- Latest Popular Stories, Instablogs Community by G_edward

In Kenya, reason for hope

Edward — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 07:10:00 +0000

Reporting from Nairobi, Kenya — Rose is 17 months old. She weighs 15 pounds and looks the size of an American 5-month-old. She cannot sit up, walk or speak. She has the toothpick limbs and saucer eyes of the malnourished and the dull skin of dehydration.

In another corner is Caroline, a waifish 9-year-old who sleeps in a crib. She is a whispering, otherworldly child, pretty and fragile. Her parents are dead, and she is severely malnourished. I have just given her a teddy bear and accessories from a bag of toys we brought from the U.S. When I gave her the bear, she looked at me in disbelief. This, I realize, is probably the first time she has had a toy all her own. Now she sits in her crib slowly undressing and dressing the bear, over and over again.

Three foreign aid workers held in Somalia freed

Edward — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 11:16:01 +0000

Three foreign workers with the French aid group Action Against Hunger (ACF) were freed Saturday after being held in Somalia since July, a humanitarian agency source said. The three, whose nationalities were not known, were expected to fly to...

Easy target for Western pedophiles: The poverty stricken Kenyan children

Edward — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 10:32:24 +0000

Kenya, one of Africa’s most popular tourist destinations, is being targeted by Western paedophiles who are exploiting the country’s poverty and lax law enforcement to abuse children, an investigation has discovered.

Undercover reporters for Channel 4 News filmed children – some as young as 12 – in nightclubs in Mombasa where they had gone to meet Western men who had travelled to the country for under-age sex.

Millions Ethiopians on the verge of death, starvation as rains fail

Edward — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 09:31:25 +0000

The spectre of famine has returned to the Horn of Africa nearly a quarter of a century after the world’s pop stars gathered to banish it at Live Aid, raising £150m for relief efforts in 1985. Millions of impoverished Ethiopians face the threat of malnutrition and possibly starvation this winter in what is shaping up to be the country’s worst food crisis for decades.

Estimates of the number of people who need emergency food aid have risen steadily this year from 4.9 million in January to 5.3 million in May and 6.2 million in June. Another 7.5 million are getting aid in return for work on community projects, as part of the National Productive Safety Net Program for people whose food supplies are chronically insecure, bringing the total being fed to 13.7 million.

e-pill popping concerns Kenya

Edward — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 08:42:39 +0000

In a radio advertisement at the centre of a controversy in Kenya, a distraught teenage girl asks for help after having unprotected sex.

“What shall I do? I’m still in college. What happens to my future, my friends, my family, my life?” she sobs.

The assistance offered is the emergency contraceptive pill - or morning-after pill.

The so-called “e-pill”, which is also being advertised in popular magazines with a free bookmark, is now the buzz-word in town among young sexually active women.

“I do use e-pills,” Florence, a university student in Nairobi, told the BBC.

The plot to oust Liberia's leading lady

Edward — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 09:21:27 +0000

Africa’s first female president was propelled to power on a tide of democratic passion from voters eager to turn the page on the years of civil carnage. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf was hailed as the woman whose level head and calm, almost grandmotherly, demeanour would help Liberia quietly rebuild and prosper. Now the bloody past is coming back to haunt her.

The country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) this week recommended that the President be barred from holding public office because of her wartime conduct. The move has shocked the West African nation, where Mrs Johnson-Sirleaf still enjoys huge popularity, and speculation is already swirling that this is not a case of Liberia’s leading lady being unmasked as a villain, but rather Machiavellian political manoeuvring ahead of the 2011 elections.

Mass arrests of Kenya militiamen

Edward — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 12:25:57 +0000

Kenya, Crucial Files Lost in ECK Drama: Mystery surrounds the disappearance of three files containing vital information on the December 27 General Election.

The files went missing on Monday when a group of activists stormed into an Electoral Commission of Kenya meeting in Kilifi.

On Tuesday, it emerged that files went missing when the group confronted ECK chairman Samuel Kivuitu and other commissioners at the Sun ‘N’ Sand Beach Resort.

The activists were demanding that the commissioners resign to pave way for investigations into claims of election irregularities. However, Mr Kivuitu has said his team would not step down before presenting its side of the story to an independent review committee set to start its work by Saturday.