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/ 4 July 2006

Kenya smashes fraud network at wildlife parks

Authorities in Kenya said on Tuesday they had smashed a massive fraud ring that was bilking the country’s famed national parks and wildlife reserves of millions of dollars in entrance fees each year. At least 75 people, including employees of the Kenya Wildlife Service, tour guides and operators have been arrested, they said.

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/ 27 June 2006

UN warns Africa to harness natural resources

The United Nations Environmental Programme warned on Tuesday that Africa will slip further into poverty if its governments fail to adopt eco-friendly policies to sustain and exploit its natural wealth. It said the continent’s fast-degrading environment faces fresh strains from genetically modified organisms, invasive species and a switch in chemical manufacturing.

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/ 24 June 2006

Gay and lesbian people ‘are here in Africa’

”We are here in Africa. We live in the mainstream, we pay taxes like everybody else in the mainstream, we relate with people in the mainstream. We are a naturally occurring phenomenon in the universe,” said activist Donna Smith of gay people in Africa, at the second Africa Conference on Sexual Health and Rights this week in Nairobi.

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/ 21 June 2006

Somali rivals head to Khartoum for peace talks

Delegations from Somalia’s transitional government and the rival Islamic alliance were due to travel to Sudan on Wednesday to participate in Arab League-led mediation efforts, officials said. Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir, the current chairperson of the Arab League, said on Tuesday he would try to bring the two factions to the negotiating table.

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/ 14 June 2006

Kenya shoots for Hollywood of Africa status

Eager to cash in on its stunning wildlife and scenery, Kenya is revamping its maligned film policy and luring filmmakers with incentives in a bid to become the Hollywood of Africa. Mindful of the stiff competition offered by South Africa and Nigeria, Kenyan officials are determined to see the lucrative movie business, which now directly employs 41 000 people in full- and part-time jobs, grow.

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/ 13 June 2006

Somali warlords slapped with sanctions

East African states on Tuesday imposed travel sanctions and froze the bank accounts of Somali warlords who have been blamed for igniting the latest round of deadly fighting in Mogadishu. A ministerial meeting of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development, a regional bloc key to the formation of Somalia’s transitional government, agreed to the sanctions.

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/ 13 June 2006

East African states mull sanctions for warlords

East African ministers on Tuesday sought ways of ending a devastating conflict in Somalia as Kenya pushed regional states to impose wider travel sanctions on warlords blamed for igniting the latest round of fighting in the capital, Mogadishu. The Inter-Governmental Authority on Development also called for support for a powerless transitional government.

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/ 7 June 2006

In East Africa, soccer is ‘very, very important’

<a href="http://www.mg.co.za/specialreport.aspx?area=soccer_world_cup_2006"><img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/272488/icon_focuson_wc3.gif" align=left border=0></a>It has been dubbed "The Greatest Show on Earth", and in Kenya that’s precisely what the Soccer World Cup is. So, with just days before the latest tournament kicks off in Germany, excitement among soccer fans in the East African country is mounting.

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/ 7 June 2006

Somalia: Setback for US war on terror

The success of Islamic extremists fighting for control of Somalia’s capital could prove a setback in the United States war on terrorism, with the defeat of a counterterrorism alliance providing hope for militants elsewhere in the region. The US has not carried out any direct action in Somalia since the deaths of 18 servicemen on a humanitarian mission in a 1993 battle in Mogadishu.

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/ 2 June 2006

UN: Cholera outbreak has killed 424 in Sudan

A cholera outbreak has killed at least 424 people and sickened 14 000 since January in southern Sudan, and officials are concerned the disease could spread to other countries, the World Health Organisation said on Friday. The outbreak has hit seven states in southern Sudan, the Geneva-based United Nations organisation said.

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/ 1 June 2006

Kenyan Parliament adopts sex-crimes law

After a month of heated debate punctuated by a walk-out by female lawmakers, Kenya’s predominantly male national assembly on Wednesday approved a watered-down version of new sex-crimes legislation. The law boosts penalties for rapists and other sex offenders but drops provisions from earlier drafts that rights activists had deemed key.

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/ 30 May 2006

UN envoy: Somalia on the brink of disaster

Somalia is on the brink of major disaster as conflict spirals out of control in Mogadishu and donors fail to respond to humanitarian emergencies in the lawless nation, a senior United Nations envoy said on Tuesday. Already beset with drought and poverty, the people of Somalia have been further hit by the fighting that has engulfed the capital.

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/ 23 May 2006

Preventing rape survivors from becoming Aids statistics

For women who are victims of rape, recovery from the violation is typically arduous and draining. When they’re unable to get treatment to prevent possible HIV infection the process is even more fraught, however — something with which Kenya is grappling. Known as post-exposure prophylaxis, the anti-HIV treatment is available in just seven of the 73 government district hospitals in Kenya.

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/ 23 May 2006

Ritual killings could drive Kenyan lions to extinction

Kenya’s famed lion prides could be driven to extinction because ritual killings by tribal warriors are decimating their ranks in and around the country’s protected game reserves, wildlife experts warned on Tuesday. The findings were immediately dismissed by members of the Maasai tribe, which is blamed for most of the deaths among the country’s dwindling lion population.

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/ 11 May 2006

Aristocrat accused in new Kenya slaying

A British aristocrat who escaped murder charges in Kenya after killing a game warden on his family’s ranch last year shot another man to death on the premises on Wednesday, police said. Thomas Cholmondeley, son of the Fifth Baron Delamere and great-grandson of Kenya’s most prominent early British settler, told authorities he fired at a suspected poacher on the ranch in the central Rift Valley.

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/ 9 May 2006

US renews terror alert for East Africa

The United States has renewed its terrorism alert for East Africa, warning of possible attacks at a time of surging maritime piracy throughout the region, the US embassy in Kenya said Tuesday. The advisory, issued by the State Department in Washington, reminds US citizens that Islamic extremists are active and may be plotting attacks in East Africa.

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/ 9 May 2006

Kenya’s first test-tube babies born

Nearly 30 years after the birth of the world’s first test-tube baby, Kenya on Tuesday celebrated the deliveries of the first children conceived through in-vitro fertilisation in the country. The two baby girls were born to two mothers, aged 30 and 35, at a private hospital in the capital on Monday.

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/ 2 May 2006

Alleged pirates freed after US declines to prosecute

A group of alleged Somali pirates captured by the United States navy in March have been freed and returned home to lawless Somalia after the US declined to prosecute them, officials said on Tuesday. Ten of the 12 suspected pirates detained on March 18 after firing on US warships in the Indian Ocean off the Somali coast have been handed over to the International Committee for the Red Cross.

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/ 27 April 2006

From petrol power to pedal power

Minibus taxis, referred to as ”matatus”, have long been a ubiquitous feature of the Kenyan landscape, providing transport in cities — and linking urban and rural areas. But a revolution is under way in western Kenya: bicycle taxis are replacing motorised vehicles, their passengers perched on padded seats positioned above the back wheel.