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.


  • destroyamerica
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    61
    ·
    21 days ago

    honestly big stuff finally seems to be happening in the Russia-Ukraine war and news mega still isn’t really picking up in activity? we’re cooked man

    • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]@hexbear.netOPM
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      43
      ·
      edit-2
      21 days ago

      I mean, there still isn’t that much to talk about there because most of the virtual ink that could be spilled on the subject already has been. Most of us can see where things are headed and have known for literally years, and ongoing events aren’t surprising in any way because of that. What am I gonna do, write ten comments in a row about how I was inevitably correct with my predictions?

      • destroyamerica
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        33
        ·
        edit-2
        21 days ago

        ongoing events aren’t surprising in any way because of that

        I do think the random kursk hail mary was quite surprising, at least to me. especially since they couldn’t keep their mouth shut for the 2023 counteroffensive and this one came out of no where.

        What am I gonna do, write ten comments about how I was inevitably correct with my predictions?

        i mean… gloating is fun to me at least…

        listen ultimately I just miss the big surge in funny posting when random things would happen, the priogzhin coup was so funny lol

      • miz [any, any]@hexbear.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        30
        ·
        21 days ago

        ten comments in a row about how I was inevitably correct with my predictions

        it might be unseemly but I would enjoy reading them

        • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]@hexbear.netOPM
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          17
          ·
          edit-2
          21 days ago

          gotta get those numbers over the trans mega somehow (/s)

          it’s always entertaining to read comments from ages ago that face some opposition but end up being vindicated, and I think this will be very true about the comments about how once Russia breaks through the Zelensky Line in the Donbass then things will speed up tremendously. at the time it was easy to be like “this is just cope as to why Russia has slowed down so much” but look at us now, with the Zelensky Line finally in the rearview mirror on large sections of the front, and Russia is finally picking up significant speed and taking villages in hours and days, not months

          while I have gradually cared less and less about trying to convince others of how correct the news mega is on average, especially as the war has continued far past any usefulness (beyond NATO demilitarization) and is now a mere slaughter of generations of Ukrainians, it’s still nice to at least briefly smugly point out that we were right the whole time

      • CarmineCatboy2 [he/him]@hexbear.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        25
        ·
        21 days ago

        The solution is to re-post every megathread from last year as post fodder. That is the only way to stay on topic and also strike back at the trans empire.

    • FortifiedAttack [he/him]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      42
      ·
      edit-2
      21 days ago

      I mean the front is moving pretty fast now, but there’s not really much to talk about either way. Russia advances, Ukraine retreats.

      Once Pokrovsk, Ugledar, Selydove, etc. are taken, things may change. There aren’t any major fortifications behind those locations as far as I know – big arrows may come after.

    • AssortedBiscuits [they/them]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      34
      ·
      21 days ago

      Ukraine’s inevitable failure to capitalize on their intrusions into Russian territory isn’t news.

      Ukraine’s frontline collapsing because their hail Mary gamble into Russia turned out to be entirely pointless with Ukrainians dying for no reason isn’t really news either.

      Most people here since around summer 2022 have predicted Ukraine will capitulate between November 2024 and Janauary 2025 based on the prediction that the US will drop Ukraine after the 2024 elections. There are some like shipwreck who say that the war will last for years.

      And now that things are cooking in West Asia with the US being forced to bail out their Zionist entity, the trajectory of Ukraine’s inevitable defeat is mostly set in stone.

      • destroyamerica
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        25
        ·
        21 days ago

        alexander mercoursis just posted another 2 vids about the war just because of this comment

        jokes aside you and the others are probably right. the news mega is just the favorite part of my site and I really miss the old times, i guess.

          • destroyamerica
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            8
            ·
            21 days ago

            I… am way to be young to be hearing this someone save me im talking like a boomer now

      • SeekTheDeletion [none/use name]@hexbear.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        24
        ·
        21 days ago

        i think it might take a decade, like Syria, but eventually all the natoids will just lose interest and move on without ever admitting they were wrong and pretend like it never happened

      • destroyamerica
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        31
        ·
        21 days ago

        fair enough maybe I’m being too callous. but people dont come as much to the news mega for as much else either a lot of the time

      • grandepequeno [he/him]@hexbear.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        27
        ·
        21 days ago

        I mean, this whole megathread thing started BECAUSE of that war, and there are always updates posted here, so it’s normal to expect more.

        I also don’t think this should be a place to just talk about whatever people prefer or something (there’s a general megathread for that), this is for news of one kind or another and the big war is big news

    • carpoftruth [any, any]@hexbear.netM
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      12
      ·
      21 days ago

      I would still be here even if it was just 4 other people, like it was when the news mega started. I am here for the same reason as before - I’d like to have more than 10 minutes notice of planetary nuclear holocaust

      • destroyamerica
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        11
        ·
        21 days ago

        if the nukes come out I better see the site crash from everyone trying to log on at once

      • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]@hexbear.netOPM
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        edit-2
        20 days ago

        if the news mega has one million fans, I am one of them
        if the news mega has five fans, I am one of them
        if the news mega has one fan, that is me
        if the news mega has no fans, I am no longer alive
        if the world is against the news mega then I am against the entire world