Lunchtime at an upmarket Kenyan safari lodge in what should be the slow off-season, and the dining room is packed with tourists from all over the world. Chattering excitedly in many languages as they watch antelope, buffalo and a giraffe grazing just a short distance away across a stone terrace, they are driving an unprecedented boom in a key sector of East Africa’s biggest economy.
Aid workers are only reaching about a third of the thousands of civilians afflicted by Mogadishu’s worst fighting for years, the United Nations’s top aid official said on Monday after visiting the Somali capital. John Holmes cut short his trip after bombs planted by suspected insurgents killed at least three people during Saturday’s visit.
Anthony Mitchell, who reported for The Associated Press (AP) from across East Africa, was remembered for his dedication to telling Africa’s story, and for his humour. Mitchell was among the 114 people that an official said on May 7 were killed in a plane crash over the weekend in Cameroon.
Seven South Africans were on board the Kenya Airways plane which crashed off the coast of Cameroon on Saturday morning, Foreign Affairs spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa said. Kenya Airways said on Saturday Cameroonian authorities had picked up an automatic distress signal from the area where a jet to Nairobi went missing.
Alarmed by noise pollution, a Kenyan Rift Valley town has ordered all churches to install soundproof equipment or move out, officials said on Thursday. The Eldoret Municipal Council said residents had complained that the town’s dozens of churches were a public nuisance owing to constant noise — mainly preaching and songs — from sound-distorting woofers.
Gunmen have seized three fishing vessels off the Somali coast in the latest in a growing number of hijackings since Islamists were kicked out of Mogadishu at the beginning of the year, a maritime official said on Thursday. Andrew Mwangura, director of the East African Seafarers Assistance Programme, said the boats were taken off Puntland.
Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki on Tuesday promised free education in public secondary schools starting next year, a move that would drastically reduce the cost of learning. Kibaki made the pledge to thousands of workers in the capital’s Uhuru (Independence) gardens in a year in which he is expected to seek re-election.
Luzau Basambombo spent six months in a Kinshasa prison, being abused over and over again. The Congolese human-rights activist suspects that he was put behind bars because he openly admitted being homosexual. Today, he lives in Nairobi and feels comfortable there. ”Things are changing here in Kenya — in favour of us,” he says.
Washington and London should appoint envoys to help ensure Uganda’s government and Lord’s Resistance Army rebels do not squander their best hope for peace in 20 years, an influential think-tank said on Friday. Talks resumed in south Sudan on Thursday, with United Nations envoy Joaquim Chissano warning that if squandered, the opportunity may never return.
The carnage and suffering in Somalia may be the worst in more than a decade — but you’d hardly know it from your nightly news. For a mix of reasons, from public fatigue at another African conflict to international diplomatic divisions and frustration, a war slaughtering civilians and creating a huge refugee crisis has failed to grab world attention or stir global players.
Highly endangered mountain gorillas in the East Africa region have shown a steady resurgence in the past decade due to conservation efforts, a wildlife group said on Friday. The WWF said there are currently 340 gorillas in Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, home to nearly half of the world’s remaining mountain gorillas.
This year marks the birth of a new ”species”: Homo urbanus. For the first time in history there will be as many city dwellers as rural inhabitants in the world. The executive director of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme, Anna Tibaijuka, coined this term to describe the rise in city and, consequently, slum dwellers.
About 124 000 people have fled the volatile Somali capital, Mogadishu, in the past two months as violence escalated in the war-torn city, the United Nations refugee agency said on Sunday. About one-10th of them fled in the past week alone, with the majority deserting Mogadishu last month.
Pirates have released a United Nations-chartered cargo ship and an Indian vessel they captured in the unpatrolled waters off the coast of Somalia, a maritime official said on Saturday. Andrew Mwangura of the Seafarers’ Assistance Programme said the hijackers freed the MV Rozen and MV Nimatullah on Friday.
Somali pirates are demanding 000 for the return of an Indian-flagged merchant ship and its crew, officials said on Thursday. The pirates, armed with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, seized the MV Nimatullah and its 14-member crew off the coast of Mogadishu early on Monday.
A cargo ship escaped seizure at Somalia’s main port in the restive capital, Mogadishu, three days after pirates captured another vessel in the same harbour, a maritime official said on Wednesday. Gunmen in speed boats opened fire at the MV Nishan, a United Arab Emirates-registered vessel, late on Tuesday.
CIA and FBI agents hunting for al-Qaeda militants in the Horn of Africa have been interrogating terrorism suspects from 19 countries held at secret prisons in Ethiopia, which is notorious for torture and abuse, according to an investigation by the Associated Press. Some of the detainees were swept up by Ethiopian troops that drove a radical Islamist government out of neighbouring Somalia late last year.
Gaudencia, a Kenyan woman in her fifties, works barefoot preparing her fallow field for sowing corn. Until two years ago, she had no idea leaving the land untilled some seasons could reap a better harvest. ”It was not enough to feed the whole family before. But now it is,” she says, wiping beads of sweat off her forehead.
Refugees who have fled Mogadishu by the tens of thousands are suffering atrocious conditions, with some living under trees and paying extortionate prices for shelter or even shade, the United Nations said. Nearly 100 000 Somalis have left Mogadishu since February amid a growing insurgency.
Kenya invited expressions of interest on Wednesday from companies seeking to buy a 26% stake in Telkom Kenya, a state-owned landline company, as a strategic partner. The government said it also intended to sell off a further 34% of Telkom in an initial public offering once the strategic partner was on board.
Biofuel and renewable energy sources may hold the key to Africa’s energy crisis. Without intervention, this crisis is set to grow — among others, in Southern African cities such as Lusaka in Zambia, Harare in Zimbabwe, Gaborone in Botswana and Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.
About 13 Kenyans die of tuberculosis every hour and there is little immediate prospect of improvement, the head of a leading national health organisation said on Saturday which is World Tuberculosis Day. About 117Â 00 cases were diagnosed by 2006, but that was possibly only half of total infections in Kenya,
Kenya’s capital, Nairobi , takes its name from a Masai word meaning "place of cool waters". In parts of the city, however, this term is less descriptive than ironic — as demand for water is outstripping supply. The challenge of stretching water supplies ever further is coming to the fore on Thursday as countries around the globe mark World Water Day.
Virgin Atlantic said on Monday it will begin offering daily flights to Nairobi from London Heathrow in June. Virgin chairperson Richard Branson told reporters in Nairobi the airline expected to carry about 100Â 000 passengers to Kenya in the first year. ”If it is successful we hope to go up to two planes a day,” he said.
Rights activists in Kenya have intensified their campaign against a proposed anti-terrorism law — this after a travel advisory issued by the United States warned of possible terrorist attacks in the East African country during the upcoming World Cross-Country Championships.
As the world marks International Women’s Day on Thursday, under the theme of Ending Impunity for Violence against Women and Girls, activists in Kenya claim there is much to do in ensuring that abusers are punished. They worry about the low rate of convictions in rape and abuse cases.
A public spat over when 200Â 000 tons of duty-free sugar should be imported from the Common Market for East and Southern African (Comesa) bloc to forestall a sugar shortage in Kenya has exposed potential economic sabotage by members of the ruling party.
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/ 27 February 2007
With general elections scheduled to take place in Kenya this December, activists in the East African country are looking to constitutional reform to ensure that more women fill decision-making posts in the government. Eighteen of Kenya’s 222 legislators are women. While this is the highest number yet, it still amounts to less than 10% of the total.
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/ 25 February 2007
Once hailed as a ”City in the Sun”, the Kenyan capital is increasingly depicted as reeling under violent crime where crooks with weapons — some only toys but frighteningly realistic — roam with impunity. Police statements in early February said at least 50 civilians and security officials were killed in the space of a month.
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/ 23 February 2007
The issue of lesbian and gay Africans’ human rights again came to the fore recently as Anglican Church leaders met in Tanzania amid the continuing row over the consecration of a gay United States bishop in 2003. An ultimatum was sent from the conference in Dar es Salaam to US bishops to make a commitment that same-sex unions would not be blessed.
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/ 21 February 2007
A day after the United Nations endorsed an African Union peacekeeping force for Somalia, and almost two months after the ouster of the Islamists from Mogadishu, analysts on Wednesday warned of spiralling chaos. At least 12 died and thousands fled the coastal capital, Mogadishu, this week after fierce fighting.
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/ 19 February 2007
Growing demand for clean fuels distilled from plants will likely revolutionise agriculture in both rich and poor countries, a United States agriculture official said on Monday. Michael Yost said African and US farmers both stood to profit from the growing demand for grains that can be converted to ethanol or biodiesel.