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Local scientists have managed to identify 10 HIV positive Kenyans with an antibody that could hold the key to developing an effective AIDS vaccine.

The individuals, who the scientists say have powerful antibodies that neutralise the virus, stopping it from infecting new cells, have neither used any antiretroviral drugs nor been attacked by opportunistic infections despite living with the virus for over nine years.

On being screened, the individuals were found to possess high CD4 count–immune cells used to fight infections–and very low viral loads-amount of HIV in the body-, which were uncharacteristic of an infected person.

They also have very low possibilities of transmitting the virus to another individual as well as being able to delay progression to AIDS, the last stage of the disease where opportunistic infections reign, killing the individual if not well managed.

This means if a vaccine that elicits these antibodies is developed; it would significantly cut down on the number of new infections in Kenya and other HIV hotbeds.

The 10 individuals are now being followed to establish who among them qualify to be what scientists refer to as Elite Controllers-individuals who are able to control HIV viral load to less than 50 copies compared to over 30,000 copies of HIV in a person without such antibodies.

“This new phenomenon is being seen in both men and women who we have screened in Nairobi, and we are keenly following them to identify the key antibodies that make them tick,” says Prof Omu Anzala, the Director of Kenya Aids Vaccine Initiative.

Disclosing the findings, Prof Anzala said those screened so far have an immune system able to elicit antibodies – CD4 and CD8- with a unique protein that target specific sites of HIV stopping it from infecting new cells.

In Africa, of the 1,700 HIV positive people who been screened in the past one year, 170 have HIV neutralising antibodies. Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, South Africa, and Zambia, are some of those marked to help in solving this problem.

In Africa, of the 1,700 HIV positive people who been screened in the past one year, 170 have HIV neutralising antibodies. Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, South Africa, and Zambia, are some of those marked to help in solving this problem.

“What we are experiencing now is phenomenal and provides critical information of how we move forward and the massive work we need to undertake in this direction,” says Dr Wayne Koff, of International Aids Vaccine Initiative (IAVI).

In interview, Wayne said they have managed to identify four antibodies with ability to neutralise the virus and are currently studying them to see which ones are broadly neutralising-those with ability to neutralise different types of HIV strains such as A, B, C and D.

In this quest, they are also paying particular attention to immune systems of individuals who have lived with HIV for the past three years without using ARVs. Some of them are believed to possess the neutralising antibodies.

Buoyed by these new findings, IAVI is going to set aside between 30 and 50 per cent of its budget on vaccine discovery on the identification and development of a vaccine with the ability to elicit broadly neutralising antibodies, according to Dr Koff.

Likewise, IAVI has developed what they call Protocol G, whose sole objective is to help scientists identify elite controllers across Africa and other parts of the world.

Identifying the broadly neutralising antibodies and then using the knowledge to develop a vaccine to produce similar responses in HIV negative individuals has been the most difficult thing for scientists. It has taken them over 10 years to just understand this phenomenon well.

Speaking recently in Nairobi to a group of scientists from Africa, Dr Koff admitted that “as a field we have not understood as yet how to elicit broadly neutralising antibodies to tackle HIV.”

“But now,” adds an elated and optimistic Prof Anzala, “we are on the path to somewhere and can see light at the end of the tunnel.”

The closet the scientists came to generating neutralising antibodies was during the Vaxgen vaccine trials. It never worked as the vaccine failed to elicit such antibodies in amounts necessary to control HIV infection.

Still, there other challenges even with the new discovery. The four neutralising antibodies identified so far work on just one site of HIV, when they are need to do so on various points to be able to disable it effectively. Consequently, the search is now on to find other antibodies that work on different sites of the virus.

Discovery of these antibodies will help the scientists develop a vaccine with the ability to disable a wide range of HIV strains such as A, C, and D, which are circulating in Kenya.

As for now, the four antibodies discovered are crucial since unlike the cellular immune response that destroys a cell once infected and on which past vaccines have been developed; the neutralising antibodies are able to prevent the virus from infecting the cell in the first place.

Studies in the primates have already shown that broadly neutralising anti-bodies to possess the ability to prevent infection.

This encouraging information has led scientists to establish Neutralising Antibody Consortium, whose sole responsibility is pick-up more antibodies with ability to prevent HIV infection. Formed in 2002, the Consortium has grown from four academic institutions to 18 now.

But as they undertake all these initiatives, scientists believe a vaccine that produces both broadly neutralising antibodies and cellular immune response would be the most effective one in controlling the virus.

Cellular immune response is where the immune system cells identify and kill the infected CD4 cells. These two approaches are going to require massive investment as well as facing numerious challenges.

In its AIDS Vaccine BluePrint 2008: A Challenge to the Field, A Road Map for Progress, IAVI is acutely aware of this fact.

IAVI admits that the virus remains difficult to contain because of its HIV immune evasion mechanisms, is sexually transmitted, and has high capacity of recombination, among others.

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‘Sexually-transmitted grades’ kills quality education

Plan International warns children of all ages, both genders, are vulnerable to school violence

Sexual exploitation in African schools has become so widespread that children have come up with their own terms to refer to sexual relations with their teachers.

From ‘Sexually Transmitted Grades’ to ‘BF’, or bordel fatigue, which refers to exhaustion from multiple sexual activities with teachers, this slang hints at the prevalence of exploitation in Africa’s learning environments.

The lexis of abuse was discovered during research for Plan International’s (PI) latest report, ‘Learn Without Fear,’ part of the organisation’s global campaign to end violence in schools.

“We’ve been aware of the problem for a long time but we’ve had to just go on anecdotal evidence of violence and its effects,” John Chaloner, PI Regional Director for West and Central Africa, told IRIN. “What this report has done is to talk to children, to teachers and to parents. So now we’re dealing with evidence not hearsay”.

Drop out danger

As schools reopen throughout Africa, the report reveals alarmingly high levels of violence, which are undermining government efforts to provide quality education. The report concluded many girls and boys are dropping out of school as a result of sexual abuse and corporal punishment.

“Our teachers should be there to teach us and not to touch us where we don’t want,” a 15 year-old girl from Uganda told PI, “I feel like disappearing from the world if a person who is supposed to protect me, instead destroys me”.

According to the report, research in Uganda found that eight per cent of 16 and 17 year-olds had had sex with their teachers. In South Africa, at least one-third of all child rapes are by school staff. In a survey of ten villages in Benin, 34 per cent of children confirmed sexual violence in their schools.

While boys usually suffer more violent – and possibly deadly - corporal punishment at the hands of their teachers than their female classmates, sexual harassment and exploitation appear to be overwhelmingly carried out against girls. The report found girls are vulnerable to attacks not only from teachers and other care givers, but also from male students, either at school or on the journey to or from school.

“Teachers often justified the sexual exploitation of female students by saying that their clothes and behaviour were provocative, and that they, the teachers, were far from home and in sexual need,” according to PI’s report.

Sex exchange

What can appear a ‘grey area’ in this situation is the apparent collusion of some female students.

‘Africell’, or ‘a free sell’ has been coined to describe girls who do not wear underwear to provoke teachers into sexual activities in exchange for good grades or ‘sexually transmittable means’ – food, school materials or school fees.

But these girls are not the instigators, said Atoumane Diaw, Secretary General of the National Union of Elementary Teaching in Senegal.

“These children are often encouraged by their parents. Do you think a ten year-old is going to buy herself ‘sexy’ clothes? No, it is the system, it is society that is corrupt. These poor families need [financial] help so they won’t put themselves into this situation”.

In addition to financial assistance, Diaw suggested practical measures for schools: “A modest uniform for students so everyone looks the same. Separate toilets for boys, girls or teachers. And surveillance so that the teacher is not left alone with a pupil after class”.

Poverty facilitates the abuse, according to PI. Children are increasingly responsible for the economic welfare of their families; teachers are often underpaid, or not paid at all, with some seeing sexual favours from students as ‘compensation’.

Authors of the report noted that in many African cultures, corporal punishment is often viewed as an acceptable form of discipline. Social norms that encourage male aggression and female passivity are also seen to champion various forms of violence against girls.

Speak out

“We need to educate people so we tackle the problem [of violence] before it happens.” said Atoumane Diaw. “Our campaign is…raising awareness with teachers. We’re educating children about their rights and their worth. Laws have to be harmonised and enforced in different countries. We must go forward together, fight together.”

The Kenyan education ministry recently launched guidelines on school safety after a recent deadly spate of high school student riots.

Violence in schools, and particularly sexual violence, is chronically under-reported because of cultural norms, students’ feeling of shame, and because they do not know in whom they can confide, according to PI’s report. It adds teachers are often reluctant to report colleagues’ abuse.

“As adults, we need to be watchful, we need to be alert.” PI’s John Chaloner told IRIN, “Children need outlets, like help lines, so they can express themselves. We need to get the message out so that children will no longer be harmed by the very people who should be protecting them”.

Immigration Police have identified routes used by human traffickers and smugglers to move their cargo in and out of Kenya.

The most active route was discovered in northern Kenya in Moyale.

Immigration Police say that from Moyale, human cargo is ferried to Garissa, Isiolo then Nanyuki and Voi from where it is taken to Tanzania through Taveta border town.

Another route starts from Moyale to Isiolo and Nanyuki and to Nairobi’s Eastleigh.

Some of the human cargo, comprising girls and boys hidden in trucks carrying beans, is sold into slavery in this sprawling suburb, while the rest is taken to Mombasa destined for South Africa or to Busia for transportation to Burundi or South Africa.

South Africa is the launch-pad to Europe and Canada.

Panya routes

While there are three border points between Mombasa and Lunga Lunga, on the border with Tanzania, there are 820 ‘panya routes’ used by traffickers to transport their human cargo to Tanzania, according to an immigration officer in Lunga Lunga.

The route from Moyale is ideal because the vast expanse of land in Kenya’s north is poorly secured.

“There are only 20 immigration officers in northern Kenya, an area bigger than many European states,” said an immigration officer.

“But there are 4,500 policemen, mostly locals eager to see their people secure jobs in foreign lands and a good number of them collude with cartels.”

Sri Lankans, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis come through Mombasa disguised as ship crews because sailors are not required to have passports.

Ship docks

Once the ship docks, they are moved to Nairobi to await Kenya passports, genuine or otherwise, to move to Europe and North Africa.

The traffickers are reported to poison those who fail to secure jobs in Kenya or passage out of the country to avoid confrontation with victims’ relatives back in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh who would have paid dearly for the service.

“These things happen,” says Immigration spokesperson John Njehu.

International press reports indicate that key suspected traffickers, Nagaratnam Thavayogarajah, popularly known as Thavam, and Satkunarasan Satkunasingam (aka Rajan), used Nairobi as a base to ferry hundreds of Sri Lankans to the West.

Their offices were situated in a travel agency and a popular Nairobi restaurant where they charged $12,000 in the late 1990s for passage from Sri Lanka through Kenya and Malawi.

Most baffling

According to police and immigration officials at Busia, the most baffling route is from Somalia to Kenya through Uganda.

Hundreds of Somalis charter planes to Entebbe International Airport from where they get to the Busia border where their passports are stamped.

Instead of crossing into Kenya immediately, they return to Uganda to await nightfall when they cross over into Kenya using ‘panya’ routes.

“We don’t understand why they should go through Uganda immigration and then use ‘panya’ routes to get into Kenya,” says a Busia police spokesman. “We have arrested a number.”

Terror suspect

As these investigations were carried out in Busia, a Canadian of Somali descent was arrested for having inexplicably travelled through Uganda. “He is a terror suspect. We are interrogating him,” police said.

Three in every four foreigners arrested in Busia between May and August entered Kenya through ‘panya’ routes despite their travel documents being stamped in Uganda.

Authorities are convinced that the cartels use Uganda because it does not have sophisticated equipment to detect fake travel documents.

Somalis don’t require visas to travel to Uganda, which is not the case with Kenya. However, Ethiopians don’t require visas to get into Kenya, yet they are required in neighbouring Tanzania.

And to get around this, they come to Kenya and take up new citizenship to allow them passage through Tanzania to South Africa or elsewhere.

About 800 Ethiopians who passed through Kenya are languishing in Tanzania jails. The Indian Ocean has been a free-for-all gateway to and out of Kenya.

Recently, Kenyan authorities rescued a group of Somalis attempting to cross into Kenya by sea from drowning.

“They almost drowned,” said an officer at Lunga Lunga border post.

Somali pirates on Thursday afternoon seized a ship carrying more than 30 military tanks in a dramatic hijacking that sent ripples in the maritime industry.

The Ukrainian vessel flying the flag of Belize was expected to dock in Mombasa Friday morning with its cargo that was believed destined to Southern Sudan according to maritime sources.

The ship was on its last two of a 10-day voyage and was hijacked between Kismayu and Mombasa, Seafarers Assistance Programme Coordinator Mr Andrew Mwangura said.

“The ship, whose design is that of a vehicle carrier, had 17 crew members and 38 military tanks on board,” he said on the phone adding: “This was to be the third ship to dock in Mombasa with military equipment from Ukraine.”

Mr Mwangura said that although the destination of the tanks was not immediately known, they were likely destined to Southern Sudan where the previous ones had been delivered.

Somali waters are considered the most dangerous in the world, with each militia group controlling their own sections of the ocean.

Ships carrying food aid to the war ravaged country have to be escorted by navy war ships, with the most recent being Canadian Navy which ends its escort mission on September 27.

News agency reports quoting Ukraine’s foreign ministry, had earlier reported that the ship was carrying T-72 tanks and had a crew of 21 on board. The captain contacted the ship’s owner by telephone and reported that armed men were boarding, shortly before losing communications.

The country has not had an effective national government for 17 years, leading to a collapse of law and order both on land and at sea.

Multipolar World

The international financial crisis has suddenly accelerated a tendency that has been manifest since the United States’ first setbacks in Iraq: American hegemony, and, one should say, Western hegemony, which seemed to settle over the world after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Communist system at the end of the 1980s-beginning of the 1990s, has seen its heyday.

Already since the beginning of the 21st century, Western claims to impose a Western conception of human rights and to promote democracy as the best guarantor of security and prosperity have been challenged. The so-called emerging states, notably in Asia, preach another kind of modernization. The poor countries commonly called “third world countries” during the Cold War, denounced the unkept promises of development aid. As it benefited from the economic globalization it sought to insert itself into, China, joined by Vladimir Putin’s Russia, challenged Western pretensions to fixing the rules of the game.

The United Nations General Assembly, before which Nicolas Sarkozy spoke Tuesday, September 23, emphasized the birth of this multipolar world. It’s what French diplomacy has advocated for decades. However, contrary to what was imagined, multipolarity is not presenting itself as an orderly construction based on several power centers maintaining well-codified relations among themselves.

The multipolar world that is brewing is, quite the contrary, disorganized, almost anarchic. No organizing principle seems to preside over its constitution. Russia may well attempt to find new allies in Latin America, China and Africa against the United States; their interests diverge when Russia changes borders in the Caucasus by force. Both have reasons to rejoice over the decline of the American ex-”hyperpower,” but, in fact, their dependence on the global economy makes them as much victims as beneficiaries of the international financial crisis.

Everyone, or almost everyone, demands new rules. Nonetheless, before new equilibria emerge from the present disorder, it would be wise to expect some dangerous squalls.

Secret tank deal shows poor priorities

A secret tank deal by Kenya’s Army would have gone unnoticed if Somali pirates hadn’t hijacked a Ukrainian ship ferrying the 33 tanks to the port of Mombasa.

The Russian built T-72 tank can run on three types of fuel: diesel, benzene and kerosene.

Its not clear when the Department of Defence placed an order for T-72 tanks from Russia. The Army has not explained how much it spent on the equipment, neither has it explained the role of the 33 tanks in Kenya’s security strategy.

Apart from tanks, Somali pirates found tons of ammunition and auxiliary equipment within the ship, which they have threatened to offload for use in their country’s civil war. The pirates are demanding US$35 million in ransom before they release the vessel and its cargo.

Typical of most African governments, Kenya’s leaders are spending billions of dollars on security while ordinary people die of hunger, disease and poor shelter. Kenya ranks at the bottom of international social and economic indicators.

A growing population is putting pressure on neglected infrastructure. Public hospitals lack drugs as thousands of Kenyans perish each year on a road network broken to the point of tatters. Kenyan cities are going without fresh water due to lack of investment in water production.

The capital city of Nairobi is getting less water today than it was receiving a decade ago after a colonial era dam collapsed at Sasumua. The port city of Mombasa gets water from a supply system built by the British when the town’s population was less than a third of current figures.

Lack of investment in electricity production has made Kenya’s electricity tariffs the highest in Africa. Industries suffer from constant power blackouts which have undermined economic growth, leading to massive losses and job cuts.

Agricultural production in Kenya is far below demand. The country is producing less coffee, maize, tea, wheat, millet and everything else compared to twenty years ago. Sugar milling companies in Western Kenya, stuck with 19th century technology, are creaking out low quality sugar in significantly less quantities than when Kenya was a British colony.

Amidst all these, the Kenyan government has seen it fit to invest billions of shillings in military equipment. As stated earlier, if it wasn’t for Somali pirates, majority of Kenyans would never have known that tanks were about to get imported into the country. But, lack of priority in government procurement appears to be the norm these days.

Its been announced that Kenya will spend about $23 million in the purchase of second-hand fighter jets from the Kingdom of Jordan. The F-5 fighter that the Kenyan Airforce is so fond of went out of production in 1989, meaning that the jets Kenya is buying are at least 19 years old. Kenya will also pay Jordan to train its pilots in using the junk aircraft.

Meanwhile, other branches of the security forces are on a shopping bonanza. Regular and Administration police have enhanced their recruitment drives to boost numbers. They are receiving modern equipment, weapons, 4-wheel drive trucks, uniforms and riot gear. Considering the conduct of police during the post-election violence, its obvious that this enhanced expenditure is not for the benefit of ordinary men and women.

The Kenya Police has just finished rehabilitating giant Russian-built helicopters fitted with night-vision equipment, gun detectors and communications technology. The helicopters will carry a team of quick response officers assisted by highly trained dogs.

Just this week, the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights - a government body - blamed police for the execution of 500 Kikuyu youth and the disappearance of scores of others. According to survivors, the dead and the disappeared were all abducted by people identifying themselves as police officers. A man whose dramatic arrest in Nairobi was shown on the front page of the Daily Nation, was later found dead in the city mortuary.

For most Kenyans, the acquisition of helicopters, night vision equipment and vicious dogs can only portend doom as far as personal freedoms are concerned.

By purchasing bigger weapons to arm a greater number of police and soldiers, the Kenyan government is treading a path set by authorities in situations of high wealth inequality. Kenya is among the top three most unequal societies on earth.

On one hand there is an extremely wealthy minority whose standard of living can comfortably secure them a place among the world’s rich and famous. On the opposite extreme is a majority of people without access to adequate food, housing, health care and education. These are people whose future is so bleak that the only options are crime, prostitution, alcoholism and violence.

Amidst this depressing scenario, authorities seek to preserve the status quo by unleashing greater surveillance of the disadvantaged majority. The objective is to make life safer and easier for the rich minority.

The fruits of economic growth are used to buy guns instead of building roads. Public funds are used to buy tanks instead of medicines for government hospitals. In an unequal society, the government will find it better to employ soldiers and police rather than employing doctors and teachers. Instead of facilitating constructive engagement between the rich and the poor, the system is designed to keep them apart.

Such trends have happened elsewhere and Kenya is blindly going down the same path. Unfortunately, that particular path usually ends up in self-destruction, for the human spirit cannot tolerate oppression forever.

Secret police killings of more than 500 youths were sanctioned by the Government, a new report claims.

The murders were carried out by special execution squads and were part of the crackdown on Mungiki. They were authorised by the top “political leadership” and the police command, says the report.

But while providing graphic details on the alleged executions by police, the report offers very little evidence that the killings were sanctioned at top levels of government.

The watchdog claims to have recorded evidence from some police officers who claimed they were ordered to take part in the killings but said that part of their report cannot be released until the officers’ safety is guaranteed.

The officers were said to be seeking guarantees of safety under the Witness Protection Act. They are said to have named senior officers who gave the execution orders.

Besides shooting their victims, the police are said to have strangled, drowned, bludgeoned and mutilated some of their targets.

And the squads of ruthless killers formed to carry out the killings are still active, according to the report, by the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights.

Names of victims, the dates on which they were killed and places where their bodies were dumped are all detailed.

The watchdog also gives accounts from witnesses including details of how and where the victims were seized, the names of the police officers involved and the registration numbers of the vehicles they used.

The rights group also claims police deployed to the special murder squads took advantage of the shoot-to-kill policy to set up an extortion cartel in which families of youths arrested were forced to pay hefty amounts of money to have them freed.

Witness accounts show the rogue officers demanded between Sh10,000 and Sh1 million to free a suspect, otherwise he was killed. Kwekwe Squad, a crack unit formed last year to hunt Mungiki sect members, is accused of being at the forefront of the killings.
Months after the squad was formed, the report says, other teams, including regular and Administration Police officers were involved. But the police on Tuesday officially denied that they had anything to do with the killings. Police spokesman Eric Kiraithe said: “It’s impossible for police to engage in those activities. Those are not actions that may hold anybody responsible here at Kenya Police.”

The shocking new claims were revealed by KNCHR vice-chairman Hassan Omar and the watchdog’s principal human rights officer Victor Kamau. “It’s unacceptable to kill citizens in utter disregard of the rule of law. The attorney-general must rule that all these murders and extra-judicial killings are investigated and perpetrators prosecuted,” said Mr Omar.
According to the report, the last execution, allegedly by the police, was on July 7 and several other youths are reported to have disappeared as late as last month.

Cases of what doctors call hysteria, and which Coast residents believe are ghost attacks, have increased.

Last year, ‘ghosts’ attacked Mbaraki Primary School. Then Mombasa Mayor Sharrif Shekue rushed to the school with two goats - a black and a white, which were sacrificed in the school compound to ‘appease the spirits’.

But Muslim and Christian parents opposed this, saying only superstitious people allowed sacrifices in schools. The incident made many parents withdraw their children from the school, leading to suspension of learning for some days.

At least two to four cases of ‘ghost attacks’ that lead to indefinite closure of schools have been reported every month this year.

Belief in superstition

Experts, however, say apart from biological and environmental factors, the disturbances in schools by ‘unseen forces’ could be due because Coast Province abounds in superstitious beliefs.

Every time ‘ghosts’ attack a school, parents rush to ‘rescue’ their children. The latest was at Star of the Sea High School last week, which is reported to have affected students and parents.

Being a Catholic school, a priest was summoned and a doctor called in to assess the situation.

However, they left without a solution as students cried, made noise and fell on the ground, while others got angry and demanded that the gates of the school be opened to set them free.

Dr Jennifer Othigo, who is the chief administrator of the Coast General Hospital and a guidance and counselling expert, says several factors are responsible for the incidents in girls’ schools.

She says lack of guidance and counselling for adolescents, was largely the problem.

“Such situations cause anxiety in the young girls and when they do not get the right guidance at the right time by the right people, it can be chaotic,” says Othigo.

Mercy: completely forgotten

Mercy, 25, is a Kamba from south-east Kenya. Her husband was “an excessive drunk” and violent, so she left to live alone with their two children. She is sometimes forced to resort to ukahaba: “taking up with any man and going with him as long as he can feed your children for the day, or pay their school fees.” She is aware of the risk of HIV and AIDS but says this is “the reality” of being jobless.

She worries about security in Kibagare, the behaviour of young people and the rising incidence of rape, due partly to the increasing abuse of marijuana and alcohol.

Her children are her main concern and she longs for the opportunity to have some vocational training or a loan to start a business. “If…I am given a good foundation…I am convinced - without any doubt - that I could change my life and the future life of my children.”

I left Kitui (south-eastern Kenya) and came to live here in Nairobi in 1999. I am now 25.

When I got to Nairobi, I worked as a maid for a while, then I got married. My husband and I were blessed with two children, a boy and girl, but we did not stay together for long because he was an excessive drunk and he would beat me so much. So I decided to leave him and live alone with my children… When I left this man, he continued being a terrible drunkard, and he was hit by a car one day and died.

The harsh reality of unemployment

I raise these children on my own, with many problems. At first I was still working as a housemaid for a Nigerian family, but then they returned to their home. So now I depend on any casual labour I can find to feed them. Mostly I find temporary work washing clothes, but if I don’t get that I take up with a man, as I cannot watch my children die of hunger…

I live in a small room which I rent at 700 shillings a month, but it’s not easy to make the rent money… It is this situation that forces me into ukahaba, even if there are problems ¬ like diseases such as AIDS. I don’t have any other option. This practice of ukahaba means taking up with any man and going with him as long as he can feed your children for the day, or pay their school fees… I just have to do that so I can get food, rent and school fees for my children… This is the reality of not having a job.

I just pray to God that I get a good job or that as young people we get a good project, such as keeping chickens. Whatever kind of job really, so that I leave prostitution alone… Also if I could get a good man we can live together as husband and wife – that would be great.

Poverty undermines cooperation
We do not have [self-help] groups — those that exist are [older] women’s groups and their lives are much better than ours. We cannot work together because our problems [are so bad that] everybody can only be concerned with their own house. So now, even if you call a meeting it’s difficult to get enough people. Everybody follows their own path and thinks you will just waste their time — they do not see that any good results might come of it. I would like to have a group, but there are many different opinions on that.

The [only] organisation that I’ve seen helping people is the Catholic Church. It helps the very old women, especially those who have been left with their own children’s orphans. But even then it’s not all of them who are helped — just a very few.

“We have been completely forgotten”

Other private organisations or government agencies do not come here, they just get us together and take pictures and promise to return - but they do not. I don’t know if they feel that our problems are just too many, I don’t know…

Nowadays, we feel like everyone who comes here are liars and they just give us false hope…
because it seems that there are people using us for their own benefit. There are so many who have come here, taken our pictures and done things like that, but then they disappear, so we wonder where do they go? It looks like we have been completely forgotten…

We even wonder if we are wanted in this world – because of the conditions we live in, which truly are not fit for humans. And we wonder when will this situation change or will we die in this state? We also wonder if our children will also be poor like us, because they have no foundations upon which to build a future.

“Life back home is very hard”

My parents died a long time ago, even before I came to Nairobi. I started living with my sister and my elder brother, but now they both live back in Ukambani (Kitui district, south-eastern Kenya).

We last saw each other a very long time ago; I don’t go home because I lack the bus fare and [my brother] is also unable to come to Nairobi. With the little money that I earn I am just able to cover the rent and to buy food. I would very much like to go home but for now, life does not allow it.

Life back home is very hard, however, even more than here in Nairobi, because there money can scarcely be found at all. Back at home, even though education is free, parents contribute money to help provide a meal for the schoolchildren and it’s very hard to get that cash. It’s better here in Nairobi, where you can at least wash clothes for somebody and make some money.

“It was my wish…to support myself”

I went to school until Standard 8 (final class of primary school) and then there was no more money for fees… I was one of seven children and the last. I am the only child who went to school because my elder sister was married by then and she lived in Nairobi — she helped me. But there was no money to take me on to a college to acquire any skills, or to go to secondary school, even though it was my wish to get enough education to support myself in life…

I pray that I receive some help so that I can acquire some skills — even tailoring — so that I can fend for myself. I think if I get 1,000 shillings I can start training myself, even if it’s just one day a week, so that even if I am fired from being a maid I can take care of myself without relying on anyone. So that even if the maid jobs were not available I could have my own work and my children would be educated without many problems.

I would also find them a nice place to live so that they could grow up with good manners, because I will not lie to you, if I sent these children of mine to stay with you, you would not even last two days before returning them to me! Because they have no respect, they have been misled by others here in this kijiji (Swahili for village, here meaning Kibagare). I tell you, my sister, there are problems here.

“The fear that is in this community is great”

Cases [of rape] have increased greatly, especially of children who are deceived by grown-ups. Some are promised sweets and mandazi (popular semi-sweet doughnut) and such like. Rape is also on the increase because of drunkenness and drugs – also the smoking of bhang (marijuana), which has increased in the village. Now the children are seeing that it is OK to imitate these people…

I tell you, the fear that is in this community is great. I go everywhere with my daughter and I don’t know when I’ll stop doing this, because I do not know when this situation will change. There are so many problems that you just thank God when you wake up in the morning and find you are still alive [smiles].

Drug use has reduced the security situation in this kijiji… The police pass through here, but the young people know the time [they come]. So when the police are in the area, you don’t see anyone loitering about aimlessly. But just let the police leave, and they start committing the most outrageous acts [laughs].

Some even ask to be arrested because in jail nowadays there is food, not like here in Kibagare. Now when you hear somebody wants to commit a crime in order to be arrested, what can you do but leave them to it?! I think that, even if we do get help, these youths should go and have the drugs removed from their system first.

The impact of poverty on young girls

As you can see, so many girls are pregnant; almost every girl in this village has at least one child. Those girls don’t really care about their children because at night they leave them and go roaming around, looking for men in Kangemi and then in the morning they go home to sleep and leave the children [to fend for themselves].

They get pregnant when they are so young – around 12 years, sometimes younger – because their lives are hard. You know, because they have been born in such hardship this way of life attracts them, so they start making money early so that maybe they can start helping their parents. You often find they have left school and taken up a bad lifestyle; so many of them have started contracting different diseases. Many have died of AIDS.

“We live like we are not human beings”

The problem is that there are very many people and the population is increasing at a very fast rate. You see here, there are many houses which are so close together there is no space left to build toilets. Most people have to relieve themselves in polythene bags and tins, and in the morning you find those bags spread everywhere and sometimes in the river that people use for their domestic water supply. As a result, people get diseases…

We have drinking water but most people don’t have the 2 shillings you need to buy the water; many have died because of drinking dirty water.

I hear some people saying this is the government’s land; others say it is private so I don’t really know whose it is. It has become an issue that politicians use to get our votes at election time. There are times when we are threatened that the community will be demolished; other times [buildings are] burned down. We don’t really know where we stand — we just live on God’s mercy.

My request would be that the owners of these houses get the title deeds and that they build real houses. So that when we build homes too, we are sure that the houses will not be burned down or destroyed, so that we stop being afraid of losing our belongings as now. When somebody leaves their home to look for work, they are always afraid and hoping not to hear that something has happened in the village.

In my opinion, I think that if we could find somebody to buy us plots of land, and if they built houses and made toilets for us, I think life would change – so we could be like other Kenyans. You see, we live like we are not human beings. When I look at other people, they have so much money they don’t even know what to do with it, while for us, even finding food is by the grace of God. I wonder if there is really anybody thinking about us.

“I am convinced…I could change my life”

When I look at the children we have, I wonder: if our lives are this bad and have no direction or hope for the future, what will the future hold for our children? I feel like if we don’t get help from somewhere, it will get worse. But if, say, I am given a good foundation somewhere else, if I am given money to start a business, or if I received training in some vocational work, I am convinced – without any doubt – that I could change my life and the future life of my children. So that when I die, I would leave them at least some foundation from which they could rely on themselves, and be of use to future generations.

There are many businesses to undertake; the problem is getting money to start the business. For example, if I could get some money I could start to sell kale, cabbage, tomatoes. If we could get money, even a loan that we repay with a small amount of interest, I can see that would help us.

Our problem as young people is lack of employment. If it was possible for us to be given jobs, even something like rearing chickens, we would be able to create more opportunities and life would be better, as we would be busy rather than just being idle…

Post-Election violence in Eldoret, Nakuru and Naivasha was organised by businessmen and political leaders, the Human Rights Watch (HRW) has claimed.

The report - Ballots to Bullets, Organised Political Violence and Kenya’s Political Crisis of Governance - claims leaders held meetings to prepare residents for ‘war’ if they lost the election.

Presenting the report on Monday, human rights researcher, Mr Ben Rawlence, called on the Government to prosecute perpetrators of chaos and restore trust of victims.

“The coalition government should support the inquiries established under the February 2008 mediation process to investigate abuses by State forces and those responsible for violence,” he said.

“As displaced people move to their ancestral homes, there is real risk that ethnic jingoism will increase and tensions rise as victims share their stories,” warns the report.

To forestall further polarisation, the HRW group recommends a safe return or re-location of displaced populations.

NAIROBI, Kenya - The American military says Somali pirates have left two boats they had hijacked in the waters off the Horn of Africa.

The newly liberated vessels are under U.S. Navy escort farther out to sea, where naval personnel will later board the vessels and treat the 24 crew members.

A spokeswoman says the Navy is in radio contact with pirates aboard three other ships in the region, encouraging them also to leave those ships and sail back to Somalia.

The spokeswoman says no shots were fired during the incident.

The U.S. has now intervened four times in one week to help ships hijacked by Somali pirates.

IT IS UNFORTUNATE THAT Labour minister Newton Kulundu’s faux pas at the launch of a report hosted by the US embassy last week got more media attention than the contents of the report being launched.

The minister accused the United States and the United Kingdom of being “the greatest violators of human rights, democracy and transparency” while the visibly perturbed US ambassador, Micheal Ranneberger, looked on.

Mr Kulundu forgot one basic principal of diplomacy - do not spit in the face of your host, even if you do not agree with him.

But this lapse in judgment on the part of the minister is not a good enough reason for the media to deflect attention from the contents of the shocking report.

The report, Trafficking in Persons from a Labour Perspective: The Kenyan experience, published by the American Centre for International Labour Solidarity, highlights a problem that seems to have escalated in the last few years - the buying and selling of human beings for the purpose of exploitation.

The International Labour Organisation estimates that at any given time, 12 million women, men and children worldwide are coerced into bonded labour, involuntary servitude, or sexual slavery. This modern form of slavery is the second-most lucrative business for international crime syndicates, after trafficking in weapons.

A study by the Kenyan Institute of Policy Analysis and Research (IPAR) has found that Kenya is a major source, transit and destination country for trafficked women, men and children who are forced into unpaid work or forced prostitution.

Kenyan victims are trafficked to other countries mostly through bogus employment agencies that deceive victims into going abroad for work. Unsuspecting victims are then sent to Europe, Australia, North America or the Middle East/Gulf region, where they end up as bonded labour or prostitutes. Some African countries, such as South Africa and Bostswana, are also recipients of these modern-day slaves.

But while the international aspect of the trade receives the most attention, it is worth noting that internal trafficking of women and children in particular is a growing problem in Eastern Africa.

Counter-trafficking activists believe that many children from Kenya, Burundi and Rwanda are trafficked to Kenya’s coastal areas for sexual exploitation in the growing sex tourism industry.

It is estimated that in the coastal town of Mtwapa alone, between 10,000 and 20,000 children are trafficked for the purpose of sex tourism.

A recent Unicef report shows that while Italian, German and Swiss men form the bulk of the foreign tourists who sexually exploit children at the coast, a large proportion - 39 per cent - of the perpetrators are local Kenyan men.

Many of the children being exploited are not from the coast region but are imported from rural areas from around the country.

You don’t have to spend a lot of time at the Kenyan coast to know that child prostitution and sex tourism are rampant there. In Mombasa and Malindi, it is common to see aging white men well into their 70s and 80s with girls young enough to be their granddaughters.

Locals tolerate this type of sexual exploitation because, as one put it to me recently, “nothing gets a family out of poverty faster than a daughter who has a white boyfriend.”

In many cases, girls are encouraged by none other than their parents and relatives to look for older white men who will not only pay the girl for her services, but her family as well.

The Unicef report also found that witchdoctors are commonly engaged by sex workers to ensure a steady supply of foreign tourists who can support them. (The allure of the foreign tourist is greater than that of a local tourist as he is often able to pay more, and is likely to be a seasonal client, thereby allowing the women and girls to have more than one “boyfriend” in a given year.)

Many of the girls (and some boys) are the source of income to impoverished parents living in deprived rural areas. Others make a lot of money for middlemen and traffickers who supply children and women to tourists looking for sex while on holiday.

The sad thing is that despite the passing of the Sexual Offences Bill and the publication of damning reports that confirm that Kenya is fast becoming a preferred destination for sex tourists, no one has either been arrested or deported for engaging in sex tourism or paedophilia.

Tourism may be a leading revenue earner for Kenya, but it is about time we vetted the tourists who come into this country.

Known paedophiles and sex tourists must not be given a visa to enter the country. Their records must be entered into every immigration and security database in the world, including Interpol. Parents, relatives and middlemen forcing children into servitude or prostitution must be arrested and prosecuted.

More importantly, we must create the economic and social conditions that prevent parents, relatives, middlemen and traffickers from condemning our children to lives of sexual slavery.

(Nairobi)
Only a federal system of government (majimbo) can uplift the living standards of Kenyans, ODM-K presidential candidate Kalonzo Musyoka said on Sunday.

He said majimbo had been misconstrued to look like a recipe for chaos by its opponents and this had instilled fears among Kenyans, yet it was a harmless system that would guarantee equitable distribution of wealth.

“Majimbo simply means a region and was well defined in the Bomas draft constitution which was well received by majority of the people of Kenya,” he said.

According to him, only a few individuals in the Party of National Unity (PNU) were against what was good for Kenyans.

Identified regions

He said that the Bomas draft had identified various regions that would form jimbos. These were Luo Nyanza, the greater Kisii, upper Rift, South Rift, Central, Central Eastern, Lower Eastern and Coast among others.

Mr Musyoka was speaking at Tononoka Grounds in Mombasa at the climax of his three-day campaign tour of the Coast Province.

Giving examples of disparities in the distribution of resources, he said Coast Province contributed Sh57 billion to the Treasury in 2003 but still lacked basic infrastructure.

During the same period Nairobi gave Sh129 billion while Central Province delivered about Sh1 billion. But when it came to disbursement of funds, he said Central Province gets the lion’s share while the Coast got very little.

“Majimbo is the only system that can correct the imbalance in the distribution of the national cake. Regions like the Coast that produce a lot of revenue have to get their rightful share to address economic and social development,” he said. According to him, the area had been marginalised for many years “and this must come to an end.”

PNU has strongly opposed majimbo, saying that it would divide the country along ethnic lines and that it might trigger chaos.

Some PNU leaders have said that people who do not come from particular regions will be evicted by indigenous people. However, both ODM and ODM-K have said this would not happen.

Contradicted

The position taken by Mr Musyoka contradicted that of his party secretary-general, Mr Mutula Kilonzo, who said majimbo was an idea whose time came and went and it should be left to rest.

“It is unfortunate that men and women who were teenagers or younger when the debate for majimbo in the 1960s polarised the country should be the ones to bring it back,” he said.

“It is a political backslide and worse, they are confusing federalism as a political system with Majimbo, a tribal snake pit,” Mr Kilonzo said in his opinion piece.

Mr Musyoka, who praised the system, asked Coast residents to reject PNU and Shirikisho Party of Kenya whose leaders have opposed to majimbo.

“After sensing defeat, these people are now creating fear yet they know too well that Coast people and others from marginalised communities have suffered under the unitary system,” he said.

Earlier, Mr Musyoka had pledged to engineer economic and social change in the country if he wins the General Election.

He said: “Today, I take this opportunity to make a solemn pledge of ensuring that there is change in this country should I win the top seat.

“It is evident that majority of Kenyans are hit hard by poverty making life for them unbearable. I will ensure equitable distribution of the national cake to benefit all and sundry.”

The Mwingi North MP spoke at the Jesus Celebration Centre in Bamburi where he attended a service before addressing a well attended rally at the Tononoka Grounds.

At the rally, Bahari MP Joe Khamisi said he was shocked by President Kibaki’s rejection of majimbo but assured Kenyans that ODM-K will revive the Bomas draft which contains the tenets of the system. “It is sad that Shirikisho Party of Kenya whose ideology is against unitary government has now joined PNU which is opposed to majimbo,” he said.

He said president Kibaki was solely to blame for the problems that Kenyans were facing and should stop blaming it on the opposition.

“I do not deny the fact that I served in both Moi and Kibaki governments but I was just a mere minister who had no powers to authorise anything because the Presidents had all the powers to make things happen,” he said.

Mr Musyoka said if elected, his administration would set up a metropolitan police force in Nairobi and Mombasa to root out insecurity and allow businesses to operate round the clock.

“Hawkers have suffered for long in the hands city askaris but promised to turn hawking into cottage industry to enable small scale traders do their business in dignity and build a strong economy,” he said.

Muslims cheated

Mr Musyoka said the Muslim community in Kenya was being cheated by some leaders who want to use them for their political gains then dump them.

Muslims have rights like all other Kenyans and this will be guaranteed under an ODM K government, he said.

His running mate, Dr Julia Ojiambo said cases of insecurity were rampant and this had caused bitterness among Kenyans. She called on Kenyans to vote for Mr Musyoka because he was focused on security and peace.

She also urged wananchi to avoid violence during the campaigns.

Kenyan police have denied carrying out extra-judicial killings of alleged members of the outlawed Mungiki sect.

Police spokesman Eric Kiraithe dismissed the allegation of police executions of suspects as “outrageous”.

The Kenya National Human Rights Commission (KNHRC) had made the claim after investigating incidences of dead bodies being dumped around the capital.

In June, the president ordered police to hunt down Mungiki sect members blamed for a series of grisly murders.

“Even if you hide, we will find you and kill you,” President Mwai Kibaki had said in a warning to members of the quasi-religious sect which was outlawed in 2002.

Mungiki followers have been demanding protection fees from public transport operators, slum dwellers and other businessmen in and around Nairobi.

Those who refuse are often brutally murdered.

Arrests

Mr Kiraithe said KNHRC’s allegations were a plot to discredit the government in the run-up to the December elections.

Mungiki followers

Rise of Kenya’s vigilantes

A news agency reports that more than a dozen bloodied bodies have been dumped in bush on the outskirts of Nairobi in the past week.

The state-sponsored KNHRC has been investigating whether these and other killings were the victims of police executions.

KNHRC commissioner Hassan Omar said the organisation had reports of “cars being driven to secret locations with suspects” followed by “gunshots, then dead bodies and food for the hyenas”.

Mr Omar said some of the latest victims may have been innocent of any crime.

But Mr Kiraithe insisted that police officers followed the rule of law when dealing with suspects.

After the president’s directive, police raided the Nairobi slum of Mathare to arrest hundreds of suspected sect members.

At least 30 people died in gun battles with police during that operation, leading the human rights organisation Amnesty International to call for an enquiry.

SLUM-TV was started in Mathare, Kenya, in 2006. On their site they state that Mathare is the largest slum in the country with an estimated 700,000 residents, but this would put it at almost 1 million less than Kibera, which is in Nairobi. Nonetheless, their project is a really terrific idea. SLUM-TV was started by Austrian artists working with local Kenyan artists and photographers. They make newsreels in the slums for the slums and then project them for people there to see. Here is more from their web site:

The foundation of SLUM-TV

SLUM-TV wants to documents the lives of the people in the slum and to reevaluate these lives through the camera. A camera always attracts attention. Our partners from the slum film and document the life in Mathare. The small movies are then shown in public places in Mathare, like a newsreel. In Mathare, there exist a variety of self-established cinemas. Mostly American and African films and European football is shown there.

In a bizarre mishap that conservationists describe as “heartbreaking,” an estimated 10,000 wildebeest have drowned while attempting to cross Kenya’s Mara River during an annual migration. The deaths, which occurred over the course of several days last week, are said to account for about one percent of the total species population.

The drownings created a grotesque wildlife pileup, after part of the migrating herd tried to ford the Mara at “a particularly treacherous crossing point,” according to Terilyn Lemaire, a conservation worker with the Mara Conservancy who witnessed the incident. The first animals into the river failed to cross and drowned, while others continued to stampede into the water behind them, Lemaire told National Geographic News by email.

“Once they jumped into the water, they were unable to climb up either embankment onto land and, as a result, got swept up by the current and drowned,” she said.
Some 2,000 wildebeest drowned at the crossing in a single afternoon, Lemaire estimated.

“There was no unusual flooding at the time, and there seems to be no extraneous circumstances to these deaths,” she said. “The wildebeest merely chose a crossing point that was too steep.”

Drowning deaths are not uncommon during the migration, Lemaire added, but her organization has never witnessed fatalities on this scale.

“It is customary every year for the wildebeest to pick a particularly treacherous crossing point and for there to be a significant die-off,” she said, “but the number of deaths during these crossings almost never exceeds one thousand.”
The deaths occurred at Kenya’s Maasai Mara National Reserve, as the herd was beginning its swing to the east on its way back to the Serengeti.

More than a million wildebeest undertake an epic migration every year in late summer, leaving their calving grounds in the Serengeti Plain of Tanzania to seek greener pastures in Kenya to the north. The animals, also known as gnu, journey some 3,200 km each year, often joined by thousands of zebras and Thomson’s gazelles.

The remains formed what she described as “pungent islands of bloated carcasses. The crocodiles, storks, and vultures have not had to worry about where to find their next meal,” she wrote.

“Those that aren’t consumed will be left and will eventually decompose in the water. These thousands of carcasses will undoubtedly affect the health of the water, but to what extent, only time will tell.”

Kenyan MPs have passed a law which may make it impossible to prosecute corrupt politicians implicated in big scandals.

The law limits Kenya’s Anti-Corruption Commission to investigate alleged crimes committed only after 2003.

Two notorious cases predate this - the Goldenberg and Anglo Leasing scams when huge sums were diverted from the Kenyan exchequer into officials’ back pockets.

President Mwai Kibaki won polls in 2002 on an anti-graft platform he has yet to fulfil. He faces re-election this year.

Observers say the move may have been timed to ensure no politicians face damaging legal proceedings ahead of the polls.

After a heated debate, opposition MPs surprised the government by winning a vote on the controversial amendment, which deletes key sections of the 2003 Anti-Corruption and Economic Crimes Act.

Justice Minister Martha Karua argued against the change, saying the sections were the core of the Act and their deletion would strip the KACC of powers essential to carrying out its remit.

Speaking in parliament she said: “Past economic crimes have not been successfully investigated and this amendment would give the KACC a deadly blow.”

The head of the Kenya National Human Rights Commission, Maina Kiai, has described the law as an affront to the people of Kenya.

“The politicians are spitting in our faces,” he said.

Mrs Karua told parliament that the architect of the amendment, Paul Muite had an interest in sabotaging the KACC investigation.

“Hon Muite’s interest is obvious and this amendment is mischievous”, she said.

Back in 2003 when the KACC was set up, Mr Muite told Kenya’s Daily Nation he was looking forward to “defending himself against allegations that he received 20 million Kenyan shillings” from a businessman implicated in the Goldenberg scandal.

The big scams

Under former President Daniel arap Moi’s administration, the government devised a scheme to persuade exporters to repatriate hard currency earnings, promising a 20% premium on foreign currency deposited in Kenya’s Central Bank.

It is alleged that a company called Goldenberg International colluded with government officials to make a claim for a 35% compensation for the export of minerals, in spite of Kenya having no diamond reserves and producing little gold of its own.

At least $80m was paid in export compensation, but some estimates suggest that Kenya’s overall losses amounted to around $600m - the equivalent of more than 10% of the country’s annual GDP.

Then under President Kibaki, officials sought to order a replacement for Kenya’s passport printing system.

It involved buying sophisticated equipment - originally quoted at 6m euros ($8.3m) from Francois Charles Oberthur of Paris, a leading credit card supplier.

Without a proper competitive tender, the contract was instead awarded for five times the price to a company registered in the UK, the Anglo-Leasing and Finance Company Limited, whose plan was to sub-contract Oberthur to do the work.

It was subsequently revealed that Anglo Leasing’s agent was a Liverpool-based firm, Saagar Associates.

The company records showed Saagar Associates was owned by Mrs Sudhan Ruparell, a daughter of Chamanlal Kamani, the 72-year-old multi-millionaire patriarch of a business family which enjoyed close links with senior officials in the Moi regime.

No graft convictions

The former anti-graft adviser, John Githongo, fled to the UK in 2005 after saying he had been threatened because of his investigations into corruption.

His successor, Aaron Ringera. recommended that two former finance ministers, an ex-transport minister and a former security minister should be prosecuted, along with eight top civil servants.

Three senior ministers stood down following their implication in corruption in February 2006, but in January 2007 the Attorney General deemed there was not enough evidence against them to proceed with a prosecution.

So far, for all the investigations and charges, not a single businessman, official or politician has been brought to trial.

The international corruption watchdog, Transparency International, ranks Kenya among the 20 most corrupt countries in the world.

Kenya’s MPs have already provoked a public outcry in recent days when they voted just last week to award themselves a $22,000 bonus each at the end of their five-year term in December.

The bill also legalised huge perks received by ministers.

Kenya’s 222 MPs already earn more than $10,000 a month in salaries and expenses, much of which is tax-free, in a country where most people live on less than $1 a day.

In 2006, Islamists strengthened their hold on Somalia, after capturing the southern port of Kismayo. Although they have no intention of crossing into neighbouring Kenya, the question is what effect their ascendancy will have on that country’s predominantly Muslim coast.

Although Somalia’s Islamists say that their aim is nothing more threatening than to remake the country as a peaceful and tolerant Islamic state, Somalia’s internationally recognised (but dreadfully weak) transitional government insists that they are an “al-Qaeda network”. A recent suicide bombing which narrowly missed the transitional president, Abdullahi Yusuf, and the killing of an elderly Italian nun working at a Mogadishu hospital, probably in retaliation for Pope Benedict XVI’s remarks on violence and Islam, confirmed the worst fears of some, including the United States. The Kenyan coast already has direct experience of al-Qaeda’s brand of violence—in 2002 it bombed a hotel full of Israelis in Mombasa, killing 16, and tried to shoot down an Israeli airliner—and the Nairobi-based intelligence community expects more. So people are nervous.

Kenya’s Muslims feel disenfranchised. They have had little access to national power, in contrast to neighbouring Tanzania, where Islamist rhetoric has been blunted by socialism and Muslims have held most of the high offices of state (see article). So far, however, Muslims on the Kenyan coast have usually been repulsed by jihadist rhetoric. But a revival of Arabic and access to Arab satellite television, linking local backwaters to a sometimes inflammatory message of Islam under siege, could change that.

Malindi is a case in point. The Muslim community there is taking steps to recover itself from what it calls the “corrosive” influence of tourism. The town’s beaches have been a tidy earner since 1498, when Vasco da Gama was welcomed ashore. Things have got out of hand since. “The Italians have ruined this town,” says a Muslim elder. Several thousand Italians now live in Malindi and it is not just the Italian women wandering half-naked through conservative bits of the town that upsets local Muslims. It is the drugs and the sex tourism that the Italians have brought with them since taking over the tourism industry in the 1980s. Most of the drug users in the town are Muslim boys. Some become donkeys for cocaine traffickers; Malindi has become a shipment point for Colombian cocaine. Underage Muslim girls are lured into prostitution. Tourists pay a premium for conservative girls: corruption is part of the thrill.

One reaction to this has been a growing opposition among the small but more Islamist Wahhabi community in Malindi. A more lasting reaction is what the more moderate Sunni elders call “awareness”—a renewed effort to raise up a generation of “pure” Muslims. Tahdhib school, in the centre of town, is pioneering a programme of “integrated education” which could spread along the coast. Children study the national curriculum in the morning and receive a Koranic education in the afternoon. No child can advance without passing exams in both secular and religious studies, and instruction is in English and Arabic. The teachers hope to produce both “good citizens of Kenya” and believers who will “close their eyes” to tourist excesses. Political discussion is avoided, although in 2006 the children were marched out to protest against Danish newspaper cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.

Tourism is a soft target for jihadists and it has still has not recovered to pre-2002 levels. With its new mosques bristling against new casinos, Malindi feels vulnerable. “One bomb and it’s over for us for another five years,” says a hotel owner. Maybe, but the real losers would be local Muslims who already struggle to get by in the long tourist off-season.

A new study of corruption in Kenya shows there has been little progress despite repeated promises by President Mwai Kibaki’s government to crack down on graft. Everyday Kenyans can expect to pay bribes at least a couple of times a year.

The report from Transparency International’s Kenya branch says that Kenyans have largely come to accept the petty corruption that is part of their lives. They can expect to pay at least 2.5 bribes each year, double what they paid in 2005.

The trend is a setback, because President Kibaki came to power in part on his pledges to eradicate corruption in Kenya, which ranks 142nd among 163 countries on Transparency International’s global corruption list. Posters have been put up in offices and on billboards to raise public awareness, but to little effect.

Yet the anti-corruption drive has slowed, and many government ministers have been embroiled in allegations of graft.

“Looking at the statistics that we received from this report, the situation is as bad as it was four years ago,” said Richard Leakey, the head of the Kenya branch of Transparency International.

“The Kibaki government seems to have been totally unable to address corruption at the basic level. It’s clear that you can deal with corruption and an awful lot of it has to do with making people more aware and participatory,” he continued.

According to the survey, the biggest bribes were paid when high school students sought to enroll in Kenya’s overcrowded university system. People also reportedly paid large bribes when seeking jobs. And Kenya’s police force was seen as the most corrupt agency in the country, the sixth year in a row it has attained that dubious honor.

The Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission, which will soon release its own figures, says the public is partly to blame because people who are stopped by the police will often offer a bribe to avoid long court proceedings.

The Anti-Corruption Commission’s spokesman, Nicholas Simani, says people must learn to say no to paying bribes.

“Majority of the general public, they’re the ones who basically induce this kind of activity. So we need to have a two-way understanding here,” said Simani. “You can say the police are the most corrupt, but they are being corrupted because the public actually are the ones who are also giving it out. So the public also needs to be educated on this. Then we are saying that both of them are guilty. The giver and the taker is guilty of an offense.”

Transparency International did not touch on larger issues of government corruption. For the report, the group asked 2,400 ordinary Kenyans across the country about their perceptions of corruption and whether they thought it had eased.

NAIROBI, Kenya - Police arrested a suspected leader of an outlawed Kenyan group blamed for a string of beheadings and fatal shootings this year, the man’s family said Wednesday.

Ten officers in a special squad formed to combat the Mungiki gang arrested Njoroge Kamunya, in his mid-40s, at his home in Ongata Rongai, 12 miles from Nairobi, said a cousin, who insisted on speaking anonymously for fear of reprisals from the authorities.

Police spokesman Eric Kiraithe refused to comment on the report.

The gang has been accused of killing 15 police officers from April through June and 27 civilians during the year, many of them in beheadings.

Kamunya has been on the run since April, when police issued an arrest warrant for him and two other men who have since been arrested.

Mungiki was once a quasi-political sect that drew thousands of unemployed youth from the Kikuyu community, Kenya’s largest tribe. Its name means “multitude” in Kikuyu, and members promote traditional Kikuyu practices, including female genital mutilation.

The government outlawed the group in 2002 after its members beheaded 21 people in a Nairobi slum following a turf war with a rival group called the Taliban, which drew its members from the Luo community.

Kamunya’s younger brother, 36-year-old Maina Njenga, was one of Mungiki’s founders but later publicly denounced it. He was jailed for five years in June for illegal gun possession and drug selling.

At least 112 people have died during a police crackdown on the group over the past three months.

Police are investigating incidents of drugging of passengers to Malindi from Mombasa.

Six passengers in as many days have been taken to Malindi police station after being drugged and robbed of cash and valuables in buses from Mombasa.

Yesterday, an elderly man was rushed to the local hospital after he was brought to the police station unconscious from a bus.

Drugging syndicate

Area police commander Philip Opiyo said: “It looks like there is a person or a syndicate of people on a drugging mission. We are investigating the matter.”

The criminals seem to be targeting passengers who use a particular bus company on the Mombasa-Malindi-Lamu route, said Mr Opiyo.

Passengers being targeted are those who look well-up, especially those with big suitcases and those who are dressed expensively, said the Police.

Other police sources said those who drugged the passengers chose certain foods which they offered to the travellers once the bus left the terminus.

Sharing food

“They tend to be very generous people, offering to share foods such as biscuits and candy with other passengers.

“Once the passengers accept and eat these foods, they get drugged,” said the source.

The police warned travellers to resist any offers of food from strangers and instead report such cases to officers.

“We are now on alert. We want to warn all travellers to be careful and to report to us anyone with such offers.

“This is because people are losing their money and property to the criminals,” said the source.

Identification. Rastafarianism is a Black-nationalist religious movement; founded in Jamaica, which affirms that the late emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie, is the returned messiah, Jesus Christ; that God is Black; and that like the children of Israel, all people of African descent in Jamaica and throughout the Americas, live in enforced exile. Repatriation to the ancestral home will bring redemption and freedom from the system of White oppression, which Rastafari identify as “Babylon.” The majority of Rastas are highly visible owing to their matted hair, or dreadlocks, which they hold to be sacred and which they sometimes cover under woolen caps colored red, gold, and green (representing blood, gold, and land). They regard the herb ganja (Cannabis sativa) as a special gift of God—first found on the grave of King Solomon—and smoke it as part of their sacred ritual discussion, using a hookah, or “chalice.”

Location. Although it maintains its highest concentration of adherents in Jamaica, Rastafarianism has spread to all islands of the Caribbean and to Black populations throughout the hemisphere and in Europe. Rastafarians are also found in many African countries, including South Africa, and in Australia and New Zealand. It would appear, however, that the belief in Haile Selassie is not as pronounced in countries outside Jamaica, although the focus on an African identity remains.

Demography. There are no reliable estimates of the number of Rastafarians in Jamaica or elsewhere. Official Jamaican censuses so far do not recognize Rastafari as a legitimate religion. Even if they did, however, the results would still be uncertain, owing to Rastafari hostility toward cooperation with Babylon. Nevertheless, rough estimates put adherents in Jamaica at between seventy thousand and a hundred thousand, or 3 percent to 4 percent of the population.

Linguistic Affiliation. Dread talk, an argot of neologisms, homonyms, and inversions, is used to express certain basic philosophical concepts, the most prominent example being the use of the pronomial I to express one-ness and divine immanence.

Brush your teeth every day, dentists say. In Africa, that can mean keeping your toothbrush in your mouth all day long.

Across the continent south of the Sahara, many people go about their daily business with a small stick or twig protruding from their mouth, which they chew or use to scrub their teeth.

Cut from wild trees and shrubs in the bush, this is the African toothbrush. Its users swear it is much more natural, effective - and cheaper - than the prettily packaged but pricey dental products on sale in pharmacies and supermarkets.

“It cleans your teeth more than plastic brushes, with the liquid that comes out of the wood,” said Mr Marcelino Diatta, a stick twitching from his mouth as he sought handouts from foreigners in downtown Dakar.

In Senegal, the chewing stick is called “sothiou”, which means “to clean” in the local Wolof language. In east Africa, the stick is called “mswaki”, the Swahili word for toothbrush.

Their users say the sticks are also medicinal, providing not just dental hygiene but also curing a variety of other ills. Dental experts agree they seem to clean teeth well and some up-market health stores in the United States have been selling chew-sticks as a natural form of dental care.

“It’s good for your stomach and your head … it whitens your teeth and gets rid of bad breath,” said Abedis Sauda, a Senegalese street vendor.

Traders in Dakar and other Senegalese cities sell neat bundles of the pencil-sized sticks - usually about six inches long -on the pavement, offering a variety of different types of wood at different prices.

Mr Elimane Diop, 70, dressed in a blue boubou robe and white bonnet, extols the virtues of his wares with all the pride of a salesman for a multinational health care company, explaining the advantages of a new design of brush or type of dental floss.

“This is the Dakhaar … It cleans really well,” said Mr Diop, holding up a slender, knotty twig with a dark brown bark.

Another bush toothbrush, the Werek, is cut from the branches of the gum tree, while the thicker Neep-Neep helps ease toothache. “If you’ve a bad tooth, it’s a medicine,” said Mr Diop.

The Cola, cut from a soft, whitish wood, is prized for its sweet taste.

If chewed, most of the twigs fray into finer strands, which have the effect of “flossing” between the teeth, or if rubbed up and down, can scrub tooth enamel clean as well as any brush. But they can taste bitter compared with commercial toothpastes.

“There are several documented studies which suggest that the cleaning sticks are at least as effective as normal toothbrushes and paste in maintaining routine oral health,” Christine D. Wu, Professor and Associate Dean for Research at the University of Illinois College of Dentistry, told Reuters.

She said some laboratory studies indicated plants from which some of the sticks in Africa are cut contain protective anti-microbial compounds that act against the bacteria in the mouth which cause tooth decay and gum disease.

“And if these sticks do contain fluoride, as plants do, then this would be beneficial for caries prevention,” Wu said, although she stressed much more research needed to be done on the sticks and their use by humans.

The World Health Organisation has encouraged the use of chewing sticks as an alternative source of oral hygiene in poor countries where many cannot afford commercial dental products.

In mostly Muslim Senegal, people say there is religious precedent for the use of the chewing sticks.

In holy Islamic writings known as the Hadith, the Prophet Muhammad recommends their use as part of cleaning rituals that are an essential element of daily prayers.

“For prayers, you have to get really clean, and that includes the teeth,” said Diop, an invalid whose left leg is deformed - a childhood injury sustained when a sharp twig pierced his bare foot in the bush and the wound became infected.

Although commercially made toothbrushes from leading international brands are available in Dakar supermarkets and pharmacies, many people say they prefer the chew sticks. “It’s better because it’s natural. I used to use a brush, but it made my gums bleed,” said Allissane Sy, an off-duty police officer, stopping to buy a stick from Diop.

Price helps too. While a manufactured toothbrush can cost upwards of 300 CFA francs (60 cents), a chew-stick costs only 25 or 50 CFA.

Mr Diop said each type of stick had different stories and origins associated with them.

For example, the one named Matou-kel was believed to bring luck. It is named after the tree it is cut from where bush deer - prized in Senegal for their tender tasty venison - like to feed and rest.

Another wood variety, Soumpou, was traditionally used to provide a liquid used to cook a fortifying dish, Laakh, which is made with millet. “It gives energy,” Mr Diop said.

But Wu had a word of warning for stick chewers: don’t overdo it, as too-vigorous scrubbing can push back the gums, causing gum recession exposing teeth roots to damage and decay.