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/ 6 May 2008

Amnesty: Civilians targeted in Somalia conflict

All parties in Somalia’s conflict have carried out rights abuses including executions, rape and torture, Amnesty International said on Tuesday, adding there were reports Ethiopian soldiers had slit civilians’ throats. Mogadishu’s whole population is scarred from witnessing or suffering such abuses, it said in its 32-page report.

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/ 27 April 2008

Kenyan army accused of mass torture in Mt Elgon

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.

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/ 26 April 2008

Injury forces Sambu to skip African champs

The 2003 All Africa Games 400 metres gold medallist Ezra Sambu has pulled out of Kenya’s squad for this year’s African Athletics Championships due to a hamstring injury. ”I got injured as we were training at the starting blocks and I opted out because there is no point of me going to the championships when I am not fully fit.

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/ 25 April 2008

Thousands flee Mogadishu after fresh violence

An estimated 8 000 people have fled Mogadishu since last weekend’s clashes, the heaviest this year in the Somali capital, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said on Friday. About 700 000 people have already fled the coastal capital over the past year, sparking one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

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/ 18 April 2008

Kenyan police fire tear gas at women gang members

Police fired tear gas at women members of a feared Kenyan gang on Friday as they tried to deliver a petition to Prime Minister Raila Odinga. About 50 women, many of them elderly or with children on their backs, assembled at Odinga’s party headquarters, asking to speak with him about alleged illegal police killings of gang members.

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/ 17 April 2008

Annan: Long road ahead for Kenya

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.

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/ 17 April 2008

Kenya’s new Cabinet

The dispute over the division of ministerial portfolios in Kenya’s new coalition Cabinet was resolved this week when President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga each made slight concessions in the face of gathering frustration in the country. The Mail & Guardian profiles some of the key ministers.

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/ 16 April 2008

More deaths in fresh Kenya gang violence

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.

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/ 14 April 2008

Gang protests dampen Kenya’s joy over Cabinet

Kenya’s most feared criminal gang paralysed transport on Monday, posing an early challenge to a power-sharing Cabinet formed to end post-election deadlock. Up to seven people were killed when the Mungiki gang shut down roads in the capital, Nairobi, and the Rift Valley town of Naivasha in a gesture of anger after the beheading of its leader’s wife.

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/ 14 April 2008

Kenyan leader unveils power-sharing Cabinet

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.

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/ 12 April 2008

Kenya’s Kibaki, Odinga reach Cabinet deal

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.

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/ 11 April 2008

Kenya Nobel laureate shuns Olympic torch relay

Kenyan Nobel Peace laureate Wangari Maathai said on Friday she has pulled out of the Olympic torch relay this weekend in Tanzania to protest human rights abuses. The torch has been met by major demonstrations on its relay around the world to the Beijing Games, with thousands of protesters angry at China’s human rights record.

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/ 10 April 2008

Kenyan leaders urged to end stalemate

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.

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/ 10 April 2008

Kenya coalition crumbles

The quest for a permanent political settlement in Kenya ran into trouble again this week with the opposition Orange Democratic Movement announcing that it is pulling out of talks on the formation of a coalition government. Talks on the composition of a coalition cabinet have been dragging on for a month.

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/ 9 April 2008

Kenyan leaders under pressure to resume talks

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.

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/ 6 April 2008

Kenya rivals expect Cabinet deal on Monday

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.