The Fruit of Islam (F.O.I., the men of the Nation of Islam) continue the mission of propagation and sharing the faith of Islam by bringing the Teachings of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad directly to the people through The Final Call newspaper.
Every week, whether rain, snow, or intense heat, the F.O.I. strive to be like their teacher, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, by being in the highways and byways of cities large and small, striving to make our communities a decent and safe place to live.
We thank the F.O.I for their dedicated service.
Greensboro, NCMiamiOrlando, FloridaBostonSt. Louis Photo courtesy of Hashim HakimEl Dorado, Arkan
A satellite image taken near Puntland's Bosaso airport on March 5, 2025 shows an Israeli-made ELM-2084 3D Active Electronically Scanned Array Multi-Mission Radar supplied by the UAE. (By Google Earth)
The United Arab Emirates has reportedly deployed an Israeli military radar to Somalia’s Puntland to monitor anti-Israel attacks conducted by Yemen in support of Palestinians subjected to genocide in Gaza.
According to satellite imagery from early March, the Israeli-made ELM-2084 3D Active Electronically Scanned Array Multi-Mission Radar, which is one of the components of Israel’s Iron Dome system, was installed near Bosaso airport.
US-based Watan newspaper reported this week that the radar is aimed at monitoring strikes conducted by Yemeni forces against Israeli targets in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
“This indicates that Abu Dhabi is conducting a monitoring and protection operation on behalf of Tel Aviv from African soil,” the daily said, citing familiar sources.
According to the sources, the UAE is also facilitating negotiations for the establishment of an Israeli base in Somaliland, which declared independence from Mogadishu in 1991, in return for promises to promote international recognition of the region that lies on the Gulf of Aden.
Israeli newspaper Haaretz last year reported that Israel, with Emirati support, aims to establish a military base in Somaliland to counter the Yemeni forces.
On Thursday, Middle East Eye also cited a regional source as saying that the radar was deployed at the airport late last year.
Meanwhile, MEE cited other sources as saying the deployment took place as the UAE has been using Bosaso airport to militarily support the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan.
“The UAE installed the radar shortly after the RSF lost control of most of Khartoum in early March,” a regional source told MEE.
“The radar’s purpose is to detect and provide early warning against drone or missile threats, particularly those potentially launched by the Houthis, targeting Bosaso from outside,” the source added, referring to forces of Yemen’s military and its Ansarullah resistance movement.
Sudan has accused the UAE at the International Court of Justice of violating the Genocide Convention by supporting paramilitary forces in its Darfur region.
Two separate Somali sources, cited by MEE, claimed that Puntland’s President Said Abdullahi Deni did not seek approval from Somalia’s federal government or the Puntland parliament for this arrangement.
“This is a secret deal, and even the highest levels of Puntland’s government, including the cabinet, are unaware of it,” said one Somali source with direct knowledge of the issue.
Since the onset of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, Yemeni forces have carried out scores of operations in support of the war-hit Gazans, striking targets throughout the occupied Palestinian territories, in addition to targeting Israeli ships or vessels heading towards ports in the occupied territories.
The White House has published a document confirming that China's 34% tariff rate - set to come into effect in a few hours - will be increased to 84%.
Chinese exports to the US had already been subjected to 20% tariffs. This means that the total tariffs on Chinese goods will reach a whopping 104%.
The move comes "in recognition of the fact that the PRC has announced that it will retaliate against the United States", the White House statement reads.
After Trump unveiled a 34% so-called "reciprocal" tariff on Chinese goods, China slapped its own 34% counter-tariff on US goods.
Demonstrators carry a banner and block an entrance to the Google I/O conference in Mountain View, California on May 14, 2024. (Photo by Albert Arhó)
Google paid $32 billion earlier this week in order to purchase Israeli cybersecurity company Wiz, which is run and staffed by dozens of ex-Unit 8200 members, the specialist cyber-spying arm of the Israeli military.
The acquisition will mark the single largest transfer of former Israeli spies into an American company.
Israel’s Unit 8200 is a secretive cyber warfare team that is said to be building the artificial intelligence (AI) systems that helped the regime commit the genocide against Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.
Unit 8200 wrote the programming and designed the algorithms that automated the genocide of Gaza and was also responsible for the pager attack in Lebanon. Now the men and women who helped design the architecture of apartheid are swallowed by the US tech-surveillance complex.
Advocacy groups say AI and machine learning are central to the architecture of occupation and apartheid established before the genocidal Gaza campaign, from the use of facial recognition technology, and AI-directed guns at checkpoints, to spy apps known as ‘Blue Wolf’ and ‘Red Wolf’.
The Wiz deal represents a huge tax coup for the Israeli regime. It will bring around $5 billion dollars in revenue for the war economy, or around 0.6% of Israel’s entire GDP. Zionists have already expressed the benefits in terms of the warplanes and missiles they will pay for to conduct genocide.
Google is heavily invested in Israel. It opened offices there nearly 20 years ago, has bought a number of Israeli start-up tech companies in recent years, and former CEO Eric Schmidt has pledged loyalty to Netanyahu on numerous occasions over the years.
All the key figures at Google and its mother company, Alphabet, are proud Zionists. From Schmidt to current CEO Sundar Pichai to founder Sergey Brin to Anat Ashkenazi, the chief financial officer of Alphabet.
At a time when Israel’s economy is faltering, the regime is experiencing an outflow of people, its military can’t win in Gaza and Netanyahu is in deep trouble, the Wiz deal provides a much-needed tonic.
It keeps a critical business sector for Israel ticking over and provides a reassuring sense of business as usual in a blood-soaked land.
This image shows a copper and cobalt mine northwest of Lubumbashi in the Democratic Republic of Congo, January 29, 2013. (Photo by Reuters)
The United States is reportedly engaged in exploratory talks with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) regarding a potential deal on rare earth elements, marking the latest effort by the Donald Trump administration to secure access to vital resources overseas following unsuccessful negotiations with Ukraine.
According to a report published in the Financial Times (FT) on Saturday, the proposed agreement involves the US gaining access to crucial minerals in exchange for providing security assistance to the African nation.
FT cited unnamed sources as saying talks between Washington and Kinshasa about a potential mineral deal have intensified recently, “although several obstacles remain” and they are “at a relatively early stage.”
According to reports by the United Nations, rebels backed by Rwandan troops have taken large swathes of land in eastern DRC, looting the resources of the mineral-rich region.
Kinshasa “invites the USA, whose companies source strategic raw materials from Rwanda ... to purchase them directly from us the rightful owners,” Tina Salama, a spokesperson for President Felix Tshisekedi, wrote on X last month.
Rebels are aiming to consolidate their hold in Congo’s east, which has trillions of dollars of mostly untapped mineral wealth, including cobalt, lithium, tantalum, and uranium.
In this regard, DRC Senator Pierre Kanda Kalambayi has sent a letter to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, urging the Americans to partner up with Kinasha.
“The United States is well-positioned to forge an enduring partnership with the DRC – a nation that possesses over $24 trillion in untapped reserves of critical minerals,” Kalambayi -- who chairs the Senate’s Committee on Defense, Security and Border Protection -- wrote in his letter.
He said, in return for minerals, the African nation would expect the US military to increase its cooperation with Kinshasa’s forces, including training and arming them with weapons and equipment.
Late last month, an anticipated deal for Ukraine to hand over natural resources revenues to the United States, abruptly fell apart during an explosive meeting in the Oval Office.
Over the meeting, President Trump and Vice President JD Vance harshly criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for not being grateful enough for US support, and sought to strong-arm him into making a peace deal with Russia to end the war.
The planned signing of the US-Ukraine agreement did not happen, and Zelensky left the White House grounds without answering reporters’ questions.
Iftar and fundraiser for Sudan at the Sudanese Community Center in West Philadelphia. The event was sponsored by Philly For Sudan and The Llah Organization. Photo: Nabil Muhammad
During this holy month of Ramadan, I attended an iftar (daily breaking of the fast) and fundraiser held March 15 at the West Philadelphia-based Sudanese American Community Center.
The funds raised at the iftar will go to Sudan-based “ground organizations who are providing food, shelter, medical supplies and medical help,” for the displaced, mostly women and children, said Tibian el-Sharief, a member of Philly For Sudan, one of two organizations sponsoring the event. The money was collected from ticket sales, donations and an auction.
Ms. Sharief is the daughter of Sudanese-born parents. She is a social worker and a nursing student. Her organization consists of youth activists and was founded to promote the liberation of Sudan, raise awareness about the proxy war happening in Sudan, and also
“create or build active Sudanese communities in the United States.” She explained Philly For Sudan is also involved in creative ways of “supporting the efforts of Sudanese youth and organizations on the ground in Sudan.”
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Tahya Eldreny is chief operating officer and co-founder of the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania-based, all-volunteer LLAH Organization, and a co-sponsor of the iftar. “We came here to hold our very first event in Philadelphia, to help fundraise for Sudan. We have organized this event in collaboration with Philly For Sudan.”
Ms. Eldreny, was born in Egypt and came to America when she was 11. Members of her organization are very diverse, she explained. “We have members from Sudan, Egypt, Palestine and Lebanon. We also have members from Tunisia, Morocco and Nigeria. So, it’s a very diverse organization.”
Concerning Sudan, Ms. Eldreny said, “It’s a country that has been abused by a lot of foreign powers and also by neighboring countries, which is very unfortunate.”
She added, “The problem when it comes to Sudan, along with other African countries, people just think we were made for this. People don’t pay attention to African causes. They think that we have always been poor, we have always been struggling, which is very untrue.”
“How come we (appear to have always) been violent when we were only introduced to a gun when we were colonized? So, when it comes to African issues, it’s very unfortunate that when we are advocating about our causes, we have to humanize our own experience as Africans and tell them that what we’re going through is not normal, and it’s not okay, just because we’re African,” said Ms. Eldreny.
“Our African history was never about violence, was never about corruption, was never about hatred. We were quite the opposite. We are a people that lived very peacefully and who existed in such a beautiful way with simple rules of humanity,” she continued.
Ms. Eldreny notes the downward spiraling of Africa as a civilization came “when others (mainly Europeans and Americans) learned that we had (natural and mineral) resources that we did not abuse. So, they came to abuse it. And this is what brings us back to Sudan,” she said.
Sudan is a country that was colonized for so many years and was the victim of corruption in government, Ms. Eldreny explained. That corruption “still serves the colonizers who left just a few years ago,” she added.
As Sudan’s civil war approaches two years on April 15, the spiraling out-of-control war-torn country appears to be hurling toward a complex and divisive abyss. “The next phase of developments in Sudan.
Africa’s third largest country by area bordering seven countries and the strategic Red Sea, may have far-reaching consequences for the politically fragile Horn of Africa,” penned Mahesh Sachdev, the president of Eco-Diplomacy & Strategies, a consult and advisory firm in Delhi, India.
In the former ambassador’s opinion piece, on ndtv.com titled, “Sudan Is Staring At A Second Partition, Thanks To Two Warlords,” he suggests a second partisan may be inevitable. The first was the creation of the U.S.-encouraged, “failed” state of South Sudan, Africa’s latest nation-state.
According to Sachdev “… some observers see an east-west partition of Sudan as a natural progression in the unwinnable civil war. They expect that such a division would bring an end to the spread-out civil war that has devastated the entire country.”
China has put forward a five-point proposal aimed at addressing Western-fueled disputes over Iran’s nuclear energy program, rejecting the use of force and illegal sanctions against the Islamic Republic and urging the United States to adopt a “sincere” political attitude towards the matter.
The initiative was announced by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi during a high-level meeting in Beijing on March 14, where he met with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov and Kazem Gharibabadi, an Iranian deputy foreign minister.
The proposal emphasizes resolving the disputes through peaceful, political, and diplomatic means, explicitly rejecting the use of coercion and unlawful coercive economic measures that the U.S. and its allies have been indulging in.
It urges all parties to uphold “common, comprehensive, cooperative, and sustainable security” while working to create conditions for resumption of dialogue and negotiation involving all the concerned sides.
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‘Balance in rights, responsibilities’
Among its key points, the plan stresses the need to balance rights and responsibilities, affirming Iran’s right to pursue peaceful nuclear energy as a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation (NPT).
China also calls for renewed commitment to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a 2015 nuclear agreement between the Islamic Republic and world countries, including the U.S., China, and Russia—which was left by Washington in 2018—as the foundation for new consensus.
In the same context, Beijing urges the United States to demonstrate “political sincerity” by returning to negotiations without preconditions.
Additionally, the Chinese foreign minister warned against any hasty intervention by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), cautioning that initiating the so-called “snapback mechanism”—whose application restores all of the UN’s sanctions against Iran—”could undo years of diplomatic progress.”
Instead, he calls for a step-by-step, reciprocal approach where all sides engage in constructive dialogue and seek mutually acceptable solutions through consultation.
The proposal came amid Western sanctions against Iran, threats of military action, and threats of initiating the “snapback.”
The West tries to justify the drive, which observers denounce as headstrong and irresponsible, by accusing Tehran of diverting its nuclear work towards “military purposes” and alleging lack of proper cooperation between the country and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear agency.
The campaign comes while Iran remains the most verified Member State of the IAEA, having been subject to the agency’s most comprehensive and frequent verification processes over decades.
Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei—through a relevant fatwa (religious decree)—has banned pursuance, acquisition, and storage of non-conventional weapons by the Islamic Republic that remains a signatory to the NPT at the same time.
Beijing’s proposal came as part of its push for de-escalation and facilitation of negotiations to maintain regional and global stability.
It, meanwhile, chimed in with Russia’s stiff opposition of restoration of the UN’s anti-Iran sanctions.
Earlier this month, Russia’s Permanent Representative to International Organizations in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov had likewise condemned an effort on the part of the UK, France, and Germany—the U.S.’s allies in the JCPOA—to activate the “snapback.”
Ulyanov had reminded that with their violations of the JCPOA, the trio had lost any right to invoke the deal’s mechanisms, including the snapback provision. “We recommend that Berlin, London, and Paris abandon their illusions about the snapback and instead focus on finding a political and diplomatic way out of the situation they have created,” the official had said.
Russia has also expressed strong opposition to Washington’s “maximum pressure” strategy concerning Iran, under which it has returned and even intensified the sanctions and left the nuclear deal.
Moscow has argued that the American attitude undermined regional stability and diplomatic efforts, reminding that Tehran remained in compliance with its obligations under the NPT and that any alleged concerns had to be addressed through dialogue rather than forceful measures.
KULA, Hawaii (AP) — The car tires, propane tanks, gas generators and rusty appliances heaped on the side of a dirt road waiting to be hauled away filled Desiree Graham with relief.
“That means all that stuff is not in people’s yards,” she said on a blustery July day in Kahikinui, a remote Native Hawaiian homestead community in southeast Maui where wildfire is a top concern.
In June, neighbors and volunteers spent four weekends clearing rubbish from their properties in a community-wide effort to create “defensible space,” or areas around homes free of ignitable vegetation and debris. They purged 12 tons of waste.
“It’s ugly, but it’s pretty beautiful to me,” said Graham, a member of Kahikinui’s Firewise committee, part of a rapidly growing program from the nonprofit National Fire Protection Association that helps residents assess their communities’ fire risk and create plans to mitigate it.
Propane tanks and discarded tires are temporarily stored at Kahikinui homestead on Sunday, July 7, 2024, in Kahikinui, Hawaii. Residents were asked to remove unused items to reduce fire risks. (AP Photo/Mengshin Lin)
Unused refrigerators and generators are temporarily stored at Kahikinui homestead on Sunday, July 7, 2024, in Kahikinui, Hawaii. Residents were asked to remove unused items to reduce fire risks. (AP Photo/Mengshin Lin)
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Kahikinui is one of dozens of Hawaii communities seeking ways to protect themselves as decades of climate change, urban development, and detrimental land use policies culminate to cause more destructive fires.
The state has 250,000 acres of unmanaged fallow agricultural land, nearly all of its buildings sit within the wildland-urban interface, and two-thirds of communities have only one road in and out.
But experts say that even with so many factors out of communities’ control, they can vastly improve their resilience — by transforming their own neighborhoods.
“Fire is not like other natural hazards, it can only move where there is fuel, and we have a lot of say in that,” said Nani Barretto, co-executive director of the Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization (HWMO), a 25-year-old nonprofit at the forefront of the state’s fire-risk mitigation.
Neighborhoods all over the United States are wrestling with the same challenge, some in places that never worried about fire before. A recent Headwaters Economics analysis found 1,100 communities in 32 states shared similar risk profiles to places recently devastated by urban wildfires.
A ‘Firewise’ movement
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HWMO helps communities like Kahikinui become Firewise. In the 10 years preceding the August 2023 Maui fires that destroyed Lahaina, 15 Hawaii communities joined Firewise USA. Since then, the number has more than doubled to 31, with a dozen more in the process of joining.
“Everyone was like, ’My God, what can we do?’” said Shelly Aina, former chair of the Firewise committee for Waikoloa Village, an 8,000-resident community on the west side of the Big Island, recalling the months after the Maui fires.
The development — heavily wind exposed, surrounded by dry invasive grasses and with just one main road in and out — had already experienced several close calls in the last two decades. It was first recognized as Firewise in 2016.
As HWMO-trained home assessors, Shelly and her husband Dana Aina have done over 60 free assessments for neighbors since 2022, evaluating their properties for ignition vulnerabilities. Volunteers removed kiawe trees last year along a fuel break bordering houses. Residents approved an extra HOA fee for vegetation removal on interior lots.
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Measures like these can have outsized impact as people in fire-prone states adapt to more extreme wildfires, according to Dr. Jack Cohen, a retired U.S. Forest Service scientist.
“The solution is in the community, not out there with the fire breaks, because those don’t stop the fire in extreme conditions,” said Cohen.
Harriet Parsons, a firewise community support specialist for the Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization, points to the drylands behind a house in her community, Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2025, in Kamuela, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Mengshin Lin)
Palm trees stand in front of a house in Waikoloa Village, Hawaii, Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Mengshin Lin)
Direct flames from a wildfire aren’t what typically initiate an urban conflagration, he said. Wind-blown embers can travel miles away from a fire, landing on combustible material like dry vegetation, or accumulating in corners like where a deck meets siding.
“They’re urban fires, not wildfires,” said Cohen.
The solutions don’t always require expensive retrofits like a whole new roof, but targeting the specific places within 100 feet of the house where embers could ignite material. In dense neighborhoods, that requires residents work together, making community-wide efforts like Firewise important. “The house is only as ignition resistant as its neighbors,” said Cohen.
Communities can’t transform alone
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Even with renewed interest in fire resilience, community leaders face challenges in mobilizing their neighbors. Mitigation can take money, time and sacrifice. It’s not enough to cut the grass once, for example, vegetation has to be regularly maintained. Complacency sets in. Measures like removing hazardous trees can cost thousands of dollars.
“I don’t know how we deal with that, because those who have them can’t afford to take them down,” said Shelly Aina. The Ainas try offering low-cost measures, like installing metal screening behind vents and crawl spaces to keep out embers.
HWMO helps with costs where it can. It gave Kahikinui a $5,000 grant for a dumpster service to haul out its waste, and helped Waikoloa Village rent a chipper for the trees it removed. It’s been hard to keep up with the need, said Barretto, but even just a little bit of financial assistance can have an exponential impact.
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“You give them money, they rally,” she said. “We can give them $1,000 and it turns into 1,000 man hours of doing the clearing.” HWMO was able to expand its grant program after the Maui fires with donations from organizations like the Bezos Earth Fund and the American Red Cross.
At a time when federal funding for climate mitigation is uncertain, communities need far more financial support to transform their neighborhoods, said Headwaters Economics’ Kimi Barrett, who studies the costs of increasing fire risk. “If what we’re trying to do is save people and communities, then we must significantly invest in people and communities,” said Barrett.
Those investments are just a fraction of the billions of dollars in losses sustained after megafires, said Barrett. A recent study by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Allstate found that $1 in resilience and preparation investment can save $13 in economic and property losses after a disaster.
Sheep graze at Kahikinui Homestead on Sunday, July 7, 2024, in Kahikinui, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Mengshin Lin)
An aerial view shows the landscape of Waikoloa Village, Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2025, in Hawaii. (AP Photo/Mengshin Lin)
Another hurdle is asking residents to do work and make sacrifices as they watch others neglect their role. “The neighbors will ask, ‘What about the county land?’ There’s no routine maintenance,’” said Shelly Aina.
Her husband Dana Aina said he reminds people that it is everyone’s kuleana, or responsibility, to take care of land and people. “An island is a canoe, a canoe is an island,” he said, quoting a Hawaiian proverb. “We all have to paddle together.”
Bigger stakeholders are starting to make changes. Among them, Hawaii passed legislation to create a state fire marshal post, and its main utility, Hawaiian Electric, is undergrounding some power lines and installing AI-enabled cameras to detect ignitions earlier.
Meanwhile, Firewise communities have found that doing their own mitigation gives them more clout when asking for funding or for others to do their part.
After the 66-residence community of Kawaihae Village on Hawaii Island joined Firewise, they were finally able to get a neighboring private landowner and the state to create fuel breaks and clear grasses.
“Without that we wouldn’t have been on anyone’s radar,” said Brenda DuFresne, committee member of Kawaihae Firewise. “I think Firewise is a way to show people that you’re willing to help yourself.”
What to know about Firewise USA:
2,781 Firewise communities in the United States
474 communities recognized in 2024, more than in any previous year
Communities become Firewise by organizing a committee, creating a hazard assessment, developing an action plan and volunteering hours toward reducing risk
Individual homeowners in California and Oregon who take certain mitigation measures can also apply for the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety (IBHS) “Wildfire Prepared Home” designation
Joining these programs doesn’t guarantee insurance coverage or premium discounts, but some insurance companies are starting to recognize mitigation measures. Ask your provider.
