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- By ZAM Reporter
- Politics & Opinion
As often highlighted by ZAM, there is no shortage of troubling dynamics shaping relations between Africa and Europe. As Fortress Capitalism gains ground across the continent, wealth and resources open borders and airports, while those most exploited are left vulnerable to traffickers, often ending up behind barbed wire or in trenches. At the same time, autocracy and oppression are on the rise, increasingly sustained by a rapidly expanding security industry.
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- By Marnix de Bruyne
- Politics & Opinion
During the ethnic violence in Kenya in 2008, the church in Kiambaa became a symbol of the horror that shook the country. Kikuyu who had sought refuge there were killed on New Year’s Day when Kalenjin youths set the building alight.
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- By ZAM Reporter
- Politics & Opinion
The word ‘equal’, often followed by ‘partner’ or ‘relationship’, or simply used as ‘equality’, appears 68 times in the Netherlands’ Africa Strategy document. This paper, in which “shared challenges, such as security and migration, while promoting investment” are the most prominent points, was launched in 2023 and is intended to guide Dutch dealings with the African continent over the next decade...
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- By ZAM Reporter
- Politics & Opinion
2025 was the year in which Gabon’s President Nguema returned from a visit to the White House wearing a MAGA cap; the Rwandan government struck a US$200 million deal with Donald Trump in exchange for American control over Congolese mineral resources; Sudanese warlords...
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- By ZAM Reporter
- Politics & Opinion
Whenever we think we have seen it all, something like Nicki Minaj addressing the United Nations about “genocide” of Christians in Nigeria happens.
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- By Oyunga Pala
- Politics & Opinion
During the recent Dutch election debate in October, populist politician Geert Wilders, leader of the extreme right-wing PVV party, made a controversial remark.
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- By Beloved John
- Politics & Opinion
Two weeks ago, Trump threatened to send troops to stop “the genocide” of Christians in Nigeria. His message, shared on social media — as he does with any foreign policy announcement — terrified Nigerians.
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- By Evelyn Groenink
- Politics & Opinion
On a TikTok video she made, Pontsho Pilane holds a South African Christian magazine called Joy! The cover shows the face of Erica Kirk, the widow of extreme right-wing evangelical influencer Charlie Kirk, who was recently killed in the US.
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- By ZAM Reporter
- Politics & Opinion
ZAM’s office in the Netherlands may have been surrounded by the noise and clamour of election campaigns in recent days, but that commotion pales in comparison to the protests — and, sadly, the violent responses by authorities — that have accompanied elections in Cameroon, Ivory Coast, and Tanzania during the same period.
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- By ZAM Reporter
- Politics & Opinion
In 1955, now seventy years ago, the Bandung Conference took place in Indonesia. Initiated by Indian Prime Minister Nehru and Indonesian President Sukarno, twenty-nine newly independent African and Asian countries committed themselves to a charter emphasising ‘respect for fundamental human rights’.
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- By ZAM Reporter
- Politics & Opinion
The LGBTQIA+ community in Burkina Faso responds with shock to lawmakers’ decision to recriminalise consensual same-sex sexual relationships.
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- By ZAM Reporter
- Politics & Opinion
Produced over eleven years in Mali and Mauritania, the film offers a unique first-person account of Tuareg history and culture against a backdrop of conflict and exile. It is a story of transmission and memory, where the intimate meets the political,
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- By ZAM Reporter
- Politics & Opinion
Draagt een culturele boycot van officiële Israelische instituties bij aan het Palestijnse streven naar zelfbeschikking? In Nieuwsuur reflecteerde ZAM redacteur Bart Luirink op de ervaringen van zo’n boycot in de strijd tegen apartheid.
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- By By Charles Mafa, Samuel Baker Byansi, Elizabeth BanyiTabi, Eric Mugendi, William Moige, Josephine Chinele, Emmanuel Mutaizibwa, Beloved John and Evelyn Groenink
- Politics & Opinion
Instead of young Africans trading their dreams for a place in someone else’s war, the international community should embrace them.
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- By William Shoki
- Politics & Opinion
It’s easy to fall back on ‘the spectacle of suffering,’ but we need to examine the reasons behind the drama, argues Africa Is a Country editor William Shoki.
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- By ZAM Reporter
- Politics & Opinion
Recently, American media reported on discussions between Israel and several African countries regarding the potential resettlement of Palestinians displaced from their land.
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- By Sisonke Msimang
- Politics & Opinion
In the last few weeks, the genocide in Gaza has been framed as a problem of starvation. From global leaders to social media influencers to celebrities, everyone seems to have woken up to ‘what is happening in Gaza.’ And for some reason the word ‘starvation’ seems easier to say than genocide.
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- By ZAM Reporter
- Politics & Opinion
On 18 July, (coincidentally the birthday of Nelson Mandela), a landmark case was filed before the East African Court of Justice by Ugandan Agather Atuhaire, and Kenyan human rights defender Boniface Mwangi,
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- By Theophilus Abbah
- Politics & Opinion
Nigeria’s 2025 national budget heavily favours the defence and security sector, which consumes nearly ten per cent of total expenditure. By contrast, health receives slightly less than five per cent, while the social investment budget, at under one per cent, lags even further behind.
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- By ZAM reporter
- Politics & Opinion
Much has been written about the recent, scandalous reception of four West African leaders by Donald Trump. Telling the Liberian President, as Trump did, that his “English is beautiful” was deeply embarrassing—but not only for Trump.
Op-Ed | On Captain Ibrahim Traoré’s Glamourised Militarism and Africa’s Elusive Quest for Liberation
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- By Rosebell Kagumire
- Politics & Opinion
Burkina Faso’s military ruler is not a radical economic liberator; his so-called “populist anti-Western nativism” is a smokescreen to conceal the suppression of activists, journalists, and queer people, argues Rosebell Kagumire.
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- By Oyunga Pala
- Politics & Opinion
I know—I belong to a generation obsessed with graves. Their permanence has become our language of love, our way of asserting legacy and resisting the ephemeral nature of life.
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- By ZAM reporter
- Politics & Opinion
The chainsaw feels an inadequate metaphor for the brutal violence with which the Trump administration slashes €58 billion annually from aid to poor countries. On top of that, European governments are cutting more than €10 billion in aid savings.
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- By ZAM reporter
- Politics & Opinion
In a time of hate, missiles, and mass murders, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s call to mingle and meet, made recently at a symposium at the Royal Palace in Amsterdam, comes as a wake-up call.
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- By Jaya Khamala
- Politics & Opinion
Just as we were finalising this piece, yet another tragedy struck. The violence we thought we were remembering came crashing back into the present. On June 7–8, 2025, while in police custody in Nairobi, 31-year-old Kenyan teacher and activist Albert Ojwang died under suspicious circumstances
