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.

Please check out the HexAtlas!

The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.

Israel-Palestine Conflict

If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

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.

  • Redcuban1959 [any]
    ·
    2 months ago

    Zelensky says Lula da Silva 'believes Soviet Union narratives' about war.

    The president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, said that President Lula (PT) has adopted a “political rhetoric” stance and that he “lives Soviet Union narratives” in relation to the war against Russia.

    Zelensky demanded a more emphatic stance from Lula da Silva who, he said, “thinks of Russia as if the Soviet Union still existed today”. In an interview the politician also said he was grateful for the dialog he had with the Brazilian president in 2023.

    The Ukrainian also criticized the fact that Brazil had signed, alongside China, a proposal for peace negotiations in the conflict. Zelensky claims that the content has no practical effect on resolving the war.

    The President of Ukraine stressed that Brazil is a democracy, unlike the other countries that signed the letter. “Is China a democratic country? No. And what about Iran? Is it a democratic country? No. And what about North Korea? They are not democratic countries. So what is Brazil, a great democratic country, doing in this company? I can't understand this circle of countries. It's normal when you have economic relations, but we're talking about a war, not economic relations,” he said.

    He also referred to what he called the “Chinese plan” as “just a political declaration” restricted to paper, with no concrete effects. “I understand only concrete and honest proposals. I speak for our victims, for our dead. So if you want to help us stop the war, or help us get [Vladimir] Putin to stop the war, we have to unite,” he said, stressing that he intends to present a peace plan to end the war soon.

    Meanwhile Zelensky goes to Saudi Arabi to beg for money and to hangout with their leaders, lol.

    • CleverOleg [he/him]
      ·
      2 months ago

      That’s rich, that a country has suspended elections and outlawed basically every opposition party anyway is going to lecture other countries about “democracy”.

      • Frogmanfromlake [none/use name]
        ·
        2 months ago

        “Democracy” is really just any country with multi-party elections that also has good relations with NATO. Venezuela and other countries have shown you can still be a multi-party Democracy and they’ll still accuse you of not being one if your relations with NATO aren’t good

    • Redcuban1959 [any]
      ·
      2 months ago

      Btw, this interview seemed to have pissed off some Brazilian liberals, who usually dislike Lula. I saw some posts on Twitter of them saying Zelensky is a hypocritic because Ukraine has also asked China, Gulf States, Iran and other "Non-Democratic" countries for help.

      • thelastaxolotl [he/him]
        ·
        2 months ago

        you gotta give it up to zelensky, him and his administration are really good at making enemies of neutral actors

        • Redcuban1959 [any]
          ·
          2 months ago

          Never forget that Bolsonaro, out of all the people, called Zelensky a clown and said that the Ukrainian population were dumb for electing a clown. lol.

          • thelastaxolotl [he/him]
            ·
            2 months ago

            i remember when the Ukr embassy in mex called a mexican journalist a sellout that gets paid in tamales which pissed off everyone

    • SoyViking [he/him]
      ·
      2 months ago

      zelensky-pain

      Complains about calls for negotiations being “just a political declaration” restricted to paper, with no concrete effects. Goes directly on to demand unconditional surrender from the side that is winning the war.

      • Kieselguhr [none/use name]
        ·
        2 months ago

        The West even had a whole-ass peace conference without Russia, but Biden didn't RSVP because even they realized it's a joke

        Show

      • FunkyStuff [he/him]
        ·
        2 months ago

        And the DPRK lol

        Meanwhile Ukraine bans almost the entire opposition agony-shivering