Spotlight! – This Week – 1/1/19 – 1/26/19

Under­re­port­ed and crit­i­cal news from and about Africa.

Israel Threat­ens African Migrants with Impris­on­ment, Deportation

The gov­ern­ment of Israel recent­ly issued an order, ask­ing African migrants, refugees, to leave the coun­try with­in a few months or face deportation.

That’s accord­ing to many news orga­ni­za­tions, includ­ing the U.K. Inde­pen­dent which writes that the Israeli gov­ern­ment has char­ac­ter­ized the migrants as “infil­tra­tors” who threat­en the very nature and char­ac­ter of the Israeli nation.

Con­sid­ered the Holy Land, the place of the birth of Jesus Christ, Israel is thought of as that place where the poor and deject­ed can go and seek solace in times of need.

The Times of Israel reports that some in the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty in Israel are push­ing back against their own gov­ern­ment after such a harsh decision.

Here is how oth­er out­lets report­ed on the same story.

BBC News: Israel: African migrants told to leave or face imprisonment

DW News:  African migrants in Israel face mass depor­ta­tion – or imprisonment

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Italy and France Spar over Migra­tion from Africa

After Italy accused the gov­ern­ment of French pres­i­dent Emmanuel Macron of its exploita­tion of African nations which Italy said was the rea­son many African migrants are pour­ing into Europe, the French react­ed quick­ly and angrily.

It is report­ed by many news out­lets that France called in Italy’s ambas­sador for ques­tion­ing on Jan­u­ary 22 fol­low­ing the neg­a­tive remarks made by Ital­ians leaders.

Accord­ing to the British Broad­cast­ing Cor­po­ra­tion (BBC), Ital­ian Deputy Prime Min­is­ter, Liu­gi Di Maoi accused the French gov­ern­ment of manip­u­lat­ing the cur­ren­cies of its for­mer colonies in Africa to the ben­e­fit of France and to the detri­ment of those countries.

A deep­er analy­sis by U.S. News and World report states that the con­tention between the two Euro­pean Union (EU) nations goes beyond the issue of migra­tion from Africa into Europe.

Luke Bak­er of U.S. News and World Report writes:

“The rise in ten­sion shows how divi­sive the May 23–26 elec­tion is set to be, and hints at shifts in Europe’s polit­i­cal land­scape that resem­ble pop­ulism in the Unit­ed States, with fringe par­ties look­ing to over­turn cen­trists like Macron.”

Here is how oth­er out­lets report­ed on the same story.

This Is Africa: Italy’s Deputy Prime Min­is­ter says France cre­ates pover­ty in Africa