Last week’s loser in Louisiana’s Third Congressional District run-off still serves on the Louisiana State commission that regulates pipeline construction. He also serves on the board of Sunoco Logistics, the corporation attempting to build the Dakota Access Pipeline and it's final leg, the Bayou Bridge Pipeline from Lake Charles, Louisiana to the Mississippi River.

Scott Angelle, Louisiana Pipeline Regulator on Pipeline Builders' Payroll

On Friday evening a Ugandan forum dedicated to social justice and democracy in Uganda viewed the documentary film “A Brilliant Genocide” in The Hague, Netherlands. The film tells the story of how upwards of a million Acholi people died in Northern Uganda after they were driven into concentration camps during the 27-year rule of General Yoweri Museveni.  KPFA's Ann Garrison did some script consulting on the film and she is representing it today at the Beloit Film Festival in Beloit Wisconsin.  Just before the showing we spoke to hrt about the the film and signs that Donald Trump might take a radical U-turn on U.S. Africa policy, particularly regarding Uganda.

Joseph Kony, Yoweri Museveni, and Donald Trump

On May 25th, prisoners in California's Old Folsom State Prison began a hunger strike to protest cruel and unusual punishment in "administrative segregation," a euphemism for solitary confinement.

Old Folsom State Prisoners Begin Hunger Strike to Protest Cruel and Unusual Punishment

A Google Search for “Syria” and “Rwanda” produces  millions of hyperlinks to reports, editorials, UN videos and more.  Most liken the Syrian and Rwandan conflicts and suggest that the world intervene in Syria to stop state violence against civilians as it failed to do in Rwanda.  However, a new book by Canadian journalist Judi Rever turns the story of what actually happened in Rwanda inside out.

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Canadian Journalist Turns the Story of the Rwandan Genocide Inside Out

Sputnik News host Dr. Wilmer Leon and I discussed my Black Agenda Report interview with Bénédicte Kumbi Njoko on the causes of the ongoing human catastrophe in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the way that singular focus on womens' suffering distracts from the West's imperial aggression there.  For the first few minutes we discussed breaking news about Julian Assange, and at the end we discussed a document published by Wikileaks that confirms what we were saying about Congo.

Sputnik's Critical Hour: Congo in the Abyss, Julian Assange in Peril

Ecuador's announcement that it would restore Julian Assange's internet access was not the good news it first seemed to be.

Julian Assange Sues Ecuador for Violating his Human Rights

I spoke with Dr. Wilmer Leon, host of Sputnik Radio's "The Critical Hour" about the immediate peril that Julian Assange is in. The Ecuadorian government of US lapdog Lenin Moreno wants him out of its London Embassy and US Intel are more than eager to get their hands on him.

The Critical Hour on Julian Assange

Violence continues to escalate in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s resource rich northeastern provinces. Last week it was reported that 300,000 Congolese had fled their homes during the first two on June, after 160 people were hacked to death. Congolese Canadian scholar Patrick Mbeko said that the January election of President Félex Tshisekedi hasn’t helped, and that former president Joseph Kabila is still clinging to power behind the scenes.

The system of predation and exploitation in Congo remains in place

Fourteen years ago, the Bill and Melinda Gates and Rockefeller Foundations launched the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), with the stated goal of doubling productivity and incomes by 2020 for 30 million small-scale farming households while reducing food insecurity by half in 20 countries. A broadbased civil society alliance has just published "False Promises: The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)," which concludes that the number of Africans suffering extreme hunger has in fact increased by 30 percent in its target countries.

Food scientist Timothy Wise says that groups like the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa are demanding a shift in support for failing Green Revolution policies to policies that enhance the productivity and prosperity of local farmers.

Failings of "Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa" exemplified by "hungry poster child Rwanda"

The Ethiopian army has been bombing the country’s Tigray region and rounding up members of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF). Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has tweeted that Ethiopian National Defense Forces (ENDF) are now in control of Mekelle, the capital of the country's Tigray region.  

Ayantu Ayana is an Ethiopian doctoral student at UCLA studying oral archival traditions, silences in written archives, & anti-colonial struggles. Speaking on Kenya’s Elephant TV earlier this year, she said that Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Aymed is doubling down on a failed model of internal colonialism and culturally genocidal central government, when Ethiopia needs instead a multinational federation with space for all of Ethiopia’s 80 distinct indigenous cultures.

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