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.
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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.
There appears to be a partial sector collapse on the eastern frontlines of Ukraine, with Ukraine losing multiple towns and settlements within a couple of hours. Russia is closing in on Pokvorosk rapidly now. Ukraine retreating across the front. This is after two days of Russian missile attacks in Ukrainian electric and water infrastructure. Overall it looks like the Kursk gamble is starting to backfire in a big way, but more on that below.
As for the whole Kursk offensive that appears to have stalled, I take a different view to many. It was the best course of action Ukraine could take if they wanted to keep fighting. It's just that the choice to keep fighting is a poor one. Obviously the actual best choice would be to stop the fighting and start negotiations, but Ukraine/their NATO masters are unprepared to do so. So if they continue fighting, and we assume Russia will take more territory in the East, what does it matter if it falls quickly or slowly if it's considered lost anyways? Ukraine (as in from a realistic perspective and not rabid pro Ukraine propaganda) sees that territory as lost anyways, there's nothing they can do to stop the Russian advance or change the reality of the war on that front. So why not take some Russian territory and use it as a buffer to push up with artillery and long range weapons closer to Russia, to continue Ukraine's asymmetric strategy and launch more attacks into Russia, which they did and had some initial success, hitting Russian air bases and destroying some advanced fighter aircraft parked on the ground, as well as destroying many FAB munitions. And hope to hold that territory until autumn or even winter when it will be harder to root them out.
Overall the Kursk offensive militarily was executed a lot better than the previous Ukrainian "counter offensive", which was a disaster. Ukraine pushed up enough to get their artillery and Anti-Aircraft (AA) platforms in position, but not too far ahead as to walk into Russian traps and defence in depth. Getting the AA in position was critical to ensure that Ukrainian convoys did not get massacred by Russian helicopters and close air support like they did in the "counter offensive". Yes Russia did ambush a few convoys, but nothing like the counter offensive.
The question though is yes the Kursk offensive was executed well from a military perspective, but does it make sense in the big picture of the war? With the current frontline partial sector collapse, it's not looking good. The best solution big picture wise would be negotiations, there is nothing Ukraine can do to change the reality of the war, unless they plan on getting full NATO support, which is a extremely unrealistic fantasy. Any option that involves the continuation of fighting is a poor option from the Ukrainian perspective. So I would say the Kursk offensive was the best of the bad options, but still a very bad option. Continuing the war as it was and getting ground down by Russia without doing anything to stop the inevitable also appears to be a poor choice.
I still say the primary benefit of the kursk offensive is potentially starving Hungary and Slovakia of Russian oil.
Pretty sure all those pipelines go through Ukraine already. One way or the other it was Ukraine responsible for cutting it off and they could do so at anytime in the last 2 years
Doing that would hurt relations and break a contract that is about to expire. Now they can just blame things on Russian engineers fleeing or the transit hub getting blown up.
but why did the russian engineers flee the exploded transit hub?
it doesn't matter what imaginary side of the line ukraine broke the contract on, it was them either way