Kenya Airports Authority: 50% GEMA with the Chairman casting the deciding vote:
The Management: Team Board of Directors
1.PROF. MUTUMA MUGAMBI – Chairman
2.MR. JOSEPH IRUNGU
3.Dr. KAMAU THUGGE
4.Mr. E. MUTEA IRINGO
5.MR DANIEL NDEGE
6.MS. BEATRICE GATHIRWA
7.MR. NICHOLAS BODO
8.MR. CHRISTOPHER OMBEGA
9.MR. NDUVA MULI
10.Ms. LUCY MBUGUA
11.MR. KULOW HASSAN
12.MR. GABRIEL KIVUTI
There is now an existential crisis in our world between the United States-European Union-Russia-China (and all their respective allies) over the future of the global economy…specifically what is going to be the reserve currency of the 21st Century for the purchase of oil and gas.
Currently the global reserve currency is the US Dollar, which allows the American Federal Reserve to literally print money to support not only their economy, but that of the European Union too…so much so that just during one week alone in 2011, the Federal Reserve kept 523 EU banks from collapsing by giving them €489 billion ($638 billion).
Russia and China have a BIG problem with the US and EU making money out of nothing and then using that monetary “power” to bully everyone else they disagree with…so this past May they signed an historic €315 billion ($400 billion) deal that prices gas in their currencies instead of the US Dollar.
Both the US and EU are now terrified that Russia is going to begin demanding payment for both oil in gas in either Russian Rubles or Chinese Yuan…and that is exactly what Russia did last month when for the first time it started selling oil for Rubles instead of US Dollars.
And when (not if) Russia tells the 28 Member States of the European Union, and their 505 million citizens, to start paying for gas and oil in anything other than US Dollars? Well, the answer is simple…the US will stand exposed for the hypocritical nation it has become.
And what is the ONLY thing the US can do to stop this? Simple…they have to completely take over Syria!
If the US is successful in taking over Syria then they can build the pipelines they need from both Qatar and Saudi Arabia…connect them to new pipelines in Turkey…extend them into the EU, and then the Europeans and Americans can keep the US Dollar as the reserve currency of the 21st Century and keep the printing presses running.
Russia, in case you haven’t noticed, isn’t taking this threat lying down either as it continues to extend its pipeline network with the South Stream Pipeline that bypasses Ukraine and will ensure the EU has gas supplies well into this century.
In order to protect the US Dollar, the Americans have sided with the most brutal branch of Islam called the Sunnis…Russia on the other hand, in order to protect its economy, has sided with the more moderate Islamic branch called the Shiites.
The US protected Sunnis (Arab) run governments that are composed of Kings, Emirs and military dictators who do not allow their citizens to vote or their women to have absolutely no rights. (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordon, etc.)
The Russia protected Shiite (Persian) governments are composed as theocracies like Israel but do allow their citizens to vote and their women to have limited rights. (Iran, Syria, Lebanon and now Iraq)
The US protected Sunnis comprised nearly 70% of Islamic terrorists world-wide. The Russian protected Shiites, on the other hand, rarely ever attack Western interests using their capacities, instead, against Sunni terror groups.
Now with the Obama regime having failed to start their Syrian war last year after their lies were exposed for the whole world to see…they then came back in 2014 with a much more devious plan…the number one component being to keep Russia sidelined.
Towards that end, in February, they toppled the democratically elected government of Ukraine and installed a right-wing neo-Nazi government…to which Russia promptly responded.
At the same time, along with Qatar and Saudi Arabia, the Obama regime created, trained and funded the terror group known as the Islamic State (ISIS or ISIL), allowed them to rampage throughout both Syria and Iraq, then labeled them an existential threat, and is currently waging war against them along with their EU allies and Sunni monarchy lapdogs.
And what is the most astounding thing about this whole mess? You are not allowed by either your government or you press to know even the most basic truth about what is going on.
Pipelines…Reserve Currencies…Petrodollars…Sunnis…Shiites…none of these are you allowed to know about…even though your future depends on the outcome.
Kenya is rollicking haphazardly along. But its president, distracted by his indictment by the International Criminal Court, is hamstrung by greedy old-timers
Mar 15th 2014 | NAIROBI | From the print edition
AS THE sun goes down over Nairobi, a new rich set of T-shirt-wearing Kenyans, most of them black and in their 30s, roar with laughter as they quaff whiskies and smoke giant cigars in the Capital Club, the country’s latest temple to Mammon. A year’s membership, a beautiful waitress proudly purrs, is “a million shillings”—about $10,000. Your correspondent watches English football on one of four large television screens, alongside a wall of faux-Masai shields, while waiting for his would-be host, the spokesman of President Uhuru Kenyatta. Alas, the spokesman fails to turn up; it is a Saturday evening, but the president is apparently too busy to spare him. Mr Kenyatta, one of Kenya’s richest oligarchs, who next month will complete his first year in office, is reportedly fond of similar ritzy watering-holes.
Barely a mile away from the Capital Club, the acrid fumes of charcoal fires in Kibera, a notorious slum, mingle with the stench of sewage running down the muddy alleys where perhaps 800,000 Nairobians live in hugger-mugger squalor. The government, says May Achieng, who runs a church-linked school there, provides “absolutely nothing” in the way of services. Manual workers lucky enough to have a job in the metropolis can earn 200-300 shillings ($2-3) a day. Domestic and gang violence are rife. Armed police have a station at the entrance to Kibera, but generally keep out of the slum. Visitors are warned to watch out for robbers and “flying toilet”—bags of excrement chucked out of houses at night. Politicians, says Mrs Achieng, turn up only at election time, “or if there is a fire or some kind of disaster”.
These two Kenyas exist cheek by jowl, both of them, in their way, equally dynamic. Half a century after independence from Britain, rich and poor are both locked into a system of patronage and tribe, all competing for advancement, whether for modest jobs in the civil service or for huge bribes to fix contracts for grand infrastructure projects. In the aftermath of a disputed election in 2007, Kibera, whose districts are unofficially divided along tribal lines, was affected as bloodily as anywhere. “One community chopped off the sexual organs of another community,” says Mrs Achieng, a Luo, whose leader, Raila Odinga, was reckoned by independent observers to have been cheated of victory. Defeated again last year, in a fairer though still flawed poll, he remains the opposition’s head.
If this system is to hold, several requirements must be met in the years to come. The weather, notoriously variable, must be clement enough to satisfy the more than half of Kenyans who still live on the land. At the time of independence, in 1963, the countryside barely sustained a total population of 8m, which has now swollen to 45m. Law and order must continue more or less to prevail, even while the police, in the words of a security analyst, “are corrupt from top to bottom”. Terrorism, especially a recent wave of it perpetrated by recalcitrant Somalis and sundry Islamist extremists, must be contained. The balance of power, already skewed, must not tilt too far in favour of one tribe. And the economy must grow fast enough to spread the largesse of patronage, leaving enough to trickle down even to the masses in the likes of Kibera.
None of this can be assured. And yet, polarised and unequal as Kenya is, its progress punctuated by electoral violence and spasms of ethnic tension, the country has for the most part muddled valiantly ahead.
It remains the economic and political hub of wider east Africa, drawing a quarter of a billion people into its orbit. The stock- and housing markets are booming, prices in parts of Nairobi rising sevenfold since 2009. The economy grew by 5% last year and is likely to do just as well this.
Full speed somewhere
Diplomats seeking to solve crises in Somalia, South Sudan and the Great Lakes region encompassing Rwanda and eastern Congo are based in Nairobi, which also hosts a plethora of UN regional headquarters. Some international companies are shifting their African headquarters from South Africa to Kenya, the fifth-biggest economy south of the Sahara. Kenya Airways is among the best in Africa.
The country is also bidding to become a hub of IT. Its M-Pesa mobile-telephonic banking system, from which more than half of Kenya’s people benefit, has proved a global model. The country has one of the highest rates of Facebook membership in Africa; more than half a million Kenyans are on Twitter. In the Kilimani suburb of Nairobi, a thriving outfit called the iHub, led by a red-bearded American called Erik Hersman, serves a burgeoning community of innovators, technology investors and researchers, spurred on by Google and Microsoft, among other companies.
Hopes have been rising that discoveries of oil in remote Turkana county, in the north-west, may soon be matched by an offshore gas bonanza. This could give a boost to the much-delayed Lamu Port and Lamu-Southern Sudan-Ethiopia Transport Corridor, known as LAPSSET, which would include a railway, fibre-optic cable and pipeline, even if its proposed connection to South Sudan (now in the throes of civil war) and Ethiopia is uncertain.
At last Kenya is seriously trying to improve its dreadful transport links, with help from China. Nairobi’s traffic is still in a perpetual jam, but work on a ring road is under way and there are plans to build a new railway line from Mombasa to Nairobi, besides revamping the one that goes on to Uganda. A trans-Africa highway should eventually run from Mombasa through Kenya and Uganda and even across Congo to the Atlantic.
Danger: exploding light-bulbs
Against this hopeful backdrop, grave worries persist. The attack by Somali extremists on Nairobi’s Westgate shopping centre in September, which left at least 69 people dead, has shaken confidence in the police and armed forces, who looted the place afterwards. Gross overreaction by the police against suspected Islamist extremists on the coast, involving extrajudicial killings, has served only to recruit more people to the extremists’ cause. Another attack on a prominent target is all too likely—and could drive away foreign investment. Several close shaves since December include a bomb that failed to detonate near the British Airways check-in counter at Nairobi’s main airport, ludicrously shrugged off by the interior minister as “an exploding light-bulb”.
This year has witnessed a sharp rise in violent crime, already at epidemic levels. The police are frequently suspected of complicity. Big companies rely on private-security firms, of which there are at least 200 in Nairobi alone. Their staff are far better paid and equipped than the police, though they are not allowed to be armed.
President Kenyatta is considered so rich that he has no need to feather his nest, thanks to the wealth amassed by his family during and after the presidency of his father, Jomo, who ran the show from 1963 until his death in 1978. Mr Kenyatta has spoken out against corruption and docked his own pay by one-fifth. But nobody thinks that graft is being seriously tackled. The railway contracts, awarded following closed bidding, and an extravagant scheme to provide schools with computers are dogged by accusations of graft.
The creation of 47 counties, as a result of a new constitution endorsed in 2010, has added a new layer of corruption and taxation. Moreover, the two houses of parliament, the county governors and the courts (under an admirably independent chief justice, Willy Mutunga) are paralysed by a dispute over whose powers and decisions should prevail.
As for the president, he has been woefully distracted by his indictment by the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague for allegedly orchestrating violence after the election in early 2008. He has used every conceivable ruse to ensure that his case ends in acquittal or is dropped altogether, an outcome considered increasingly likely. The Standard, a Kenyan newspaper, reported on February 24th that nearly half of the witnesses enlisted by the prosecution had been withdrawn.
Mr Kenyatta has stirred up Kenyans and fellow African leaders against the ICC, badly damaging relations with allies in Europe and America. If the case fizzles out, they may be repaired. But much of Mr Kenyatta’s first year in office has been wasted on this issue. In any case, there is a growing perception that he lacks grip. He failed to sack any senior figures in the wake of the Westgate fiasco. Despite his declarations against corruption, he has instigated no investigations over the railway contracts and other dodgy-sounding schemes.
And Kenya remains split along tribal lines (see table). Mr Kenyatta’s fellow Kikuyu, the largest and richest group, are perceived by members of other tribes to be “eating”—as the Kenyan metaphor goes—more than their fair share of the cake. William Ruto, the vice-president, who heads the Kalenjin group that ruled the roost under a previous president, Daniel arap Moi, is said to be unhappy. He, too, has been indicted by the ICC. Should the case against the president fail but the one against Mr Ruto drag on, the coalition would wobble and could fall. Mr Kenyatta is said to be lining up Mr Moi’s son Gideon as a possible replacement.
“Kenya is very polarised,” says John Githongo, a veteran anti-corruption campaigner who in 2002 was entrusted with cleaning up government but had soon to flee abroad for his life. “It is a country no longer at ease with itself.” The “coalition of the accused”, as he has mockingly called it, may not last. “The Kalenjin will never trust the Kikuyu,” says a banker friend of Mr Kenyatta. “No matter what the ICC says, Kikuyus in their hearts believe Ruto orchestrated the violence against them. But for the sake of the government’s survival, they’re not saying it too loudly.”
Campaigners for democracy and openness are worried that Mr Kenyatta and his friends are trying to impede them, much as the government has plainly done its best to hamstring the ICC’s investigation. Bills are being put forward in Parliament to curb the buoyant media and to limit foreign funding for NGOs. On March 7th one of Kenya’s liveliest anti-establishment campaigners, Boniface Mwangi, was beaten up by police. “There’s a danger we are sliding back to the ways of the Moi era,” says another disconsolate pro-democracy activist.
Nonetheless, in its usual inequitable and patchy manner, Kenya is powering ahead. The vitality and reach of social media make it impossible for Mr Kenyatta to acquire the sort of powers Mr Moi exercised in what was then a one-party state. But he is finding it hard to keep Kenya both dynamic and harmonious. A year into office, he still has to prove that he is the right sort of leader. If the ICC case is put to one side, he will have no excuses.
British national accused of killing girlfriend freed, DPP orders inquest
By MAUREEN KAKAH
More by this Author
A Nairobi court has dropped charges against a British national who had been accused of killing his 21-year-old girlfriend whom he met on Facebook.
Carl Gary Singleton, 41, had been arrested on suspicion of murdering 22-year-old Peris Ashley Agumbi Mumtah.
Magistrate Hannah Kaguru agreed to set him free after an investigation officer told court that there was no sufficient evidence to sustain a murder charge against Mr Singleton.
However, the prosecution said it will still conduct an inquest into the death of the former University of Nairobi student following a directive from the Director of Public Prosecutions Keriako Tobiko.
On November 24, 2014 investigating officer Maurice Chemesis had requested the trial court to allow for more time for further investigations to be carried out.
The court had agreed to give the officers seven more days until Tuesday when Mr Singleton appeared in court for the second time.
“It has been approved to me on oath that for the purpose of investigations, it is necessary for the accused to be remanded to enable the completion of the said investigations,” ordered the Magistrate when Mr Singleton first appeared in court.
The court had been told that Mr Singleton had been arrested at Gachie Market on November 23, 2014 at around 5pm.
The court had also been told then that a psychiatric evaluation of the British national and a post-mortem on the body of the deceased was necessary to be done before Mr Singleton could be charged.
But he had appeared in court following his arrest the previous day, held in custody at Gigiri Police Station yet no clear charge against him had been indicated.
According to police, he had been a suspect following an earlier report by the deceased who was diabetic, that he had flushed her lifesaving medicine down the toilet.
Ms Agumbi reportedly died in hospital of diabetic hypertension and respiratory failure.
The two had allegedly met online two years ago through Facebook and Mr Singleton had flown into the country six months ago on a tourist visa to spend time with her.
Kenya Stockholm Blog 
Kenya Airports Authority: 50% GEMA with the Chairman casting the deciding vote:
The Management: Team Board of Directors
1.PROF. MUTUMA MUGAMBI – Chairman
2.MR. JOSEPH IRUNGU
3.Dr. KAMAU THUGGE
4.Mr. E. MUTEA IRINGO
5.MR DANIEL NDEGE
6.MS. BEATRICE GATHIRWA
7.MR. NICHOLAS BODO
8.MR. CHRISTOPHER OMBEGA
9.MR. NDUVA MULI
10.Ms. LUCY MBUGUA
11.MR. KULOW HASSAN
12.MR. GABRIEL KIVUTI
There is now an existential crisis in our world between the United States-European Union-Russia-China (and all their respective allies) over the future of the global economy…specifically what is going to be the reserve currency of the 21st Century for the purchase of oil and gas.
Currently the global reserve currency is the US Dollar, which allows the American Federal Reserve to literally print money to support not only their economy, but that of the European Union too…so much so that just during one week alone in 2011, the Federal Reserve kept 523 EU banks from collapsing by giving them €489 billion ($638 billion).
Russia and China have a BIG problem with the US and EU making money out of nothing and then using that monetary “power” to bully everyone else they disagree with…so this past May they signed an historic €315 billion ($400 billion) deal that prices gas in their currencies instead of the US Dollar.
Both the US and EU are now terrified that Russia is going to begin demanding payment for both oil in gas in either Russian Rubles or Chinese Yuan…and that is exactly what Russia did last month when for the first time it started selling oil for Rubles instead of US Dollars.
And when (not if) Russia tells the 28 Member States of the European Union, and their 505 million citizens, to start paying for gas and oil in anything other than US Dollars? Well, the answer is simple…the US will stand exposed for the hypocritical nation it has become.
And what is the ONLY thing the US can do to stop this? Simple…they have to completely take over Syria!
If the US is successful in taking over Syria then they can build the pipelines they need from both Qatar and Saudi Arabia…connect them to new pipelines in Turkey…extend them into the EU, and then the Europeans and Americans can keep the US Dollar as the reserve currency of the 21st Century and keep the printing presses running.
Russia, in case you haven’t noticed, isn’t taking this threat lying down either as it continues to extend its pipeline network with the South Stream Pipeline that bypasses Ukraine and will ensure the EU has gas supplies well into this century.
In order to protect the US Dollar, the Americans have sided with the most brutal branch of Islam called the Sunnis…Russia on the other hand, in order to protect its economy, has sided with the more moderate Islamic branch called the Shiites.
The US protected Sunnis (Arab) run governments that are composed of Kings, Emirs and military dictators who do not allow their citizens to vote or their women to have absolutely no rights. (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordon, etc.)
The Russia protected Shiite (Persian) governments are composed as theocracies like Israel but do allow their citizens to vote and their women to have limited rights. (Iran, Syria, Lebanon and now Iraq)
The US protected Sunnis comprised nearly 70% of Islamic terrorists world-wide. The Russian protected Shiites, on the other hand, rarely ever attack Western interests using their capacities, instead, against Sunni terror groups.
Now with the Obama regime having failed to start their Syrian war last year after their lies were exposed for the whole world to see…they then came back in 2014 with a much more devious plan…the number one component being to keep Russia sidelined.
Towards that end, in February, they toppled the democratically elected government of Ukraine and installed a right-wing neo-Nazi government…to which Russia promptly responded.
At the same time, along with Qatar and Saudi Arabia, the Obama regime created, trained and funded the terror group known as the Islamic State (ISIS or ISIL), allowed them to rampage throughout both Syria and Iraq, then labeled them an existential threat, and is currently waging war against them along with their EU allies and Sunni monarchy lapdogs.
And what is the most astounding thing about this whole mess? You are not allowed by either your government or you press to know even the most basic truth about what is going on.
Pipelines…Reserve Currencies…Petrodollars…Sunnis…Shiites…none of these are you allowed to know about…even though your future depends on the outcome.
Americans Gays marries Russian Gays >
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/scores-of-russian-gays-seek-asylum-in-u-s/512051.html
Olaleiyo ningo’ne Tanzania >
Kenya
Trotting ahead
Kenya is rollicking haphazardly along. But its president, distracted by his indictment by the International Criminal Court, is hamstrung by greedy old-timers
Mar 15th 2014 | NAIROBI | From the print edition
AS THE sun goes down over Nairobi, a new rich set of T-shirt-wearing Kenyans, most of them black and in their 30s, roar with laughter as they quaff whiskies and smoke giant cigars in the Capital Club, the country’s latest temple to Mammon. A year’s membership, a beautiful waitress proudly purrs, is “a million shillings”—about $10,000. Your correspondent watches English football on one of four large television screens, alongside a wall of faux-Masai shields, while waiting for his would-be host, the spokesman of President Uhuru Kenyatta. Alas, the spokesman fails to turn up; it is a Saturday evening, but the president is apparently too busy to spare him. Mr Kenyatta, one of Kenya’s richest oligarchs, who next month will complete his first year in office, is reportedly fond of similar ritzy watering-holes.
Barely a mile away from the Capital Club, the acrid fumes of charcoal fires in Kibera, a notorious slum, mingle with the stench of sewage running down the muddy alleys where perhaps 800,000 Nairobians live in hugger-mugger squalor. The government, says May Achieng, who runs a church-linked school there, provides “absolutely nothing” in the way of services. Manual workers lucky enough to have a job in the metropolis can earn 200-300 shillings ($2-3) a day. Domestic and gang violence are rife. Armed police have a station at the entrance to Kibera, but generally keep out of the slum. Visitors are warned to watch out for robbers and “flying toilet”—bags of excrement chucked out of houses at night. Politicians, says Mrs Achieng, turn up only at election time, “or if there is a fire or some kind of disaster”.
These two Kenyas exist cheek by jowl, both of them, in their way, equally dynamic. Half a century after independence from Britain, rich and poor are both locked into a system of patronage and tribe, all competing for advancement, whether for modest jobs in the civil service or for huge bribes to fix contracts for grand infrastructure projects. In the aftermath of a disputed election in 2007, Kibera, whose districts are unofficially divided along tribal lines, was affected as bloodily as anywhere. “One community chopped off the sexual organs of another community,” says Mrs Achieng, a Luo, whose leader, Raila Odinga, was reckoned by independent observers to have been cheated of victory. Defeated again last year, in a fairer though still flawed poll, he remains the opposition’s head.
If this system is to hold, several requirements must be met in the years to come. The weather, notoriously variable, must be clement enough to satisfy the more than half of Kenyans who still live on the land. At the time of independence, in 1963, the countryside barely sustained a total population of 8m, which has now swollen to 45m. Law and order must continue more or less to prevail, even while the police, in the words of a security analyst, “are corrupt from top to bottom”. Terrorism, especially a recent wave of it perpetrated by recalcitrant Somalis and sundry Islamist extremists, must be contained. The balance of power, already skewed, must not tilt too far in favour of one tribe. And the economy must grow fast enough to spread the largesse of patronage, leaving enough to trickle down even to the masses in the likes of Kibera.
None of this can be assured. And yet, polarised and unequal as Kenya is, its progress punctuated by electoral violence and spasms of ethnic tension, the country has for the most part muddled valiantly ahead.
It remains the economic and political hub of wider east Africa, drawing a quarter of a billion people into its orbit. The stock- and housing markets are booming, prices in parts of Nairobi rising sevenfold since 2009. The economy grew by 5% last year and is likely to do just as well this.
Full speed somewhere
Diplomats seeking to solve crises in Somalia, South Sudan and the Great Lakes region encompassing Rwanda and eastern Congo are based in Nairobi, which also hosts a plethora of UN regional headquarters. Some international companies are shifting their African headquarters from South Africa to Kenya, the fifth-biggest economy south of the Sahara. Kenya Airways is among the best in Africa.
The country is also bidding to become a hub of IT. Its M-Pesa mobile-telephonic banking system, from which more than half of Kenya’s people benefit, has proved a global model. The country has one of the highest rates of Facebook membership in Africa; more than half a million Kenyans are on Twitter. In the Kilimani suburb of Nairobi, a thriving outfit called the iHub, led by a red-bearded American called Erik Hersman, serves a burgeoning community of innovators, technology investors and researchers, spurred on by Google and Microsoft, among other companies.
Hopes have been rising that discoveries of oil in remote Turkana county, in the north-west, may soon be matched by an offshore gas bonanza. This could give a boost to the much-delayed Lamu Port and Lamu-Southern Sudan-Ethiopia Transport Corridor, known as LAPSSET, which would include a railway, fibre-optic cable and pipeline, even if its proposed connection to South Sudan (now in the throes of civil war) and Ethiopia is uncertain.
At last Kenya is seriously trying to improve its dreadful transport links, with help from China. Nairobi’s traffic is still in a perpetual jam, but work on a ring road is under way and there are plans to build a new railway line from Mombasa to Nairobi, besides revamping the one that goes on to Uganda. A trans-Africa highway should eventually run from Mombasa through Kenya and Uganda and even across Congo to the Atlantic.
Danger: exploding light-bulbs
Against this hopeful backdrop, grave worries persist. The attack by Somali extremists on Nairobi’s Westgate shopping centre in September, which left at least 69 people dead, has shaken confidence in the police and armed forces, who looted the place afterwards. Gross overreaction by the police against suspected Islamist extremists on the coast, involving extrajudicial killings, has served only to recruit more people to the extremists’ cause. Another attack on a prominent target is all too likely—and could drive away foreign investment. Several close shaves since December include a bomb that failed to detonate near the British Airways check-in counter at Nairobi’s main airport, ludicrously shrugged off by the interior minister as “an exploding light-bulb”.
This year has witnessed a sharp rise in violent crime, already at epidemic levels. The police are frequently suspected of complicity. Big companies rely on private-security firms, of which there are at least 200 in Nairobi alone. Their staff are far better paid and equipped than the police, though they are not allowed to be armed.
President Kenyatta is considered so rich that he has no need to feather his nest, thanks to the wealth amassed by his family during and after the presidency of his father, Jomo, who ran the show from 1963 until his death in 1978. Mr Kenyatta has spoken out against corruption and docked his own pay by one-fifth. But nobody thinks that graft is being seriously tackled. The railway contracts, awarded following closed bidding, and an extravagant scheme to provide schools with computers are dogged by accusations of graft.
The creation of 47 counties, as a result of a new constitution endorsed in 2010, has added a new layer of corruption and taxation. Moreover, the two houses of parliament, the county governors and the courts (under an admirably independent chief justice, Willy Mutunga) are paralysed by a dispute over whose powers and decisions should prevail.
As for the president, he has been woefully distracted by his indictment by the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague for allegedly orchestrating violence after the election in early 2008. He has used every conceivable ruse to ensure that his case ends in acquittal or is dropped altogether, an outcome considered increasingly likely. The Standard, a Kenyan newspaper, reported on February 24th that nearly half of the witnesses enlisted by the prosecution had been withdrawn.
Mr Kenyatta has stirred up Kenyans and fellow African leaders against the ICC, badly damaging relations with allies in Europe and America. If the case fizzles out, they may be repaired. But much of Mr Kenyatta’s first year in office has been wasted on this issue. In any case, there is a growing perception that he lacks grip. He failed to sack any senior figures in the wake of the Westgate fiasco. Despite his declarations against corruption, he has instigated no investigations over the railway contracts and other dodgy-sounding schemes.
And Kenya remains split along tribal lines (see table). Mr Kenyatta’s fellow Kikuyu, the largest and richest group, are perceived by members of other tribes to be “eating”—as the Kenyan metaphor goes—more than their fair share of the cake. William Ruto, the vice-president, who heads the Kalenjin group that ruled the roost under a previous president, Daniel arap Moi, is said to be unhappy. He, too, has been indicted by the ICC. Should the case against the president fail but the one against Mr Ruto drag on, the coalition would wobble and could fall. Mr Kenyatta is said to be lining up Mr Moi’s son Gideon as a possible replacement.
“Kenya is very polarised,” says John Githongo, a veteran anti-corruption campaigner who in 2002 was entrusted with cleaning up government but had soon to flee abroad for his life. “It is a country no longer at ease with itself.” The “coalition of the accused”, as he has mockingly called it, may not last. “The Kalenjin will never trust the Kikuyu,” says a banker friend of Mr Kenyatta. “No matter what the ICC says, Kikuyus in their hearts believe Ruto orchestrated the violence against them. But for the sake of the government’s survival, they’re not saying it too loudly.”
Campaigners for democracy and openness are worried that Mr Kenyatta and his friends are trying to impede them, much as the government has plainly done its best to hamstring the ICC’s investigation. Bills are being put forward in Parliament to curb the buoyant media and to limit foreign funding for NGOs. On March 7th one of Kenya’s liveliest anti-establishment campaigners, Boniface Mwangi, was beaten up by police. “There’s a danger we are sliding back to the ways of the Moi era,” says another disconsolate pro-democracy activist.
Nonetheless, in its usual inequitable and patchy manner, Kenya is powering ahead. The vitality and reach of social media make it impossible for Mr Kenyatta to acquire the sort of powers Mr Moi exercised in what was then a one-party state. But he is finding it hard to keep Kenya both dynamic and harmonious. A year into office, he still has to prove that he is the right sort of leader. If the ICC case is put to one side, he will have no excuses.
From the print edition: Middle East and Africa
Solidarity the way forward>
http://rt.com/usa/210531-handsup-walkout-rallies-thousands/
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
British national accused of killing girlfriend freed, DPP orders inquest
By MAUREEN KAKAH
More by this Author
A Nairobi court has dropped charges against a British national who had been accused of killing his 21-year-old girlfriend whom he met on Facebook.
Carl Gary Singleton, 41, had been arrested on suspicion of murdering 22-year-old Peris Ashley Agumbi Mumtah.
Magistrate Hannah Kaguru agreed to set him free after an investigation officer told court that there was no sufficient evidence to sustain a murder charge against Mr Singleton.
However, the prosecution said it will still conduct an inquest into the death of the former University of Nairobi student following a directive from the Director of Public Prosecutions Keriako Tobiko.
On November 24, 2014 investigating officer Maurice Chemesis had requested the trial court to allow for more time for further investigations to be carried out.
The court had agreed to give the officers seven more days until Tuesday when Mr Singleton appeared in court for the second time.
“It has been approved to me on oath that for the purpose of investigations, it is necessary for the accused to be remanded to enable the completion of the said investigations,” ordered the Magistrate when Mr Singleton first appeared in court.
The court had been told that Mr Singleton had been arrested at Gachie Market on November 23, 2014 at around 5pm.
The court had also been told then that a psychiatric evaluation of the British national and a post-mortem on the body of the deceased was necessary to be done before Mr Singleton could be charged.
But he had appeared in court following his arrest the previous day, held in custody at Gigiri Police Station yet no clear charge against him had been indicated.
According to police, he had been a suspect following an earlier report by the deceased who was diabetic, that he had flushed her lifesaving medicine down the toilet.
Ms Agumbi reportedly died in hospital of diabetic hypertension and respiratory failure.
The two had allegedly met online two years ago through Facebook and Mr Singleton had flown into the country six months ago on a tourist visa to spend time with her.
Swedish Sex education ahead of all western democratic culture Its good why not?
http://rt.com/news/210699-sweden-school-sex-test/
http://rt.com/news/210699-sweden-school-sex-test/