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Sunday, March 22, 2026

 

Modern Day Israel: A Poisonous Concoction for Most Outsiders


Think of modern day Israel as a bowl filled with a mixture of ingredients, a few complementary, like salt and pepper. Other ingredients, however, like the intermingling of Zionism and Talmudic Judaism, while favorable to many family members who grew up among its ranks, it proves unpalatable for most outsiders. Mixed together, the concoction grows tentacles intertwined with the curse of Medusa, a vicious monster sporting writhing serpents in place of hair, fanged teeth and a face so hideous that the mere sight of her was sufficient to turn a man to stone.

Edward Said, in his Forward to Israel Shahak’s, book, Jewish History – Jewish Religion, said:

the difference between him and most other Israelis was that he made the connections between Zionism, Judaism, and repressive practices against ‘non-Jews’; and of course he drew the conclusions… unlike most others he does not allow the horrors of the Holocaust to manipulate the truth of what in the name of the Jewish people Israel has done to the Palestinians. For him, suffering is not the exclusive possession of one group of victims; it should instead be, but rarely is the basis for humanizing the victims, making it incumbent on them not to cause suffering of the kind that they suffered. [Shahak was a Holocaust victim and survivor himself]

In 1903, the British government offered 6,000 square miles of Uganda for the creation of an Israeli state. Actually several proposals were considered for the creation of a Jewish homeland located outside The Middle East. In the pre-Zionist era, Ararat City (U.S.) and Suriname, South America were considered, neither being chosen. In the 20th century, possible places taken under consideration were Madagascar, Tasmania, Australia and two locations in the USSR, Birobidzhan in Russia’s Far East near the border with China and Crimea but in the end the Zionists held out for Palestine.

The victory of Nazism ruled out assimilation and mixed marriages as an option for Jews when they were being forced to identify themselves as Jews in Nazi Germany, Dr. Joachim Prinz, a Zionist rabbi and a friend of Golda Meir, said in his book We Jews: “We are not unhappy about this.” Viewed as an actual fulfillment of Zionist’s desires, it provided for a seeming congenial atmosphere for the flowering of both the myths of the Aryan race and the Jewish race. He went on to say, “We want assimilation to be replaced by a new law: the declaration of belonging to the Jewish nation and Jewish race.” (Dr Joachim Prinz, Wir Juden, Berlin, 1934, p. 150-1), Shahak (p 71) said, “some zionist leaders in Germany welcomed Hitler’s rise to power, because they shared his belief in the primacy of ‘race’ and his hostility to the assimilation of Jews among ‘Aryans’.” (p 71)

The Zionists colluded (51 documents) with the Nazis whereby tens of thousands of Jews emigrated from Germany, immigrating to Palestine, setting the stage for future Israel, also setting the stage for 75 plus years of suffering of the Palestinian people.


A commemorative medal struck by Nazi Germany to mark its Zionist alliance, with a Star-of-David on one side and a Swastika on the obverse. The importance of the Nazi-Zionist pact for Israel’s establishment is difficult to overstate. According to a 1974 analysis in Jewish Frontier, between 1933 and 1939 over 60% of all the investment in Jewish Palestine came from Nazi Germany – The Transfer Agreement.

Jewish American analyst Ron Unz details facts about Zionist-Nazi cooperation in the Unz Review. He reveals in one short snippet an interesting piece of information about a former Israeli Prime Minster, Yitzhak Shamir.

during the late 1930s, Shamir and his small Zionist faction had become great admirers of the Italian Fascists and German Nazis, and after World War II broke out, they had made repeated attempts to contact Mussolini and the German leadership in 1940 and 1941, hoping to enlist in the Axis Powers as their Palestine affiliate, and undertake a campaign of attacks and espionage against the local British forces, then share in the political booty after Hitler’s inevitable triumph.

After learning about Shamir’s earlier activities, Unz offered up the following response:

… the idea of the sitting Prime Minister of the Jewish State having spent his early wartime years as an unrequited Nazi ally was certainly something that sticks in one’s mind, not quite conforming to the traditional narrative of that era which I had always accepted.

Most remarkably, the revelation of Shamir’s pro-Axis past seems to have had only a relatively minor impact upon his political standing within Israeli society. I would think that any American political figure found to have supported a military alliance with Nazi Germany during the Second World War would have had a very difficult time surviving the resulting political scandal, and the same would surely be true for politicians in Britain, France, or most other western nations. But although there was certainly some embarrassment in the Israeli press, especially after the shocking story reached the international headlines, apparently most Israelis took the whole matter in stride, and Shamir stayed in office for another year, then later served a second, much longer term as Prime Minister during 1986-1992. The Jews of Israel apparently regarded Nazi Germany quite differently than did most Americans, let alone most American Jews.

Zionist Forced Transfer & Expulsion of Palestinians from Palestine

Statement by David Ben-Gurion, founder of State of Israel and Israel’s first prime minister:

The compulsory transfer of Arabs from the valleys of the proposed Jewish state could give us something which we never had, even when we stood on our own feet during the days of the First and Second Temple [a Galilee free of Arab population].
– (Zichronot [Memoirs] Vol. 4, p. 297-99, 12 July 1937.)

“What Arab cannot do his math and understand that the immigration at the rate of 60,000 a year means a Jewish state in all of Palestine”
– (Letter to Moshe Shertok known as Moshe Sharett, Israel’s first Foreign Minister, Ben-Gurion and the Palestinian Arabs, p. 167-8, 24 July 1937.)

“The war will give us the land. The concepts of ‘ours’ and ‘not ours’ are peace concepts, only, and in war they lose their whole meaning.”
– (to Yosef Weitz. David Ben-Gurion, Yoman Hamilhamah [War Diary], vol.1, entry dated 7 February 1948, p. 210-11.)

When Israel came into existence in 1948 Jews owned about 6% of the land of Palestine.

Statement by Yosef Weitz: the head of the Israeli government’s official Transfer Committee of 1948

The complete evacuation of the country from its [Arab] inhabitants and handing it to the Jewish people is the answer.” – (after touring Jewish settlements in the Esdraelon Valley Ibid, entry dated 20 March 1941, p. 1127.)

I made a summary of a list of the Arab villages, which in my opinion must be cleared out in order to complete Jewish regions. I also made a summary of the places that have land disputes and must be settled by military means.” – (Ibid., diary entry, 18 April 1948, p. 2358.)

The Utopia of the “Jewish ideology” adopted by the State of Israel is a land which is wholly ‘redeemed’ and none of it is owned or worked by non-Jews. Walter Laquer, in his book, History of Zionism, wrote the following: “A.D. Gordon, a devoted Zionist and his friends wanted everybody else to just go away and leave the land to be ‘redeemed’ by Jews.”

Karl Popper in The Open Society and Its Enemies, “There are two choices which face Israeli-Jewish society, It can become a fully closed and warlike ghetto, a Jewish Sparta, supported by the labour of Arab helots, kept in existence by its influence on the US political establishment and by threats to use its nuclear power.”

The Israel of today was born out of violence, starting with Freedom-Fighting Terrorist attacks against the British in Palestine. Following that, with a little help from the British, the theft and legal chicanery allowed the land to be misappropriated and given to another. Collectively givers gave, some out of greed, making out like a bandit; others felt comfortable giving away someone else’s land out of a perceived guilt. No matter the real or feigned motivation of the givers from far off places, the injured party, told to smile, smile, even though he would end up with only half of what had been his land and before that his ancestor’s ancestors land, the ancient pre-Israelite Canaanite’s. As it turned out, he ended up with little more than a pig in a poke. Most of the remaining half of his land was also purloined, even though now for three quarters of a century and counting, the Victim has been portrayed the Victimizer.

Jimmy R. Coleman is a former President of Garon Inc, a computer consulting company, but his real work started after he began his quest to find an answer to a rather simple question - “Why is it seemingly impossible to have peace in the Middle East?” Twenty plus years have gone by – the answer proving more difficult and elusive than the question. His research has taken him to the four corners of the globe, spanning centuries, covering the rise and fall of empires, cultures and religions. He has relied on some of the best experts in their respective areas, historians, theologians, political and military mindsets, and radical thinkers from the left and right, from Zionist, Jihadist and proponents of End Times eschatology, a journey that has helped frame his thinking, not as an expert who sees the trees, but as someone with a more generalist viewpoint of the forest. Read other articles by Jimmy.
US earns its lowest-ever score on freedom index


By AFP
March 19, 2026


Fact-checking and disinformation research has become more contentious than ever in the United States. - Copyright AFP Mandel NGAN

A pro-democracy research group said Wednesday that freedom in the United States has declined to its lowest level since it started assessments, as President Donald Trump aggressively wields executive authority.

Washington-based Freedom House said that freedom eroded around the world in 2025 for the 20th straight year, in what it called a “grim milestone.”

The United States remained rated free but fell to 81 points out of 100. It was the lowest score since the survey, which first covered 1972, began its 100-point system in 2002.

The score put the United States at the same level as South Africa and below a number of US European allies as well as South Korea and Panama.

Freedom House said the US decline was due to “both legislative dysfunction and executive dominance, growing pressure on people’s ability to engage in free expression, and efforts by the new administration to undermine anticorruption safeguards.”

Trump has aggressively asserted his power as president, ordering the closure of entire government agencies and deploying armed, masked anti-immigration agents around the country, with the White House promising them impunity.

The United States declined by three points, a drop only experienced by one other “free” country, Bulgaria, where 2024 elections were marred by allegations of fraud.

Overall, only 21 percent of people live in countries rated as “free,” with much of the slip in Africa due to military coups, violence against protesters and the weakening of constitutional protections, Freedom House said.

Over the past two decades worldwide, “many more have fallen into the ‘not free’ category than have democratized or moved up to that free category,” said Cathryn Grothe, a senior research analyst at Freedom House who co-authored the report.

“The world is getting less and less free and that middle area is shrinking, and then the free countries are staying relatively stable” despite the US score decline, she said.

On a positive note, three countries were upgraded to “free” from “partly free” — Bolivia and Malawi, which both held competitive elections, and Fiji, which strengthened the rule of law.

The only country to receive a perfect 100 score was Finland, while only South Sudan was rated 0.

The biggest decline in score was in Guinea-Bissau, where the military last year seized power and suspended an election process days after voting.

Other countries with steep falls in scores included Tanzania, Burkina Faso and Madagascar, while Syria and Sri Lanka both saw gains.

Freedom House, founded in 1941 with bipartisan US support, is independently administered but historically has received US government funding, which was sharply reduced by Trump as he slashes efforts at democracy promotion.




Saturday, March 21, 2026

French navy boards tanker in Mediterranean suspected of being part of Russia's shadow fleet


By Nathan Joubioux
Published on 

The interception took place in the Western Mediterranean and was carried out in cooperation with allies, including the United Kingdom, which monitored the ship.

The French navy intercepted and boarded a tanker in the Mediterranean Sea on Friday that President Emmanuel Macron said is linked to Russia's sanctioned shadow fleet shipping oil in violation of international sanctions over the war in Ukraine.

According to the French maritime authorities for the Mediterranean, the tanker Deyna is suspected of operating under a false flag designation.

The interception took place in the Western Mediterranean and was carried out in cooperation with allies, including the United Kingdom, which monitored the ship, the authorities said.

"This operation aimed to verify the nationality of the vessel," which was flying the flag of Mozambique and was coming from the Russian port of Murmansk, the maritime authorities said in a statement.

The documents found onboard "confirmed doubts about the validity of the flag," they said.

The tanker was diverted and escorted by the French navy to an anchorage point for further checks, the statement said and the case was referred to a prosecutor in the port of Marseille.

In a post on X, Macron called the Deyna a "shadow fleet" vessel.

"These vessels, which circumvent international sanctions and violate the law of the sea, are war profiteers. They seek to generate profits and finance Russia’s war effort," Macron said. "We won't let this happen."

Russia is believed to be using a fleet of hundreds of ships to evade sanctions over its war against Ukraine. France and other countries have vowed to crack down.

In January, France's navy intercepted an oil tanker in the Mediterranean sailing from Russia. The vessel was released last month after paying a multimillion-euro penalty.

Last September, French naval forces boarded another oil tanker of France's Atlantic coast that Macron also linked to the shadow fleet.

Russian President Vladimir Putin denounced that interception as an act of piracy.



French Navy Stops Sanctioned Shadow Fleet Tanker Sailing Under False Flag

French troops boarding tanker
French forces boarding the tanker in the Western Mediterranean (Emmanuel Macron)

Published Mar 20, 2026 11:31 AM by The Maritime Executive


The French Navy, working with the UK, has stopped another sanctioned shadow fleet tanker sailing in the Mediterranean. The Navy reports the tanker Deyna (111,808 dwt) was stopped midday on March 20 for verification due to the suspicion that it was operating under a false flag.

French forces boarded the tanker by helicopter after reporting, along with the British, that they had been tracking the vessel, which sailed from Murmansk, Russia. The tanker’s AIS signal showed it was heading to the Suez Canal and likely to China. Images show the ship low in the water, laden with a cargo of crude.

The Deyna, built in 2005, is listed as having had its class withdrawn in March 2024 and does not show an inspection record since August 2024. It is listed as owned by Chinese interests, with the French reporting the vessel claimed to be operating under the flag of Mozambique. Equasis lists the flag as Tonga. Africa has become a recent hot spot for false flag operations, with both Madagascar and landlocked Zimbabwe warning the IMO last month of false flag claims.

The tanker was sanctioned by the United States in January 2025 for its involvement with the Russian oil industry and links to a company called Sino Ship Management. The European Union and the UK also sanctioned this tanker in 2025.

 

 

Armee Francaise reports that the initial verification efforts this morning confirmed its suspicion regarding the legitimacy of the flag, and the case was referred to the public prosecutor in Marseille. At the prosecutor’s request, the tanker is being escorted to an anchorage for continued inspections.

“These vessels, which evade international sanctions and violate the law of the sea, are profiteers of war. They line their pockets while helping finance Russia’s war effort,” declared French President Emmanuel Macron. “We remain resolute… The war involving Iran will not deflect France from its support for Ukraine, where Russia’s war of aggression continues unabated.”

It marks the third instance where French has reported detaining a shadow fleet tanker. In January, it stopped another tanker off Marseille but released it after paying several million euros in fines. Similarly, last September, France detained another tanker off the Atlantic coast. The captain of that tanker was being tried in France for disobeying instructions from the military.

Across Europe, there are increasing efforts to crack down on false-flag vessels. The French military assisted Belgium in stopping another tanker earlier in March. It was also released after paying a fine. Sweden this month has detained two vessels that it reports were sailing under false flags. Both cases are currently under investigation, with the captains placed under detention and facing possible felony charges for presenting false papers. Denmark is also detaining a containership linked to Iran after reporting it was also flying a false flag, but quickly changed to Iran when it was challenged.


French navy boards Russia-linked tanker

in Mediterranean


The French navy has boarded and seized an oil tanker sailing in the Western ‌Mediterranean from the Russian port of Murmansk accused of belonging to what has been dubbed Moscow's "shadow fleet", vessels of opaque ownership suspected of dodging Western sanctions on the country's crude oil exports.


Issued on: 20/03/2026

FRANCE 24


A French Navy helicopter hovers over the Deyna vessel, accused of belonging to Russia's "shadow fleet", during an operation in the Western Mediterranean Sea, on March 20, 2026. © Préfecture maritime de la Méditerranée via Reuters

The French navy intercepted an oil tanker sailing from Russia in the Mediterranean on Friday, as President Emmanuel Macron insisted France would press ahead with efforts to back Ukraine despite the Iran war.

This is the third such suspected "shadow fleet" tanker intercepted by France in recent months.

"This morning in the Mediterranean, the French Navy intercepted and boarded another vessel from the shadow fleet, the Deyna," Macron said on X.

Several European countries have targeted Moscow's so-called "shadow fleet" of tankers used to transport oil in breach of Western sanctions imposed over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, now in its fifth year.

Local authorities said the navy intercepted the Mozambican-flagged vessel – which sailed from Murmansk in northwestern Russia – over its registration.

The operation was carried out in coordination with other countries, including Britain, "which participated in tracking the vessel," the maritime prefecture said.

The ship will undergo further checks once anchored, it added.

The 250-metre (820-feet) tanker, which is on an EU sanctions list, was located near Spain's Balearic Islands and will be escorted to French waters in coming days, according to a source close to the investigation.

'Line their pockets'

Macron has pledged that France would maintain pressure on Russia to end its invasion of Ukraine.

The president on Friday labelled "shadow fleet" vessels "profiteers of war," accusing them of bypassing international sanctions and violating maritime law.

"They line their pockets while helping finance Russia's war effort," he said.

With global attention focused on the US-Israeli war with Iran, France will keep supporting Ukraine, Macron added.

"We remain resolute," he wrote in English.

"The war involving Iran will not deflect France from its support for Ukraine, where Russia's war of aggression continues unabated."

The United States has eased some restrictions on Russia's oil sales as it tries to stabilise global energy markets, upended by Iran blocking the Strait of Hormuz.

The move was criticised by Macron who pledged Russia would get no "respite" while German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said easing sanctions was "wrong".
Multi-million euro fine

French forces boarded another suspected Russian tanker, the Grinch, in January. But the ship was later let go after its owner paid a multi-million-euro fine.

In February, it was revealed that two employees of a Russian private security company were on another suspected Russian "shadow fleet" tanker seized by France in September, the Boracay.

The Chinese captain of the vessel went on trial in absentia, with prosecutors demanding he serve a one-year jail sentence for failing to follow orders to stop the ship.

Other European nations have also ramped up efforts to seize Russia-linked vessels.

In early March, Belgian special forces intercepted a tanker in the North Sea, with aerial support from France.

The Swedish coast guard last week arrested the Russian captain of a suspected "shadow fleet" vessel on suspicion of forging documents and violating the maritime code.

Nearly 600 vessels suspected of being part of Russia's "shadow fleet" are subject to European Union sanctions.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

 

Democracy fading as autocractic rulers gain ground – Statista


the latest Freedom in the World 2026 report found that democracy fell for the twentieth year in a row as autocractic rulers rise. / bne IntelliNews
By Felix Richter of Statistia March 20, 2026

Released on March 19, the latest Freedom in the World 2026 report finds that global freedom declined for the 20th consecutive year in 2025, with more countries experiencing a deterioration in political rights and civil liberties than improvements, Statista reports.

According to Freedom House, 54 countries saw their scores worsen, compared with just 35 registering gains, as armed conflict, coups and the erosion of democratic institutions continued to weigh on freedom worldwide.

This long-term trend is also reflected in the distribution of countries by freedom status. While the share of countries classified as “Free” has remained broadly stable since 2005, at around 45 percent, the proportion of “not free” countries has increased (from 25 to 30 percent), mainly at the expense of those rated “partly free” (from 30 to 25 percent). In fact, many countries that once occupied a middle ground have shifted toward more authoritarian forms of governance. Over the past two decades, 19 countries have fallen from “partly free” to “not free”, contributing to the expansion of the world’s autocracies, while only a limited number have improved their status and consolidated democratic institutions.

Among the most striking declines over the past two decades are countries such as Nicaragua and Venezuela, where democratic institutions have been steadily dismantled, as well as Mali, which has seen one of the largest score drops since 2005 following repeated coups. Elsewhere, notable setbacks have been recorded in countries such as Turkey and Hungary, while the United States has lost more points than any other country still classified as “free”. On the other hand, some countries have made meaningful progress, including Fiji and Malawi, which recently improved their status to “free”, alongside longer-term gains in countries such as Nepal ("partly free), Bhutan ("free") and Côte d’Ivoire ("partly free").

 

 

You will find more infographics at Statista

In all, 54 countries have experienced a deterioration in their political and civil liberties last year, while only 35 countries saw improvements. Guinea-Bissau, Tanzania, Burkina Faso, Madagascar and El Salvador saw their scores drop the furthest compared to last year, while Syria, Sri Lanka, Bolivia and Gabon saw the biggest gains.

Among the countries considered "not free", Sudan, Myanmar and Iran recorded further declines in their scores, as armed conflict and authoritarian repression resulted in profound human rights violations. Meanwhile the scores for Russia and China remained unchanged at 12 and 9 out of 100, respectively, as both countries continue to suppress anything resembling dissent, thereby crippling people's political and civil liberties.

Among the countries rated "free", Bulgaria, Italy and the United States saw the biggest declines. While Bulgaria and Italy saw their scores reduced in the face of widespread public corruption, the decline in freedom in the U.S. was attributed to a combination of long-term trends, such as chronic partisan gridlock, and more recent developments, i.e. the executive branch's assertion of unilateral authority and its threats and reprisals against any political opposition.

Overall, just three countries were assigned a new status, as Bolivia, Fiji and Malawi were upgraded from "partly free" to "free". According to Freedom House, these changes were driven by competitive national elections as well as growing judicial independence and strengthening of the rule of law.

The Freedom in the World Index is an index compiled annually by the U.S. NGO Freedom House, which evaluates civil and political freedom in states and territories around the world. The methodology is based on the Declaration of Human Rights as proclaimed by the United Nations (UN) in 1948 and is intended to assess the political rights and civil liberties of individuals rather than governments.

The countries/territories are evaluated by a team of internal and external analysts and expert advisors from a range of academia, think tanks and human rights communities, with the final scores being the result of a consensus between the analysts, a panel of outside advisors and Freedom House staff. Depending on the weighted index score for political rights and civil liberties, a country is classified as "free", "partly free" or "not free".

 You will find more infographics at Statista

Friday, March 20, 2026

 

African food security threats spike as Iran war strangles fertiliser supplies, prices soar

African food security threats spike as Iran war strangles fertiliser supplies, prices soar
/ bne IntelliNews
By Brian Kenety March 20, 2026

Conflict-driven disruption to fertiliser supply chains in the Middle East is raising the risk of price shocks across Africa, with analysts warning that benchmark urea prices could approach levels seen after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, when global prices roughly doubled, impacting food security.

Africa imports more than 6mn tonnes of fertiliser annually and remains heavily dependent on external suppliers, particularly for nitrogen-based products such as urea and ammonia produced in the Gulf. Disruptions to shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, a key maritime corridor, have tightened supply and increased costs.

Urea export prices in the Middle East had risen by around 40% to above $700 per tonne as of mid-March from below $500 prior to the US and Israel joint attacks on Iran, according to Argus, a specialist energy and commodities price reporting agency, highlighting the market’s sensitivity to geopolitical shocks.

Fertiliser markets are structurally vulnerable because production is concentrated in a small number of exporting regions, while most sub-Saharan African countries lack domestic manufacturing capacity. A handful of North African producers, Morocco, Egypt and Algeria, dominate continental output, but exports are insufficient to meet broader regional demand.

Egypt, which supplies about 8% of globally traded urea, may struggle to produce nitrogen fertiliser after Israel declared force majeure on gas exports to the country, according to Scotiabank and Rabobank analysts. Prices for nitrogen-based fertilisers such as urea could roughly double if the Iran war, now in its third week, drags on.

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has warned that fertiliser affordability is a key factor affecting crop production in developing economies, where farmers often cut fertiliser use when prices rise. Lower fertiliser use can quickly translate into reduced crop yields, particularly for staple crops such as maize, wheat and rice.

The most important fertilisers in the short term are nitrogen-based products such as urea: if farmers do not apply them for one season, yields will suffer, with the same true, to a lesser extent, for other key products such as those based on phosphate and potassium.

In many African countries, farmers already apply less than 20kg of fertiliser per hectare, compared with a global average of about 140kg per hectare. The 2022 fertiliser crisis triggered by the war in Ukraine forced many farmers to further reduce these already low application rates, resulting in even weaker crop yields – and higher food prices.

Svein Tore Holsether, chief executive of Yara International (OSE:YAR), warned that prolonged disruption to Gulf supply routes could have severe consequences for agriculture. “If the Strait of Hormuz was closed for a year it would be catastrophic,” he said, as quoted by The Guardian, adding that fertiliser markets are facing pressure from both supply constraints and rising gas prices, “a double impact”.

Holsether added that Europe would always be able to outbid poorer countries. “The countries that are most vulnerable still pay the highest price,” he said. “In a global auction for fertiliser, Europe will have stronger buying power than poorer parts of the world, we need to keep in mind the magnitude of this before it is too late.”

The 2022 Russia-Ukraine fertiliser crisis sent urea to $925 per tonne, anhydrous ammonia above $1,635 per tonne at retail, and DAP above $1,000 per tonne, according to ProFarmer.

“The current crisis shares similarities, but there are key differences. For one, the Gulf’s exposure is much higher. Also, Russian fertiliser wasn’t removed from the market in 2022, but was instead rerouted. In 2026, there are fewer options for products trapped behind a closed Strait,” the industry publication writes.

Fertiliser costs are a key input in agricultural production, and price increases are typically passed through to consumers. The World Bank has previously warned that fertiliser price spikes feed directly into food inflation, particularly in import-dependent economies.

The continent’s largest agricultural economies — including Kenya, Ethiopia and Ghana — depend on imported fertiliser supplies to maintain crop yields. Price increases can therefore quickly translate into higher food prices and increased fiscal pressure on governments that subsidise fertiliser purchases.

Larger economies such as Ethiopia, Tanzania and Zambia also depend on imports despite growing demand, as local production capacity remains insufficient. Meanwhile, according to the UN’s trade and development agency (Unctad), more than half of war-torn Sudan’s fertiliser comes from the region, while for famine-prone Somalia the figure is close to one-third.

According to the Global Hunger Index 2025, hunger is considered “alarming” in seven countries worldwide, all but two of them in Africa: Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Madagascar, Somalia and South Sudan, while hunger remains “serious” across much of sub-Saharan Africa.

“Conflict remains the most destructive force driving hunger. Armed violence fuelled 20 food crises affecting nearly 140 million people in the past year. The wars in Gaza and Sudan illustrate how conflict devastates both livelihoods and lifelines: global famine-level food insecurity, concentrated largely in those two settings, more than doubled between 2023 and 2024,” the GHI report states. 

Wednesday, March 18, 2026

‘Things Are Not Okay’: US Threatens to Withhold HIV Funding Unless Zambia Allows Plunder of Its Minerals

“The State Department is threatening Zambia with an embargo on essential medicines in order to plunder its minerals,” said one HIV prevention advocate.



HIV activists protest to demand that the Trump administration and Congress fully restore the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) programming in the lobby of the Cannon House Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on March 5, 2026.

(Photo by Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)

Stephen Prager
Mar 17, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

The US State Department is threatening to strip HIV/AIDS and other disease prevention funds for more than a million people in the African nation of Zambia in a bid to extort the country for greater access to its mineral wealth.

The New York Times reported Monday on the draft of a memo prepared for Secretary of State Marco Rubio, which states that “we will only secure our priorities by demonstrating willingness to publicly take support away from Zambia on a massive scale.”

The Trump administration is considering whether to “significantly cut assistance” from the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which provides daily HIV treatment to around 1.3 million Zambians and other funds for tuberculosis and malaria medications that save tens of thousands of lives each year.

At the time that PEPFAR was created, under the administration of President George W. Bush, HIV was killing around 90,000 people per year in Zambia. That number had been reduced to 16,000 in 2024, according to data from the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).



“Things are not okay,” said Justin Wolfers, an economics professor at the University of Michigan and a Brookings Institution fellow.

Threats to cut PEPFAR are part of a broader push by the Trump administration to wield desperately needed foreign medical aid as a tool of coercion against impoverished nations, whose health systems have been thrown into turmoil by the Trump administration’s massive cuts to the US Agency for International Development (USAID) last year.

According to the Times, 24 African nations have signed memoranda of understanding (MOU) under the Trump administration’s so-called “America First Global Health Strategy” in order to unlock some US funding that has been cut.

Many of the deals require nations to increase their own health spending in order to restore just a fraction of what the US previously provided:

“According to an analysis by the nonprofit Partners in Health, health funding under the agreements would drop by 69% to Rwanda, 61% to Madagascar, 42% to Liberia, and 34% to Eswatini, where a quarter of adults live with HIV,” the Times reported in January.

Meanwhile, the deals have come with other, often ideological, strings attached. Kenya’s memorandum requires it to provide data guaranteeing that no funding is being used for abortion care, and to direct funds to certain Christian faith-based providers, even though they refuse services like HIV care to LGBTQ+ people.

Nigeria’s agreement likewise requires more than $200 million to over 900 Christian faith-based healthcare facilities across the country and emphasizes protecting Christian victims of violence from the Islamist group Boko Haram, even though the majority of the group’s victims are Muslim.

Some countries have rejected the deals, calling them one-sided and exploitative. Last month, Zimbabwe walked away from a deal that would have provided $367 million over five years because it required the country to give the US unfettered access to citizens’ health data and biological samples.

The deal offered to Zambia is similar to those offered to other countries in that it requires the government to commit $340 million in health spending in exchange for $1 billion from the US over five years, less than half of what it received under previous US administrations. It also demands that Zambia provide citizens’ health data to the US for 10 years, longer than the deals agreed to by other nations.

But the deal also stipulates that, to receive any funding, Zambia must provide US corporations with easier access to the nation’s vast mineral wealth.

Zambia has some of the world’s largest reserves of minerals such as copper, lithium, and cobalt, which are essential to green energy technology. The Trump administration says the country has given China greater access to its mines than it has given to the US.

Zambia would also be required to share mining databases with US experts and renegotiate a massive 2024 contract with the Millennium Challenge Corporation, a US-based foreign assistance agency, to reduce mining regulations.

After the terms of the deal leaked to The Guardian last month, Asia Russell, director of the HIV advocacy organisation Health GAP, derided it as a proposal for the “shameless exploitation” of Zambia.

In February, Zambia rejected the deal, with a spokesperson for the Ministry of Health saying it “did not align with the position and interests of Zambia.”

Now the Trump administration is using HIV treatment funding in an effort to force its leaders back to the table and make an example of them for other countries that may seek to go their own way.

The memo describes threats to AIDS funding as a way to demonstrate the “use of sticks” to other countries with which it seeks to negotiate.

If Zambia refuses to sign, it says, “sharp public cuts to American foreign assistance would significantly demonstrate to aid-receiving countries the seriousness of our interest in collaboration and our insistence on tangible benefits under our America First foreign policy.”

Zambia has already been stripped of more than half its annual PEPFAR funding from the US since the Trump administration returned to power last year through a combination of foreign aid freezes, rescissions, and budget cuts that stripped billions from the program.

A survey of 76 HIV clinics across 32 mostly African countries that received PEPFAR funds, conducted by the International Epidemiology Databases to Evaluate AIDS (IeDEA) consortium, found that, as a result of cuts, many experienced disruptions to testing and treatment, including drug shortages and staff layoffs.

Citing modeling studies, the researchers estimated that funding disruptions to PEPFAR just last year “resulted in more than 120,000 deaths by November 2025, including more than 13,000 child deaths.”

Another study by Imperial College London predicted that just the three-month disruption at the beginning of President Donald Trump’s second term would result in more than 37,400 excess deaths by 2060.



In a statement posted to social media on Monday, Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee defended the threats to cut PEPFAR, saying that “Just like every other country, Zambia is free to walk away from these negotiations.” The REpublicans said it was “ridiculous to assume the United States should fund entire health systems for countries that turn around and give priority access to critical supply chains to China.”

Russell said that “the State Department is threatening Zambia with an embargo on essential medicines in order to plunder its minerals.”

While she said “Zambia’s MOU text is the first we know of that explicitly ties exploitation of mineral wealth,” she noted that similar “exploitative conditions” are reportedly part of other nations’ memoranda as well, but that information is scarce because they have been “negotiated in secret” and texts have not been made public.

Julius Kachidza, the chair of Zambia’s Civil Society Self-Coordinating Mechanism, said that yet another massive cut in US government funding “would be apocalyptic. It could be quite a disaster, especially to me. And the majority of people living with HIV in Zambia.”