Two Kenyan MPs pay taxes, One ready to join them: All the others are against paying taxes

By API

Out of 222 Members of Parliament only two are paying taxes. A Kenyan earning 10.000 Kenya shilling pays taxes while the law-maker – an MP earning 851.000 Shillings takes his home. Fair or unfair? Vote!

The Kenyan people are in uproar because their Members of Parliament do not pay taxes. Now with the new constitution they must pay but they have refused.

Kenyan MPs are the highest paid in the African continent. They earn Kenya shillings 851.000 (Eighthundred and fiftyone thousand) monthly.

Members of parliament in many developed countries earn much less than the Kenyan MPs. They pay taxes for only Kenya shillings 200.000. The rest Kenya shillings 651.000 goes direct to the pocket untouched.

According the  Daily Nation Kenya online  the Kenya Revenue Authority has demanded that the MPs pay taxes because the new Constitution which was promulgated on 28th of august says so. That means the MPs will have to pay arrears.

MPs are now united to fight the demand. This is not good for Kenya’s image. One MP has even gone ahead to demand that parliament should change the act that allows a collection of taxes from MPs-. Voters are shocked.

Some of the MPs fighting against the demand know only too well that they will not get re-elected come 2012 december elections. That means they want to get as much money now before falling from grace.

According to the Daily Nation only Gatanga MP Peter Kenneth and Kangundo MP Johnstone Muthama  have been paying taxes. On the other hand and after the heated debate on MPs’ tax evasion, The Standard reports that MP Wavinya Ndeti Assistant minister for Youth and Sports has announced she will pay tax just like the rest of Kenyans. This is a good move. Hopefully the other MPs will see the light and the need to be supportive in building the economy, not only cashing in huge sums and ignoring the country economy and the suffering Kenyans.

During the coming 2012 December general elections, the Kenyan people will easily re-elect sitting MPs who are now paying taxes because they identify with them in their sufferings.

• Related story: Kenyan Members of Parliament earn a salary that MPs from the West can only dream to about

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Chinese Wei Wei released after 80 days in detention: Ordered to shut up and not to travel out of Beijing.

When he was free he talked a lot and criticised the Chinese government. The government got tired of him because he used every minute he got to attack the regime using his artistic work. He did so to the pleasure of the West.

The government got fed up of him and recently arrested him and he was locked incommunicado.

Today, on his release, after 80 days in security detention facing criminal charges, he was well-disciplined. The media did not manage to get him to talk.

The only words he was able to say was that he is in probation and not allowed to speak.

He knows too well that if he opens his moth attacking the government or speaking about his detention and what may have happened there, will land him back to jail and this time for a very long time. The West may thereafter ask for his release but normally the Chinese do not listen to westerners at all.

If he loves his family, the wise thing for Wei Wei now is to stop loud-mouthing attacks on the government of China to the pleasure of those who want him to attack the Chinese authorities. It is wise for him to get his priorities right. Thinking of his own family first and let fame get lesser priority.

Otherwise, if arrested again and tortured to death, who will lose? The West or his family? Even if the west protest as much as they want, he will have lost his life and any amount of protest will not bring him back to his family.

The problem, however, is that Wei Wei loves publicity, but hopefully after 80 days incommunicado in the Chinese custody, he may start thinking of his family rather than publicity in the media.

He is now banned from travelling out of Beijing for one year and also banned from speaking. The government has accused him of tax evasion.

(API.)

Rape capital of the world in the Democratic Republic of Congo

How long will the international community continue their silence when African women and girls continue to be raped on gun-point? If the same was happening in Western countries, there would be an outcry and insistence that the rapes must stop and the rapists brought to the courts to be punished.

But here, the international community is quiet while the rapes continue in an African country. Does it mean that the African woman’s life is less than that of the European woman when both get raped? Life is life no mather the colour of the raped person.

It has been reported that over 100 people were recently raped near and around South Kivu town in the DRC.

It is suspected that the rapists are the remnants of rebel soldiers in the region. Earlier rapes have also been blamed on the UN soldiers in the region.

The government of the DRC led by President Kabila should act to protect helpless women and girls who are being beaten and raped on gun-point.

(API)

Ocampo of ICC wants the International court to allow criminal investigations in Ivory Coast

Ocampo has not finished with Sudan’s Al Bashir. Ocampo has not finished with Kenya. Ocampo has not finished with Libya. Now he jumps to Ivory Coast. He has been categorised as a populist prosecutor. Note that all the above are in the continent of Africa.

It is true that many lives have been lost in Ivory Coast due to power struggle. Both parties are to blame. The former government led by the ousted leader and the now led government by Quattara should be made answerable and those guilty be prosecuted.

He seems bewitched to hunt African leaders, not European leaders or the Americas where he comes from.

He did not do the same with Egypt, He has not done the same with Syria and Bahrain where many lives are already lost through killings by the governments.

Why is Ocampo more interested in Africa? We are not saying African leaders should allow killings, but that the ICC should treat all continents in the same way whenever atrocities are committed.

(API)

Kristin Halvorsen – I have no University degree: Iam now Norwegian Minister of education

Kristin started using Facebook yesterday. She has told the Norwegian newsonline VG, that she has decided to use Facebook after pressure from friends and political contacts. At first, she says, she wanted to leave the use of Facebook to her children. She has been on twitter.

Kristin Halvorsen (born 2 September 1960 in) is a Norwegian socialist politician and was the Minister of Finance from 17 October 2005 until 20 October 2009. She is now the Minister of Education in Stoltenberg’s second cabinet.

Taking over as leader of the Socialist Left Party in 1997, she established an unprecedented level of consensus within the party. At the 2005 election, the party received a disappointing 8.8% share of the vote, and in 2009 down further, to 6.2%. Many who describe themselves as being on the left side of the party have suggested that Halvorsen step down.

The Socialist Left, in coalition with the Labour Party and the Centre Party, won Norway’s September 2005 parliamentary elections. The resulting Red-Green coalition government marked the first time that the Socialist Left Party was included in the cabinet. Kristin Halvorsen took office as the 78th Minister of Finance in Norwegian history and the first woman ever to serve in that post.

Background

Halvorsen was born in Horten, Vestfold. After taking university courses in pedagogy (1.5 years) and criminology (1 year) without receiving a degree, Halvorsen worked for a while as a legal secretary. She served as a vice member to the Parliament from 1985, and was elected member of Parliament in 1989, representing the county of Oslo, a seat she has held ever since. She has been a member of the parliamentary standing Committee on Finance (1989–1997) and the Committee on Scrutiny and Constitutional Affairs (1997–2001). She is presently a member of the Election Committee and the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and Chairman of the Socialist Left Party’s parliamentary group, but is on leave from these positions while sitting in government.

End.

Source: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and Facebook.

The naked truth: Prince William and Princess Kate

By Korir, Chief editor (API)

Naked photos of Kate Middleton, the wife of Prince William will soon be online, a source that will publish them has confirmed.

The photos will not do any good for the UK Royal family, only two months after the wedding of Prince William and Kate took place. This may damage the young princess’s image early in marriage.

Young people should be more careful when attending social gatherings, wild parties etc, because people take photos all the time  and one may end up being photographed in compromising positions.

It is shocking to learn that those who now want to publish the photos waited until the wedding has taken place, only to come out and make public the naked photos. API has been shown the photos but given the right to publish them.

It now remains to be seen what impact it will have on the Royal family, a Royal family that has struggled with the  image for a very long time.

Prince William and Kate Middleton got married in the end of April. The Royal family is known for divorces and this marriage may not be different, but observers are hoping that it may last.

William and Kate have been together since meeting in University, apart from 2007 when they had a break to try new pastures before getting together again. Prince William is second in line to be King.

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There is a need to highlight the specific risks and needs of male sex workers

AFRICA: New light shed on male sex work

Photo: IRIN

There is a need to highlight the specific risks and needs of male sex workers

JOHANNESBURG, 20 June 2011 (PlusNews) – Commercial sex work, dominated by a focus on women, could be redefined as new research launched today in Nairobi, Kenya, sheds light on the complicated HIV prevention needs of what may be Africa’s most deeply underground group at high risk of HIV – male sex workers.

The report co-authored by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and South Africa’s Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Taskforce (SWEAT) seeks to better understand the social contexts, sexual practices and risks, including that of HIV, among these men.

The professional debut of many of the 70 male sex workers surveyed in Kenya, Namibia, South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe was often prompted by the family rejecting the men’s sexual orientation; for others, it was a way to survive in a foreign country.

Men reported being at risk of HIV in many ways, including the unavailability of speciality health services, the premium clients placed on unprotected sex, violence and the lure of substance abuse. Although the work often placed them at risk of substance and physical abuse as well as HIV infection, the researchers found that it also provided the men with a sense of freedom and empowerment.

The report cautions that mitigating these risks may require specialised HIV prevention services unlike those targeted at female commercial sex workers or men who have sex with men (MSM).

A series of interviews with male sex workers at a five-country workshop in Johannesburg, South Africa, and country visits to Kenya and Namibia has produced a significant addition to the paucity of data on male sex workers, according to Paul Boyce, a UNDP researcher.

While data on MSM from Malawi, Namibia and Botswana indicated that about 17 percent were HIV positive – almost twice the national prevalence rates of their respective countries – not much has been written on the specific HIV risks of male sex workers, which may be higher than those of MSM.

While male sex workers reported working at a range of venues, including Namibian truck stops and Zimbabwean mines, most of the available information on male sex work has come from those operating in the sex tourism hot spot of Mombasa, Kenya, with limited data from a 2009 study in South Africa that showed male sex workers were twice as likely to engage in anal sex than MSM who were not selling sex.

Not necessarily the same old risks

Unprotected receptive anal sex carries almost 20 times the HIV risk associated with unprotected vaginal sex.

Interviewees told researchers that the unavailability of water-based lubricant, which reduces the risk of condoms breaking during anal sex, and the higher financial reward of unprotected anal sex, made consistent condom use difficult.

Some clients forced unprotected intercourse on sex workers, while others admitted to practicing unsafe sex due to the disinhibition often brought about by the drug and alcohol abuse that is reportedly part of the social scene in sex work. Drugs and alcohol also helped the men mentally cope with the omnipresent risks of this lifestyle, including police harassment.

South African male sex workers said substance abuse – not HIV infection – was the greatest threat to their health.

Those who tried to access health services for HIV testing and treatment, or the diagnosis of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), reported being ridiculed and stigmatized by health workers, even in countries like Kenya, where the Ministry of Health has introduced new guidelines on MSM and sex work, and health and HIV.

“[At the] government hospital, the nurses just [stand] in front of everyone and shout out loud to the people waiting for assistance: ‘If you have HIV, go to room nine, TB room 12, STD [sexually transmitted disease] room 8,'” said one man quoted in the report.

“Nurses often call each other when they find out about someone being a male sex worker, saying: ‘We have never had such a case’ or ‘come look at what his type of STI, we have never had it at this hospital before.'”

According to Boyce, while there is a growing trend to provide MSM with targeted HIV prevention and health services, such as the Health4Men clinics set up in South Africa, there may be a need to establish separate, specialized services for male sex workers apart from these.

“There’s not always a close collaboration between MSM and men who sell sex because [MSM] often stigmatize them, so they’re not really natural bedfellows,” Boyce told IRIN/PlusNews. “Sex workers face specific issues… and male sex work can be more invisible and blurred within male-to-male sexualities and politics in ways that have not always helped to highlight the specific needs and issues of male sex workers.”

Although SWEAT and the African Sex Workers Alliance (ASWA) have begun to address the issues of female sex workers in Africa, these organizations have largely ignored male sex workers. Yet Boyce noted that many male sex workers thought there was political power in being identified as a ‘sex worker’, because they believed it aligned them to these larger sex work organizations.

Male sex work can be more invisible and blurred within male-to-male sexualities and politics in ways that have not always helped to highlight the specific needs and issues of male sex workers

Risk and reward

In recent years here has been a greater focus on the social power of vulnerable groups in the HIV response, including the role of women in initiating sexual relationships and the fact that for some, sex work was a career choice.

Similarly, the new research showed that while male sex work was fraught with risks, the men derived a sense of freedom and independence from the increased access to cash and the ability to set their own working hours. It also helped build their self-esteem, establish social networks, and understand their own sexuality.

“The report highlights ways in which risk and safety are not dichotomous in the lives of male sex workers, but rather the contexts of sex work are associated with both vulnerability and protection, rejection and belonging, in complex ways,” Boyce said. “This points to key issues that must be developed in future HIV prevention policy and counselling.”

Aside from targeted HIV services, the report recommends that more research be conducted into the realties and HIV risks of male sex workers in Africa, and that larger sex work organizations such as ASWA incorporate men into their work.

llg/he source www.irinnews.org

About 24 percent of Kenyan children who need ARVs have access to them

KENYA: Poor adherence threatens paediatric ARV programme

Photo: Manoocher Deghati/IRIN

About 24 percent of Kenyan children who need ARVs have access to them

NAIROBI, 21 June 2011 (PlusNews) – As Kenya puts more HIV-positive children on life-prolonging antiretroviral (ARV) drugs, experts are warning that unless more effort is put into ensuring the medicines are taken regularly, widespread treatment failure could result.

“It is very hard to maintain adherence in children because they rely on others to give them medicine, some change regimens as they grow into adolescence and they can hardly cope with the many drugs they are expected to take,” said Dr Andrew Suleh, medical superintendent at the Mbagathi District Hospital in the capital, Nairobi.

HIV-positive children – depending on their weight – can take up to four ARV pills a day; by the age of 15, a child may have taken upwards of 25,000 ARV tablets.

“You are faced with a situation where, even when they fail first-line [treatment] and you initiate second-line, success is not guaranteed because the factors [that hamper adherence] still exist,” Suleh said.

Treatment failure occurs when first-line medication can no longer control HIV infection. Patients are then usually put on second-line drugs, but these are not only less accessible than the first-line option, they are often also several times more expensive.

According to the government, an estimated 184,000 children were living with HIV by the end of 2009; 24 percent of those requiring ARVs had access to them. Kenya is making gains in terms of the number of children on HIV treatment – 20,500 were on ARVs in 2008, growing to 28,000 by 2009. About 1,500 children are on second-line ARV regimens but officials do not have a figure for the number of children in need of second-line drugs.

Joy*, 11, has been on ARVs for nearly two years. She was orphaned several years ago and has been passed from relative to relative for most of her life; the constant change of guardians means that her adherence to ARVs has not always been consistent.

“When you look at her case you find she has started to develop rashes and mouth sores, and she has diarrhoea, which are clinical signs that her treatment is failing,” said Suleh, who is treating Joy.

Joy’s current guardian says she was never fully briefed on the importance of strict adherence to ARVs and Joy has occasionally skipped doses of her drugs.

“I thought she could just take them on her own without being told because she has taken those drugs for long, but when she started falling ill again, she told me wasn’t taking them,” the guardian said.

The UN World Health Organization (WHO) recommends the use of pill boxes, calendars, diaries and other practical tools to support children’s adherence.

Experts say a combination of factors create treatment failure and put children’s lives at risk, including poor adherence, long-term use of ARVs, and improper actions by health workers, who may miss or ignore the first signs of treatment failure in children rather than referring them for a change of regimen.

It is very hard to maintain adherence in children because they rely on others to give them medicine… they can hardly cope with the many drugs they are expected to take

“There are children who are in need of second-line treatment but many are not receiving it. This is not to say that the drugs aren’t available, but most health workers have staging fright and adopt a ‘wait and see’ attitude, or facilities do not request the drugs,” says Dr Judith Kose, technical director at the Elizabeth Glaser Paediatric AIDS Foundation.

Other challenges include the fact that some of the drugs – such as Didanosine suspension – recommended by WHO – require refrigeration, which is inconsistent or unavailable in much of rural Kenya. There are also significantly fewer generic second-line formulations available, limiting options after failed first-line therapy.

Officials say the biggest problem is the high cost of second-line drugs, but the government is using adherence monitors to boost treatment success and optimize the first-line option.

Guardians’ fear of disclosure also hampers children’s adherence. “As a child grows up, they start to ask questions about why they are constantly on treatment yet they look healthy,” Kose said. “They wonder why those around them aren’t taking medicine, and this at times comes with rebellion where they refuse to take the drugs, eventually.”

Creating support networks for HIV-positive children and educating guardians about systematic disclosure were some of the ways to improve adherence in children, Kose suggested.

“It is not just about health workers or guardians,” she said. “This calls for community support from the schools they go to, even sensitizing their friends to support them in taking the drugs.”

ko/kr/he source www.irinnews.org

Polio: Lack of coordination often stands between children and the two drops

CHAD: Children unprotected as polio spreads

Photo: UNICEF Chad/2011/Esteve

Lack of coordination often stands between children and the two drops

DAKAR, 21 June 2011 (IRIN) – As polio strikes more and more people in Chad – 68 cases so far this year – tens of thousands of children are unprotected largely due to flaws in how vaccination campaigns are run.

Recent infections have made Chad the country with the highest number of cases worldwide, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The government classified more regions as “high risk” in May than in February, despite regional and nationwide immunization drives in February, March and May.

Why are so many children in Chad missing out on the easily administered two drops of oral vaccine, which, given several times at a young age, can protect a child for life?

Weak coordination, supervision and monitoring; a defective cold-chain; and poor communications are some of the “main problems” with polio immunizations, according to a new Chad government plan to improve coverage. Health experts are heartened by the plan but say it must be implemented immediately if a devastating spread of the disease is to be avoided. 

“It’s encouraging but we need this to be implemented very, very rapidly because we’ve got quite uncontrolled transmission, particularly of type 1 poliovirus,” said Oliver Rosenbauer, spokesperson for WHO’s polio eradication group in Geneva. 

Chad currently has outbreaks of both wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) and WPV3, with at least 65 and three cases respectively this year, according to WHO. WPV3 – centred in Dar Sila District in the east – has been present since 2007 while the WPV1 outbreak (present in Chari Baguirmi, Logones east and west, Wadi Fira, Ouaddai, Salamat, Kanem and Batha, according to the government) began last September when the virus entered from northern Nigeria.

WHO says the presence of polio in Chad is of particular concern with the Hajj (Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca) due in early November.

“Polio has struck close to the border with Sudan, and with Ramadan and the Hajj coming up populations are probably already moving across the area,” Rosenbauer said. “It’s happened in the past where from there polio spreads into the Horn of Africa, into Yemen [and] all the way into Indonesia.”

Polio can strike anyone but those most at risk are children under five, according to WHO.

Patchy coverage

“What tends to happen in some areas of Chad is that the micro-planning is not sufficient; the map isn’t good enough,” Rosenbauer told IRIN. “Agents start to go about almost blindly through a neighbourhood. Entire areas are quite easily missed that way.”

Mismanagement and corruption have long hindered vaccination coverage in Chad, according to health experts in and outside the country.

“What we really need is ownership at the critical district level which is where the planning takes place. We need district chiefs to get involved and hold their staffs accountable.”

The new plan looks to address this, Djabar Hamid, Health Ministry head of immunization, told IRIN. “We are not applying international standards; we are not yet monitoring districts as we should.”

If campaigns are run well polio’s spread in Chad could be stopped within the year, Rosenbauer told IRIN.

“The good news is Chad is not Nigeria in terms of population numbers and so this is an outbreak that can be very rapidly controlled – even over the next six months. But we’ve got challenges ahead, including the rainy season, and we’ve got the lack of ownership at the district level where we urgently need it.”

The four polio-endemic countries are Afghanistan, India, Nigeria and Pakistan. Rosenbauer said that Chad – which had once eradicated polio – is currently considered as having “re-established transmission”.

np/cb source www.irinnews.org