New Kenya cabinet to be named on Sunday the 6th of April.

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Finally they have agreed to form a 4o man/woman cabinet. This is good for the country. It shows that Raila has bowed to PNU wishes to accommodate Kalonzo’s group. Kalonzo men may now get 2 more people.

  Written By:PPS 

Kibaki and Raila strike deal over Cabinet

President Mwai Kibaki and Hon. Raila Odinga Thursday held a successful round of talks at the Office of the President, Harambee House.

During the meeting, the President and Prime Minister-designate agreed on the way forward in the implementation of the National Accord and Reconciliation Act 2008. 

At the meeting, the two agreed on a forty-ministry Cabinet that will be announced this Sunday, 6^th April 2008. 

The new Cabinet will then be sworn in on Saturday, 12^th April 2008.

Both parties were pleased with the outcome of the discussions in the spirit of give and take and expressed their appreciation to Kenyans for their patience during the period of consultations.

Both parties noted that the long consultations were necessary to enable there be an agreement that is amicable and good for the country.

Meanwhile the World Food Programme (WFP) has assured those affected by the post-election violence of continued food assistance.

Speaking during a meeting with President Mwai Kibaki at Harambee House today, visiting World Food Programme Executive Director Ms. Josette Sheeran said her organization would step up its humanitarian assistance to the Internally Displaced Persons in the country.

At the same time, the WFP Executive Director added that her organization was working with its partners towards ensuring that the food needs of those affected by the post-election violence in the country were adequately addressed.

 Ms. Sheeran pointed out that the World Food Programme had also initiated a new procurement procedure whereby food procurement is sourced from developing countries in order to benefit farmers directly.

Citing the example of Kenya where the WFP spent over US dollars 24 million last year in purchasing food locally, the WFP Executive Director said the country was ranked 8^th among developing countries which have benefitted from the initiative.

On his part, President Kibaki thanked the World Food Programme for its assistance to the needy in the country.

The President made a personal appeal to WFP and other development partners to support the Government in its efforts to assist internally displaced farmers with fertilizers and other non-food items especially during this planting season.

The President encouraged WFP to continue with its programmes in the country.

 President Kibaki and the WFP Executive Director agreed that there was need for World Food Programme to diversify the types of food it provided to include local foods such as sweet potatoes and arrowroots, which were readily available and equally nutritious.

The Government has re-allocated Kshs 1.25 billion from the current Financial Year budget to the National Recovery Strategy geared towards addressing the effects of the post-election violence which is estimated to cost Kshs 31.47 billion for the period up to June this year.

Present were Foreign Affairs Minister Moses wetangula and his Special Programmes counterpart Dr. Naomi Shaban and Permanent Secretaries Rachel Arunga and Thuita Mwangi.

 

 

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African Press International – api

Abukar Abdulle Nor killed by gangs in Hodan District

Published by Korir, API africanpress@getmail.no source.apa

The International Relations Officer of the Somali transitional government, Abukar Abdulle Nor, popularly known as Abukar Black, was on Tuesday night killed in front of his home in Hodan district in south Mogadishu by armed men with pistols, residents told APA.

According to reports, Nor died while running to Medina Hospital with severe injuries.

“He died while running to the hospital. The armed men shot him several times to the head and they walked freely from the scene without anyone trying to apprehend them,” Jeilani Nor, an eye-witness, told APA.

“As they were going away from the scene, they fired two bullets into the air near Taleeh Road in order to disperse the people around there,” he added.

Mr. Nor was one of the government delegates who participated in the recent Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) summit in the Senegalese capital, Dakar.

This is not first time that government officials have been targeted in Mogadishu and around it, but so far, the insurgents have killed more than 15 district commissioners and other senior government officials.

Mr. Nor was one of the many Somalis living in the Diaspora. He lived in Holland during the civil war and only recently returned to join the government in Mogadishu.

Mogadishu has seen more violence since the Ethiopians intervened in the Somali conflict in 2006, taking over control from the Islamic Courts Union who occupied the south and central regions including the city of Mogadishu for six months before they were swept out by the US-backed transitional government and their Ethiopian backers.

Somalia had been plunged into anarchy after the overthrow of Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, and since then, there has been no effective central authority, leading to constant inter-clan war which left thousands killed or displaced.

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African Press International – API

World Bank wants soveriegn funds investrment in Africa

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World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick said on Wednesday that sovereign wealth funds should invest one percent of their holdings in equity in Africa to boost investment opportunities and development.

He urged developed countries to provide immediate support to help the world\’s poor facing skyrocketing food prices, saying there was an urgent need to counter the current global crisis and lay the foundations to maximize opportunity and hope for all.

He called for a global trade deal to be agreed on as soon as possible and detailed an initiative to help countries manage their wealth earned from high energy and mineral prices in a more inclusive way.

In a speech delivered ahead of next week\’s Spring meetings of the World Bank Group and the IMF, he said the Bank Group will work with sovereign wealth funds to create a “One Percent Solution” for equity investment in Africa, a continent with opportunities and the potential to become an alternative pole of growth as China, India and other countries.

“Today, sovereign wealth funds hold an estimated $3 trillion in assets. If the World Bank Group can help create the platforms and benchmarks, the investment of even one percent of their assets would draw $30 billion to African growth, development, and opportunity,” he said.

Zoellick said sovereign wealth funds offered opportunity, “not something to fear”, adding that “the sovereign funds need transparency and should be guided by best practice to avoid politicization.

“But I believe we should celebrate a possibility that government-sponsored funds will invest equity in development,” he said.

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African Press International – API

Zimbabwe is now heading the Kenya way

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Zanu PF of President Robert Mugabe may have to form a Grand coalition government with MDC just like <PNU of Kibaki is being forced to form a Grand coalition government with ODM of Raila Odinga. It is interesting that MDC in Zimbabwe was one united party like ODM-Kenya. Both parties split into a bigger one and a smaller copyright. The two countries are now doing the same thing.

The MDC man is being supported by the UK and the US just like Kenya’s ODM.

The west seems to have managed to woe the two power hungry African men, the Kenyan Raila and Zimbabwean heavyweight Tsjangirai.

May be it is time for Kofi Annan to shuttle to Mugabe’s land. It is believed, however that Mugabe will not allow that to happen. For him, he says he does not entertain nonsense from the white westerners.

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African Press International – API

Kenya gets commission to investigate post election violence

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The commission to investigate post election violence that rocked the country in January and February was on Wednesday established with a Kenyan appellate judge, Justice Phillip Waki appointed as its head.

Waki will be assisted by two international experts who are yet to be identified.

A statement issued in Nairobi by the negotiation team said the negotiation team was cross-examining the names of several candidates but will settle on two foreign experts by end of this week.

The formation of the Committee was one of the issues agreed upon by the mediation team headed by former United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan to investigate the root causes of the post election violence that led to the deaths of more than 1000 people and 300,000 people displaced.

The committee will also investigate key perpetrators of the violence that was triggered by alleged rigging of voter of the December 27 general and presidential elections.

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African Press International – api

Kagame is not ready to entertain Spain’s nonsense

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<Kagame.

The Rwandan President Paul Kagame has blasted the Spanish government following indictments issued against senior military officers in his government for alleged human rights crimes during the 1994 Genocide, APA learns here Wednesday.

The Rwandan leader described the recent indictments by a Spanish judge as an attack on the Kigali establishment.

“If you look at what is in the dossier, they are actually not indicting the individuals listed (army officers) but the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF),” Kagame told journalists during a monthly press conference held in Kigali on Wednesday.

“Just imagine the arrogance! How a judge sitting in a Spanish village feels a duty to indict a whole leadership of another country. This is totally unacceptable,” he said.

He also openly protested the Spaniards’ move to try top Rwandan army officers. He said that the reason behind the issuance of indictments had something to do with the relationship between the developed and developing states.

“In the west, people behave as if they are in heaven. They have put themselves in the place of God. That is why a Spanish judge can sit in Spain and decide to indict Kagame because I lead RPF, which stopped the genocide that they were part of,” the visibly bitter Kagame said.

Kagame also wondered how the same judge could not indict people in Spain or in other countries who participated in the genocide in Rwanda but, easily rushes to hold the Kigali leadership (which stopped the genocide) responsible.

He said his government won’t tolerate such an unfriendly attitude of the west towards the developing world, and as such he would treat it as aggression.

Kagame’s remarks come after the indictment of some senior military officers in Rwanda by a Spanish judge.

In February this year, Judge Andreu Fernando Merrelles indicted forty officers of the former liberation army – the Rwandese Patriotic Army (RPA) on genocide related crimes committed during the genocide of a million Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Rwanda in 1994.

They were also linked to the death of nine Spanish nationals during the mayhem. The Spanish judge also claims to be in possession of evidence implicating Kagame, the former commander of RPA in the atrocities but, cannot indict him because he has immunity in his status as head of state.

“If I could meet him (Fernando), I would tell him to go to hell,” he said, adding that he would not hand over any of the indicted persons because Spain has no jurisdiction over Rwanda.

Meanwhile, this is the second time the international community is indicting senior officers in Kigali. France issued similar indictments in 2006 leading to severing of ties between the two countries.

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African Press International – api

 

Indiscipline in Kenyan schools causes parents to demand caning students

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 Story by WALKER MWANDOTO

To cane students or not? Teachers and parents differ

A proposal by parents that they be allowed to cane their children to enhance discipline at a school in Kilifi has revived debate on corporal punishment in schools.

Although the management of King Solomon High School does not approve the reintroduction of corporal punishment, parents introduced the issue during a meeting with teachers at the school recently.

Pupils at a school in Kaloleni, Coast Province. Parents from a school in Kilifi have proposed that caning be re-introduced in school to instil discipline in students and fight drug abuse. However, education officials have turned down the proposal. Photo/GIDEON MAUNDU

The parents made the proposal after teachers complained of indiscipline among students. According to the teachers, many of the students at the school were abusing drugs and some had become addicts, yet the teachers could not punish them.

But Kilifi district education officer Dickson ole Keis said it would be illegal for parents to re-introduce corporal punishment in any school after the Government outlawed it through the Children’s Act.

“The Government banned caning of students in either private or public schools and parents in any learning institution cannot overrule that order,” he said.

The education official said corporal punishment amounted to child abuse and went against the Children’s Act.

Mr Rashid Maghanga, one of the parents who supports corporal punishment, said parents had a big role to play in instilling discipline in and out of school if students are to perform well in national examinations.

“The decision to spare the rod lies with the parents,” said Mr Maghanga, a primary school teacher.

According to him, one of the consequences of not caning children is that teachers are reluctant to tackle drug abuse among their pupils.

“This has made many students to get involved in vices because they know their teachers cannot do anything,” he said.

But if corporal punishment is re-introduced in schools, he added, parents should do the caning.

Abandon bad behaviour

However, a German living Kilifi Town, Mr Abdul Malik, whose child is a student at King Solomon High School was opposed to corporal punishment.

“Children need not to be caned but instead should be counselled and given guidance to abandon bad behaviour. Caning does not correct an indisciplined child,” he said.

Mr Malik said the school administration should employ a teacher who will guide and counsel students to help mould them into disciplined and responsible citizens.

Another parent, Mr Allan Mtana, said that indiscipline in local schools was rife because corporal punishment had been outlawed.

“Parents should be allowed to instill discipline in their own children who are in school by canning them, otherwise the runaway indiscipline we are experiencing in most schools will continue,” he said.

Although parents supported the call to punish students, the school director, Mr Daniel Katana, however said that the school had not sanctioned the proposal as it was in conflict with existing laws.

Teachers at the school had said that students were involved in drug abuse and trafficking. Others had turned themselves into tour guides but were also engaging in sex tourism. Parents felt that caning could reduced such cases.

But the Kilifi area manager for Plan International, Mrs Jacqueline Mghoi Jumbe, described corporal punishment as a form of child abuse.

“Child abuse can take different forms in violating the children’s right: It involve physical, psychological and emotional abuses. All these affect the child,” she said.

According to her, corporal punishment instills fear in children and does not correct the actual mistake done by the child as the child is not given a chance to defend his or her actions.

“Dialogue is the best approach to make the students understand their mistakes as corporal punishment will not bring any change in them but it will instead turn them into hardcores,” she said.

According to her, research had shown that many teachers caning students leave them uncorrected yet caning creates bad blood between students and teachers.

The Plan International manager says her organisation will introduce a project to encourage learning without fear. The project will involve students who will be talking to their “bad” colleagues with the aim to guiding and counselling them to become “good” students.

“The project, to be implemented under the ‘Child Protection Programme’ will involve teachers, education officials, parents and other players in the education sector in the district,” she said.

And Mr Mwalimu Rassi, the Knut Kilifi branch executive secretary, said the union abides by a code of regulations which prohibits caning. It also respects the Education and Human Rights Acts in the country.

“All organisations including the teachers’ union should respect human rights and its members should respect the rights of the children in school. They should know that corporal punishment is a crime and can land one in prison,” he cautioned.

Human rights

Mr Rassi said that caning — whether by a parent or a teacher — amounted to violations of human rights and child abuse under the Children’s Act.

He also warned that the union would not defend any teacher who commits such a crime.

The Knut boss advised school administrators to introduce counselling and guiding in their schools and use the relevant government agencies to curb indiscipline.

And Mrs Sureya Roble Hersi, the Coast provincial chairlady of Maendeleo Ya Wanawake organisation, criticised parents calling for the re-introduction of corporal punishment. According to her, this would violate the Children’s and Human Rights Acts.

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Forget about bringing back the rod, says lobby group

By OLIVER MATHENGE

The controversial issue of caning in schools is back in the limelight barely seven years after the Children’s Act banned caning in schools.

It would appear that indiscipline has been on the rise after the law made it mandatory for teachers and parents “to spare the rod”.

The Kenya National Association of Parents secretary-general, Mr Musau Ndunda, said parents had failed in performing their roles resulting in poor discipline among children. According to him, the responsibilities shouldered by parents should not be transferred to teachers.

Supported ban

He said it was wrong for parents to advocate for the return of corporal punishment yet most of them supported its ban in the late 1990s.

“What the parents want to do is to arbitrarily transfer their responsibility of ensuring their children are disciplined to the teachers,” Mr Ndunda said.

He said the parents’ association was against the return of caning in schools since the teachers’ responsibility was to teach, not handle disciplinary cases. He was also categorical that no school should be forced by parents to move back to the era of caning. According to him, caning was unwarranted in the modern society.

“Parent have in the past used teachers to cause terror among students, something that should not be allowed under any means,” said Mr Ndunda.

He also noted that parents and not schools were to blame for indiscipline in schools. According to him, cases  of indiscipline increase in the second term soon after the April holidays. Though in recent years these cases have been blamed on lack of caning, other analysts have said that the problem starts at home.

The debate is been revived in April, the month in which Kenya marks the the “No Kiboko Day”, which is part of the international No-Hitting Day celebrations held every year. Last year’s event, which is aimed at sensitising the public on better ways of instilling discipline in students, was held on April 11.

Corporal punishment in Kenyan schools was banned through a Kenya Gazette notice on March 13, 2001 by the then Education minister, Mr Kalonzo Musyoka, now the Vice-President.

Through the Gazette notice, the Government scrapped sections of the law that permitted corporal punishment. Although Government officials, including a former head of Civil Service, Dr Richard Leakey, had issued instructions outlawing corporal punishment earlier, these did not have legal backing.

Under the Education Act, a section on regulations and school discipline provided for corporal punishment and stipulated how it was to be effected.

Paragraph 11 read: “Corporal punishment may be inflicted only in cases of continued or grave neglect of work, lying, bullying, gross insubordination, indecency, truancy or the like.”

Punishment

Sections 12, 13 and 14 spelt out the mode of meting out the punishment and designated the head teacher or his/her appointee as the ones to inflict it. All the four paragraphs were deleted in the amendment.

By the time of the amendment, Kenya had been widely criticised as one of the few countries in the world that legally allowed corporal punishment.

At a world conference on education for all in Dakar in 2000, Kenya had been cited as having institutionalised violence and promoting child abuse by including corporal punishment in its statutes.

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African Press International – api

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Annan commands Kenya again – Outsiders think they know better what is best for Kenyans

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Story by Standard Team Portfolio balance a must, says Annan

Former UN Secretary-General, Dr Kofi Annan, broke his silence on a day the prolonged delay in naming a Cabinet forced Kenya back into international spotlight with a coded warning from the diplomatic community that its two top leaders are being watched.Annan made it clear that the accord, which he mid-wifed and was signed on February 28, must be honoured to the letter. Mind games, shadow boxing and brinksmanship between rivals PNU and ODM have characterised the delay. Tragically, the aim seems to be to use the tactics to try to extract maximum concessions from the opponent by pushing the standoff to the brink.

Last night, the ripple effect of the delay started to be felt, with the National Dialogue and Reconciliation Committee being the first casualty. Members of the team announced that talks had been suspended until a coalition Cabinet was named.

“Our work would be superfluous if there is no Coalition Cabinet in place,” was the committee understanding as it took the break.

New salvo On Wednesday, with no clear signs that a Cabinet would be named anytime soon and with the terms “lean, clean and real” being bandied around by both sides in apparent reference to their preferred ideal Cabinet, ODM fired another potentially crippling salvo.

The Orange party declared there would be no deal if anyone (read PNU) tried to lock out Eldoret North MP and Pentagon member, Mr William Ruto, from the much-awaited Cabinet.

But an international community that has for some time watched the stalemate from the sidelines appeared poised to return to the centre stage with a coded warning.

Sources told The Standard a number of foreign diplomats based in Nairobi met on Tuesday and discussed the stalemate ahead of a news conference by Mr Michael Ranneberger, the US ambassador to Kenya.

This came on the same day Annan forcefully stepped back into the fray with an unequivocal demand for portfolio balance.

“The two leaders must implement both the spirit and the letter of the agreement signed and resolve the issue of the number and the composition of the Government expeditiously,” the former UN secretary-general, who brokered the much-touted political settlement told President Kibaki and Raila, the two leaders at the centre of a disputed presidential election that plunged the country into a crisis of an unprecedented scale.

Annan told President Kibaki and Raila, the Prime Minister-designate, that they had no alternative but to share power equally on the basis of appropriate portfolio balance.

Annan said he was concerned by the failure to compose and announce the coalition government. He drew the attention of Kibaki and Raila to the National Accord and Reconciliation Agreement signed on February 28.

“I hope the Kenyan people will not be kept in suspense for much longer,” Annan said of the stalemate that hinges around a demand by PNU to have a 44-member Cabinet against ODM’s one of 34.

Meanwhile, Kibaki spent the better part of Wednesday locked in a meeting with Internal Security minister, Prof George Saitoti, and Head of Civil Service, Mr Francis Muthaura, at his Harambee House office. The meeting went into the night with the Attorney-General, Mr Amos Wako, joining them shortly before 7pm.

Breaking his 35-day silence since he brokered the historic National Peace Accord between Kibaki and Raila which they signed on February 28 to end a month of post-election blood-letting, Annan told the two principals they must treat each other as equal partners.

“The Cabinet will be shared equally with appropriate portfolio balance to enable each party to see itself as playing an equal role with the other partner,” Annan emphasised in a statement sent from his office in Geneva and read by his spokesman, Mr Nasser Ega-Musa.

Ranneberger added more embers to the political impasse, warning that future engagements between Nairobi and Washington were dependent on an acceptable grand coalition, which should be formed immediately to end national stress and anxiety.

“We are not trying to set deadlines, but the formation of coalition government needs to be done with a sense of urgency. We certainly feel that it is important that the talks be concluded with a sense of urgency. The sooner that coalition government is in place the better,” Ranneberger said.

The US ambassador regretted that the composition of a coalition Cabinet was taking unnecessarily long and subjecting Kenyans to anxiety and uncertainty.

Said he: “It has not happened as quickly as some people expected and there is temptation to see this as a crisis. It is not a crisis. The coalition government has taken too long and Kenyans have sent a message to these people that enough is enough.”

But the Government absolved itself from blame over the delay in naming the Cabinet.

Information minister, Mr Samuel Poghisio, instead accused ODM of bogging down the process.

“In fact, it is the Government coalition that has been prodding ODM to give names to the President,” Poghisio told journalists in his office last evening.

No Ruto. No deal Earlier in the day, 20 ODM MPs, led by Mr Najib Balala, raised the temperatures in the political jam when they warned that attempts by President Kibaki to vet the party list of preferred (proposed) Cabinet members would be countered.

“No Ruto! No deal! We will not accept the alleged vetting of ministers proposed by Prime Minister-designate, Mr Raila Odinga,” Balala said of remarks that seemed to point at Ruto.

Besides threatening to frustrate further talks with the PNU side over Ruto and jolt the power-sharing agreement, ODM said they would accept nothing less of a 50-50 power sharing at the Cabinet level, permanent secretaries, ambassadors and State corporation chief executives.

ODM demanded that PNU surrenders Finance and Local Government portfolios if it (PNU) insisted on retaining Internal Security, Defence and Foreign Affairs dockets.

“If they take Internal Security, Defence and Foreign Affairs, they must relinquish Finance and vice versa. There is no joke about power-sharing,” Balala said.

Reports by David Ohito, Lucianne Limo, Abiya Ochola and Peter Opiyo

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African Press International – api