Africa's Last Colony - Understanding Western Sahara

Support us on Patreon!   According to an update on the World Health Organization website from July 27th: "Nearly one in five children under five in Gaza city is now acutely malnourished." Additionally: "It is not only hunger that is killing people, but also the desperate search for food. Families are being forced to risk their lives for a handful of food, often under dangerous and chaotic conditions. Since 27 May, more than 1,060 people have been killed and 7200 injured while trying to access food."   Our guest for this show is Dr. Assal Rad. Dr. Rad received her PhD in Middle Eastern History from the University of California, Irvine in 2018. Her PhD research focused on Modern Iran, with an emphasis on national identity formation, and identity in post-revolutionary Iran. She's also author of "The State of Resistance: Politics, Culture, and Identity in Modern Iran.    More recently Dr. Rad has used her platforms on Twitter and Instagram to expose and deconstruct what can only be described as institutionalized media malpractice concerning coverage of the ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, and regarding Israel's unprovoked attack on Iran between the 13th and 24th of June. These topics form the basis for our rather free-form conversation, where I also answer her questions about my brief detention and torture by Israeli forces in the West Bank, back in May.    For more information about Dr. Rad's academic work and public advocacy, follow her on Instagram and Twitter: @assalrad_ You can also follow me: @_mad_maddox   Other links: Latitude Adjustment Pod.com Youtube    

Latitude Adjustment Podcast is back, after a 20-month hiatus!  As always, you can support our work on Patreon with one click! Where have I been? Well, I'll be piecing that together for you over the next three episodes, but in short, after nearly 12 years of nonstop international travel and work I needed to take a pause and return to the US for about a year and a half, just to have a little more financial and locational stability in my life. During that time I spent a couple of years as a public high school teacher in an underserved community Houston, Texas. Not an experience that I enjoyed, but an experience that got me reconnected to many of the social, economic, and political challenges facing immigrant and minority communities in a state, and a country, that treats them with increasing contempt and hostility. More recently I returned to the West Bank, in June, for the first time since completing my graduate research there in 2008. During my time there I was arrested by Israeli occupation police who then hooded, tortured, and attempted to interrogate me, after I had been filming the march of illegal Israeli settlers through the old town of Hebron. I'll get into that ordeal in more detail in other episodes, but you can also find videos of my arrest as well as an interview that I did on Breaking Points at my new Instagram account @_mad_maddox and at the link in my bio there. ... Dr. Mohammed Mustafa, or Dr. Mo as he's affectionately known, is an English-Australian emergency physician trainee, humanitarian, and former international athlete of Palestinian heritage. Dr. Mo, also known by his social media handle "Beast from the Middle East", is the first Palestinian to represent the United Kingdom in international rugby, having also won European titles in jiu-jitsu.  Born into a Palestinian refugee family, Dr Mo pursued medical training across Britain and Australia, driven by a profound commitment to human rights and the belief that healthcare is a fundamental right. His upbringing, shaped by resilience and displacement, has fuelled his career at the intersection of frontline healthcare and global humanitarian advocacy. In 2024 and 2025, Dr Mo served in Gaza's Nasser and European hospitals, with RAHMA Worldwide providing critical emergency care amid escalating violence. His commitment to frontline care drew him back to Gaza once again, in March of this year with the Palestinian, Australian, and New Zealand Medical Association team, arriving just as a fragile ceasefire collapsed. His raw, live reporting from inside emergency departments brought the devastation of Israel's unrelenting genocide against the Palestinian people to millions worldwide. In addition to his work as a practicing physician, his current humanitarian efforts are  focused on bringing a new, fully equipped children's hospital to Gaza. For more information about Dr. Mo's work and public advocacy check his Instagram: @beastfromthe_middleeast  

We have been wanting to bring you voices from inside Gaza since the very start of the current atrocities, but for what are obvious reasons this has proven to be extremely difficult, especially after Israel cut all communication lines and mobile phone networks in Gaza, in the prelude to their ground invasion. However, a student from our Palestine Podcast Academy, Shahd Safi, has managed to send me a series of daily audio diary entries detailing her experiences and her feelings in recent days. Shahd is from al Nuseirat Refugee camp in Central Gaza, a camp that has been subjected to repeated bombardments by Israel over the past few weeks. A Palestinian friend of mine, who invited me to his home in Nuseirat camp during my stay in Gaza, has lost nine family members to the airstrikes on the refugee camp in recent weeks. Shahd joins us from Rafah, in the South of Gaza, where she moved two years ago. However, the situation in Rafah is far from safe. Please visit the post for this episode at LatitudeAdjustmentPod.com for links to Shahd's recent articles documenting her experiences, links to organizations (whom we personally recommend) who working to provide relief to Palestinians, and to supplemental resources for continuing your education on this subject and to aid you in your efforts to educate your communities.  You can support Latitude Adjustment Podcast by signing up to make a monthly donation to our Patreon page. 

Why don't we see more African researchers presenting at global Public Health conferences and in US and European research journals? Who determines which public health issues are prioritized in Africa? What is Public Health and "Vaccine Apartheid"? What do these insights reveal about the current state of our Public Health discourse on the global scale?  It's impossible to isolate the conversation around public health in the Global South from the topic of colonialism and anti-Blackness more generally. What's more, while Africa and Africans continue to be presented with unique challenges and forms of discrimination, it would be a tragic oversight to assume that the factors contributing to global health disparities are limited to the African context. Insights that are applicable to Africa, are not only applicable to the Global South, and to minority populations in the Global North more generally, but these insights frequently map out the grounds and the various avenues for solidarity amongst similarly impacted populations and all people looking to dismantle oppressive structures. Dr. Catherine Kyobutungi is the Executive Director of the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC). She holds a Ph.D. in Epidemiology and a Master of Science in Community Health and Health Management from the University of Heidelberg. Prior to her graduate studies, Catherine studied medicine at Makerere University, Kampala, after which she worked as a medical officer in Western Uganda for three years. In 2018, Catherine was elected as a Fellow of the  African Academy of Sciences and in 2019, she was selected  as a Joep Lange Chair at the University of Amsterdam; a position in which she investigates chronic disease management in African countries. She is the co-director of the Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa (CARTA), a program that seeks to build and strengthen the capacity of African research leaders and has trained more than 230 PhD fellows in eight African universities.   Support independent and in-depth coverage of the underreported issues that shape our world, by supporting Latitude Adjustment Podcast on Patreon today!  

While the global arms industry may only account for about one percent of global trade, it's important to note what that one percent actually buys. Beyond the price tags on the weapons themselves, arms and arms sales have a tremendous impact on all other aspects of global trade, and on relations between trade partners and competitors. This week's episode is a collaboration between journalist Paul Cochrane and Latitude Adjustment Podcast. Our guest, Andrew Feinstein, is the author of the best-selling book, "The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade", published in 2011. In his review Noam Chomsky writes, "This shocking expose unveils a shadow world of corruption, greed, slaughter, and other horrors, tawdry and gruesome in its criminality. It must be brought to a quick and final end".   Shadow World was turned into an award winning documentary film, premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2016. Andrew currently resides in the UK with his wife and children, and much of his current work is focused on Shadow World Investigations, an investigative news website focused on global corruption, often involving, but not limited to, the global arms trade.  Support Latitude Adjustment Podcast's coverage of underreportedhuman rights issues around the world by signing up for a monthly donation through our Patreon account, today!

In 1975 Spain formally ended its colonization of "Spanish Sahara", but instead of ceding control to the indigenous Sahrawi population Spain instead handed the keys to its former colony to the Moroccan regime. For nearly 50 years the Sahrawi people of illegally occupied Western Sahara have been subjected to a brutal regime of settler colonialism, ethnic cleansing, resource-theft, and the violent suppression of all dissent including the systematic use of rape and torture by the Moroccan authorities. Meanwhile, more than 170,000 Sahrawi refugees have been left to languish in refugee camps in the harsh desert of Western Algeria, separated from Western Sahara by the second longest wall in the world, with 75% of their food aid having been cut in the past year by the World Food Program. All of this while the world largely turns away, content to purchase cheap phosphates and fish that have been pillaged from Sahrawi territory by Morocco. Using its veto in the UN, France has rendered MINURSO effectively useless, making it the only UN peacekeeping force in the world without a mandate to report on human rights. More recently the US, Spain, and Israel have chosen to break with decades of international consensus and to legitimize Morocco's illegal occupation.  For a quick speed-history lesson of the Sahrawi struggle, be sure to listen to the short podcast that immediately precedes this episode: "Africa's Last Colony".  Swedish activists Sanna Ghotbi and Benjamin Ladraa combine to make Solidarity Rising. Having left Sweden on their bicycles on May 15th, 2022, Solidarity Rising is their initiative to cycle around the world while educating the public about the oppression of the Sahrawi people and to mobilize Morocco's allies to change their policies.  Support our independent reporting on the world's underrported human rights issues by signing up for a monthly contribution to Latitude Adjustment Podcast on our Patreon page! 

Where is Western Sahara? What is Western Sahara? Is it a country? Who lives there? If you find yourself unable to answer any of these questions, or if you want a resource that will help you to quickly explain the history and the current political realities around Africa's last colony to your friends and to your community, this short episode was created for you.  Latitude Adjustment Podcast is also working on plans to complete a multimedia documentary series, working on the ground with Sahrawi refugees in Western Algeria, and in collaboration two former guests of the show. You can find more information on that developing project on our website, at LastAfricanColony.com 

What we are seeing now in the US, with the rollback of so many progressive victories, and with the passage of bigoted legislation towards sexual minorities, is in many ways the final stage of a decades-long strategy by violent strains of American Christian Evangelism. That strategy has seen Africa used as a testing ground in an ideological war against sexual minorities. And that war has returned home with a vengeance; newly emboldened, with more support, and with a more focused strategic vision. Reverend Doctor Kapya Kaoma is an Anglican priest from Zambia, a human rights activist, and one of the central figures in the documentary film, "God Loves Uganda". Kapya is also a researcher, and the author of several books, including "American Culture Warriors in Africa", "Christianity, Globalization, and Protective Homophobia." He has testified before the US Congress, US State Department, and the United Nations. Though he has also focused on Environmental Ethics, much of his research and advocacy work focuses on the targeting of the LGBTQIA community in Africa and the Christian Evangelical and Catholic roots of this persecution. See below for links to organizations in Africa that are in need of your support for their work on the front lines. Free Block 13 (Kenya) SMUG (Sexual Minorities Uganda) Transbantu Association (Zambia) Support our independent human rights journalism by supporting Latitude Adjustment Podcast on Patreon today!  

Omar Alshogre is currently 28 years old. He was first arrested at 15 for attending a protest against the Al Assad regime, and was arrested a total of 11 times between 2011 and 2013. His last arrest, in 2012, along with the arrests of two of his cousins, led to his incarceration in the Branch 215 military intelligence detention center for 21 months, where he experienced torture on a daily basis. In 2014 he was transferred to Sednaya prison, where he experienced even more brutal forms of torture, and where prisoners were subjected to summary execution for talking without permission. During his period of incarceration, Omar was also forced to remove the bodies of prisoners and to mark their foreheads for identification. Many of the systematic abuses of Syria's Al Assad regime have been visually documented in the 2014 Syria Detainee Report, or the Caesar Report. Caesar is the alias for a photographer with the Syrian Military police who worked in secret with a Syrian opposition group to leak graphic images of the torture, starvation, and murder of prisoners at the hands of the al Assad regime. The report documents "the systematic killing of more than 11,000 detainees by the Syrian government in one region during the Syrian Civil War over a two and half year period from March 2011 to August 2013". Human Rights Watch spent six months investigating the authenticity of the photographic evidence and concluded that it was genuine. Signed into law by President Trump in 2019, the Caesar Act, or Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act, is a set of sanctions against the Al Assad regime for war crimes against the Syrian civilian population.  After suspending Syria from the Arab League for 12 years, last month the Arab League voted unanimously to readmit Syria's Al Assad regime. Omar Alshogre is a public speaker and human rights advocate, who endured three years of unjust imprisonment and torture in Syria before being smuggled out and brought to safety. Currently, he serves as the Director of Detainees Affairs for the Syrian Emergency Task Force and the spokesperson for Atrocities Tracker, dedicating himself to the critical cause of advocating for the release of those unjustly detained. Omar has spoken before the US Senate's Foreign Relations Committee, and presented his insights at several world-renowned universities, organizations, and news outlets including Harvard, Georgetown, CNN, and Aljazeera.   Episode 27: Assil Alnaser - Protestor. Prisoner. Student. Syrian Woman Episode 65: Nour Qurmosh - On the Ground in Idlib, Syria   Support Latitude Adjustment Podcast on Patreon!  

On April 15th war broke out in Sudan. The fighting between the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group and the Sudanese army has devastated Khartoum, spread across the country, and an estimated 1,800 people have lost their lives, with hundreds of thousands displaced. Dalia AbdelMoniem joins us from the UK, where she has been living since fleeing the war in April, after a missile struck her home. Dalia is a former journalist who moved back to Sudan in 2013 after living in Egypt for more than two decades.  For more information about how you can help the people of Sudan you can follow the following organizations and individuals: Nazim Sirag, for Sudan advocacy updates and information about how to help. HomeTax Sudan (for donations) Jia | Juwayria Sudanese American Medical Association Hadhreen | حاضرين   Support Latitude Adjustment Podcast on Patreon!