The US has declared Cuba an "unusual and extraordinary threat", authorising new sanctions and tightening its illegal blockade.

Trump is trying to starve Cuba into submission — and millions of people will suffer.

This is economic warfare, plain and simple. Hands off Cuba!

In which the US casually concedes that they are part of the reason why the Museveni dictatorship has managed to endure. They can tolerate killings of voters, mass electoral fraud and threats to the opposition but a pissy tweet is going to far.

At this time of uncertainty in the Horn of Africa, I really didn't think the Epstein files would trend in the region, but they are.

Ethiopia's Minister of Education was the subject of emails exchanged in 2009 between Epstein & Henry Jarecki, wealthy entrepreneur dogged by allegations of SA as well.

Google continues its rollout of gradually disabling uBlock Origin and other Manifest V2-based extensions in the Chrome web browser as part of its efforts to push users to Manifest V3-based extensions.

One of the most important things we’ve learnt through the current moment of political upheaval in Kenya is how important it is to talk to your family members and friends about politics. Don’t assume that everyone is as terminally online as you are. Don’t assume everyone has the same information.

All Protocol Observed

Welcome to Issue 189 of The Continent.

M23 fighters are marching on to take a second city in the DRC. The Tanzanian president is hosting a leader’s conference to address the crisis. But Tanzania is not a disinterested party.

Read it here: bit.ly/TheContinent...

The Museum of Stolen History: The Golden Crown, with its stunningly delicate filigree, belonged to Emperor Tewodros II, the King of Kings of Abyssinia. It was the most remarkable artefact looted during the British Army’s 1868 siege of Maqdala, the king’s hilltop fortress capital.

OpenAI doesn't report a single number for its climate impacts - not anywhere, in any way, shape or form.

It sounds kind of obvious but the fact that a company with such incredible electricity hunger isn't disclosing basic information about its energy consumption and associated emissions is v bad..

Mali is not the only African country going hard after global giants. In other lawsuits, Malawi is seeking more than $314-billion from Columbia Gem House, TotalEnergies and Star Agritech, writes @mcbrams.bsky.social continent.substack.com/p/the-rich-b...

So Arcane was great, overall. It's left me feeling a bit bereft, missing the characters, like a great book does, which I find is rare with film and TV. Superb animation and design, voice acting and visual imagination, but the 2nd season felt rushed and overcrowded...

Justice delayed but not denied.

Four apartheid era police officers have been put on trial in South Africa, for the 1987 murder of student activist Caiphus Nyoka. One has already pled guilty, and testified that the others were complicit as well.

37 years later.
@thecontinent.bsky.social

I wrote about how #domains owned and managed by individual users, provide agency to the individual to #verify their identity across the social internet.

This is a departure from the historically opaque approach of verification on legacy social media.

You can read more here: bit.ly/40YOxa1

We have a live example of why they're called "pig-butchering" scammers! They're called that because they use the whole pig, ie, they don't just take a little money from their victims, they slaughter them and use them all. I'm gonna be slow on this thread because I'm doing exhaustive alt text, but:

So what happens to states that defy ICC arrest warrants?

Generally nothing. Ethiopia hosted former Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir numerous times following his 2009 ICC indictment although 🇪🇹 isnt a Rome Statute State party. Djibouti though, is. All 🇩🇯got was a UN referral which went nowhere.

THREAD: Weaponizing of Twitter in 2021 to spread denialism & manufacture consent for mass slaughter in Ethiopia, a mini case study. I bring up social media damage, both to urge @bsky.app to work on preventative mechanisms & to raise awareness of the horrors it has caused, far from western shores.