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/ 2 September 2008
The spouses of Kenya’s vice-president and prime minister will be paid R44 800 a month for showcasing the "nation’s family values.
Rwandan prosecution team is considering asking the UN to take action against Kenya.
Africa’s electricity supply problems result from poor governance and not lack of capital, the head of a union of producers and distributors said.
Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille has argued against a government of national unity in Zimbabwe, saying it will allow Mugabe to stay in power.
It is time to effect change through constructive enterprise
Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s party won three parliamentary seats on Thursday after by-elections that went peacefully.
Kenyans voted on Wednesday for five parliamentary seats that will decide who holds the majority, a test of stability in the East African nation.
Kenya’s prime minister openly dissented with the president on Tuesday in a row over amnesty for post-election crimes. President Mwai Kibaki’s government and Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s opposition came together in April to form a ”Grand Coalition” after violence that killed at least 1 300.
Kenya Airways said on Friday its 2007/08 annual profit after tax fell to 3,9-billion Kenya shillings from 4,1-billion due mainly to the impact of the East African nation’s post-election crisis. ”The events post-election had a negative impact on our revenue, especially between January to March,” said Titus Naikuni, the chief executive officer.
Kenya President Mwai Kibaki said on Wednesday that his country has learned its lesson from post-election violence and promised to focus on improving the economy. Kenya, long considered one of Africa’s most stable countries, suffered weeks of political violence that claimed at least 1 500 lives after the disputed December general elections.
Kenya must stop forcibly returning internal refugees displaced by post-election violence that saw hundreds of thousands flee their homes, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Friday. More than 1Â 200 people were killed and 300Â 000 left their homes after ethnic clashes hit swathes of the country following a disputed election in December.
Medical charity Médecins sans Frontières on Friday accused Kenyan police of forcing families displaced in post-election violence to return home. The group said its workers in western Kenya’s Endebess camp on Wednesday saw police move from tent to tent, threatening displaced families to make them leave.
It is tempting to romanticise the lifestyle of nomads in Kenya’s north-east — a land peppered with vast termite mounds which burst from rust-coloured soil like fingers pointing to the cloudless sky. For centuries, Muslim pastoralist tribes have roamed the semi-arid wastelands, in perpetual pursuit of pasture and water.
Foreign investors buying Kenya’s Safaricom stock will pay a 0,5 shilling premium per share over the five Kenya shillings that domestic investors will be paying, the government announced on Wednesday. The offering generated over ,25-billion in bids from established institutional investors, Kenya’s privatisation commission said.
Thousands of Kenyans returned home on Monday under a government programme to resettle families displaced by the violence that followed elections at the end of last year. An initial batch of several hundred left camps in several Rift Valley towns back to the countryside under police and army escort.
Kenya’s inflation rate rose to 26,6% in April, up almost 5% from the previous month, the government announced on Friday, blaming rising food and oil prices. "Month-to-month overall inflation rate increased from 21,8% in March 2008 to 26,7% in April 2008," said a statement from the government’s Central Bureau of Statistics.
Kenyan security forces have tortured more than 4 000 people in an indiscriminate offensive against rebels in the remote Mount Elgon area, local rights groups said on Sunday. Activists said the systematic abuses — including crawling on barbed wire — was the worst wave of torture in Kenya under the government of President Mwai Kibaki.
Kenyan authorities should prosecute murderous militias implicated in the country’s devastating post-election violence, but also address any ”genuine grievances” they may have, former United Nations leader Kofi Annan said on Saturday.
Kenya swore in a power-sharing government on Thursday to soothe fury over a disputed election that plunged the East African country into a bloody crisis. ”Our people are now in the process of reconciliation,” President Mwai Kibaki said at the ceremony, nearly four months after the December 27 poll that triggered extreme violence.
Former United Nations chief Kofi Annan on Wednesday urged Kenyans to support the new coalition government, saying the deeply divided country had a long way to go after a post-election crisis. Annan mediated a power-sharing accord that curbed months of violence following disputed elections.
Kenyan police on Wednesday arrested scores of members of a criminal sect whose clashes with authorities this week caused 19 deaths, officials said, as the government vowed to deal ruthlessly with the gang. Hundreds of riot police descended on Nairobi’s Eastlands slums and central Kenyan districts.
Four more people died during a second day of nationwide rioting in Kenya on Tuesday, bringing the overall toll to 19, in a crisis that presented the new coalition Cabinet with its first major challenge. Police said they had killed three members of the Mungiki gang and accused its members of having hacked a Nairobi watchman to death.
Newly appointed Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga on Monday urged the new government, comprising former rivals, to work together to enhance reconciliation in the deeply divided nation. ”The process of reconciliation has begun and the Cabinet must speak in one voice,” Odinga told reporters.
Kenya’s president unveiled a power-sharing government on Sunday, with opposition leader Raila Odinga as Prime Minister, aimed at ending a long-running political crisis sparked by contested elections. ”Let us put politics aside and get to work,” President Mwai Kibaki said in a televised speech announcing the Cabinet line-up.
Kenya President Mwai Kibaki and would-be prime minister Raila Odinga on Saturday reached a coalition government agreement and a new Cabinet will be announced on Sunday, political and diplomatic sources said. The agreement was struck after Kibaki and Odinga held closed-door talks in Sagana State Lodge in central Kenya.
Pressure mounted on Thursday on Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki and prime minister-designate Raila Odinga to resume coalition talks amid warnings that a delay was fomenting violence. The pair met last on Sunday and failed to agree on a unity government, a key step in implementing a power-sharing deal.
Kenyan leaders were on Wednesday under pressure to resume talks on forming a coalition government in a bid to end a devastating political crisis, a day after hundreds demonstrated to demand a new Cabinet. The much-delayed unveiling of a national-unity government is a key step in implementing a power-sharing deal aimed at quelling deadly violence.
Kenya’s opposition suspended talks with President Mwai Kibaki’s party on Tuesday and police fired tear gas to scatter opposition supporters protesting at deepening deadlock over a power-sharing Cabinet. Kibaki and rival Raila Odinga delayed naming the new Cabinet on Monday after disagreeing over how to share out ministries.
Kenya opposition leader Raila Odinga refused to meet President Mwai Kibaki for coalition government talks on Monday, deepening a stalemate on the naming of a new Cabinet. The coalition Cabinet is a key part of a February 28 deal that curbed weeks of deadly clashes set off by Kibaki’s disputed re-election in December.
They were the pride of Kenya, but the country’s athletics community could not escape the worst of the post-election tribal violence after disputed December polls. While two runners perished in the Rift Valley crucible of hate, there have also been allegations that stars past and present helped fund the New Year spree of inter-ethnic killings.
Kenya’s president and future prime minister said on Sunday they had made ”substantial progress” at talks to end an impasse over a power-sharing Cabinet and expected to clinch a deal on Monday. The two sides had planned to name the Cabinet on Sunday, but disagreement over the division of ministries scuttled that plan.
Kenya’s president and opposition leader met to break an impasse over the naming of a power-sharing Cabinet and the government said the ministerial line-up would be unveiled later on Sunday. The Cabinet is a critical part of a deal brokered in February to end the East African nation’s bloodiest political crisis.