This is a weekly thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or IR history. I usually start off with coverage of some current events from a mix of countries I follow personally and countries I think the forum might be interested in. Feel free to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the the Ukraine War, or even just whatever you’re reading. Megathread for the Israel-Palestine conflict is here though if you want to talk about it in this thread as well feel free.
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Notes -
Kenya
The United Nations has approved the Kenyan UN peacekeeping mission to Haiti. However, there’s one slight hangup: President Will Ruto didn’t actually run it by Kenyan parliament first. A bit awkward to be sure. The major opposition party has opposed it both as an excess of the President’s powers, and on grounds vaguely analogous to American conservatives who object to Ukraine aid as a distraction from Mexico: saying that Kenya is too wrapped up with its own various militant groups to be off foreign adventuring. They’ve raised the complaint to their court system which has temporarily barred the intervention from proceeding till they can review and make a decision. This will leave Haiti still without respite, though separately the Dominican Republic has said they will reopen their borders.
Speaking of multinational peacekeeping missions, Kenya is currently planned to withdraw its forces in Somalia, there by request of the Somali government to help deal with Al Shabaab. However, Al Shabaab has increased its own attacks into Kenya recently, killing dozens in the past few months, so I wonder if they will change their position and remain in place.
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