Dear Reader,
A lot overseas concerning the USA and a bit at home. For starters, the United States of America is no longer AAA-rated. I remember the anger and seething from the American right when this occurred under President Barack Obama. Will such anger be directed toward the current administration? With the Republicans in control of the government and owning the fallout from tariffs, it will be difficult to blame former President Joe Biden or the Democrats.
The Supreme Court retained the block on some Trump Administration deportations using the Alien Enemies Act. However, the Supreme Court has not taken a stronger stance than was expected by Constitutional experts due to the simple fact that Congress has not declared war, which would be required for the law to apply. Without a Congressional designation, adversarial groups do not qualify as “enemies”. The Roberts Court continues to behave in an erratic and historically inconsistent manner.
Reparations Vetoed! The only Black governor of a state, Maryland’s Wes Moore, vetoed the reparations study bill. Many Black activists were upset, however, it went as predicted by some African American scholars who have noted that reparations in the 21st century are a political dead end and distraction for Black Americans descended from slaves who were emancipated in 1865 by force of arms and victory over the rebels in the Civil War. Perhaps not too coincidentally, Maryland - a slave state - had the largest free Black population of any state in the years before the Civil War, and many Black heroes who escaped slavery came from Maryland, such as Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass.
President Donald Trump's administration continues to redefine American foreign policy with a series of bold moves:
Middle East Realignment: Trump's decision to lift sanctions on Syria and his subsequent meeting with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa in Saudi Arabia signal a significant shift in US Middle East policy. This move has been met with both domestic and international scrutiny, raising questions about the future of US alliances in the region.
Trump cools on Israel: The US President says that people are starving in Gaza and promises that he will address it as he meets with Arab leaders.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio emphasized that a resolution to the Ukraine war hinges on direct talks between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. This stance suggests a departure from multilateral diplomatic efforts, placing the onus of peace negotiations on personal diplomacy. However, Putin no-showed the scheduled meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Istanbul.
European Union: Striving for Strategic Autonomy
Sanctions on Russia: EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced preparations for an 18th sanctions package against Russia, targeting sectors such as energy and finance. This move aims to increase pressure on Moscow amid ongoing conflicts.
Defense Initiatives: The EU is advancing its €150 billion Security Action for Europe (SAFE) fund to bolster defense capabilities. British defense firms are seeking participation and a piece of the multi-billion euro pie, indicating a potential post-Brexit realignment in defense cooperation and a desire not to miss out on the profits.
Transatlantic Relations(plural): European leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, are engaging in discussions with Trump to coordinate responses to global challenges, reflecting a nuanced approach to U.S.-EU relations. However, the Europeans indicated that they will work together and coordinate their efforts independently of the US.
Fears about European Strategic Opinion: Former EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. This makes some Americans nervous about an EU provoked into strengthening itself by the Trump administration, taking an independent and extremely hostile line against Israel.
South Africa has problems, but systematic racism against Afrikaners is not one of them.
I decided to go straight to the source for this one. The Afrikaners are the previous rulers of South Africa. They created apartheid, took the wealth of the land, and also built the South African state, making it one of the strongest and most unchallenged national authorities in Africa. Which also means they were afforded the most opportunity and privilege in education; consequently, like other literate people of means, they have their own media outlets. The top ones are owned by Media24 Holdings, until recently led by Ishmet Davidson, who stepped down as CEO in September 2024, and was succeeded by his CFO, Raj Lalbahadur, who was the interim boss until getting the job permanently in April of this year. Their holdings include Beeld a daily Afrikaans newspaper based in Gauteng that delivers general news and politics with a center-right tone, long regarded as a major voice among urban Afrikaners; Die Burger, a daily in Cape Town that is traditionally more moderate in its editorial stance; and Rapport a nationally distributed Sunday paper known for cultural commentary and political opinion and tends to attract center-right readers. These are consolidated under the Netwerk banner for online news.
Which means we can ask what they say about the “refugees,” arriving in the US, racism, and allegations of White persecution?
Well Beeld carries the story of a “Refugee” who was outed on TikTok as not being an Afrikaner.
Netwerk24 reports a second group of Afrikaners is headed to America.
Rapport reports that Theuns Eloff, the former head of the FW de Klerk Foundation - named for the late President de Klerk, who ended apartheid - said that the Afrikaners going to America are not helping the cause of Afrikaners back at home in South Africa.
The rest was the normal entertainment and crime news that one would expect of major newspapers, along with a healthy dose of - probably well-deserved - criticism of the ANC and its notorious corruption and incompetence that probably makes the ghost of Mandela weep. But I saw nothing reporting that actual land expropriation from Afrikaners is occurring based on the 2024 law.
It may be that, like Ukraine, the US administration is out to threaten and bully South Africa for its resources, probably chromium, and its growing relationship with China. Chromium is essential for producing stainless steel, which is critical to modern infrastructure, manufacturing, and defense. Roughly 85% of all chromium mined globally is used to make stainless steel, where it provides corrosion resistance and strength and can be turned into high-performance alloys. South Africa holds more than 70% of the world’s known chromite reserves, the primary mineral source of chromium. As such, South Africa is the world’s leading exporter of chromium ore and ferrochrome, a chromium-iron alloy used in steelmaking. This makes South Africa critical to the global supply chain.
However, the United States does not produce significant amounts of chromium domestically and is heavily dependent on imports. China has already moved to secure long-term supply contracts with South African producers. This leaves the US vulnerable in the event of geopolitical tensions or export restrictions. However, the result may be for South Africa to draw closer to China and perhaps seek a military defense guarantee from Beijing, though traditionally, China does not seek potential confrontations so far from its shores. But back to the land issue.
Al Jazeera also reports that no land has been taken. And that the “refugees” in the USA have not had to prove their claims about threats, nor present evidence that their land is being targeted. Additionally, black African Christians who have been verifiably displaced by fighting in the Congo continued to be denied entry into the USA, as are the Afghans who sided with the USA against the Taliban. But there is no evidence of the alleged genocide against Afrikaners being reported in their own newspapers. Evidence suggests that South Africa is a dangerous crime ridden place for everyone, with 19,000 murders a year, but only 50 of the murders are of White farmers, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP). Any murder is a tragedy, and yet the fact remains that South Africa as a whole lacks effective policing and law and order systems allowing crime to run rampant, such problems are not uniquely faced by Afrikaners but by all South Africans including the White Anglo-South Africans who are English speakers, Asian-South Africans, and the various black ethnicities. Far from suffering economically, thirty years after apartheid, the average White South African household remains 20 times richer than black South Africans.
The 2024 law on land expropriation is an update of the 1975 apartheid era law, both laws actually resemble what Americans would call eminent domain. The change in the 2024 law is that, in particular circumstances adjudicated by a judge, land can be seized without compensation should it prove to be in the public interest of justice. A large part of the problem goes back the British Empire endorsing and permitting the creation of a white supremacy electoral system in South Africa when the four colonies of the region were united by the British Parliament through the 1909 South Africa Act, to form the Union of the South Africa with its own parliament, effective in 1910. Soon, the South African Union government passed the Natives' Land Act of 1913, designating less than 10 percent of the country as Black "reserves." It also forbade Blacks from purchasing or leasing land outside these reserves and placed restrictions on the terms under which they could live on white-owned farms. This act was part of a broader effort to entrench white supremacy in South Africa. Other laws, such as the earlier 1911 Mines and Works Act, made specific jobs in mining and railways exclusive to whites. These laws worked as intended to keep the benefits of land and industrial developments for the European South Africans. When South Africa became a full democracy in 1994 with the end of apartheid, the first thing parliament did was look at the land taken and restricted 80 years earlier. The 1994 Restitution of Land Rights Act was designed to address land dispossession that happened under the British Empire and apartheid. The goals are the restoration of land rights to individuals and communities dispossessed through racially discriminatory laws, either by returning land, offering alternatives, or providing compensation. It was intended to promote social justice and reconciliation by formally acknowledging past wrongs and taking action to repair them, contributing to national healing. To implement these goals, the Act created both the Commission on Restitution of Land Rights and the Land Claims Court to oversee and adjudicate claims, ensuring a fair and transparent restitution process. Which means the 2024 law is not about taking land that was stolen generations earlier; there is already a law for that; it is about the idea that land may be taken by eminent domain without compensation.
So it is about money, and racial grievance is being manufactured to distract Americans. Again.
Wow! This is Great! As Tony Tiger would say..Very informative! Well done Albert..