20, June 2024
Thousands of young Kenyans protest tax hikes 0
Thousands of mostly young demonstrators took to the streets across Kenya on Thursday to protest tax hikes, blowing whistles and chanting slogans in a vivid show of anger by Gen-Z protesters against the government.
Police in the capital Nairobi fired tear gas and water cannon against groups of protesters near parliament, but apart from isolated scuffles earlier in the day, the action — dubbed “Occupy Parliament” — remained mostly peaceful.
Led largely by young Kenyans, the demonstrations began in Nairobi on Tuesday before spreading nationwide on Thursday.
They have galvanised widespread discontent over President William Ruto’s economic policies in a country already grappling with a cost-of-living crisis.
Hours after Tuesday’s demonstrations, which saw hundreds of youth face off against the police, the cash-strapped government agreed to make concessions, rolling back several of the tax hikes laid out in a new bill.
But the government still intends to go ahead with some tax increases and has defended the proposed levies as necessary for filling its coffers and cutting reliance on external borrowing.
On Thursday, protests were held across Kenya, with thousands assembling across Nairobi, the Indian Ocean city of Mombasa, the Rift Valley city of Nakuru and the opposition bastion of Kisumu, according to AFP reporters and images broadcast on TV.
Isolated scuffles broke out in Nairobi between protesters and police, who used tear gas and water cannon at demonstrators gathering near the parliament, which began debating the bill on Wednesday.
Despite a heavy police presence and roadblocks erected along several roads leading to parliament, hundreds of protesters gathered in groups, blowing whistles and vuvuzelas, waving placards and chanting: “Ruto must go”.
Ivy, a 26-year-old job seeker dressed in a T-shirt and leggings, told AFP she was prompted to protest for the first time on Thursday because she was “scared” for her future.
“This bill cannot pass. This bill is going to finish us. We don’t have jobs… we can’t even open businesses, we can’t do anything in this country,” she said.
Another first-time protester, Bella, said she had showed up “to make sure the finance bill is rejected.”
The 22-year-old university graduate told AFP she was “not impressed” with the government’s concessions earlier this week.
‘Lying to us’
The presidency on Tuesday announced the removal of proposed levies on bread purchases, car ownership as well as financial and mobile services, prompting a warning from the treasury of a 200-billion-shilling shortfall as a result of the budget cuts.
The government has now targeted an increase in fuel prices and export taxes to fill the void left by the changes, a move critics say will make life more expensive in a country already battling high inflation.
“They are just trying to lie to us, the taxes that they have removed on bread they have added somewhere else,” Bella said, describing it as a tactic to “blindfold” citizens.
A parliament source told AFP that a vote on the proposals was expected on June 27, three days before the deadline for passing the bill.
The taxes were projected to raise 346.7 billion shillings ($2.7 billion), equivalent to 1.9 percent of GDP, and reduce the budget deficit from 5.7 percent to 3.3 percent of GDP.
High inflation
The protest in Nairobi on Tuesday saw black-clad protesters forced into cat-and-mouse chases with police who fired volleys of teargas.
At least 335 people were arrested, according to a consortium of lobby groups including the human rights commission, KNCHR, and Amnesty Kenya.
“We have changed tack. Today we will be in colourful and defiant clothing to avoid a repeat of them arresting everyone in black,” said an organiser of the march, who requested anonymity due to fear of reprisals.
Overall inflation has remained stubbornly high, at an annual rate of 5.1 percent in May, while food and fuel inflation stood at 6.2 percent and 7.8 percent respectively, according to central bank data.
Source: AFP
20, June 2024
President Putin in Vietnam, vows deeper ties in visit criticised by US 0
The leaders of Vietnam and Russia have said they want to boost ties as the pair met in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi.
Vietnamese President To Lam was full of praise for his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, congratulating him on his recent re-election.
Mr Putin, in return, said strengthening a strategic partnership with the south-east Asian country was one of Russia’s priorities.
His trip to Vietnam, which comes on the heels of his lavish visit to North Korea, is being interpreted as a demonstration of the diplomatic support Russia still enjoys in the region.
“Congratulations to our comrade for receiving overwhelming support during the recent presidential election, underlining the confidence of the Russian people,” President Lam said after Mr Putin was given a red carpet welcome.
The United States has criticised the visit for giving a platform for President Putin to promote his war of aggression in Ukraine.
Vietnam still values the historic ties it has with Russia even as it works to improve its relationship with Europe and the US.
Looming over a small park in Ba Dinh, Hanoi’s political quarter, a five-meter high statue of Lenin depicts the Russian revolutionary in heroic pose. On his birthday every year a delegation of senior Vietnamese officials solemnly lay flowers and bow their heads before the statue, a gift from Russia when it was still the Soviet Union.
Vietnam’s ties to Russia are close and go back many decades, to the vital military, economic and diplomatic support given by the Soviet Union to the new communist state in North Vietnam in the 1950s.
Vietnam has described their relationship as “filled with loyalty and gratitude”. After Vietnam invaded Cambodia in 1978 to throw out the murderous Khmer Rouge regime, it was isolated and sanctioned by China and the West, and depended heavily on Soviet assistance. Many older Vietnamese, including the powerful communist party secretary-general Nguyen Phu Trong, studied in Russia and learned the language.
Today Vietnam’s economy has been transformed by its integration into global markets. Russia has fallen far behind China, Asia, the US and Europe as a trading partner. But Vietnam still uses mainly Russian-made military equipment, and relies on partnerships with Russian oil companies for oil exploration in the South China Sea.
The invasion of Ukraine presented Vietnam with a diplomatic challenge, but one it has so far managed to meet. It has chosen to abstain on the various resolutions at the United Nations condemning Russia’s actions, yet maintained good relations with Ukraine and even sent some aid to Kyiv. They also share a legacy from the Soviet era; thousands of Vietnamese have worked and studied in Ukraine.
This is all in keeping with Vietnam’s long-held foreign policy principles of being friends with everyone but avoiding all formal alliances – what the communist party leadership now calls ‘bamboo diplomacy’, bending with the buffeting winds of great power rivalry without being forced to take sides.
It is why Vietnam has so readily upgraded its relations with the US, a country against which its older leaders fought a long and destructive war, in the interests of seeking lucrative markets for Vietnamese exports and balancing its close ties with its giant neighbour China.
The US has objected to President Putin’s official visit to Vietnam on the grounds that it undermines international efforts to isolate him, but it can hardly be surprised. Aside from the special historical links with Russia, public sentiment in Vietnam on the war in Ukraine is more ambivalent than in Europe.
There is some admiration for Putin as a strongman who defies the West, and scepticism, fuelled partly by social media commentary, of the US and European claims to be upholding international law.
This is also true in other Asian countries, where the Ukraine war is seen as a faraway crisis. In Thailand, for example, a historic military ally of the US which was on the opposite side to Russia during the Cold War, public opinion is just as divided as in Vietnam. Thais too value the even older links between its monarchy and the pre-revolutionary Tsars of Russia, and the Thai government maintains close ties with Russia today, valuing the contribution millions of Russians make to its tourist industry.
How long Vietnam maintains its camaraderie with Vladimir Putin is less clear. It is already seeking alternative sources of military equipment, but ending its current dependence on Russia will take years.
A series of high-level resignations inside the communist party recently suggest intense internal rivalries over the next generation of leaders, and, potentially, over which direction the country will take. But there is no talk yet of abandoning the ambition of being friends to all, and enemies of none.
Source: BBC