South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has urged the US to not “punish” African nations by pressuring them to cut ties with Moscow, pointing to legislation passing through Congress which calls for more US intervention on the continent.
President Joe Biden walks with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa outside the West Wing of the White House
After meeting with US President Joe Biden on Friday, Ramaphosa spoke with reporters about the bill, the Countering Malign Russian Activities in Africa Act, saying the measure “will harm Africa and marginalize the continent.”
SEE DISCUSSION BELOW
Africa has recently shown resistance to Western oppression including military bases, rejecting forced acceptance of lethal ineffective Covid vaccines and the Great Reset sellout via the WHO.
“We should not be told by anyone who we can associate with,” he added, noting South Africa’s long-held policy of non-alignment among world powers.
Though the two leaders exchanged pleasantries during their sit-down and did not mention the Russia legislation – as detailed in the White House readout of the discussion – Ramaphosa separately spoke with the Congressional Black Caucus during his visit and again offered criticism of the bill.
South Africa is “concerned [about] the possible implications for the African Continent if the ‘Countering Malign Russian Activities Bill’ were to become US law,” he said, adding that it could have “the unintended consequence of punishing the continent for efforts to advance development and growth.”
Mikhail Podoliak made the admission following a spate of killings
russia/-zelensky-adviser-civilian-attacks/ The government in Kiev was behind deadly shelling in Kherson and it also organized the murder of two civilian officials in Berdyansk on Friday, Mikhail Podoliak, an aide to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, has confirmed.
“Everything that happened in Berdyansk, in Melitopol, in Kherson — those are all absolutely legitimate military targets. Those are certainly not terrorist or, strictly speaking, criminal acts,” Podoliak said.
At least three people were killed and 13 were wounded on Friday morning when five missiles from the US-supplied HIMARS launchers struck the administration building in Kherson, which is under Russian control. Most of them were civilian passers-by, local authorities said.
Kirill Stremousov, the deputy chair of the military-civilian administration, says the strike was intended to take him out. He survived only by chance, having accepted an invitation to appear in a TV talk show at the time of the shelling.
In Berdyansk, in the Russian-controlled part of the Zaporozhye Region, two officials of the local military-civilian administration were murdered on Friday morning.
Oleg Boyko was in charge of housing and utilities, while his wife Lyudmila headed the local elections commission.
An explosion that could be heard in Melitopol on Friday was a controlled demolition of unexploded ordnance, local official Vladimir Rogov said. However, the city headquarters of the organization ‘Together With Russia’ was damaged by a bomb last week.
Podoliak did not take credit for the assassination of the Lugansk People’s Republic head prosecutor Sergey Gorenko and his assistant Yekaterina Steglenko.
They were killed on Friday when an improvised bomb detonated at the Prosecutor General’s Office in Lugansk. Assassinations by Ukrainian agents have claimed the lives of a number of Donetsk and Lugansk officials over the past seven years.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Ukraine has engaged in “terrorist attacks” against civilians and infrastructure, including attempts to damage nuclear facilities inside Russia.
This behavior was unacceptable, he said, and if Kiev persists it will receive a “more serious” response from Moscow than a handful of “sensitive strikes” that damaged power stations and dams this week.
Since the destruction by Hurricane Maria in 2017 Puerto Rico has been neglected, ignored, mired in debt and corruption and denied the urgent aid by the racist Federal govt of the USA to repair the destroyed infrastructure and electricity system
Flakeysnow • 38 minutes agoThe power went out fast, flooded fast, and infrastructure went down with a whimper before the real winds ever came. Why has Puerto Rico been allowed to be run by those who can’t? Sad.
1. Heavy rains from Fiona will continue across Puerto Rico through tonight and occur over the Dominican Republic later today intoMonday. These rainfall amounts will produce catastrophiclife-threatening flash floods and urban flooding across Puerto Rico and portions of the eastern Dominican Republic, along with mudslides and landslides in areas of higher terrain.
Hurricane DevoGr8lakebreeze • 9 minutes ago There is a feeder band developing right now on satellite that will train right over Puerto Rico and it extends all the way down to 15n. That is well over 200 miles of rain coming3 •Reply•Share ›
One thing to keep in mind is that even though Fiona’s winds are much less than Maria’s, the rainfall may be greater. The latest HWRF has maybe 20% of Puerto Rico with more rain than in Maria (with some areas exceeding Maria’s max of 37.9 inches). So the flooding could be worse than in Maria (and based on the comments below it might already be).
Perfect structure with one complete and intensifying eyewall, no secondary eyewalls or dry air intrusions in sight, and she’s been doing this while over land/right next to land the last couple of hours. The Dominican Republic could be about to take a Cat 4 full in the face if this continues and she doesn’t turn.
We are currently supporting community and grassroots organizations, including Taller Salud, El Hormiguero, Comedores Sociales de Puerto Rico, the Boricuá collective, and the agroecological movement, which are working in the communities, from Santurce to Loíza.
Our center of operations is in Cucina 135 in Hato Rey, with the telephone line 787-767-9862, where we agree daily to join collective, organizational and community efforts of all the organizations mentioned.
We are betting on the capacity and potential of communities to identify their own needs, organize their own reconstruction and build long-term collective resilience. We urgently need supplies to provide the communities most devastated by the hurricane and which, as a matter of fact, have been forgotten and abandoned by the authorities.
Puerto Rico. Without forgiveness and without permission
By Giovanni Roberto 2018
..In Puerto Rico there is .. an emerging movement of radical self-management that threatens to gain strength after the passage of Hurricane Maria.
CAM Mutual Aid Centers
One of the expressions of this emergency is the Mutual Support Centers (CAM), spaces for popular needs management with the perspective of building new communities. The “mutual support” includes .. an anti-system position, because in Puerto Rico the colonial assistance with charity has been one of the ideological bases with which the population is tied up and the State is sustained.
With the slogan “better to ask for forgiveness than permission,”a group of residents of all ages in Las Carolinas, Caguas took over the Maria Montañez Gomez Elementary School, which was closed in May, and turned it into the Mutual Support Center of Las Carolinas. Also in Caguas, the members of the first CAM of the island, quickly reorganisedat the facilities of what was 30 years ago the Social Security Offices.
In Las Marías, another diverse group of residents of the Bucarabones neighborhood occupied their school closed 15 years ago and turn it into a CAM little by little. And in other communities or projects there is discussion about what space to rescue, what school to re-open to fix or how to manage things in the most independent way.
…This seems to point out better than anything else the real and moral bankruptcy … of these governments under the economic mantle of neoliberalism, that of privatizing everything, turning everything into merchandise, selling, accumulating, earning only for you…
President Joe Biden walks with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa outside the West Wing of the White House
SEE DISCUSSION BELOW
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has urged the US to not “punish” African nations by pressuring them to cut ties with Moscow, pointing to legislation passing through Congress which calls for more US intervention on the continent.
Africa has recently shown some resistance to Western oppression including military bases, rejecting forced acceptance of lethal ineffective Covid vaccines and the Great Reset sellout via the WHO.
After meeting with US President Joe Biden on Friday, Ramaphosa spoke with reporters about the bill, the Countering Malign Russian Activities in Africa Act, saying the measure “will harm Africa and marginalize the continent.”
“We should not be told by anyone who we can associate with,” he added, noting South Africa’s long-held policy of non-alignment among world powers.
Though the two leaders exchanged pleasantries during their sit-down and did not mention the Russia legislation – as detailed in the White House readout of the discussion – Ramaphosa separately spoke with the Congressional Black Caucus during his visit and again offered criticism of the bill.
South Africa is “concerned [about] the possible implications for the African Continent if the ‘Countering Malign Russian Activities Bill’ were to become US law,” he said, adding that it could have “the unintended consequence of punishing the continent for efforts to advance development and growth.”
Pretoria considers both Washington and Moscow to be “strategic partners,” the president continued, urging American lawmakers not to “punish those who hold independent views,” especially at a time when “President Biden has sought to engage African countries on the basis of respect for their independence and sovereignty.”
However, US policymakers have insisted the bill does not propose any punishments for African states that opt to continue ties with Russia, with National Security Council spokesman John Kirby saying “the United States isn’t making anybody choose between us and somebody else, either when it comes to Ukraine or in the Indo-Pacific region.”
“Broadly speaking, there’s no punishment here intended for anybody,” Kirby told reporters on Friday, adding “We respect sovereignty.”
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Current policies are designed to create a food and debt crisis for poorer nations especially. The US can use this debt crisis to force countries to continue privatising and selling off their public assets in order to service the debts to pay for the higher oil and food imports.
This imperialist strategy comes on the back of ‘COVID relief’ loans which have served a similar purpose.
In 2021, an Oxfam review of IMF COVID-19 loans showed that 33 African countries were encouraged to pursue austerity policies. The world’s poorest countries are due to pay $43 billion in debt repayments in 2022, which could otherwise cover the costs of their food imports.
Oxfam and Development Finance International have also revealed that 43 out of 55 African Union member states face public expenditure cuts totalling $183 billion over the next five years.
The closure of the world economy in March 2020 (‘lockdown’) served to trigger an unprecedented process of global indebtedness. Conditionalities mean national governments will have to capitulate to the demands of Western financial institutions.
These debts are largely dollar-denominated, helping to strengthen the US dollar and US leverage over countries.
The US is creating a new world order and needs to ensure much of the Global South remains in its orbit of influence rather than ending up in the Russian and especially Chinese camp and its belt road initiative for economic prosperity.
South Africa knows what side its bread is buttered; if it stays in BRICS it will thrive!
SharpKnife24
But people here are beyond fine with Russia trying to tell Ukraine what to do.
neeckoo
NO, he’s punishing his own American people at home !
Lectrodectus
America Threatens African Countries With Retribution If They Continue Their Relationships With Russia/China Etc… The Real Reasons Behind This The US Empire Are Desperate To Hold Onto Their Source Of Cheap Minerals/ Diamonds/ Gold/ Oil/Gas Etc…..Explain To Me How Washington Has The Legal Right To impose Laws ( They Create) Onto Other Countries To Protect Their Own Economic Interests. I Would Say Any Sanctions /Laws To Be Imposed Onto any Country Should Be Put To The UN To Be Voted On…However The UN (As We All Know) Is Neither Independent Nor Impartial Because US Own/Control It So, Why Does it Exist/ What Is The Point Of It.
Andrew Kelly
Mr Kirby is a brazen liar or a fool. The US respects sovereignty? Just ask Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Libya, etc etc…
Russia’s military operation commenced on February 24, the socialist left has been divided in its response to the armed conflict in Ukraine.
On one side are those who align with the U.S., NATO and the Ukrainian state in denouncing Russia as the principal villain.In opposition are those who view the conflict as the outcome of the West’s new cold war against Russia, and the post-coupregime in Ukraine as a willing pawn of the West (U.S. and its geopolitical allies) in that new cold war.
There are also some groups who condemn both: Russia for its February 24 military action, and the U.S. and NATO for their provocations against Russia’s national security concerns.Many of the left’s published commentaries repeat invalid assumptions, evade crucial issues, and/or misrepresent the realities of the conflict.
Divided left.There being differing political perspectives on the left is nothing new.For example, during the Vietnam War…
To conquer the world market, Brazil’s Big Three beef packers — JBS, Marfrig and Minerva — invited in foreign capital. Today, all three are transnationals, with the original Brazilian founders owning only minority shares in their own companies. Foreign investors, including asset management companies and pension funds, now own large stakes, which means that ordinary[…][…]
This event October 21 to 24 is one of several inspirational global events in October.
A feature of this summit is its delivery in three time zones and the inclusion of in-person hubs.
The Summit includes three days (October 21,22 and 24) of 24 hours of round-the-world programming. Three different time regions of the world each have eight-hour summits. This is nine eight-hour programs over three days. 72 hours total (each segment has a one-hour break).
The Americas. 8:00 am to 4:00 pm Pacific time (Seattle).
East Asia and Oceania: 8:00 am to 4:00 pm, New Delhi time.
Africa, Europe and West Asia. 8:00 am to 4:00 pm, London time.
The Free 
