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The Jamaican Maroons not only escaped slavery but also humiliated the British empire while at it. These warriors built sovereign towns, waged guerrilla war from the mountains and forced Britain to sign a treaty recognising Black autonomy in the early 1700s. They governed themselves, preserved African traditions and became a living blueprint for freedom. Our Facts of the Week break down why their legacy still threatens imperial narratives today.

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Did you know that during the Iranian capture of the US embassy in Tehran over four-and-a-half decades ago, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (1902-89), who rose to power during the 1978-79 revolution, ordered the freedom of Black embassy workers? Identifying with their oppression in the United States, Khomeini viewed our people as victims of the US imperial system, rather than perpetrators of it.

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He didn’t just want independence, he wanted liberation. Sylvanus Olympio kicked out French advisers, rejected the CFA franc and dared to build a country that didn’t answer to Paris. For that, he paid the ultimate price. Our Facts of the Week unpack the story of why France hated Togo’s first president and how his assassination paved the way for decades of neocolonial control.

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Africans are understandably excited about the revolution happening in the Sahel. Likewise, Western powers don’t like it one bit. It’s led to a lot of misinformation - from both camps. For example, while the US tries to tarnish the reputation of Burkina Faso’s president by making slanderous corruption claims about him in the US Senate, fans of Ibrahim Traoré sometimes get carried away when discussing what he’s actually achieved. Don’t get us wrong, he’s achieved a lot, and he needs protecting. But truth is the best defence, as any sloppiness on that front can be used against us by our enemies. Swipe through as we fact-check some of the claims swirling around online about Burkina Faso and its leader.

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This week’s Facts of the Week unpack why Ibrahim Traoré has become a target of Western hostility. Burkina Faso's fiery leader has expelled French troops, challenged IMF dominance and championed pan-African unity through the Alliance of Sahel States. His commitment to resource sovereignty and grassroots mobilisation terrifies Western powers, who've launched a slanderous media campaign against him. Swipe through to see how Traoré’s fearless stance against neo-colonialism and his push for genuine African sovereignty have placed him squarely in the West’s crosshairs.

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53 years on, we honor Kwame Nkrumah, the torch-bearer of African liberation. He didn’t just lead a country, he challenged Western dominance. Our Facts of the Week delve into why Kwame Nkrumah wasn’t just Ghana’s first president but a pan-African threat to imperialism itself. Swipe through to understand why his vision shook the West, triggering efforts to destabilise his government and CIA-backed coups - and why it still matters today.

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In Niger, authorities recently arrested a rebel leader with alleged ties to France, Ukraine and t*rrorist organisation ISIS after leading a violent separatist movement in Northern Mali. His name is Inkinane Ag Attaher and he leads the rebel organisation, Azawad Liberation Front (FLA).

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He nationalised oil, sent Western corporations packing, uplifted his people, armed revolutionary groups and dared to dream of a united Africa. Muammar Gaddafi, Libya’s anti-imperialist former leader, challenged the West’s grip on Africa and paid the ultimate price. Our Facts of the Week unpack why Western powers hated him.

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What happens when the state fears the voices of its children? In Kenya, it tear-gasses them. The Kenyan state is accused of doing what colonial regimes once perfected: silencing dissent, even when it comes in the form of a school play. A troupe of young actors, having earned the right to perform at a prestigious national competition, was abruptly barred from participating. Their play centred on a youth-led uprising against an authoritarian regime that stifles freedom and weaponises fear. For many Kenyans, it struck close to home, echoing the spirit of resistance seen in 2024, when Gen Z took to the streets to reject crushing taxation in the form of an IMF-backed finance bill, state violence and a biting cost of living crisis. Back then, 50 protesters were killed in the brutal crackdown, according to Kenya National Commission on Human Rights. Observers say the government’s discomfort was evident, not because the students were wrong, but because they were right. The parallels between the fictional play and real-life protest were undeniable. And in a move reminiscent of both colonial administrators and post-independence strongmen, the state chose censorship.

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Thomas Sankara was a revolutionary who terrified the West, not because he had armies, but because he had anti-imperialist ideas. As president of Burkina Faso, he rejected foreign aid, resisted French influence and demanded that Africa produce, transform and consume its own goods. Our Facts of the Week breakdown why he was hated and seen as a threat, not just to France, but to the entire neo-colonial order.

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Patrice Lumumba was not just Congo’s first democratically elected prime minister - he was a radical threat to Western imperialism. He demanded full control of Congolese resources, rejected neocolonial compromise and aligned with pan-African revolutionaries. For the West, this was intolerable. His vision of a liberated Africa terrified the West - so they silenced him. This week’s Facts of the Week break down why.

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Centuries of Eurocentric narratives hide a crucial truth - Africans, through the Moors, shaped Europe’s greatest advancements. For nearly 800 years, they revolutionised and elevated the Iberian Peninsula (modern-day Spain and Portugal) while much of Europe lagged.

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False narratives have blurred the history of slavery in the United States.

For example, despite his own words regarding his intentions, former US President Abraham Lincoln (1809-65) continues to be credited with freeing enslaved Africans and presented as a morally upright person with good intentions.

Here, we debunk some of these myths, starting with Lincoln being no abolitionist. Many have claimed that the US Civil War was about states' rights, but this couldn’t be further from the truth! On the other hand, abolishing slavery wasn't the priority for the North.

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Our Facts of the Week look at some striking cases of false flag operations - carried out either by imperial powers or, as in the case of Rwanda, ultimately serving their interests. These tactics have been deployed across the world, from Africa to Europe, the Middle East and beyond, either devastating nations directly or refining methods later used elsewhere.

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Like other Western powers, the UK has been deeply involved in destabilising the DRC. Our latest Facts of the Week unpack how British governments, corporations and intelligence agencies have consistently undermined Congolese sovereignty for profit and geopolitical interests - be it through colonial-era scheming or modern economic exploitation.

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The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is a seemingly benign entity tasked with the noble-sounding mission of “advancing democracy” worldwide. It was founded under the Reagan administration when the CIA was the capitalist bloc’s chief puppet master, orchestrating covert operations against governments that dared to defy the US.

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LIBYA: NATO'S FAILED STATE

Libya gained independence from Italy on December 24, 1951, becoming the first country to do so through the United Nations. Yet many analysts argue that it only became genuinely sovereign on September 1 1969, when a group of Libyan Army officers under the leadership of Gaddafi launched a coup from Benghazi and quickly established control over the country. The coup was bloodless and received enthusiastic support from the public. We look back at a figure who is controversial in the West but respected in many parts of the Global South, particularly in Africa. Putting aside the varying opinions, we objectively examine what Libya looked like before, during and after Nato-backed rebels toppled him in 2011. It brought to an end Gaddafi’s 42-year reign as president.

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From 1915 to 1934, the United States occupied Haiti under the guise of ensuring stability and protecting it from European interference. However, according to the New York Times, evidence from decades of diplomatic correspondence, financial records and historical analysis reveals a more menacing driver behind the occupation: Wall Street! Specifically, National City Bank, now Citigroup, played a central role in pushing for US intervention in Haiti, driven by the desire to secure financial dominance over the Caribbean state to expand its business beyond US borders. In 1914, a year before the invasion, National City Bank orchestrated the seizure of $500,000 in gold from Haiti’s treasury. This aggressive financial intervention destabilised Haiti's economy and laid the groundwork for US control. US Marines invaded Haiti seven months later, in 1915, but the occupation primarily served to protect and expand Wall Street's investments. National City Bank assumed control of Haiti’s central bank and redesigned Haiti’s financial system to benefit US economic interests.

The portrayal of Scots as abolitionists and liberal champions hides a long history of Scottish profiting from the enslavement of Africans. The wealth accumulated from the exploitation of millions of men, women and children was a huge boon to Scotland’s cities, institutions and economy. This week’s Facts of the Week explores the shameful Scottish slaver past. COLONIAL AMBITIONS
Though ultimately unsuccessful, Scotland’s 1698 attempt to colonise Panama (through the so-called Darien Scheme)foreshadowed its later involvement in the exploitation of African labour

BUNCE ISLAND OPERATION
Scots turned Bunce Island in Sierra Leone into a significant slave-trading post, shipping (between 1728-1807) hundreds of thousands of Africans to the Americas (an estimated 50% of them died on the journey), where they would work on plantations that enriched Scottish merchants

TOBACCO AND COTTON LORDS
Over half of Britain’s tobacco imports came through Glasgow, a hub for the cotton and tobacco trade, which relied on enslaved labour in the Americas, largely controlled by Scottish merchants like Andrew Buchanan and John Glassford, who have streets in the city named after them

Botswana's political landscape has been reshaped as the ruling party, the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP), suffered a historic defeat after nearly 60 years in power. In a media conference held on the morning of 30 October, the incumbent president and BDP leader, Mokgweetsi Masisi, conceded defeat even before the final results were announced. As of 7 am local time, the BDP had only won one out of all the 36 parliamentary seats whose results had been announced. The main opposition party, the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC), led by lawyer and longtime opposition leader Duma Boko, had amassed 25 seats and was on track to hit the 31 seats threshold needed to form a government.

Masisi said he had called Boko to inform him that he was conceding defeat and ready to start the transition formalities at Boko's convenience.
While many had anticipated a close race, the BDP's defeat was a shock. The party's lengthy reign over the diamond mining nation, coupled with Botswana's relative economic stability, had led to expectations of a different outcome. Many can only speculate on the reasons that could have led to Masisi's humiliating defeat. One of the most apparent reasons is the downturn in the economy due to falling global demand for diamonds. Between January and September 2024, there was a 52 per cent decline in the sales of Botswana, partially attributed to the rising popularity of lab-grown artificial diamonds.

This has reduced government revenue, forcing it to cut social spending and struggle to create employment for its growing population.
Masisi's fallout with his former mentor and predecessor, Ian Khama, in 2019 led to the ruling party split that saw several BDP heavyweights move to Khama's new party, the Botswana Patriotic Front (BPF). This has taken away a significant number of votes from the BDP. Disagreement over the sharing of diamond revenue led to a protracted feud between the Masisi administration and the London-headquartered diamond miner and trader, DeBeers which has presided over Botswana's diamond industry since its inception in the late 60s through Debswana-a 50-50 joint venture between the two sides.

Masisi's list of foes went beyond Botswana's borders; earlier this year, he threatened to send 20,000 elephants to Germany in protest against that country's opposition to his decision to lift a ban on elephant trophy hunting. In 2019, Masisi lifted the ban that the Khama administration had put in place five years earlier. The decision set him on a collision course with conservation groups and Western governments, claiming the move would result in more poaching; Masisi countered that the country's elephant population had exploded to unsustainable numbers, increasing human-wildlife conflicts. His embrace of Zimbabwe's ruling Zanu-PF party, a longtime nemesis of Western countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom, also earned Masisi more enemies in the West.

At this stage, it is hard to tell which of these factors was the straw that broke the camel's back. Botswana’s President Mokgweetsi Masisi, on 1 November, conceded defeat in the 30 October elections.

U.S. FUNDED PROPAGANDA WAR AGAINST GOVERNMENT OF ZIMBABWE

Over a month ago, the US accused African Stream - without evidence - of being a Russian propaganda outfit. Since then, we’ve been banned by social media giants such as Google, Meta and TikTok. Yet the irony is that it’s actually Washington funding propaganda abroad - including in Africa.

Zimbabwe in particular has been in its sights. In the last two decades, Washington has pumped money into two radio stations that Harare accuses of being mediums of 'Western imperialist propaganda.'

The first is the now-defunct Short Wave (SW) Radio Africa, which broadcast from its London-based studios into Zimbabwe and other neighbouring countries from 2001 till 2013. The station's news and programmes were widely seen as biased towards the Western-aligned opposition party, Movement for Democratic Change. The government of Zimbabwe accused the station of having a 'regime-change agenda' at the behest of Western nations that had imposed economic sanctions on the Southern African country in the early 2000s in the wake of its land redistribution programme. A 2005 diplomatic cable from the US embassy made public by Wikileaks revealed that the station had received funding from the US government to enable it to carry out its broadcasts. The allegations of Western funding and a regime-change agenda were given further credence in 2014 when the station announced it was shutting down. In an interview with the BBC station, founder and manager, Gerry Jackson attributed the closure to the decision by 'donors' to turn off the money tap due to 'massive disarray' in the opposition camp. The second station is the Washington-based Voice of America Studio 7, which has been beaming its signal into Zimbabwe for over 20 years using a transmitter in neighbouring Botswana, an act that the government of Zimbabwe has in the past described as piracy and an attack on its sovereignty. Like SW Radio Africa, Studio 7's broadcasts have been highly critical of the Zimbabwean government. The US government wholly funds Studio 7 through the State Department's US Agency for Global Media, which, on its website, explicitly states that its mission is to ensure that 'the long-range interests of the United States are served by communicating directly with the peoples of the world by radio.'

The hypocrisy is clear: while funding media entities to spread its propaganda to African audiences, the US is using unfounded allegations to gag independent outlets such as ours from reaching our fellow Africans with a radical anti-imperalist and pan-african message.