Late on 28 June, news started emerging in the South African media that the monarch of eSwatini (formerly known as Swaziland), a landlocked kingdom in Southern Africa, had fled the country due to an ongoing protest movement. King Mswati III has ruled this kingdom, which is bordered by South Africa and Mozambique, with an iron fist since 1986. He is the last absolute monarch in Africa, and the masses have forced him to run.

The 12 June parliamentary election was meant to give the Algerian regime a degree of legitimacy and put an end to two years of revolutionary hirak (movement). Instead, the call for boycott was overwhelmingly observed, despite a widespread clampdown in the run up to the polls.

The so-called “assault” on the Ceuta border (a Spanish enclave on the African side of the Strait of Gibraltar) by thousands of young migrants in the past few days is part of the same migration crisis that has plagued Africa in recent decades. However, the most recent events have been triggered by a new diplomatic dispute between Spain and Morocco, rooted in the economic crisis unleashed by the pandemic and the worsening of the conflict in the Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara.

Over the last few days, dockworkers of the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (SATAWU) in the port city of Durban have refused to handle cargo from an Israeli ship, in protest against Israel's bombardment of the besieged Gaza strip over the last few weeks. Currently, the ship is still lying in the Durban harbour waiting to take on cargo. 

Concerns are rising about the impact that the catastrophic situation in India could have on the COVID–19 pandemic on the African continent. Africa’s vaccine supply relies heavily on India’s Serum Institute, the source of the AstraZeneca vaccines distributed by the global COVAX project which is supposed to provide vaccines to poor countries. India’s export ban on vaccines has severely impacted the predictability of the rollout of vaccination programs and will continue to do so for the coming weeks and perhaps even months.

Huge fires have inflicted massive damage on Cape Town, destroying priceless cultural artefacts and forcing thousands to evacuate. This preventable disaster was a product of the decrepit capitalist system, and has thrown the deep inequality and social rot in South African society into sharp relief.

Over the last few days, a social eruption has shaken the West African country of Senegal. The movement, emerging apparently from nowhere, has quickly gained insurrectionary features with the state completely losing control of big parts of the capital Dakar to the demonstrators.

On Wednesday, 24 February, 21 unions of the South African Federation of Trade Unions went on a general strike against deep and sustained cuts in the living standards of workers, and to fight for a radical change in the country’s economic policies. Frustration runs high amongst the working class over mass retrenchments, wage freezes and brutal austerity measures in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. 

On 6 February, thousands of protesters took to the streets in Tunis, chanting the slogan “the people want the fall of the regime” against the Islamist Ennahdha party, a member of the government coalition. Riot police had in advance of the rally deployed cordons around central Tunis

A new, powerful mass movement has erupted in Tunisia. The explosion of anger is due to the economic crisis, which has degraded the lives of Tunisians to a life of poverty and suffering. Exactly 10 years after the 2011 revolution that toppled Ben Ali, none of the problems of the Tunisian masses have been solved.

Just before Christmas, outgoing US Attorney General Bill Barr announced additional charges relating to the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie in 1988. This announcement is clearly politically motivated, and is symbolic of how the entire investigation has been focused on imperialist interests, rather than a genuine desire to bring the perpetrators to justice.

At 3am on Wednesday, November 4, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed appeared on state television to declare a six-month state of emergency in the country’s northern Tigray region. According to Abiy, the Tigray regional security forces had committed ‘treason’ by attacking federal military bases in the regional capital Mekelle as well as Dansha, killing and injuring an unspecified number of soldiers in the process. This announcement set in motion a chain of events which could eventually lead to the breakup of Ethiopia itself with far-reaching consequences for the Horn of Africa.

On Wednesday 18 November, Ugandan opposition politician Bobi Wine was violently arrested once again in the Luuka district. Various reports speak of violence towards him. One vehicle branded with incumbent President Museveni's campaign brutally ploughed into a group of bystanders in Kampala that same afternoon, leaving several people dead – although the number of casualties is still unknown. It is reported that the car was being stoned shortly before the attack. Another presidential candidate, Patrick Amuriat has also been arrested. Other candidates are pausing campaigning until Wine is released.

On 6 October 2020, just five days after the celebration of so-called Nigeria Independence, Nigerians woke up to one of the most unprecedented youth movements in the history of the country. This article attempts to highlight some of the key lessons that can be drawn from this experience.

In this article, a comrade from South Africa explains how the hullabaloo over the perceived rise of the far right is ultimately a distraction for a capitalist regime that has failed to improve the dire living conditions of the masses, or to resolve the decisive land question.