No image available
/ 17 October 2007
Piracy off Somalia is on the rise because an Islamic group that had cracked down on pirates was ousted, an official who tracks piracy cases off Africa’s side of the Indian Ocean said. Earlier, an international watchdog reported maritime pirate attacks worldwide had shot up 14% in the first nine months of 2007.
No image available
/ 16 October 2007
A South African-led consortium will invest -million (R178-million) in the 106-year-old Kenya-Uganda Railway by June next year to revitalise operations on the decrepit track. The Kenyan and Ugandan governments handed over the money-losing colonial-era railway to Rift Valley Railways Consortium under a 25-year concession last year.
No image available
/ 14 October 2007
Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) on Saturday said floods that have wreaked havoc across Africa killed 5 000 wildebeest, and not tens of thousands, blaming tourists for exaggerating the toll. Patrick Omondi, KWS head of species conservation and management, said the wildebeest drowning is a natural-selection phenomenon.
No image available
/ 12 October 2007
The United States should reconsider funding anti-HIV/Aids strategies in Uganda, where recipients of such money violate the rights of homosexuals, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said. The watchdog group, in a letter to US officials on Thursday, said Ugandan officials and the media have intensified attacks on the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.
No image available
/ 12 October 2007
"Our crops have been destroyed by the water and houses have collapsed," says Egoliam of his village’s ordeal in Amuria, Uganda. The heaviest rains in 35 years have caused the worst floods on the continent in decades. Flood waters have destroyed vital infrastructure and left more than one million people needing emergency help.
No image available
/ 10 October 2007
Conventional food aid is not enough to solve Africa’s malnutrition crisis, especially in nations wracked by conflict, an international health agency said on Wednesday. In a continent where thousands of young children suffer from acute malnutrition, the use of nutrient-dense ready-to-use foods needs urgent expansion, Médécins Sans Frontières (MSF) said.
The Somali government has ordered all media organisations to register with the Information Ministry in order to operate in the country, an official said on Friday. ”They must come to my office anytime to register in order to operate. That is what the law says,” Information Minister Madobe Nurrow Mohamed said in the capital, Mogadishu.
The United States House of Representatives has passed a Bill that would force Ethiopia, one of Washington’s strongest military partners in Africa, to make democratic reforms or else lose security aid. The Bill would deny US entry visas to Ethiopian government officials involved in what it calls human rights violations .
Two dozen foreign embassies in Kenya on Monday called for ”zero tolerance” on campaign violence as elections loom in the East African nation where national votes seldom pass without bloodshed. With campaigns just beginning to roll ahead of an expected December presidential poll, one rally has already been ambushed by men armed with bows-and-arrows.
No image available
/ 29 September 2007
The United States on Friday warned that Somali Islamist militants might kidnap Western tourists on vulnerable Kenyan beaches. In a message to US nationals in Kenya, the US embassy in Nairobi said it had received information that Islamic extremists from southern Somalia may be planning kidnapping operations across the border.
No image available
/ 28 September 2007
Ugandan troops looted truckloads of valuable trees from south Sudan when they were pursuing Lord’s Resistance Army rebels who were hiding in the region, a research group said on Friday. The Swiss-based Small Arms Survey said the Uganda People’s Defence Forces cut teak trees in southern Sudan’s Equatoria region during Operation Iron Fist.
No image available
/ 28 September 2007
Kenya’s president rejected a parliamentary Bill that sought to limit probes into corruption cases after Western governments warned it marked a step backwards in the fight against graft. Kibaki had written to the speaker of Parliament outlining his reasons for rejecting the Bill and making recommendations for its amendment.
No image available
/ 26 September 2007
Eritrea maintains its demand that Ethiopia implement a border ruling agreed under a pact to end their 1998 to 2000 war, a minister said on Wednesday after Ethiopia threatened to call off the peace agreement. In a letter to Eritrea’s Foreign Minister on Tuesday, Ethiopia accused Asmara of violating the deal on several fronts including coordinating ”terrorist activity”.
No image available
/ 26 September 2007
Plans to send Turkana Boy — a unique hominid skeleton — and other prehistoric jewels from Kenyan museums for exhibition in the United States have sparked heated debate among Kenya’s scientific community. The trip will bring in a much-needed windfall to Kenya’s cash-strapped museums.
No image available
/ 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.
No image available
/ 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”.
No image available
/ 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.
No image available
/ 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.
No image available
/ 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.
No image available
/ 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.
No image available
/ 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.
No image available
/ 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.
No image available
/ 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.
No image available
/ 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.
No image available
/ 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.
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.
Muslim faithful resolved this week to organise mass action, including street protests, beginning this Friday to compel the Kenyan government to end what they are calling extraordinary ”renditions” and holding terrorism suspects incommunicado. The decision follows the disappearance of a leading anti-rendition campaigner, Farah Mohammed Abdullahi.
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.