- Latest Popular Stories, Instablogs Community by C_mbugua

Kenya begins huge slum clearance

Mbugua — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 12:05:56 +0000

Kenyan authorities have begun to move residents out of Africa’s largest slum - the Kibera settlement in Nairobi.

Officials expect to take from two to five years to clear the slum, which is home to about one million people.

The first people to move will be rehoused nearby in 300 newly built apartments, each paying about $10 (£6) a month in rent.

Kenya’s elephants battle for survival amid draught

Mbugua — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 08:47:34 +0000

A drought in Kenya has gotten so bad that it is felling even the giants of the animal kingdom — the country’s famed elephants which are dying as rivers dry up and grasslands shrivel in parched game reserves.

The bones of the elephants bleaching under a relentless African sun underscore how bad the drought is. It has killed hundreds of cattle and many acres (hectares) of crops, threatening the lives of people who depended on them for food. There are no tallies of deaths among people attributed to the drought but the U.N.’s World Food program said recently that 3.8 million Kenyans are at risk and need emergency food aid.

Zoologist Iain Douglas-Hamilton, who founded Save the Elephants, said the drought is the worst he has seen in 12 years and poses a serious threat to the large and majestic animals, whose striking silhouettes roaming Kenya’s broad savannah help draw 1 million tourists each year.

Congo rapes- No end in Site

Mbugua — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 12:19:44 +0000

Congolese authorities have failed to prevent widespread rapes, Human Rights Watch said in a new report, citing U.N. data showing 7,703 cases of sexual violence by the army were reported last year. Most victims were adolescent girls.

While soldiers now face legal action for rape, senior officers “continue to be untouched,” said Juliane Kippenberg, Africa researcher for the group.

“Their own crimes and their command responsibility for the crimes of their soldiers must be investigated and held to account,” she said.

We know what to do: why dont we do it?

Mbugua — Sat, 30 May 2009 09:45:13 +0000

Wangari Maathai’s office in fuming, downtown Nairobi is full of citations and mementos, but there is one special photograph. It’s of her and Barack Obama planting an olive tree in Uhuru park in the city centre in October 2006. It could be any two celebrities posing for a routine photo call, but there is a strong connection between the spiffy, young American senator on his way to the White House and the flamboyant older woman dressed in canary yellow who had just become the first African woman to win a Nobel prize.