Loading ...Kenya Protesters Storm Parliament, Police Fire Live Rounds, After Lawmakers Unleash Eco-Austerity
The Kenyan capital of Nairobi has descended into violence and mayhem as large street protests by Kenyans outraged at new tax policies and a harsh ‘Eco-Austerity’ program imposed by the government have resulted in the parliament building being set on fire.
Legislators are evacuating after the anti-tax protesters initially breached parliament. They quickly overwhelmed police soon after the lawmakers voted to pass a bill which introduces new nationwide taxes, including an eco-levy which raises the price of basic goods such as diapers, as part of efforts to curb waste management and be more environmentally friendly.
The new taxes were tucked away in Kenya’s Finance Bill 2024, and directly impacts imports, prices, and sales of diapers, batteries/dry cells, smartphones, earphones, clocks, radios, TV sets, cameras… staplers, printers, calculators, photocopying machines, keyboards, mice, projectors and LCD monitors.
Famer is that You leading the rebellion ?
🙂
Not me Fully. I am sucking oxygen like a seniors home so just watching it on TV. The protest went nationwide. It was everywhere. Bedlam. The internet is down to dial up speeds which means its 95% gone. No livestreeaming of video anymore. Text only and even that is dead slow. One of our last undersea cables has been cut today. Phone networks are strugging and I don’t know if even the ATM’s are still working. If I go offline you will know why. All East Africa is in internet darkness all the way down to South Africa.
This is what a cyber pandemic looks like. But the TV still works!
Well I am back and the internet has been restored. So what is this all about anyway? Well, Africa seems be be experiencing a rash of bad luck with its subsea network and telecommunications cables lately. Back in February three cables that serve East Africa that run under the Red Sea were reportedly cut by actions of the Houtis and they had not been restored as of a week ago when I last checked as its an active war zone.
Then in March there was a major disruption when all 4 cables reaching down to South Africa on its West Coast were all cut simultaneously. It was ostensibly because of a land slide underwater but others have mused Mossad was behind it because of the South African Governments intention to prosecute Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahi for war crimes. The paranoia was only increased when three more cables were cut on the east African side of South Africa around May 12th. That brought the number of cuts to 10 of the sub-sea cables servicing Africa and it happened over a mere 60 days nearly bringing SA within a cable or two of going back to the stone age. Indeed, the majority of sub sea cables have been cut this year.
Tonight, Kenya Safaricom was again reporting new damage to two of its subsea cables although others believe the authorities are throttling the service due to an outburst of political protesting that was consuming the East African nation. Its not clear yet how many cables are cut and how many have been repaired other than the 4 West Africa lines. But much of the Southern and eastern continent had slowed down, had marginal service or was off entirely for extended periods of time. At the moment we have internet again so life is good but let me tell you, I realized suddenly just how much i rely on internet for everything from shopping to banking to communications.
Going without is like going naked!
Read about it here
https://blog.cloudflare.com/east-african-internet-connectivity-again-impacted-by-submarine-cable-cuts