Nairobi

Kenya’s state-owned telephone company has blocked internet ”instant messaging” programmes and secure corporate communication channels in an attempt to crack down on illegal telephone calls, internet providers said on Thursday.

Kenya’s fractured opposition united this week behind a single candidate for December’s presidential elections to try to prise President Daniel arap Moi’s party from power. Mwai Kibaki, a close runner-up in the past two polls, is backed by the new National Rainbow Coalition.

The bodies of 75 people killed in ethnic clashes in the eastern Congolese city of Bunia during the past week were found in mass graves, a United Nations military observer said on Sunday.

Kenyan authorities have cancelled a pay hike they awarded to teachers five years ago after 240 000 teachers began a strike early this week to demand the government honour the salary agreement, officials said on Wednesday.

Kenyan police said on Friday they have detained another man suspected to be part of a terrorist group which tried to shoot down an Israeli jetliner with more than 260 passengers on board.

The Eritrean government is holding 14 journalists in custody, at least one of them in solitary confinement, says the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi sacked his Vice President George Saitoti on Friday, his press service announced, a move analysts said was linked to a dispute over plans for Moi’s succession.

Kenya Wildlife Service rangers recovered four tusks and arrested a suspect after two jumbos were killed at a private ranch in Laikipia in the Mount Kenya region last week.

Kenyans – feeling wasted away by the country’s unending political feud, have resorted to attending fashion shows.

African governments are losing their grip on the telecoms industry, making way for private capital to reduce an urban-rural disparity in access to information vital for development

Political and economic reforms will be the key to Africa’s integration into the world economy, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Sunday.

An international human rights organisation has criticised Ethiopia’s use of ”lethal force” against civilians.

Half of cargo handled in Africa and the Middle East is classified as dangerous, a Kenyan shipping official warned at an international shipping parley which ended on Tuesday.

Stopping Africa’s deserts from creeping further into fertile land is the aim of a -million project launched on Monday by the United Nations.

All humanitarian flights from northern Kenya to strife-torn southern Sudan were grounded on Friday after Khartoum imposed a flight ban in the region following escalating fighting between government troops and rebels.

Mutinous soldiers have strengthened their hold on the northern half of Ivory Coast by taking control of a third city, local media reported on Saturday.

FLOODS and mudslides caused by torrential rains in Kenya have killed 46 people and injured eight others in the past two weeks.

The US Agency for International Development has granted Kenya ,2-million to promote economic growth and democracy, following agreements signed here on Monday.

The Zimbabwean army was expected to begin its final withdrawal of troops from Congo on Friday as US President George Bush prepared to meet in New York with key leaders involved in Congo’s four-year-long war.

LARGE development projects like dams and reservoirs around Africa’s mountain areas could trigger earthquakes, volcanoes and landslides, a leading South African geologist said on Tuesday.

Kenya, without donor aid, will enter into heavy domestic borrowing to bridge a four-percent budget deficit.

Kenya’s opposition parties, for years crippled by self-inflicted divisions, have promised tens of thousands of chanting supporters they will join forces to break the ruling party’s 39-year hold on power.

Sudan’s SPLM/A rebels on Saturday claimed seven children have been injured in a bombing attack by government planes.

The new head of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Supachai Panitchpakdi, on Friday admitted that the powerful global body was partly to blame for some of the world’s social ills.

At least 30 people have been killed and over 50 wounded in two days of fighting in Mogadishu, with thousands displaced.

Hundreds of lawyers across Kenya staged a one-day strike on Wednesday to protest an alleged attempt by judges to interfere with the country’s constitutional review process.

Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi for the first time in his 24 years in power on Thursday skipped marking the day he assumed power in the east African country.

The bulk of Kenya’s opposition parties on Tuesday named Mwai Kibaki, a 71-year-old former vice president, as their candidate in a crucial presidential poll expected in December.

An uneasy calm is returning to the Somali capital, Mogadishu, two days after one of the bloodiest battles for years was fought there.