Karen Calabria
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/ 10 June 2007

Kenya pioneers ‘mobile money’ in African first

Eyeing his cellphone with a mixture of suspicion and amazement, Paul Kangethe reads and rereads the SMS he has just received. ”I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Kangethe says of the alert that instructs him to report to the nearest cellphone shop to retrieve money his brother-in-law sent him just moments ago. Kangethe is one of more than 65 000 registered users of M-Pesa, a mobile money-transfer system.

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/ 1 December 2006

Stigma remains hurdle in Kenya’s fight against Aids

<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/291293/aidsday06.gif" align=left>Awareness campaigns have succeeded in reducing Kenya’s HIV/Aids prevalence rate to 6% in 2006 from 10% in the late 1990s, according to a United Nations report. But HIV-positive Kenyans, like Akinyi, are often stigmatised by strangers and family alike who remain ignorant about the transmission and symptoms of the disease.

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/ 10 October 2006

Somalia’s woes grow in Kenyan refugee camps

Mohammed Abdi Guhad sits idly in the shade of a makeshift wooden kiosk, explaining his plan to return to Somalia and fight for the country’s powerful Islamist movement. "I would rather kill than stay here doing nothing," he says, rubbing his hands in anticipation of leaving a dusty United Nations refugee camp in north-east Kenya where he has lived since fleeing unrest in his native land six years ago.

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/ 21 November 2005

Kenyans vote on draft Constitution

Kenyans voted peacefully on Monday in a constitutional referendum amid fears of violence after a bitterly contested campaign for the first major change to the country’s charter since independence. Long lines were seen at polling stations as up to 11,6-million voters queued to cast ballots on the draft.