Kenya Environmental & Political News Weblog

• Kenyan Student’s Suicide Reveals Gaps in HIV Education

  Posted: May 28, 2008, 10:01 pm by Phil

  Photo: Kristy Siegfried/IRIN Only nine out of 16 HIV testing centres in North Eastern Province are functioning GARISSA, 28 May 2008 (PlusNews) - The recent suicide of a secondary school student in Kenya’s North Eastern Province after he was diagnosed as HIV positive has highlighted the shortage of qualified counsellors in the region, and the [...]

• Kenyan reconciliation Jeopardized Without Bolstered Efforts, warns UN Envoy

  Posted: May 28, 2008, 10:00 pm by Phil

  DPs at a shelter in the Rift Valley Province (file photo) 27 May 2008 – Stepped-up measures are crucial to ensure the sustainable return of those forced to flee their homes by post-electoral violence that swept through Kenya earlier this year, a United Nations envoy cautioned today.“In the absence of substantially increased efforts, we will jeopardize [...]

• Kenya’s IDPs in Central Reluctant to Return to Rift Valley

  Posted: May 27, 2008, 1:04 pm by Phil

  Photo: Waweru Mugo/IRIN Samuel Ngumo Kamau and wife, Teresia Muthoni, and their three-week old baby RURING’U, 23 May 2008 (IRIN) - Samuel Ngumo Kamau cannot dispel the images of burning houses and Kenyans killing each other from his mind – a key factor in his decision not to return to his home of nearly four [...]

• Plastic Not Fantastic? - Bag Bans Around the World

  Posted: May 27, 2008, 1:00 pm by Phil

  (Reuters) — China will become the latest country to outlaw ultra-thin plastic bags, when a ban takes effect on Sunday, in a bid to cut pollution and save resources. The ban, announced by the State Council in January, halts the production of bags that are thinner than 0.025 mm and forbids their use in supermarkets and [...]

• HIV/AIDS: The Little Kenyan Village That Could

  Posted: May 23, 2008, 5:33 pm by Phil

  Photo: Keishamaza Rukikaire/IRIN Two-and-a-half year old Tito, the Nyumbani village’s youngest resident, with his grandmother outside their home. KITUI , 22 May 2008 (PlusNews) - The word ‘nyumbani’ means home in Swahili, and that is exactly what a pilot village in the eastern Kenyan district of Kitui is trying to provide for two generations devastated [...]

• Is Agricultural Biodiversity Another Way Out For Global Food Crisis?

  Posted: May 23, 2008, 4:39 pm by Phil

  Another possible way out for coping with the global food crisis is stressed here on Wednesday amid United Nation (UN) sets “Biodiversity and Agriculture” as theme of the International Day of Biological Diversity (IBD) this year. “The protection of the world’s biodiversity is essential to the world’s food supply,” said Ahmed Djoghlaf, executive secretary of the [...]

• WAJIBU: Redifining Ourselves

  Posted: May 21, 2008, 3:46 pm by Phil

  “People who ignore their history are bound to repeat it” (Desmond Tutu) If we really wish never again to see a repetition of the traumatic events that we experienced after the 2007 elections, we CANNOT AND WE MUST NOT bury the memory of what happened in the early months of 2008. WAJIBU, in this [...]

• UN to Help Kenya’s Maasai People to Preserve Their Heritage

  Posted: May 21, 2008, 3:17 pm by Phil

  20 May 2008 –Two people from the Maasai community of Laikipia in Kenya are to be given training in documenting and archiving their cultural heritage through a new project launched today by the United Nations World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).The two people from the Maasai community will travel with an expert from the National Museums [...]

• Kenya’s Mt. Elgon: Guns recovered, SLDF Militiamen Surrender After Leader’s Killing

  Posted: May 20, 2008, 10:28 am by Phil

  Photo: Julius Mwelu/IRIN A joint operation with army and police officers has been deployed in Mt Elgon since March NAIROBI, 19 May 2008 (IRIN) - Kenyan security officers have recovered more guns and witnessed “several” militiamen surrendering after the killing of a militia leader in the western Mt Elgon district, a police official told IRIN [...]

• Claims of Torture by Army & Militia, as Food Shortages Grip Mt Elgon

  Posted: May 20, 2008, 10:25 am by Phil

  Photo: Ann Weru/IRIN Displaced people from Mt Elgon area receiving food aid in Bungoma NAIROBI, 16 May 2008 (IRIN) - The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) has called for an investigation into allegations of torture committed by security forces deployed in the clash-torn Mt Elgon district in western Kenya. “In seeking to return sanity [...]

• Tax Evasion Costs the Lives of 1,000 Children a Day

  Posted: May 19, 2008, 4:22 pm by Phil

  The lives of 1,000 young children a day are being lost to disease and poverty in poor countries because of illegal trade-related tax evasion, says a new report from Christian Aid. It has calculated that this evasion costs the developing world at least US$160bn in lost revenue annually. The culprits are companies using false accounting to [...]

• KENYA: Muslim Clerics Declare War on Condoms

  Posted: May 15, 2008, 12:51 pm by Phil

  Photo: Neil Thomas/IRIN Muslim leaders have promised to preach against the use and distribution of condoms in northeastern Kenya GARISSA, 12 May 2008 (PlusNews) - Muslim leaders in Kenya’s North Eastern Province have resolved to campaign against the promotion of condoms as a means of preventing HIV. The decision was made after a recent meeting on [...]

• Billion Tree Campaign to Grow into the Seven Billion Tree Campaign

  Posted: May 15, 2008, 12:47 pm by Phil

  Grassroots Initiative Hits Two Billion Mark -Target Raised to Over One Tree Per Person by Crucial 2009 Climate Convention Meeting Nairobi, 13 May 2008 - A unique worldwide tree planting initiative, aimed at empowering citizens to corporations and people up to presidents to embrace the climate change challenge, has now set its sights on planting seven [...]

• Food Price Crisis: A Wake-Up Call for Food Sovereignty

  Posted: May 13, 2008, 1:49 pm by Phil

  Food prices have been increasing sharply. According to the World Bank, global food prices have climbed by 83% over the last three years. The real price of rice rose to a 19-year high in March 2008, an increase of 50% in two weeks alone while the real price of wheat hit a 28-year high, triggering [...]

• An Answer to the Global Food Crisis: Peasants & Small Scale Farmers Can Feed the World

  Posted: May 13, 2008, 1:45 pm by Phil

  Prices on the world market for cereals are rising. Wheat prices increased by 130% in the period between March 2007-March 2008. Rice prices increased by almost 80% in the period up to 2008. Maize prices increased by 35% between March 2007 and March 2008 (1). In countries that depend heavily on food imports some [...]

• Financing Boost for Kenya’s Small Farmers

  Posted: May 7, 2008, 1:49 pm by Phil

  Photo: Manoocher Deghati/IRIN The cost of food is rising, placing a disproportionate burden on the poor who spend most of their income on consumables NAIROBI, 6 May 2008 (IRIN) - Small farmers and agricultural enterprises are the main beneficiaries of a financing partnership launched on 6 May to help them break out of poverty and [...]

• Call to End E-Waste Dumping in Developing Countries

  Posted: May 7, 2008, 1:48 pm by Phil

  The world federation of consumer organisations, Consumers International (CI), today called for tighter government monitoring to prevent the continued dumping of toxic e-waste on the developing world. The call comes as investigations by CI’s corporate watchdog partner, DanWatch, indicate that half a million second-hand computers are imported to Nigeria every month. The vast majority are obsolete [...]

• Compensation, Fear of Attacks Keeping Kenyan IDPs in Rift Valley Camps

  Posted: May 2, 2008, 10:12 am by Phil

  Photo: Manoocher Deghati/IRIN A young boy drinks rain water at the displaced camp at Eldoret. April 2008. The heavy downpour brings a risk of waterborne diseases that can hit the camp. ELDORET, 1 May 2008 (IRIN) - Along the Nakuru-Eldoret road, the charred remains of homes and businesses scar the picturesque landscape of Kenya’s Rift [...]

• Kenya Clergy Urged to Ditch Sanctimony in HIV Fight

  Posted: May 1, 2008, 12:09 pm by Phil

  Photo: Ann Weru/IRIN Canon Gideon Byamugisha, who facilitated the meeting, was the first member of the African clergy to disclose his HIV status NAIROBI, 30 April 2008 (PlusNews) - When Bishop James Otieno Okombo revealed he was HIV-positive in 1996, his archbishop summarily dismissed him, calling him a sinner and a disgrace to his church. “He [...]

• African Organizations Join Forces to Push for 15% Health Budget Commitment

  Posted: May 1, 2008, 12:07 pm by Phil

  It is the 7th anniversary of the pledge by African Union member states to allocate 15% of national budgets to health. In a statement to mark the anniversary, Archbishop Tutu stated: “The AU Abuja 15% pledge is one of the most important commitments African leaders have made to health development and financing, and [...]

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