “We fear they will ultimately be forced to return to the countries they originally fled.”
According to Human Rights First's Third Country Deportation Watch, governments around the world have been given $44 million from US taxpayers to receive these migrants. More than 19,000 people, it found, have been deported across 24 countries.
Most of them have been sent to Mexico, but the US has also shipped migrants to some of the poorest, most unstable nations in sub-Saharan Africa, including Eswatini, Equatorial Guinea, and Sierra Leone. Many have faced arbitrary detention and torture or been returned to the country where they fled persecution.
In order to avoid having to allow over 1,000 Afghans who fought alongside US soldiers to settle as refugees in the US as planned, the Trump administration is reportedly trying to ink a deal with the Democratic Republic of the Congo to take them instead, but the plan was stalled amid public backlash, and the administration is seeking other options.
It's hard to fathom how deeply evil this is, and that we have people running our country who get sick pleasure from sending women fleeing violence in Iran to an African country in the middle of a brutal civil war. https://t.co/JaN8z2LFI2
— Chris Murphy 🟧 (@ChrisMurphyCT) June 11, 2026
The Iranian American Legal Defense Fund said on Thursday that the deportation of Iranian nationals was a “potentially fatal action,” as they could face danger in the CAR or be sent back to Iran.
Another person scheduled to be deported to the CAR was an elderly man from Syria, whose immigration attorney, Margaret Stock, told the Times that he had scars all over his body due to torture in his home country.
He is a Sufi Muslim and feared persecution if he returned there, and is in danger of lacking access to care for his diabetes if sent to the CAR. According to Stock, he received an emergency temporary order halting his deportation.
Sen. Chris Murphy (Conn.), the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee in charge of funding for the Department of Homeland Security and its immigration agencies, responded to the Times report on the deportations with outrage.
"It's hard to fathom how deeply evil this is, and that we have people running our country who get sick pleasure from sending women fleeing violence in Iran to an African country in the middle of a brutal civil war," he said.
Reichlin-Melnick agreed: "Evil is the right word for... taking people who are safe in the United States, who have proven to a judge they would be persecuted in their home country, and dumping them in a random country in the middle of a civil war."
"No previous administration would have done this, despite it likely being legal," he added.
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Human Rights Watch Calls Out 'Troubling Conditions' in Trump Health Aid Agreements With Africa
“After the sudden and devastating pullback from US assistance in 2025, governments are now being pressured to accept agreements with contingencies that jeopardize human rights."
Jun 08, 2026
The Trump administration is requiring African nations to agree to a series of "troubling conditions" to restore lifesaving health aid, according to a Human Rights Watch report on Monday.
The administration's abrupt shuttering of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) last year shut off billions of dollars and caused havoc across Africa's healthcare system, resulting in what public health models project could be hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths.
But under what has been dubbed the “America First” Global Health Strategy, the administration has negotiated secretive agreements with dozens of these countries to restore some of the funding. Most of them have been kept under lock and key by the US.
Those that have been made public have come with terms that Human Rights Watch said "raise concerns that health aid is being inappropriately leveraged to extract terms beneficial to the US in negotiations around natural resources and access to sensitive health data from recipient countries."
In March, a draft memorandum of understanding with the government of Zambia was revealed to have conditioned $1 billion for HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, and other disease prevention for millions of people, on the country's acceptance of a separate bilateral treaty that would have given US companies greater access to the country's minerals.
A leaked State Department memo, prepared for Secretary Marco Rubio, put the exploitative terms plainly: “We will only secure our priorities by demonstrating willingness to publicly take support away from Zambia on a massive scale.”
After the details of that agreement were met with backlash, the text of agreements with several other countries—Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, and Uganda—were suddenly removed from the State Department’s Freedom of Information Act Library.
A Human Rights Watch assessment of the agreements with those five countries—as well as agreements with Rwanda and Liberia that were leaked—revealed that in order to restore a portion of the more than $800 million collectively stripped from them by the US, they'd have to agree to several coercive measures that jeopardize the reproductive and privacy rights of their citizens.
“The agreements show the US intends to condition vital health assistance for millions of people on acquiescence to troubling conditions,” said Julia Bleckner, senior health researcher at Human Rights Watch. “After the sudden and devastating pullback from US assistance in 2025, governments are now being pressured to accept agreements with contingencies that jeopardize human rights.”
All seven of the agreements require the governments to provide the US with "broad access to data and information" to monitor compliance with the Helms Amendment, which forbids the use of US foreign assistance to pay for abortion care.
The agreements with Mozambique, Rwanda, and Liberia require them to provide “any data” requested by the US to ensure compliance with the amendment, while Uganda's permits the US to conduct unannounced spot checks of health facilities and clinics.
"By making a broad package of health aid contingent on broad and potentially invasive surveillance of Helms compliance, the agreement could encourage a more restrictive regulation of abortion than national law mandates and give rise to further violations of the right to healthcare,” says the report.
The agreements also give the US permission to directly audit clinics, laboratories, and health programs to ensure compliance with the conditions. Six of them require clinics to provide access to "any data" requested by the US at a sample of facilities it chooses.
Agreements with five countries also mandate that they share biological specimens taken from patients and associated information related to novel infectious diseases, which HRW described as part of an effort to undermine a global pathogen access and sharing system being created by the World Health Organization, from which Trump has removed the US.
HRW said in a news release:
The agreements raise serious concerns about use of people’s private health data, without clear limits, uniform safeguards, or meaningful protections for patient confidentiality, including in several countries with weak or absent domestic data protection laws. The agreements contain no prohibition on this data being shared with US pharmaceutical companies without patient consent.
“Governments negotiating health assistance agreements with the United States face difficult choices,” Bleckner said. “They should be wary of terms asking them to sign away their populations’ rights and push for the inclusion of civil society representatives and multilateral global health organizations like the Global Fund in deliberations.”
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Trump Admin's Insistence That Ebola Is Other Countries' Problem Is 'Opposite' of Successful 2014 Response
"Unsure how any US citizen would feel comfortable deploying" to help fight the outbreak, said one doctor, "knowing our government would not make sure they are okay if something happened."
May 22, 2026
The United Nations' emergency relief office on Thursday was mobilizing $60 million to fight the rapidly spreading Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with the body's under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs saying relief teams are "fully mobilized" and "applying lessons from previous outbreaks," with a focus on building community trust and communicating with governments.
But with the Trump administration having dismantled the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and slashed funding and staffing for the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) global efforts, the response is largely missing a key feature that helped with containment during the 2014 and 2019 outbreaks—the involvement of the US government and public health teams—and Secretary of State Marco Rubio signaled on Thursday that was unlikely to change.
In comments to the press, Rubio said the Trump administration's top priority is that Ebola doesn't reach the US—even if that means imposing travel restrictions against the guidance of the World Health Organization (WHO)—and described an approach that one disaster relief leader said was antithetical to the actions the US took in previous Ebola outbreaks.
"Our number-one objective on Ebola, before anything else, and we think it's terrible what's happening there to the people... Our number-one thing has to be, we can't have it affect the United States," said Rubio. "We can't have Ebola cases coming here."
Rubio: "We can't have ebola cases here. In fact, I think we had a flight last night headed to Detroit that was diverted." pic.twitter.com/S84FmWIq5b
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 21, 2026
The secretary of state noted that an Air France flight that had been headed for Detroit was diverted to Montreal on Wednesday after a passenger from Congo was found to have boarded the plane "in error."
The Department of Homeland Security announced new restrictions this week saying that all travelers who have been in the DRC, Uganda, and South Sudan in the past 21 days—including US citizens and permanent residents—can only enter the US through Washington Dulles International Airport.
When WHO declared the Ebola outbreak a public emergency of international concern last weekend, the agency noted that "no country should close its borders or place any restrictions on travel and trade."
"Such measures are usually implemented out of fear and have no basis in science," said WHO in its guidance, which also noted "state parties should be prepared to facilitate the evacuation and repatriation of nationals (e.g. health workers) who have been exposed" to Ebola.
Jeremy Konyndyk, president of Refugees International and a former USAID disaster relief official, said the message sent by Rubio was "insanely counterproductive."
By sending the message that the US is prioritizing that Ebola stays outside US borders above all, said Konyndyk, the Trump administration is telling "any US health workers that if they get infected trying to contain the outbreak, they won't be allowed home."
"In the 2014 outbreak we did the opposite, because we knew that posture would undermine the response and extend the outbreak," he said.
Dr. Krutika Kuppalli, who specializes in infectious diseases and deployed to West Africa in 2014 to help fight the Ebola outbreak that killed more than 11,000 people, said she did so "with the understanding that if something happened my government would take care of me."
"Unsure how any US citizen would feel comfortable deploying, knowing our government would not make sure they are okay if something happened," said Kuppalli.
The Trump administration's refusal to directly help US healthcare workers impacted by the outbreak has already resulted in two doctors being sent to European countries including Germany and the Czech Republic for treatment.
As he emphasized that Ebola cannot reach US shores, Rubio sent out messages of thanks to German and Czech officials for admitting the two medical workers to their hospitals.
With more than 170 deaths and about 750 infections suspected in the "rapidly" spreading Ebola outbreak and cases reported in Uganda as well as the DRC, public health experts are warning that the crisis is likely to "get worse before it gets better" and that its impact has likely already reached farther than initial numbers show due to a lack of surveillance on the ground.
Former CDC Director Robert Redfield told NewsNation on Thursday that "normally when we have these Ebola outbreaks, and I had three of them when I was CDC director, all of which were in the DRC, normally we recognize them when we have five, 10 cases, you know, at most."
"This one really wasn’t picked up until there was over 100 cases," he said.
WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Friday that the risk assessment for Ebola is "very high at the national level, high at the regional level and low at the global level."
As Common Dreams reported earlier this week, experts have pointed to President Donald Trump's cuts to foreign assistance and public health initiatives as reasons the outbreak had already spread as far as it did when the emergency was declared this week.
The State Department announced on Monday it was mobilizing $13 million in assistance to help contain the outbreak; the US spent more than $5 billion to fight to 2014 epidemic that hit several countries in West Africa.
"The United States cannot quickly reverse our abdication of leadership on the global health stage," wrote Dr. Craig Spencer, an emergency medicine physician who helped treat Ebola patients in 2014 and survived the disease himself. "But we can bolster our response to this crisis. There should be a steadfast commitment to working closely and coordinating with essential partners like the WHO. We need to mobilize funding and experts, speed up the development of new treatments, and increase resources for protective equipment and expanded testing."
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Public Health Experts Point to Trump Aid Cuts as WHO Declares Emergency Over Ebola Outbreak in DRC, Uganda
"Before the second Trump administration, USAID would have been on the ground," said one public health expert.
May 17, 2026
The World Health Organization's official designation of an Ebola virus outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda as a public health emergency of international concern on Sunday came just a day after the world learned that the disease was spreading at all—a highly unusual chain of events, public health experts said, and one that suggested the virus has been circulating for weeks without the outbreak being detected.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Sunday that eight laboratory-confirmed cases, 246 suspected cases, and 80 suspected deaths had been reported in at least three health zones across Ituri Province in the DRC. In Kampala, the densely populated capital of neighboring Uganda, two lab-confirmed cases and one death were reported within 24 hours of each other.
The victims in Kampala had no apparent link to one another; both had recently traveled from Congo.
The confirmed cases in Congo include some that have been reported in Kinshasa, the capital. The fact that the disease has been able to spread to two large cities with international airports, and the "clusters of deaths across the province of Ituri" point to "a potentially much larger outbreak than what is currently being detected and reported, with significant local and regional risk of spread," said WHO.
"At least four deaths among healthcare workers in a clinical context suggestive of viral haemorrhagic fever have been reported from the affected area, raising concerns regarding healthcare-associated transmission, gaps in infection prevention and control measures, and the potential for amplification within health facilities," the agency said.
Dr. Ashish Jha, who served as the White House Covid-19 response coordinator, said the numbers being reported could make the outbreak "one of the 10 biggest Ebola outbreaks in history."
"We're just hearing about this now? That makes no sense. Those numbers take weeks to accumulate," said Jha, adding that the fact that suspected cases have been detected in capital cities as well as Bunia, the provincial capital of Ituri, "matters enormously for spread."
Tedros emphasized that the outbreak is considered "extraordinary" because there is no approved vaccine or therapeutics for Ebola caused by the Bundibugyo virus, as this strain is. WHO sent a team to investigate in Ituri after first being notified of suspected Ebola cases on May 5, but initial samples tested negative, as available field equipment was only able to detect the Zaire strain of the disease.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and global partners "need to surge resources in," Jha said. "A slow response creates unnecessary risks to people everywhere."
WHO, which President Donald Trump withdrew the US from last year, said the public health emergency designation was made to ramp up surveillance and infection prevention in the countries where the outbreak is occurring, enhance preparedness in bordering countries, and spread awareness in the international community.
The Ebola outbreak is the second to hit Uganda since Trump slashed foreign assistance funding, including by dismantling the US Agency for International Development. Earlier this month, CNN reported that the administration plans to divert $2 billion in global health program funding to cover the cost of closing USAID.
US foreign spending dropped by 56.9% after Trump shut down the agency as well as smaller aid programs and pushed Congress to rescind previously approved foreign assistance. USAID played a critical role in responding to the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
In March 2025, when an Ebola outbreak was reported in Uganda, US officials warned that Trump's actions on foreign assistance at that point, including the termination of USAID grants, was impeding the Ugandan government's ability to procure lab supplies, diagnostic equipment, and protective gear for medical workers.
Dr. Herbert Luswata, president of the Uganda Medical Association, told The New York Times at the time that the country's ability to respond to Ebola was notably different than it had been during a previous outbreak in 2022, when dozens of medical workers volunteered to help treat patients.
The lack of funds and protective equipment had "left many afraid to help this time," the Times reported.
“With no USAID money and CDC expertise, it was like Uganda was left to die," Luswata told the Times.
Dr. Craig Spencer, an emergency medicine physician who survived Ebola in 2014, told CBS Saturday that "before the second Trump administration, USAID would have been on the ground" to respond to the current outbreak.
"The CDC would have been on the ground at a moment's notice, maybe even before a moment's notice, of a new outbreak of Ebola because we were in a bunch of countries," said Spencer. "We created relationships beforehand."
Last year, Trump megadonor Elon Musk, who was then leading efforts to slash government spending at the Department of Government Efficiency, said DOGE had "accidentally" canceled US support for Ebola prevention but claimed the funding had been "restored...and there was no interruption.”
But a number of Ebola-related contracts were in fact cut, accounting for $1.6 million out of $2.2 million that had previously gone toward the prevention efforts.
In recent weeks, public health experts have also warned that Trump's cuts to the CDC and other public health programs have left the US ill-prepared to respond to the hantavirus outbreak that originated on a cruise ship.
Jeremy Konyndyk, president of Refugees International and former leader on USAID's Covid-19 and disaster relief response work, said the current Ebola outbreak is "very worrying" and appeared to be the result of a "massive surveillance failure."
"It is really unusual for an Ebola outbreak to get to this scale before being detected; particularly in DRC, which has a lot of Ebola experience," said Konyndyk.
"I can't help but wonder," said Konyndyk, "if the drawdown of USAID and CDC health interventions by DOGE undermined some of the surveillance and detection initiatives that might have helped to catch this earlier."
WHO emphasized that the current crisis in DRC and Uganda requires "international coordination and cooperation to understand the extent of the outbreak, to coordinate surveillance, prevention, and response efforts, to scale up and strengthen operations and ensure ability to implement control measures."
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After Eliminating USAID, Trump Is Exploiting Need To Steal Africa’s Resources
From Ghana to South Africa, the Trump administration maliciously leverages human suffering to continue the centuries-long exploitation and systematic theft of Africa’s resources.
May 13, 2026
On May 4, Zambian Foreign Minister Mulambo Haimbe announced that negotiations with the US regarding critical health services and minerals have been suspended due to the Trump administration’s “unacceptable” terms.
For Haimbe, this includes: first, the Trump administration’s proposed health memorandum of understanding (MOU) requires that Zambia turn over health data to the US “in violation of our citizen’s right to privacy.”
Second, the US demands “preferential treatment of US companies over Zambia’s critical minerals.” Haimbe rejects this. He contends, “the Zambian government rightfully takes the view, first and foremost, that Zambians must have a say on how her critical minerals are used, and second that no one strategic partner is to be treated preferentially to others.”
Third, and perhaps most crucially, is “the coupling of the two agreements and frameworks to one another such that the conclusion of the minerals agreement is made conditional to the conclusion of the Health MOU.” The US is effectively demanding privileged access to Zambia’s abundant supply of copper, lithium, and cobalt—all critical for the development of AI and modern technologies—in exchange for health funding.
The only ones who benefit from forcing Zambia to trade raw minerals and data for health services are tech companies and the Trump family businesses.
This is not an isolated incident. As of March 2026, at least 24 African countries have agreed to similarly controversial health agreements with the US. Zambia, Ghana, and Zimbabwe are the only African nations thus far to reject the Trump administration’s coercive demands.
In those cases, concerns about data management and control similarly derailed negotiations. Arnold Kavaarpuo, executive director of Ghana’s Data Protection Commission, explained, “The proposed data sharing agreement looked at access not only to health data sets, but also to metadata, dashboards, reporting tools, data models, and data dictionaries.” It would have allowed up to 10 US entities access to this data without any prior approval from the Ghanese government.
Similarly, the US was demanding that Zimbabwe turn over any data it collects about pathogens causing outbreaks. Zimbabwe would not, however, be guaranteed access to any vaccines, treatments, diagnostics, or medical innovations that might result from this shared data. As Ndabaningi Nick Mangwana, permanent secretary in the Ministry of Information, Publicity, and Broadcasting Services, remarked: “In essence, our nation would provide the raw materials for scientific discovery without any assurance that the end products would be accessible to our people should a future health crisis emerge. The United States, meanwhile, was not offering reciprocal sharing of its own epidemiological data with our health authorities.”
These kinds of take-it-or-leave-it proposals represent the Trump administration’s strong-arm approach to global health funding. Instead of foreign aid, President Donald Trump offers two options: a crooked deal or death.
This has been their goal from the start. Throughout his second term, President Donald Trump has taken several measures aimed at weakening foreign aid and humanitarian programs. This includes: dismantling the US Agency for International Development (USAID); withdrawing from the World Health Organization (WHO) and 66 international organizations, including the United Nations Population Fund, which addresses sexual and reproductive health; as well as diverting funds away from the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which supports HIV prevention, care, and treatment worldwide. Each of these actions deliberately endangers the lives of millions of people around the world—the cruelty really is the point.
From Ghana to South Africa, the Trump administration maliciously leverages human suffering to continue the centuries-long exploitation and systematic theft of Africa’s resources. Here, foreign aid has only one value: an exchange value.
Indeed, on April 27, at an event hosted at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and attended by major corporations including Google, Goldman Sachs, and Palantir, US Ambassador to the UN Michael Waltz formally announced the launch of the “Trade Over Aid” initiative. This is a self-described “international economic development vision built on free markets.” It is premised on the idea that, unlike capitalism, humanitarianism and providing direct aid only create “dependency, inefficiency, and corruption.” As Waltz remarked, “free market principles remain the best proven path to lasting prosperity with better and more permanent results than any of the alternatives.”
On April 30, outgoing US Ambassador to Zambia, Michael Gonzalez, echoed these remarks. He accused the Zambian government of widespread corruption and “nationwide theft of US provided medicines.” He contended that, “For decades, the US relationship with Zambia was one centered around aid.” This “unrequited relationship” is no longer tenable—“going forward, the benefits of our relationship must be mutual.” Gonzalez continued, “We know that while you pursue a Zambia First agenda and we pursue America First, we are still able together to achieve something notably better for our countries.”
This emphasis on market solutions overlooks that capitalist exchanges always produce winners and losers. Competition, not cooperation, is the ethos of the proverbial free market. There is no “together” when “America First” is pitted against “Zambia First.” Instead of “lasting prosperity,” the only “permanent results” are widening inequalities between the haves and the have-nots.
And to be clear, the winners here are neither Americans nor Africans. Americans will be forced to bear the social, economic, and environmental costs of more data centers, AI-driven layoffs, and AI-powered surveillance. Zambia and other African nations will see their natural resources stolen and the bodies of their citizens exploited.
No, the only ones who benefit from forcing Zambia to trade raw minerals and data for health services are tech companies and the Trump family businesses. It is worth noting that Trump and his children have raked in billions from their investments in cryptocurrency, AI, and data centers.
What the Trump administration is offering is no more than colonialism dressed as humanitarianism. Foreign aid should never be manipulated for profit or political power. We must reject capitalist schemes like “Trade Over Aid.”
Instead, we must focus on building institutions that guarantee the right to healthcare for all. This is not simply an act of charity. As every pandemic makes patently clear, ensuring that everyone has access to health services benefits everyone. In the end, we must recognize that healthcare is a human right and a collective good. Ignoring this puts us all at risk.
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7 Nonnegotiable Demands to Confront the New Scramble for Africa
As Macron launches his "green" charm offensive in Nairobi, Africa must move beyond being a passive host.
May 10, 2026
In a maneuver dripping with historical irony and geopolitical desperation, French President Emmanuel Macron is set to land in Nairobi on May 11. He will be in Kenya to co-host the “Africa Forward Summit: Africa-France Partnership for Innovation and Growth.” To the uninitiated, the title suggests a progressive leap into a shared future.
However, to those who have watched the sun set on Françafrique in the West, the subtext is clear: Having been unceremoniously evicted from its traditional "stomping grounds" in the Sahel, Paris is pitching its tent in East Africa, hunting for new deals to cover the hemorrhaging fortunes of a dying empire. Ahead of his arrival—incidentally on the Ides of March—three French warships docked at the port of Mombasa, carrying with them over 800 military personnel. They were riding on the wave of newfound defense cooperation between the governments of Kenya and France.
The pact focused on maritime security, intelligence cooperation, peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, and “any other defense or security-related areas of cooperation defined by mutual agreement between parties.” Through this pact, France now has a new hunting ground in East Africa, complete with boots on the ground, sea, and air. Kenya’s 142,400 square kilometers of Exclusive Economic Zone in the Indian Ocean, reputed for riches in fish, oil and gas, is in for a rude shock.
The irony is almost pathological. For over a century, France treated West Africa as a private warehouse. It did not merely colonize; it plundered, looted, and systematically attempted to dismantle the resilient African civilizations that predated its arrival. Its "assimilation" policy remains the most abhorrent, ignoble of colonial concepts; a cultural and political mis-philosophy designed to supplant African languages, customs, and identities with French surrogates.
Africa must stay circumspect. The convergence of military signalling and corporate presence must worry all countries participating in Nairobi. They must watch out for unequal relationships under new language.
When other colonial powers were loosening—however reluctantly—their grip, France was tightening its hold through a web of lopsided financial and military pacts.
With the rising tide of political "wokeness" across the continent, however, France now finds itself sorely ostracized, and endangered. Yet, rather than offering atonement, the French leadership has chosen to grandstand. The mask slipped definitively earlier this year when Macron, frustrated by the anti-French revolts sweeping through former colonies, dropped the pretense of diplomacy. “I think someone forgot to say thank you,” he remarked, with the chilling entitlement of a landlord demanding gratitude for a house he broke into.
Fast forward five months, and this same "savior" is now knocking on East Africa’s door, hat in hand, seeking a "new partnership built on equal ground."
The sudden pivot is driven by a cold reality: France’s "green" future is powered by African minerals. While the lights of Paris stayed bright on the back of Niger’s uranium, Africa remained in the dark.
But as the Nairobi summit approaches, Africa must move beyond being a passive host. If Macron and his European contemporaries truly seek a partnership of equals, they must meet a set of nonnegotiable demands that protect African interests, specifically within the environment and energy sectors.
First, a mandate for local beneficiation and value addition. Africa will no longer be a mere pit stop for raw material extraction. The Nairobi summit must establish a framework where no critical mineral—lithium, cobalt, or uranium—leaves the continent in its raw state.
Africans must demand that French and European companies invest in local processing plants and refineries. If the "Green Transition" requires African minerals, then the "Green Industrialization" must happen on African soil, creating African jobs and keeping the value chain within our borders.
Second, total reform of the financial architecture and the CFA Franc. For a nation that has enforced financial slavery through the CFA Franc since 1945, Macron’s talk of "financial reform" must be met with skepticism.
Africa must demand the total dismantling of the colonial financial umbilical cord. Africa requires a global financial system that does not penalize African nations with "sovereign risk" premiums that make green energy projects three times more expensive here than in Europe. It must demand the unconditional return of foreign reserves held in Paris and a shift toward independent, African-led monetary policies.
Third, energy sovereignty over "green exportation." France proposes to "decarbonize" Africa, yet many of our nations have barely "carbonized" to begin with. African “partners” must demand energy justice. This means the right to achieve universal electrification. Africa must reject a "Green Deal" that forces Africa to export its renewable energy (like green hydrogen) to Europe while her own hospitals and schools remain off the grid.
African energy needs must be met first; European exports come second.
Fourth, technology transfer, not just licensing. True innovation is not found in buying French software; it is found in owning the source code. The Nairobi summit must secure commitments for the unconditional transfer of green technologies. Africa should not be a "market" for European patents; it must be a co-owner of the intellectual property that will define the 21st century.
Fifth, climate reparations and debt cancellation. Already, France is active in "debt-for-development" swaps. Africa must demand that these are not treated as "gifts" but as partial down payments on a century of ecological and economic debt. Africa should also insist on total cancellation of debts that were accrued through colonial-era structures. Climate finance must be provided as grants, not loans that further burden Africa’s children for a climate crisis they did not create.
Sixth, accountability for multinational conglomerates. Total Energies, Orano, and Eramet—over 60 CEOs from French corporations will be attending—must answer tough questions at the summit. They ought to answer for their extractive interests that have historically disadvantaged the continent. Across Africa, communities have borne the environmental, social, and economic costs of such operations, with countries like Mozambique offering stark reminders of the consequences.
The companies must agree to be held to African environmental standards, not just French ones. Africa should pitch for a legal framework that allows communities to sue French corporations in both African and French courts for environmental degradation and human rights abuses.
There can be no "partnership" where companies operate with impunity in the Global South while preaching "environmental and social governance" values in the North.
Seventh, an end to paternalistic "security" pacts. Finally, Africa demands an end to the "policing" of the continent. True peace and security come from economic dignity, not from the over 60 military interventions France has conducted since 1960 to protect its interests. Africa must demand the closure of foreign military bases that serve extractive interests and a shift toward supporting African-led, autonomous security architectures. If partnership means equality, then reciprocity is simple—every French troop granted access and immunity in Africa should be matched by an African troop with the same rights in France
The "New Scramble" is couched in the language of "climate resilience" and "debt-for-development swaps." But beneath these green platitudes lie a hidden quest: to re-establish unfettered access to Africa’s critical minerals.
Africa must stay circumspect. The convergence of military signalling and corporate presence must worry all countries participating in Nairobi. They must watch out for unequal relationships under new language.
What France and its European partners fail to realize is that the "disinherited" continent has found its voice. Africa is no longer interested in being a marginal chapter in a European story, not even with a thousand summits. If President Macron wants a "thank you," he should start by returning what was stolen from Africa and respecting the sovereignty he so arrogantly claimed to have authored. The era of the "political orchestra" directed from Paris is over. The music has changed, and Africa is finally playing its own tune.
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The Trump Administration’s Anti-Blackness is Showing on the Global Stage
The United States’ actions are not just a betrayal of the rest of the world; they are the latest examples of the Trump administration's betrayal of its own people—and in particular, of the 45 million Americans who are of African descent.
Apr 22, 2026
On March 25, the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a historic resolution marking an extraordinary step forward for global racial justice. Spearheaded by Ghana and co-sponsored by more than 65 countries largely from Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America, a declaration designating slavery as the gravest crime against humanity passed the General Assembly. Through this, the majority of the world aligned on one key message: The enslavement of millions of Africans and their descendants for over 400 years is the gravest crime against humanity, we are still dealing with the consequences, and there must be reparatory justice to address the lingering impacts.
In a shameful moment for Americans and the world, the Trump administration voted against this resolution on behalf of the United States—only 1 of 3 countries to do so. This decision comes just months after the US withdrew from the UN Permanent Forum on People of African Descent, falsely claiming it was “racist.” These two actions show that the Trump administration’s anti-Blackness is not limited to its domestic policy—it’s on full display on the global stage, too.
The history bears repeating: The slave trade ignited 400 years of racialized chattel slavery, representing the longest running system of organized human exploitation in history. This period marked the first time in human history when race defined the global political, economic, and social hierarchy. The United States was a driver in creating and perpetuating this unprecedented form of slavery. Across the globe, countries mimicked the United States’ policies to deprive an entire race of its humanity. The centuries-long system impacted millions upon millions of people of African descent, and even after this inhumane system of trafficking, selling, and enslaving human beings was abolished, its legacy continues to be felt today.
The resolution spearheaded by Ghana represents the worldwide atonement for chattel slavery that continues to have immeasurable consequences on the world. Because it is not legally binding, the only rationale for a country like the US to vote against it is that its leaders believe in erasing our world's greatest atrocity. It signals to the international community that the United States refuses to recognize the ugly parts of our past and how it impacts current realities.
The Trump administration’s actions to undermine forums at the UN designed to promote the rights and equality of people of African descent will be a stain on our nation’s history.
In his opposition to the resolution, the US representative characterized it as a scheme for developing (read: African) countries to gain leverage for the future allocation of resources. Additionally, he accused the resolution of being an attempt to establish a hierarchy of crimes against humanity (note: This was the same justification that the UK, Canada, and EU countries cited as explanation for their abstentions). Yet, this narrow-minded mischaracterization fails to recognize that the transatlantic slave trade and racialized slavery comprised all crimes against humanity: trafficking, forced labor, sexual assault, disease, famine, and the dehumanization of an entire race.
And yet, this is not the only instance of the Trump administration displaying its anti-Blackness on the world stage. When the administration made the decision in January 2026 to withdraw from the UN Permanent Forum on People of African Descent (PFPAD) because it was “contrary to the interests of the United States,” it was saying the quiet part out loud: This administration does not care about or represent the interests of Black Americans.
The UN PFPAD was created in 2021 as a space for people of African descent to discuss ways to improve the quality of life and livelihoods of people of African descent and share recommendations with member states. Its mandate includes promoting “the full political, economic, and social inclusion of people of African descent in societies in which they live as equal citizens without discrimination of any kind” and “ensuring equal enjoyment of all human rights.” The forum’s annual meeting represents the largest UN gathering of Black civil society from around the world. Its fifth session just concluded in Geneva, Switzerland, where the US government’s absence was noticed, but overshadowed by the energy and momentum behind Ghana’s historic resolution.
Civil society from around the world noted the fact that the world’s “superpower” was 1 of 3 countries to vote against the resolution, but the sheer number and diversity of Black American civil society leaders present at the forum made it clear that this shameful vote does not reflect our unwavering commitment to and solidarity in the global struggle for reparatory justice.
The United States’ actions are not just a betrayal of the rest of the world; they are the latest examples of the Trump administration's betrayal of its own people—and in particular, of the 45 million Americans who are of African descent. This is why the video message from Congressional Black Caucus Chair Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-NY) in the PFPAD closing ceremony was so important: When the federal government fails to represent our interests or even be present in rooms where our issues are being discussed, Black civil society and congressional leaders have always stepped up to fill the void.
The Trump administration’s actions to undermine forums at the UN designed to promote the rights and equality of people of African descent will be a stain on our nation’s history. The administration is telling us loud and clear that it does not view ensuring Black people’s equal human rights as a priority. So, while this administration falsely claims that “President Trump has done more for Black Americans than any other president,” we must remember the words of our great James Baldwin, “I cannot believe what you say because I see what you do.”
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'Things Are Not Okay': US Threatens to Withhold HIV Funding Unless Zambia Allows Plunder of Its Minerals
"The State Department is threatening Zambia with an embargo on essential medicines in order to plunder its minerals," said one HIV prevention advocate.
Mar 17, 2026
The US State Department is threatening to strip HIV/AIDS and other disease prevention funds for more than a million people in the African nation of Zambia in a bid to extort the country for greater access to its mineral wealth.
The New York Times reported Monday on the draft of a memo prepared for Secretary of State Marco Rubio, which states that "we will only secure our priorities by demonstrating willingness to publicly take support away from Zambia on a massive scale."
The Trump administration is considering whether to "significantly cut assistance" from the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which provides daily HIV treatment to around 1.3 million Zambians and other funds for tuberculosis and malaria medications that save tens of thousands of lives each year.
At the time that PEPFAR was created, under the administration of President George W. Bush, HIV was killing around 90,000 people per year in Zambia. That number had been reduced to 16,000 in 2024, according to data from the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).
"Things are not okay," said Justin Wolfers, an economics professor at the University of Michigan and a Brookings Institution fellow.
Threats to cut PEPFAR are part of a broader push by the Trump administration to wield desperately needed foreign medical aid as a tool of coercion against impoverished nations, whose health systems have been thrown into turmoil by the Trump administration's massive cuts to the US Agency for International Development (USAID) last year.
According to the Times, 24 African nations have signed memoranda of understanding (MOU) under the Trump administration's so-called "America First Global Health Strategy" in order to unlock some US funding that has been cut.
Many of the deals require nations to increase their own health spending in order to restore just a fraction of what the US previously provided:
"According to an analysis by the nonprofit Partners in Health, health funding under the agreements would drop by 69% to Rwanda, 61% to Madagascar, 42% to Liberia, and 34% to Eswatini, where a quarter of adults live with HIV," the Times reported in January.
Meanwhile, the deals have come with other, often ideological, strings attached. Kenya's memorandum requires it to provide data guaranteeing that no funding is being used for abortion care, and to direct funds to certain Christian faith-based providers, even though they refuse services like HIV care to LGBTQ+ people.
Nigeria's agreement likewise requires more than $200 million to over 900 Christian faith-based healthcare facilities across the country and emphasizes protecting Christian victims of violence from the Islamist group Boko Haram, even though the majority of the group's victims are Muslim.
Some countries have rejected the deals, calling them one-sided and exploitative. Last month, Zimbabwe walked away from a deal that would have provided $367 million over five years because it required the country to give the US unfettered access to citizens' health data and biological samples.
The deal offered to Zambia is similar to those offered to other countries in that it requires the government to commit $340 million in health spending in exchange for $1 billion from the US over five years, less than half of what it received under previous US administrations. It also demands that Zambia provide citizens' health data to the US for 10 years, longer than the deals agreed to by other nations.
But the deal also stipulates that, to receive any funding, Zambia must provide US corporations with easier access to the nation's vast mineral wealth.
Zambia has some of the world's largest reserves of minerals such as copper, lithium, and cobalt, which are essential to green energy technology. The Trump administration says the country has given China greater access to its mines than it has given to the US.
Zambia would also be required to share mining databases with US experts and renegotiate a massive 2024 contract with the Millennium Challenge Corporation, a US-based foreign assistance agency, to reduce mining regulations.
After the terms of the deal leaked to The Guardian last month, Asia Russell, director of the HIV advocacy organisation Health GAP, derided it as a proposal for the "shameless exploitation" of Zambia.
In February, Zambia rejected the deal, with a spokesperson for the Ministry of Health saying it "did not align with the position and interests of Zambia."
Now the Trump administration is using HIV treatment funding in an effort to force its leaders back to the table and make an example of them for other countries that may seek to go their own way.
The memo describes threats to AIDS funding as a way to demonstrate the "use of sticks" to other countries with which it seeks to negotiate.
If Zambia refuses to sign, it says, “sharp public cuts to American foreign assistance would significantly demonstrate to aid-receiving countries the seriousness of our interest in collaboration and our insistence on tangible benefits under our America First foreign policy."
Zambia has already been stripped of more than half its annual PEPFAR funding from the US since the Trump administration returned to power last year through a combination of foreign aid freezes, rescissions, and budget cuts that stripped billions from the program.
A survey of 76 HIV clinics across 32 mostly African countries that received PEPFAR funds, conducted by the International Epidemiology Databases to Evaluate AIDS (IeDEA) consortium, found that, as a result of cuts, many experienced disruptions to testing and treatment, including drug shortages and staff layoffs.
Citing modeling studies, the researchers estimated that funding disruptions to PEPFAR just last year "resulted in more than 120,000 deaths by November 2025, including more than 13,000 child deaths."
Another study by Imperial College London predicted that just the three-month disruption at the beginning of President Donald Trump's second term would result in more than 37,400 excess deaths by 2060.
In a statement posted to social media on Monday, Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee defended the threats to cut PEPFAR, saying that "Just like every other country, Zambia is free to walk away from these negotiations." The Republicans said it was "ridiculous to assume the United States should fund entire health systems for countries that turn around and give priority access to critical supply chains to China."
Russell said that "the State Department is threatening Zambia with an embargo on essential medicines in order to plunder its minerals."
While she said "Zambia’s MOU text is the first we know of that explicitly ties exploitation of mineral wealth," she noted that similar "exploitative conditions" are reportedly part of other nations' memoranda as well, but that information is scarce because they have been "negotiated in secret" and texts have not been made public.
Julius Kachidza, the chair of Zambia’s Civil Society Self-Coordinating Mechanism, said that yet another massive cut in US government funding “would be apocalyptic. It could be quite a disaster, especially to me. And the majority of people living with HIV in Zambia.”
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All UN Security Council Members Except US Join Somalia in Condemning Israel's Recognition of Somaliland
Somalia's UN ambassador said Israel plans to “relocate the Palestinian population from Gaza to the northwestern region of Somalia," and warned that "this utter disdain for law and morality must be stopped now."
Dec 30, 2025
At an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Monday regarding Israel's recognition of the breakaway region of Somaliland, 14 of 15 member states joined Somalia's permanent representative to the UN in condemning what the ambassador called an “act of aggression"—and at least one denounced the Trump administration's defense of Israel's move.
The emergency summit was called days after Israel announced its formal recognition of the region, which declared independence in 1991 after a civil war, but which has not been acknowledged by any other country. Somalia continues to claim Somaliland as part of the country while the region's leaders say the state is the successor to the former British protectorate.
Israel announced its decision months after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with leaders in Somaliland about a potential deal to trade formal recognition of the region for help with illegally deporting Palestinians from Gaza, and as Israeli policy advisers have argued that Somaliland could be used as a base for military operations against the Houthis in Yemen.
Despite evidence that Israel formally acknowledged Somaliland to further its own military and territorial interests, Israeli Deputy Permanent Representative Jonathan Miller arrived at the meeting Monday with the aim of explaining the "historical context" for the country's decision.
"Entire cities were destroyed," said Miller. "Civilians were deliberately targeted. These crimes are now widely recognized as a genocide... Israel's then-acting permanent representative, Yohanan Bein, submitted this letter to this very council warning of grave human rights violations in Somalia... That history provides essential context for the discussion surrounding Israel's recognition of Somaliland today."
Abukar Dahir Osman, Somalia's permanent representative to the UN, suggested Miller's comments only added insult to injury, considering Israel has been assaulting Gaza for more than two years—with attacks continuing despite a "ceasefire"—and has killed more than 71,000 Palestinians in what numerous human rights groups and experts have called a genocide.
"If we want to talk about genocide, it's Israel that's committed this to our own eyes every day," said Osman. "[Miller] represents a government that killed more than 70,000 people. Civilians, including children, women, elderly, doctors and other health workers, and patients in hospitals. Destroying infrastructures, deliberately starving people of Gaza."
“To come to this place, and lecture us [on] humanity and genocide and human rights and independence and democracy. And we know what you’re doing on a daily basis," said Osman. "It’s just an insult.”
Somalia’s representative at the United Nations had a history lesson to share with Israel’s envoy today. “To come to this place, and lecture us [on] humanity & genocide & human rights & independence & democracy. And we know what you’re doing on a daily basis. It’s just an insult.” pic.twitter.com/dcg3NnGKI4
— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) December 30, 2025
Warning that the recognition of the breakaway region could destabilize Somalia as well as the broader Horn of Africa, the ambassador also expressed concern that Israel plans to “relocate the Palestinian population from Gaza to the northwestern region of Somalia."
"This utter disdain for law and morality must be stopped now,” said Osman.
Other representatives expressed similar outrage, with the UN envoy for the 22-member Arab League, Maged Abdelfattah Abdelaziz, saying the group would reject “any measures arising from this illegitimate recognition aimed at facilitating forced displacement of the Palestinian people, or exploiting northern Somali ports to establish military bases."
Muhammad Usman Iqbal Jadoon, deputy UN ambassador for Pakistan, said Israel's move following its previous comments on potentially deporting Palestinians to Somaliland was "deeply troubling."
Tammy Bruce, who was sworn in Monday as deputy US representative to the United Nations, was alone in backing Israel's recognition of Somaliland, though she noted that US policy on the region has not changed.
"Israel has the same right to conduct diplomatic relations as any other sovereign state," said Bruce. "Earlier this year, several countries, including members of this council, made the unilateral decision to recognize a nonexistent Palestinian state. And yet, no emergency meeting was called to express this council’s outrage."
More than 150 countries, including a number of major US allies, have recognized Palestinian statehood, with nearly two dozen governments announcing their recognition since Israel began its assault on Gaza in 2023.
Samuel Zbogar, Slovenia's UN ambassador, pushed back against Bruce's comparison.
"Slovenia recognized Palestine as an independent state," he said. "We did so in response to undeniable right of Palestinian people to self-determination. Palestine is not part of any state. It is an illegally occupied territory as declared by the [International Court of Justice], among others. Palestine is also an observer state in this organization."
"Somaliland, on the other hand, is part of a UN member state and recognizing it goes against Article 2, paragraph 4 of the UN Charter," he said.
On Tuesday, protests erupted in cities across Somalia, including the capital of Mogadishu, with demonstrators calling for national unity.
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