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/ 7 April 2007

Pirates release captured UN, Indian ships

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.

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/ 4 April 2007

US agents visit Ethiopian secret jails

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.

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/ 24 March 2007

Kenya loses 13 people to TB every hour

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 117 00 cases were diagnosed by 2006, but that was possibly only half of total infections in Kenya,

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/ 22 March 2007

Kenya’s water troubles more than just leaky pipes

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.

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/ 19 March 2007

Virgin to start flights to Kenya in June

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 100 000 passengers to Kenya in the first year. ”If it is successful we hope to go up to two planes a day,” he said.

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/ 27 February 2007

Going beyond cheerleading for candidates

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

Welcome to ‘Nairobbery’

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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/ 19 February 2007

Clean fuels set to revolutionise agriculture

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.

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/ 12 February 2007

Brutal gun attacks cause alarm in Kenya

A 79-year-old American missionary and her daughter, the wife of a United States diplomat, are cut down by automatic gunfire on the edge of town. A top Kenyan HIV scientist and two other people, one on crutches, are killed when teenage gunmen indiscriminately spray vehicles on a highway with AK-47 fire. Baghdad? Mogadishu? No, Nairobi, capital of East Africa’s richest economy.

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/ 9 February 2007

‘Slum tourism’ stirs controversy in Kenya

It’s the de rigueur stop off for caring foreign dignitaries. It reached a worldwide audience as a backdrop to the British blockbuster The Constant Gardener. Any journalist wanting a quick Africa poverty story can find it there in half an hour. And now at least one travel agency offers tours round Kenya’s Kibera slum, one of Africa’s largest.

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/ 6 February 2007

Kenya land clashes kill 60, displace thousands

Escalating clashes over fertile land in Kenya’s Mount Elgon region have killed 60 people and forced tens of thousands more from their homes since December, the Kenya Red Cross said on Tuesday. Land is an explosive issue in the East African nation, where for decades top politicians grabbed public land for political patronage.

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/ 5 February 2007

UN: World’s poor to be hardest hit by global warming

The world’s poor, who are the least responsible for global warming, will suffer the most from climate change, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told environment ministers from around the world on Monday. ”The degradation of the global environment continues unabated … and the effects of climate change are being felt across the globe,” Ban said in a statement.

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/ 1 February 2007

Somali Islamist leader out of Kenyan custody

Top Islamist leader Sheikh Sharif Ahmed — seen by many as a key to reconciliation in post-war Somalia — has left the custody of Kenyan intelligence and was reported by a website to be heading to Yemen. ”It’s true that I’m heading to Yemen,” he was quoted as saying on the website of the London-based ONKOD news agency run by a Somali journalist.

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/ 22 January 2007

Top Somali Islamist surrenders, say sources

A senior leader in Somalia’s Islamist movement wanted by the country’s transitional government has surrendered to authorities in neighbouring Kenya, a Kenyan official and diplomatic sources said on Monday. Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed presented himself to Kenyan officials at the border on the weekend and is being held in an undisclosed location, they said.

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/ 21 January 2007

Cup organisers told not exploit workers

Organisers of the 2010 Soccer World Cup must not exploit high levels of unemployment in South Africa and build stadiums on the cheap, the biggest international union federation said on Sunday. Ten stadiums in nine different cities are due to either be built or substantially revamped at least a year ahead of the tournament.

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/ 21 January 2007

Africa ‘will die out before our eyes’

African governments’ failure to deliver on a 2001 vow to spend 15% of budgets on health has cost the continent 40-million lives, activists including Nobel winners Desmond Tutu and Wangari Maathai said on Sunday. ”The governments are to blame of course, but nothing has been done about it because ordinary people have not demanded it,” Maathai said in a call to action.

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/ 19 January 2007

Tutu: Focus on Africa’s woes, not gay clergy

Archbishop Desmond Tutu on Friday urged the African Anglican church to concentrate on the continent’s grim problems rather than on the row over gay clergy, and said persecuting gay people is akin to racism. The debate over the role of homosexuals in the church threatens to split the world’s 77-million Anglicans.

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/ 16 January 2007

Burning the midnight oil for Africa’s WSF

With just days to go before the seventh World Social Forum (WSF) kicks off in Nairobi, it is all systems go among the organisers, who are preparing to welcome thousands of delegates to the Kenyan capital for the January 20 to 25 gathering. The yearly forum will provide a platform for groups and individuals who oppose the current system of globalisation.