The African Union plans to transform a small force it was due to send to Sudan’s troubled Darfur region into a 2Â 000-strong peacekeeping mission, an AU official said on Wednesday. The pan-African body was already planning to send about 300 troops to Darfur to protect its observers and monitors in the country.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=119827">Thousands march on UN in Sudan</a>
Kenya’s press on Tuesday angrily demanded the sacking of the country’s foreign affairs minister over his weekend announcement that seven hostages held in Iraq had been released, which it said turned out to be a ”cruel hoax”. Chirau Ali claimed the hostages had been released and were safe in the Egyptian embassy in Baghdad.
The construction of the first railway line in Kenya was a feast for ”Tsavo’s man-eaters” as the lions in the area were named. The hungry beasts tore about 130 workers to pieces. Nearly 100 years later, a German company is tackling the reconstruction of the old route, which is to be extended to southern Sudan.
A magistrate on Friday dismissed a ”confession” from prosecution evidence in the trial of three Kenyans charged with plotting terror attacks in the country, a defence lawyer said. Salmin Mohammed Khamis, Mohammed Kubwa Seif and Said Saggar Ahmed are accused of plotting the 1998 bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi, when 213 people died.
The African Union has said it may transform its protection force into a ”fully-fledged peacekeeping mission” in Sudan’s Darfur region to force the government-backed Janjaweed militia to lay down its arms in line with a ceasefire deal. The pan-African body is already planning to send some 300 troops to Darfur by the end of July to protect its team of observers and monitors overseeing the implementation of a shaky ceasefire deal.
Hundreds of farmers near Mount Kenya blocked a major highway for three hours this week, protesting against an invasion of their farms by elephants, a news report said on Wednesday. The farmers said the authorities had done nothing to help them get rid of four elephants that had terrorised their fields for weeks.
Poverty has often played the leading role in driving Kenyans to look for employment in the Middle East. But last week’s kidnapping of three Kenyans by Iraqi militants is set to change all that, if the government has its way. The government of President Mwai Kibaki has urged Kenyans working in the Middle East to return home, but that will mean an increase in the number of people looking for jobs.
The families of Kenyan truck drivers kidnapped in Iraq have criticised their government and urged France to step in and mediate the release of the hostages, whose execution was stayed on Monday to allow negotiations. An Iraqi militant group calling itself Holders of the Black Banners last Wednesday kidnapped the Kenyans and four other men.
Relatives and Muslim leaders appealed to Iraqi militants on Thursday to release three Kenyan truck drivers they took hostage, saying the men are good Muslims who went to Iraq to earn a living for their families. A militant group calling itself The Holders of the Black Banners announced on Wednesday it has taken the men hostage.
Amid growing corruption allegations against the Kenyan government, the European Union has postponed a decision on whether to give Kenya new grants, EU and Kenyan officials said on Wednesday. The EU delayed its decision because it wants clarification on some issues, Cabinet secretary Francis Muthaura said, without elaborating.
Hundreds of thousands of Eritrean children are living in extreme poverty due to prolonged drought, the aftermath of border conflict with neighbouring Ethiopia and its impact on the country’s economy, according the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef). An estimated 425 000 children under 14 years of age are affected.
President Mwai Kibaki has declared a national disaster in drought-stricken parts of Kenya, calling for nearly -million in emergency aid from abroad to feed about 3,3-million Kenyans facing food shortages. The country will need an estimated 156Â 000 tons of food aid in the next six months, Kibaki said on Tuesday.
The dragging stalemate in the border dispute between Ethiopia and Eritrea has led the United Nations to voice its concern saying that the impasse poses a security threat to the Horn of Africa. More than 100Â 000 lives were lost before fighting ended almost four years ago.
Britain on Tuesday launched a scathing attack on corruption in Kenya, saying that ”a gigantic looting spree” is hampering development and placing risks on continued donor support. Corruption allegedly accounts for ”about 8%” of the East African country’s gross domestic product.
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan says that peace talks for southern Sudan may be compromised if mediators continue to turn a blind eye to the humanitarian crisis raging in the western region of Darfur, where more than a million people have been displaced by fighting.
Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki on Tuesday appealed for food aid, saying many parts of his country are experiencing food shortages because of inadequate rainfall, his office said. Kibaki insisted that his government will ensure that food aid reaches those affected.
Thursday July 1 should have been the day that Kenya woke up to a new Constitution that set the country on a path of improved governance and development. But yet again, the government has failed to deliver this document. President Mwai Kibaki first promised that a new Constitution would be in hand by the end of his first 100 days in office.
A decade after the United Nations International Conference on Population and Development, maternal mortality continues to plague Africa. Delegates to a meeting held in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, recently heard that of the 585 000 deaths caused every year by obstetric complications, many occur in sub-Saharan Africa.
For one night, Kenyan police had one of the FBI’s most wanted al-Qaeda terrorists behind bars. It should have been a coup for Kenya’s cops. The problem was they didn’t know his true identity, and a day after his detention on July 12 2002, the man escaped, outwitting seven police officers armed with AK-47s and 9mm pistols.
A meeting of more than 187 church leaders from across Africa has highlighted the role of female clergy in fighting the Aids pandemic that has swept the continent. The four-day gathering, which ended on Friday, was organised by the All Africa Conference of Churches to explore ways of stepping up efforts to curb the spread of HIV.
A society free of female genital mutilation, also known as female circumcision, appeared distant this week after a group of women’s rights activists accused medical personnel of carrying out the practice. The activists made the allegation in Nairobi, Kenya, on Monday, after a meeting of former circumcisers organised by Equality Now.
Calls for Kenyan officials to clamp down on abortion were sounded anew last week, during a mass for 15 aborted foetuses discovered near a river. Authorities seek to assure the public that they are taking steps to prevent a repeat of this situation, but a question mark is hanging over why the government has failed to enforce anti-abortion laws.
With large-scale retrenchments of about 21Â 000 workers looming over Kenya’s civil service, union officials say they have presented research to the government showing that the ranks of public employees are already being substantially thinned by retirement and other factors.
Deals paving the way for an end to 21 years of civil war in southern Sudan have prompted international praise, tempered by fresh warnings about a humanitarian catastrophe in the western region of Darfur. The United Nations has called the conflict in Darfur the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.
Khartoum is continuing a campaign of ”ethnic cleansing” in the western region of Darfur, despite having signed a peace accord with rebels to end 21 years of civil war in the south, an international rights group warned on Thursday. ”In the western part of the country, the Sudan government is taking a terrible step backward,” Human Rights Watch said.
Fifteen foetuses, believed to have been illegally aborted, were found dumped in garbage bags and cardboard boxes near a river in Nairobi, Kenya, police said. Police had no details about who left the foetuses just off the main highway from Nairobi to the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa, but they suspect they had been illegally aborted.
As the clock ticks closer to the deadline for introducing a new Constitution in Kenya, Atsango Chesoni for one is filled with anticipation at the coming change. The women’s rights activist and official at Bomas Katiba Watch says the country’s existing Constitution discriminates against women, especially on the issue of property rights — and that change in this matter is long overdue.
Sudan’s government and main rebel group will on Wednesday sign key deals on the remaining political issues standing in the way of a final accord to end 21 years of civil war, the Kenyan foreign ministry said on Tuesday. ”The protocols represent a major step towards the achievement of a final comprehensive settlement to the conflict,” the ministry said in a statement.
Kenya’s government has announced a plan to cut more than 20 000 jobs in the civil service sector in order to make it more efficient, local media reports said on Thursday. Kenya’s National Security Minister Chris Murungaru said the layoffs will start next month and end in 2007.
Negotiators trying to patch together a peace deal to end Sudan’s 21-year war are working to resolve two last key issues before they can sign a final agreement, a rebel spokesperson said on Wednesday. The two issues were how to share political power in two disputed areas of central Sudan and what percentage of posts the rebels would get in the national government.
"The stability of any government is measured by the freedom it gives to the press," says Kenyan media activist Mitch Odero, adding that a "clean" government should not be worried about the press. But recent statements by Kenyan authorities indicate that they have a less sanguine view of the country’s journalists.
One million people are being denied basic health care in Burundi as a result of a cost-recovery system adopted in 2002, the relief organisation Médécins sans Frontières (MSF) said on Thursday. According to a survey by MSF, the system denies one-fifth of the population access to medical consultations.