Holy Family Church Bombing

On July 17, Israel bombed Holy Family Church, the only Catholic church in Gaza, killing three, including the church’s 60-year-old janitor, and injuring at least 10 others, including the parish’s Father Gabriele Romanelli, who suffered from leg injuries following the attack by an Israeli tank. Holy Family Church has been a refuge to many displaced civilians, including many elderly and children, victims of this targeted bombing.

Before his passing earlier this year, Pope Francis would call the parish nightly, vocal and steadfast in his solidarity with the people of Gaza; the same cannot be said about his successor, Pope Leo. Catholics and people of conscience worldwide hoped that he would carry on the support Pope Francis displayed. Instead, Pope Leo released a lukewarm statement, calling for an immediate ceasefire and “profound hope for dialogue”, with no direct blame put on Israel as the perpetrator of the deadly bombing.

Netanyahu showed his appreciation for Pope Leo’s “words of comfort” on X, followed by the same old bullshit–the strike was an accident, they are “investigating” the incident, Israel is “committed to protecting civilians and holy sites.” Gaza’s Ministry of Endowments says that three churches and 79% of mosques have been destroyed since October 7.

Days after the onset of Israel’s brutal annihilation campaign following the Al-Aqsa Flood operation on October 7, the Israeli army bombed the Church of Saint Porphyrius, the oldest church in Gaza, resulting in at least 18 people killed. The Christian minority in Gaza has been a constant target of the IOF, with snipers entering churches to kill congregants.

Cambodia and Thailand Border clash

A ceasefire between Cambodia and Thailand was recently announced, ending a five-day clash between the two countries, which share a contested border. More than 270,000 civilians from both sides of the Thailand-Cambodia border have been displaced, and at least 35 people, civilians and soldiers, were killed, making this the deadliest border dispute in its history.

The disputed area is home to ancient temples. Unsurprisingly, at the root of the ongoing conflict is French colonialism, preceded by feudal society overseen by the Thai royal family; the royal family remains a key player in this conflict to this day. After colonizing the territory of both Southeast Asian nations and dubbing it “Indochina”, France went on to exploit the population and land, establishing plantations to extract wealth for their gain.

What ensued involved the redrawing of borders without the knowledge of the nations’ ruling classes, the enslavement of the populations by fascist Japan, and colonial independence. Of course, Britain’s colonial legacy stood as an inspiration for the French at the time.

Today, with the threat of 36% tariffs to be placed on the trade of both Cambodian and Thai goods, Trump is holding this punishment over their heads. Cambodia and Thailand await upcoming peace talks, but the path forward is rocky, as both countries accuse the other of violating the ceasefire agreement.

US Imperialists abandon the Kenyan Masses and Compradors alike

Militant protests in the Kakuma refugee camp turned deadly on Monday, July 28th, as Kenyan security forces fired on refugees who were resisting drastic cuts to humanitarian aid; the majority of Kakuma’s 300,000 residents will be losing their benefits – all but the most vulnerable – leaving the rest to scrape and scrounge to survive.

The cuts are the direct result of the Trump’s shuttering of USAID in early July. USAID, much lauded by liberals and elements of the post-modernist left, was very much an imperialist organization which funded US-aligned front groups around the world – but it did also provide crucial support and materiel for combating HIV/AIDS and for providing for refugees who had fled conflict zones in other parts of Africa.

But this, of course, was done for entirely morally decrepit reasons.

Kenya is $83.5 billion in debt – a staggering 68% of GDP – largely to the US and US proxies like the IMF and World Bank, along with the United States’ imperialist competitors, chiefly China; in other words, Kenya is indentured to imperialism, and the scale of the imperialist robbery has rendered Kenya unable to support itself, or its people. While the banks robbed the Kenyan people of their economic independence, aid provided by USAID robbed them of their agency – forced them to prostrate themselves before the beneficence of the United States, to surrender their will to build the future in exchange for a pittance of relief.

As of 2024, there have over 20,000 AIDS-related deaths in Kenya- a number which has already begun to spike dramatically now that USAID has been relegated to the dust-bin of history. Combine this with a recent cholera outbreak in Kakuma and increasing police repression in – and the result is a crisis; Kenya’s comprador bourgeoisie is finding out the hard way what happens when you trap millions of people between a rock and hard place.

What we see before us is a human catastrophe engineered by the imperialists, especially our very own US ruling class. Kenya cannot escape its debt, and cannot placate the justly restive Kenyan masses – and so they panic; they arrest dissidents, butcher protesters. Kenyans who have the gall to demand the most basic necessities are shot down gendarmes in the streets, and all the while we are culpable – for the actions of our government, for the greed of our wage-masters, for the suffering of the people of the world.

Japan: Election and Tariffs

Amid rising pricing and a new trade deal with the US, Japan’s long-governing Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) suffered a stunning parliamentary defeat.

While the LDP head, Shigeru Ishiba, remains Prime Minister, for now, the electoral winds have moved in favor towards two new far-right parties, promising a Trump-style crackdown on immigration, including the Sanseito Party openly using the slogan “Japan First.” This electoral defeat for the LDP, took place in the midst of Japan-US trade talks over the imposition of tariffs, with the Trump government lowering it’s initially proposed tariffs from 25% to 15%, and Japan dropping restrictions on the import of US-goods, including cars and rice. In the background of all of these developments and the alliance and rivalry between the US and Japan is the growing inter-imperialist competition between the US and China. Japan, both demilitarized and industrialized at the end of WW2, has been a long-standing US ally, home to US military bases, and is a key strategic ally against a rising China. While Japan’s rising far-right parties are echoing Trumpian rhetoric, they are also asserting a new definition of Japanese sovereignty, including their right to develop their own military might. From that angle, Trump’s friendly trade deal with Japan begins to look like a vote for continuity with the LDP and their long-standing support for US presence in Japan.

MAGA, Epstein and the Mossad

The past several weeks have found Donald Trump’s rabidly sycophantic social base and some of its leading media personalities finally breaking with the President, over his broken promises to release government documents relating to serial-pedophile Jeffery Epstein. Over his years of trafficking girls and women, Epstein was connected to ruling class figures of both political parties, like Trump and Bill Clinton, alongside British Prince Andrew, and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. When his crimes began coming to light, Epstein was given a sweetheart plea deal by future Trump season one cabinet member Alex Acosta, and finally was facing real charges in 2019, thanks to the tireless effort of his victims and a few journalists who refused to drop the story. Before a criminal trial could take place, Epstein was found dead in his jail cell, in the notorious Metropolitan Correctional Center in NYC. The Epstein case, with its connections to child trafficking and sexual abuse, and high profile members of the ruling class has long been fodder for conspiracy theories, despite the fact that the most egregious aspects of the case have long been in the public record.

One aspect that has not been released and can only be speculated about, are possible connections between Epstein, the US, and Israeli intelligence agencies. Epstein’s rise was certainly odd – he was a high profile financier for big money elites without possessing a bachelor’s degree. And some people have reported that when Acosta was being vetted by Trump’s transition team, he asked about the Epstein case reports that he was told to back off Epstein because he “belonged to intelligence.” Epstein’s partner-in-crime, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, is the daughter of the publishing magnate Robert Maxwell, who was a confirmed agent of the brutal Israeli intelligence service, the Mossad, and Epstein’s political and social circles include numbers of prominent US supporters of Israel, including Les Wexner, and Alan Dershowitz.

None of these connections are definitive proof that Epstein was working with the CIA or the Mossad. Most prominent US politicians and financiers are ghoulish creeps, and most are supporters of the genocidal state of Israel. However, given that Donald Trump is willing to piss off key sections of his own supporters to keep Epstein documents sealed, the possibilities are at the very least worth considering.