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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Last week's thread is here.
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.
Vladimir Putin confirmed Trotsky's strongest soldier
Tweet
Article its from ukr pravda, i dont know how factual it may be
Due to his actions we at the hexbear mod vanguard have decided to banned Putin for sectarianism
putin confirmed statist
Gotta love ProleWiki's description of Makhnovshchina (Ukrainian Free Territory)
I went through the articles sources, and none of them seem to actually support those claims?
Like, the book cited for it being a feudalistic economy makes no mention of "feudalism". Not a single source uses the word "warlord" or "warlordism".
And the description of Makhnovschina as a "bandit state" seems to clash with how the sources make repeated mentions of how the other sides, Red and White, perpetrated banditry. "The Anarchism of Nestor Makhno", a source for that article, quotes an official as saying "In the towns were dozens of different Red detachments. Most of them were disintegrating and addicted to banditism". Another source of the article, "Bolshiveks in Ukraine", says "Loko-tosh, commander of the 1st Division, victor at Chernigov and Kiev, also suffered steadily from a series of official reprimands. Prior to the victory at Kiev Antonov charged him with allowing banditism to flourish in his units".
The sections mentioning Grigor’ev seem quite misleading, too. It is supposedly according to "The Anarchism of Nestor Makhno" that they joined the rebellion on May 25, 1919, but there is no mention of the date anywhere in the source. I can't find any indication of them actually working together against the Soviets (several sources, at the very least 1 and 3, mention him protesting that he was represented as an accomplice of Grigor’ev on June 8, 1919), and the article completely leaves out that Makhno and Co. were the ones that killed Grigor'ev, for his anti-Semitic pogroms (the pogroms happened summer of 1919, he was killed summer of 1919) and because he was working with the Whites (Makhno even published "Who is this Grigor’ev?" in May 1919, denouncing Grigor'ev as "an anti-Semitic predator and a traitor to the revolution").
It just feels like the article makes several unsubstantiated claims, and then leaves out significant chunks history (partial integration into the Red Army, etc, etc). Did I miss something?
Prolewiki is dengist site so it isnt very favorable to anarchists
Yeah, I know, that's why I haven't bothered trying to actually change the article (or making a ProleWiki account, even).
It just seems like claims should require evidence.
I sent the links to the editorship for review
Some kind of anarchist, living in an organized structure like a house
If this is real than it's a huge L.
It is simply war. Ukraine does not want to be bombed and therefore it will move its military assets into places that will Produce a "huge L" if bombed .
The House was not bombed because of its Museums Pieces but because its a military target worth a Iskander was there Located and not somewhere else , Because Ukraine Speculated that russia Probably will not Bomb this place.
Yea it sucks, but i read somewhere that some of the items have been move to a safehouse since the start of the war
....sureeeee
eh
...and I'm sure the Ukrainian state is thanking Russia for that one, as they'd much rather celebrate Bandera and forget Makhno.