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/ 24 September 2007
Once known as East Africa’s green ”City in the Sun”, Nairobi is so choked with traffic that Kenya’s architects suggest moving to a new capital and angry business leaders say the booming economy is under threat. A combination of bad drivers, ramshackle vehicles, overloaded trucks, potholed roads and corrupt traffic police make one of Africa’s biggest cities resemble the dodgems on a good day.
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/ 21 September 2007
Floods are continuing to ravage an arc of African countries from the Sahel to the Horn of Africa, washing away homes and ruining crops, and have been reported as the worst in years in many states. Uganda is experiencing its worst floods in memory, with about 89 000 households ”severely affected”.
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/ 20 September 2007
Less than a week after Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki unveiled his new party and embarked on a rigorous re-election campaign, the National Security Intelligence Service has leaked a damaging report, suggesting the president is headed for a resounding defeat in six out of the country’s eight provinces in the national polls set for December.
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/ 19 September 2007
The female condom has failed to take off in Kenya, depriving women of one of the few means over which they have control of protecting themselves.
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/ 19 September 2007
Scores of African scientists will be trained to develop crops for Africa’s conditions under a programme launched on Wednesday which is also aimed at keeping their expertise at home. Most African crop scientists have been educated at European or United States universities, and many stay there after graduation.
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/ 17 September 2007
Fears mounted on Monday that downpours that have killed dozens in Africa, uprooted hundreds of thousands and devastated crops could continue past the end of the rainy season and hit areas that have so far escaped floods. Experts say the rising waters may hit as yet unaffected areas in the coming days.
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/ 17 September 2007
Democratic governments must condemn Eritrea for suppressing ”all freedoms”, Reporters sans Frontières said Monday, a day before the sixth anniversary of a crackdown that throttled free media. The Paris-based RSF called on foreign powers to summon Eritrean ambassadors in their countries to condemn the situation in the tiny Red Sea state.
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/ 17 September 2007
President Mwai Kibaki hit the campaign trail on Monday in the tribal heartland of his main opposition challengers just hours after announcing he would seek re-election in Kenya’s December poll. After keeping Kenyans guessing all year, Kibaki on Sunday launched a new coalition, the Party of National Unity.
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/ 13 September 2007
Ethiopian rebels on Thursday urged the world to bring an end to an army crackdown in the restive Ogaden region, warning that another ”African genocide” was unfolding. The Ogaden National Liberation Front said thousands of displaced civilians had fled to neighbouring Somalia without food and medicine over the past four months.
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/ 12 September 2007
African nations neighbouring the Indian Ocean on Wednesday warned of a possible tsunami after a huge earthquake struck off the west coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, officials said. Kenyan authorities advised residents along the coastal region to keep off the beaches and remain alert, warning that a tsunami was expected.
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/ 3 September 2007
Rebels in Ethiopia’s volatile east declared a unilateral ceasefire so the United Nations can investigate their claims of human rights abuses in the region. The Ogaden National Liberation Front rebels, ethnic Somalis who have been fighting the government for more than a decade, said they will only defend themselves if attacked.
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/ 2 September 2007
The son of former Kenyan president Daniel arap Moi has threatened to sue a British newspaper that claimed his father and associates stole a billion dollars during his rule, state media said on Saturday. The Guardian reported that Moi’s family and others got at least a billion dollars out of the country during his 24-year regime.
An oil tanker truck rolled down a hill and smashed into four minibuses in Kenya, killing 29 people and injuring more than 30, police said on Friday. The tanker’s driver had stopped to refuel on Thursday when the vehicle started rolling, police chief Grace Kaindi said in Kisii, about 270km west of the capital, Nairobi.
Entering Nairobi’s fetid slums the senses are first assaulted by a gagging stench and the sight of rubbish everywhere, some even hanging from trees or smouldering in acrid fires. The city government does not recognise the ”informal settlements” where more than 60% of the population live, so no services are provided and no garbage collected.
Seventy-one Ugandan soldiers were killed and another 41 injured, many seriously, when their huge truck crashed into a concrete barrier at the side of a mountain road, a spokesperson said on Monday. ”It was a trailer and the soldiers were changing location from eastern Uganda. Apparently no one escaped unhurt,” army spokesperson Major Felix Kulayigye said.
The number of Somalis in need of humanitarian aid in the conflict-riddled nation has catapulted by 50% to 1,5-million, famine monitors said on Friday. As insecurity continues to choke the delivery of aid, the donor-funded Food Security Analysis Unit said the country’s breadbasket regions suffered from multiple shocks spurred by poor harvest, rains and instability.
An international human rights group has accused President Yoweri Museveni’s government of promoting ”state homophobia” in Uganda and urged the repeal of a colonial-era law against sodomy. Human Rights Watch’s attack added to a fierce social debate in the East African nation, where the gay community has been increasingly vocal in demanding rights.
Most of the 10 000 refugees who fled to Uganda from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Tuesday have returned home, the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, said on Thursday. UNHCR said more than 8 500 refugees went back on Wednesday, a day after fleeing their country fearing fresh violence there.
The Kenyan president refused on Wednesday to approve legislation that has widely been condemned as an attack on independent media because it would allow Kenyan courts to compel reporters to reveal their sources. President Mwai Kibaki rejected the Bill a week after hundreds of journalists protested while wearing black gags.
They’ve become as much a symbol of Africa’s landscape as the stereotypical lions and plains. Discarded plastic bags — in the billions — flutter from thorn-bushes across the continent, and clog up cities from Cape Town to Casablanca. South Africa was once producing seven billion bags a year and Kenya not so long ago churned out about 4 000 tonnes of polythene bags a month.
A crowd burned a church compound on Friday in one of Africa’s largest slums after a long-running land dispute flared into violence, witnesses and police said. Nobody was injured. Police said there was a dispute between the local Nubian community, which is mainly Muslim, and the Presbyterian Church over land ownership.
Kenya has cut malaria deaths among children under five by 44% on 2002 levels thanks largely to the increased use of insecticide treated nets (INTs), the government said on Thursday. The Health Ministry said the distribution of 13,4-million INTs over the past five years among children and pregnant women had helped curtail infections, a key success against a disease threatening 40% of the world’s population.
Kenya’s main opposition coalition has split into two factions ahead of a presidential election in December, boosting President Mwai Kibaki’s chances of re-election, politicians said on Wednesday. After months of feuding between opposition presidential aspirants Raila Odinga and Kalonzo Musyoka, the pair have parted ways.
When residents of Mathare slum in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi staged a recent protest over a five-day water shortage, the police moved to break the demonstration, firing tear gas and arresting some of the protestors. The July 31 police action in the Bondeni area, however, did not address the cause of the problem.
Kenya’s Aids prevalence rate dropped to 5,1% last year from 5,9% in 2005, mainly due to the increased roll-out of antiretrovirals, the national Aids council said Tuesday. The state-run National Aids Control Council said the growing use of life-prolonging therapy averted about 57 000 deaths in 2006.
The Somali government is trying to create a Baghdad-style safe ”Green Zone” in Mogadishu to protect senior officials and foreign visitors from insurgent attacks, Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi said on Tuesday. In an interview with Reuters, the Somali premier also accused United States-based Human Rights Watch of ”abusing” his government.
African nations have been falling over themselves to pledge support for an expanded peacekeeping mission in Sudan’s Darfur region under United Nations and African Union auspices. At least six countries have quickly promised troops. But in arguably Africa’s second biggest trouble spot, Somalia, the rush to supply Darfur has a bitter ring.
Rescue teams searched on Monday for 13 people missing after weekend landslides buried a village in western Kenya but a humanitarian worker said it was unlikely they would be found alive. ”We don’t hold out any hope of finding survivors,” said Tony Mwangi, a spokesperson for the Kenya Red Cross.
Ethiopia’s Ogaden rebels warned oil companies interested in the volatile but energy-rich region on Wednesday not to be lulled into a ”false sense of security” by the government, saying their forces were well armed. The Ogaden National Liberation Front said the government had lost control of Ogaden. The rebels warned oil companies to stay away.
Beating the air with her homemade net, Aicha Ali chases a swirling black and turquoise butterfly. Far from indulging in a frivolous pastime, this Kenyan mother is earning crucial family income. "I like capturing butterflies; it’s fun because I make some money," she says, puffing as she wipes the sweat pearling on her nose after a frantic chase in the forest’s sandy trails.
Agricultural scientists unveiled a cheap kit on Thursday to let African farmers test crops for a deadly poison that makes them unfit to eat and costs the continent millions of dollars in lost exports. Aflatoxin, a toxic chemical produced by a fungus, develops on maize, groundnuts, sorghum and cassava during hot weather and droughts.
A Kenyan court ruled on Wednesday that Thomas Cholmondeley, descendant of one of the country’s most famous white settlers, should present his defence in a murder case that has stoked longstanding racial tensions. The great grandson of Lord Delamere has admitted shooting Kenyan stonemason Robert Njoya, whom he accused of poaching on his Soysambu farm.