Ziyanda S.

I feel like diplomatic recognition of a Palestinian state (while perhaps welcome in itself) is displaced activity for the more proper response of recognising Israel as a rogue state, to be isolated and sanctioned like Apartheid-era South Africa

Twenty years ago the Republican party stood for huge tax cuts for the rich and wars of choice in the middle east, but then Donald Trump totally remade the party and realigned American poltiics, and now the Republica party stands for...huge tax cuts for the rich and wars of choice in the middle east.

NYT won Pulitzers for MeToo/Weinstein reporting, documenting how women are harassed/hounded into silence by powerful men...

& then endorses Cuomo, a man credibly accused of serial sexual harassment, who sought gynecological records of a victim during lawsuits he fought w/ millions in taxpayer $

Sunflower peeking over a fence

My neighbor's sunflower says hello 🌻

You can't call immigrants lazy moochers looking for government handouts and then round them up at Home Depots where you know they are looking for work.

You can't say immigrants don't follow the rules and then round them up in courthouses where they are following the rules.

Get your lies straight.

BIG, BEAUTIFUL BRAWL

Opinion | Selfishness Is Not a Virtue Evangelical Christianity has taken a wrong turn.

From @nytopinion.nytimes.com

“Too many Christians are transforming Christianity into a vertical faith, one that focuses on your personal relationship with God at the expense of the horizontal relationship you have with your neighbors,” writes our columnist David French.

ICE deports immigrant mother of an infant and 3 children who are US citizens, lawyers say Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have in recent days deported a Cuban-born mother of a 1-year-old girl, separating them indefinitely.

You can’t “deport” US citizens. This is something far more sinister.

Given the literal definition of deportation is removing a foreigner or noncitizen from the country, we - journalists, media orgs - should probably all stop referring to the ‘deportation’ of a 2 year old US citizen. It’s NOT a deportation.

I’m not sure what it is. A kidnapping?

Well here you go

Nostalgia is going to destroy the US.

it speaks badly of US institutions that they've been taken over by not just fringe zealots, but *lazy* fringe zealots

This is right. The romanticization of manufacturing is misplaced nostalgia for worker power

China Hits Back At Trump's New Tariffs With Flurry Of Retaliatory Measures Beijing accused the U.S. of "a typical unilateral bullying practice that endangers the stability of the global economic and trade order."

China announced that it will impose a 34% tariff on imports of all U.S. products beginning April 10

Agoa hangs by thinnest of diplomatic threads - Good Morning Cape Town with Lester Kiewit Lester Kiewit speaks to political risk analyst Ziyanda Stuurman about the chances that Agoa can survive as US and SA relations sour. The foundations of the trade agreement are already in tatters as U....

I was up bright and early this morning to speak to Lester Kiewit on CapeTalk radio about all things AGOA. We talked about why the imposition of high tariffs on 🇿🇦🇧🇼🇱🇸 and other SADC countries significantly dims the prospects of AGOA’s renewal by Congress in September. Link here: omny.fm/shows/capeta...

Even the Liz Truss budget disaster was more internally coherent than what we’re seeing

It’s not fun anymore?

The worst norms of the extremely online took over the halls of power.

Instead of authority figures acting as a bulwark against reprehensible behavior, they recognized that this stuff captures attention and enthusiastically adopted it as a way to galvanize the base.

As U.S. troops left Iraq, their combat gear went to police. This graph compares the number of U.S. troops deployed to Iraq and the value of Pentagon property acquired by police through the 1033 program. As troop levels fell, the value of matériel transferred to police increased. Data: DLA, LESO, CRS.

How the Iraq War turbocharged police militarization:
www.stephensemler.com/p/how-the-ir...

ZIYANDA STUURMAN: Agoa may already be as good as gone Deterioration in US relations makes SA’s status in any version of a renewed trade agreement tenuous at best

AGOA may already be as good as gone.

“Trump sees any trade imbalances or deficits with the US’s partners as unacceptable and with already weak levels of reciprocal US-Africa trade, it would be almost delusional to assume that he would support renewal.”

www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/c...

Peace talks were dead on arrival (again) Kagame and Tshisekedi finally had a meeting. M23 kept advancing.

M23 fighters took Walikale just a day after the presidents of the DRC and Rwanda finally met in Doha to talk peace. The presidents called for an “immediate and unconditional ceasefire”. M23 said it was not concerned about what was discussed or agreed upon.

US interference could see South African troops in the DRC become M23 ‘hostages’ | City Press After several bloody battles in January, the Samidrc soldiers, provided by South Africa, Tanzania, and Malawi, are effectively prisoners of war by the rebels.

“Last week, it emerged that DRC President Felix Tshisekedi is in negotiations with former Blackwater boss Eric Prince, whose "private military consultants" are often hired to intervene in conflict zones… Blackwater handled the U.S. govt’s ‘dirty work’ in Afghanistan.”
www.news24.com/citypress/ne...

Columbia has a $14 BILLION dollar endowment. It could have held firm.

US weighs further pullbacks on aid to South Africa amid escalating tensions Washington is reportedly stalling the distribution of $2.6 billion in multilateral climate finance to Pretoria.

The US is reportedly stalling the distribution of $2.6 billion in multilateral climate finance to South Africa, the latest sign of fraying ties between the two nations.

The US invasion of Iraq began on this day 22 years ago.

In the years since, the United States spent roughly $10 trillion on the so-called "war on terror."

Can you imagine if we had instead invested those funds in climate, health care, housing, and education?

this war on drugs stuff is some of the worst of it, especially because it’s been enthusiastically replicated over and over again across the Global South in Mexico, Brazil, the Philippines etc. (eg. catapulting people like Rodrigo Duterte to power). it’s all very grim.

c) the war in Iraq and the broader, global War on Terror. both turbo-charged the hyper-militarism and huge surveillance ecosystems we see across the Global North today. and then the war came home to those countries in waves of immigration crises they helped create.

I really hope it ends up being him 🤞🏾

👀

I've got an article in @thecontinent.org this week about the struggle between gold companies and military rulers in West Africa.

One of the best publications on the continent, and free to subscribe: bit.ly/TheContinent194