In today’s newsletter: President William Ruto’s unpopular finance bill has sparked a wave of protests – that have been met with brutality and yet more discord in the country

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Good morning.

Anti-government protests are expected to escalate in Kenya after a month of demonstrations that erupted again across the country on Tuesday calling for the president, William Ruto, to resign. In response to police hostility, protesters set fires, threw stones and chanted “Ruto must go” and “Stop killing us”. The demonstrations were met with police firing teargas and water cannon at those involved and the press. One man was shot dead and his body carried through the streets to a nearby police station.

King’s speech | Keir Starmer has set out a government agenda that he claims can counter the “snake oil charm of populism” in a king’s speech pledging change to people’s lives including rights at work, cheaper energy and secure housing.

Israel-Gaza war | The US military-built pier for carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza will be dismantled and brought home, ending a mission that has been fraught with repeated weather and security problems that limited how much food and other supplies could get to starving Palestinians.

Europe | Labour’s proposed foreign policy and security pact with the EU sounds “quite promising”, the head of the European parliament’s foreign affairs committee has said, adding that the British government should use the next weeks and months to come up with proposals that are “as concrete as possible”.

US election 2024 | JD Vance formally accepted the Republican vice-presidential nomination on Wednesday with a deliberate, and at times divisive, pitch to re-elect Donald Trump in November.

Environment | The Labour government must oversee a massive ramping up of renewable energy generation in this parliament or the UK will breach its international obligations under the Paris agreement, the government’s climate watchdog has said.

Suspect was ‘in the process of luring another victim’ when he was arrested in Nairobi, police say

Kenyan police say they have arrested a suspected serial killer who has confessed to murdering 42 women including his wife and dumping their dismembered bodies in a Nairobi rubbish tip.

Since Friday, nine butchered bodies trussed up in plastic bags have been pulled from the dump site in the Mukuru slum area in the south of the capital.

Police have been scouring site in Mukuru since mutilated corpses of at least six women were found on Friday

Kenyan police said that they had found more bags filled with dismembered female body parts on Saturday, the latest macabre discovery at a rubbish dump that has horrified and angered the country.

Detectives have been scouring the site in the Nairobi slum of Mukuru since the mutilated corpses of at least six women were found on Friday in sacks floating in a sea of garbage.

Only foreign minister spared as William Ruto tries to quell violence triggered by planned tax rises

Kenya’s president, William Ruto, has fired his entire cabinet apart from his foreign minister, bowing to pressure after nationwide protests that have created the biggest crisis of his two-year presidency.

The youth-led protests against planned tax rises began peacefully but turned violent. A least 39 people were killed in clashes with police last month. Some demonstrators briefly stormed parliament before Ruto abandoned the new taxes.