Image is from this Black Agenda Report article by the Communist Party of Kenya.
In June, large anti-government protests shook Kenya. President Ruto and his parliament were attempting to pass the new Finance Bill 2024, which, among other things, would have hiked taxes on the population, with a 16% sales tax on bread and a 25% duty on cooking oil, as well as new taxes on financial transanctions and vehicle ownership. There would also have been levies on women's sanitary products and digital goods such as phones, among other measures affecting hospitals.
Hundreds of protestors stormed the parliament building and began to tear the place apart. Shortly afterwards, on June 26th, Ruto announced that he was withdrawing the bill, calling the tens of deaths and hundreds of injuries "unfortunate". A couple weeks later, Ruto then fired his entire cabinet (aside from his foreign minister) and communicated his wish to the nation to form a "broad-based government". Funnily enough, in July, it was announced that the majority of positions were to be filled by members of the old cabinet, while other positions were taken by members of the opposition. This has prompted scepticism among the population, including calls to resign, but there haven't (yet) been any major anti-government events to pressure this outcome. The Communist Party of Kenya has been working to get some of their comrades back after they were abducted by the police during the protest period, and have otherwise supported the protests against Ruto.
The measures in the bill were strongly encouraged by the IMF. Kenya's debt is currently around $80 billion, of which about 10% is owed to China for infrastructure projects (such as a railway linking the capital, Nairobi, to the port city of Mombasa, as well as 11,000 kilometers of road throughout the country). The rest is owed to a combination of the US, IMF, World Bank, and Saudi Arabia. More than half of government revenue is going towards repaying the debt - but despite these massive payments, it has only grown. The most recent round of IMF plundering (and the impetus for current events) began in 2021, when they offered a 38-month programme to "help" Kenya, which would involve the usual warfare on the poor and the dismemberment of any useful societal institutions.
The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you've wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don't worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.
The Country of the Week is Kenya! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
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Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA daily-ish reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
I guess not wanting to fly over an active war zone is verboten now.
US legislator accuses Delta, United and American airlines of ‘effectively boycotting’ Israel
(He's a turncoat millenial Bernie Delegate from south Bronx FFS. I expect that crap from boomers but
)
Congressman Ritchie Torres has written to the CEOs of the three airlines to express his concern over their suspension of air travel between the US and Israel.
“Airlines should be prohibited from effectively boycotting or otherwise discriminating against the world’s only Jewish state,” the Democratic lawmaker wrote in the letter published online.
“It is one thing to temporarily suspend air travel to Israel on security grounds as defined” by the Federal Aviation Authority, he wrote, “but to unilaterally suspend air travel indefinitely until mid-2025, as American Airlines has done, has the practical effect of a boycott”.
Torres said all three airlines must restore air travel to Israel “to prevent the appearance and the substance of discrimination against the Jewish state”.
The three carriers stopped flying to Israel following the Hamas attacks of October 7. Delta has since extended the suspension of its flights to Israel through October 31 while American Airlines has done so until March 29 of next year.
Meanwhile, United said it has suspended its service for the foreseeable future.
This is such a weird thing to say, like, what should there be 2 of them or something then it'd be fine? Imagine referring to france as the world's only Gaulish state.
If everyone gets a state then where’s my Palestine?
It's a clear sign that the American halls of power are not ready to even pretend to throw a bone to Palestinians that they need to use these ridiculous terms to talk about the Zionist entity.
Replace jewish state with Aryan reich.
As evidence shows, one is too many.
I don't normally nitpick other people on wording and connotations of comments, but I don't think this exact phrasing is helpful to the conversation. The problem is not the Judaism, the problem is the apartheid.
For sure, I wasn’t trying to single out anyone. The “state” part of the ethnostate is the problem here and the “ethno” part is secondary.
shut the fuck up. please shut the fuck up.
You WILL buy Israeli-made goods (mostly mdma, soda machines, snuff films and rifles with the scope preset to child height) or you WILL be prosecuted.
You WILL fly a one-person Cessna over an area covered in trigger-happy anti-aircraft installations and rocket-wielding resistance fighters.
You WILL listen to Matisyahu, the greatest living Jewish American reggae singer, rapper and beatboxer!
Leave Matisyahu alone, he had one and I mean only one banger.
I will not
...Have we discovered the Jewish Kanye?
wdym we already have Jewish Kanye
Not wanting to get shot down by iron dome is anti-Semitic
I think it was The East is a Podcast on one of the recent Tankie Therapy episodes, they were talking about a tipping point of "Israeli" collapse and how the settlers are keeping an eye on their ability to leave. zionists applying pressure on Ritchie Torres about this can only be a good sign
Maybe I'm conspiracy brained, but this sounds like they really want to do a false flag escalation by killing a bunch of people on an airplane and blaming it on someone else.
I agree we need more planes to facilitate the retreat of the zionists.
Oh no! The consequences of my actions!
The IOF reserves the right to shoot down a western airliner or two, to gain sympathy for their cause.
Ritchie Torres is a singularly unhinged individual, being extremely Zionist is literally the only thing he ever talks about