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.
CW: Electoralism from a Bernie burnout:
Is Dr. Cornel West a grifter?
People keep saying it but I am unsure what they are referring to. Hell, I would be more likely to believe the grifter narrative if Dr. Cornel West had stayed a Green, which is like the premier grifter party in the US, as far as I can tell. See, I was planning to
for Dr. West to maintain my protest candidate streak as punishment to the people who tell me to 
every year to change the Reaper drone operators. Dr. West seems like the most well-known person whose views align closely enough to mine. I would not want to vote for Dr. West if it was all a scam. And would likely vote PSL again. I was disappointed Leonard Peltier had to drop out last time for completely understandable reasons but was still proud to have supported that ticket. Which is the only thing my vote really matters for, that I can live with myself at the end of the day as I’ve only ever lived in red states.
Cornel West on 10/10/23
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/10/cornel-west-harvard-israel-palestine-00120827
“innocent” doing a lot of fucking work here. they’re all settlers of an apartheid ethnostate and most are reservists. Nahal Oz is a hybrid paramilitary settlement!
TYT brain is infectious and I hope a vaccine is invented one day.
All you need to know about West
2011 was a lifetime ago. If we were to be generous.
2011 is almost half the distance from now as it is from 1989 when Regan’s presidency ended.
You think a 71 year old man’s opinion on Ronald Regan will have changed over the last 13 years? You think a 71 year old man has changed his opinion on the USSR in the last 13 years?
He has never once offered a retraction or reexamination of his stance on Ronald Regan or the USSR. If he has changed his position you’d think he would want to make that clear as he is running for president.
West was and always will be an Anti-communist and as such deserves nothing but contempt.
For those of us in the liberated brazilian territories… did cornel west fucking say good things about Reaganism of all things? What the fuck.
jesus fucking christ. nevermind being a grifter, thats a confirmation of evil if i’ve ever seen one
Depends on your tolerance for liberalism. He has been advocating for Palestine for decades, calls the occupation apartheid, and recently called for supporters of Palestine to be “faithful unto death” in their support of Palestine and oppressed people. He was denied tenure at Harvard in 2021 “based on the Harvard administration’s hostility to the Palestinian cause” and his criticism of Israel and call for BDS. He has supported BDS for years now, said it was good to burn American flags in protest of the genocide, and praised Aaron Bushnell’s “moral message”. He’s not a Marxist but understands historical materialism well enough and has reasonable opinions on most things. I enjoyed his interview with Finkelstein which is more academic than his political rallies. His critique of Kendi and Douglass was great.
His entire political project is formed by both Gramsci and black American cultural history. He is rigidly for a bottom-up organization set out by Gramsci to build a working class coalition, but that has caused him to make odd alliances at times and to seem too accepting and shows up in places like Fox News or Newsmax. His language can also seem odd if you weren’t raised in a black church. He has literally 40 years of speeches, books, and classes if you want to dive in a bit more into his project.
West won’t ever win public office, and your vote for him does not matter ultimately. If you voted for Bernie enthusiastically, West is an improvement in every sense. If Bernie was too lib for you, PSL is probably the way to go.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
I think Dr. West is just doing his own yolo novelty thing, but I think he’s splitting the vote and he did the Greens dirty.
Greens / PSL seem to be largely out of each other’s way. I wish they would team up more. The US Greens are not the EU Greens. Thing is depending on the state, it’s far and few betwen. We are all so scattered and the majority is so densly ingraned in the doing the same every time expecting change D/R terminal loop.
Vote for him if you want. But IMO it’s more constructive with Greens/PSL. 5% is what it takes to move heads in a boardroom. Reguardless, Dems need to pay a severe price for their genocide. So however that happens so mote it be.