Kenya: Tormorrow’s Presidential debate – Uhuru Kenyatta decides not to participate

By Maurice Alal, Kenya

A presidential candidate has called upon the Jubilee’s flag bearer, Uhuru Kenyatta not to skip the second presidential debate if truly he has Kenyans at heart.

The Eagle Alliance flag bearer Mr. Peter Kenneth made the remarks just a day when Mr. Kenyatta revealed that he will not attend the presidential debate tomorrow.

Kenneth said the debate is the best forum where Kenyans can have an opportunity to evaluate their leaders basing on their issues the present before them.

While addressing a mammoth crowd in the mighty Aga Khan Hall in Kisumu, Nandi and Bungoma Counties during his campaigns trail, the presidential hopeful dismissed those withdrawing from the debate as cowards to face Kenyans with their policies.

“Am ready to be interrogated over my track record in all the positions have held,” he said, adding that his track records speak volumes when he was the Chairman for Kenya Football Federation, Gatanga MP and Kenya Reinsurance Managing Director.

He added that he is the right candidate to lead the country for the change that Kenyans have been dreaming for since independence.

Mr. Kenneth promised to improve national security, Education, health and to ensure equitable in resources distribution to the 47 counties to bring balance in development.

“Our security officers are languishing in pathetic conditions, without good working conditions, This is same to health practitioners making Kenyans to die of diseases that can be prevented if good leadership is put in place,” he stated.

He noted that he has no problem with the Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s candidature adding that every Kenya has a right to contest any seat provided he or she meet the requirements.

However, Kenneth took issues with the CORD’s alliance promise to Kenyans that they will create a million jobs yearly if the form the next government saying that was not possible when the economy is at 4%.

He warned Kenyans that the country will be stacked for the next five years if they fail to put good leaders into power.

While drumming up support for his presidential bid, Kenneth dismissed the opinion polls saying he want to be the peoples president but not a poll stars president.

“These polls are owned and commissioned by some politicians and media that have vested interest at the expense of Kenyans,” he said, adding the people behind it are misleading the Kenyans to sway them from voting the right leaders in the next month’s General Election.

Ends.

Kenya: Plan to Increase Basic Education Access unveiled

• By Maurice Alal, API Kenya

Kisumu Medical and Education Trust (KMET) have unveiled a plan to increase access to basic education for the most vulnerable children in Kisumu slums.

The trust deputy executive director Sam Owoko says the programme is being undertaken in five slums within Kisumu city.

Owoko says the slums include, Manyatta, Obunga, Bandani, Manyatta Arabs and Nyalenda.

He explained that they have started training 32 early childhood teachers to be able to get quipped with techniques on how to handle young children from these slums.

Speaking to journalists who are members of Media for Environment, Science, Health and Agriculture (MESHA) Kenya during a field excursion on some of their projects, Owoko says most of the teachers were picked from the ECD centers established within the slums.

He noted that the programme is being undertaken in partnership with UNICEF and the ministry of Education through Kisumu Municipal Education office.

Owoko says the ultimate goal is to increase number of most vulnerable primary school age children accessing quality basic education in the informal settlement in Kisumu City.

Ends.

Norway pledges millions to Mali

The Norwegian Government is to contribute NOK 30 million to the UN trust funds for Mali. The Government is also willing to consider a contribution if the proposed UN-led peacekeeping operation to Mali is established.

“Norway will contribute NOK 20 million to the UN Trust Fund for Mali. This funding is earmarked for human rights efforts and for preparations for the election,” said Minister of International Development Heikki Eidsvoll Holmås.

A further NOK 10 million will go to the UN Trust Fund for AFISMA, the African-led International Support Mission to Mali, and will be earmarked for civilian police units and human rights observers.

“This funding will be additional to the annual Norwegian contribution of NOK 80 million to Mali. Norway has been working in Mali since the 1980s. We will consider allocating further funding on an ongoing basis, in a close dialogue with the authorities, the UN and other donors,” continued Mr Holmås.

“Administrative structures and the rule of law need to be re-established as quickly as possible in the areas that have been retaken from the rebels. Unless the local population can see progress, there is a risk that the Islamists will be able to regain control. There is an acute need for immediate action,” explained Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide.

“Norway supports the proposal to establish a UN peacekeeping mission in Mali. The Government will consider a contribution if the Security Council acts on this proposal,” said the Foreign Minister.

Norwegian contributions to UN-led operations in Africa are in line with the Government’s policy platform.

The plan is to incorporate the African force that is now being built up into the proposed UN mission. The Security Council is discussing the matter. A UN mandate would simplify funding for the operation, logistics and the command structure. It is expected that a UN mission would consist mainly of African troops, but possibly with contributions from other parts of the world.

The EU has decided to send up to 500 military instructors to train the Malian army. At this stage, Norway will give priority to the proposed UN-led operation, and will not contribute to the EU force.

Norway is a substantial donor of humanitarian and development assistance through the UN and through NGOs that are already active in Mali. Norway’s contribution to the UN Central Emergency Response Fund will help to meet some of the immediate needs. Norway is also prepared allocating additional funding.

 

end

Climate change influence?

Photo: NASA

This image of Super Typhoon Bopha was taken by NASA astronaut, Kevin Ford in December 2012 from the International Space Station, as the storm bore down on the Philippines

JOHANNESBURG,  – When Typhoon Bopha, one of the strongest storms to hit the western Pacific in recent memory, slammed into the Philippine island of Mindanao last year, there was much speculation in the media about the growing influence of climate change.

But science is still uncertain about whether atmosphere-warming greenhouse gas emissions have caused a detectable change in cyclonic activity.

This was reported by the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP)/World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Typhoon Committee in a new assessment considering the western North Pacific Ocean basin.

The tropical cyclone activity in this region is the most intense of any basin in the world. Cyclonic activity provides about 11 percent of the total rainfall in that part of the basin, and the storms – which are known as typhoons in this part of the world – have caused substantial damage and death.

The Typhoon Committee that initiated the assessment is currently composed of 14 members: Cambodia; China; Democratic People’s Republic of Korea; Hong Kong, China; Japan; Lao People’s Democratic Republic; Macao, China; Malaysia; the Philippines; Republic of Korea; Singapore; Thailand; Socialist Republic of Vietnam; and the United States of America.

Their findings are in line with the 2012 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change‘s (IPCC) special report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX). Scientists familiar with the SREX review said that researchers were uncertain how tropical cyclones might have changed since pre-industrial times because of lack of data, the questionable quality of older data, and a limited understanding of the links between global climate change and tropical cyclone activity.

A WMO expert team’s assessment in 2010 was also inconclusive about this link.

The scientific community is currently divided between some who believe that anthropogenic climate change has already had a detectable effect on tropical cyclone activity, and others who view the observed changes in cyclone intensity, frequency and paths as indistinguishable from natural variability. UNESCAP/WMO and IPCC’s SREX reflect the view that there is insufficient data to take a definitive position.

“The experts also found that in coming years, ‘it is likely that the global frequency of tropical cyclones will either decrease or remain essentially unchanged owing to greenhouse warming. Moreover, some increase in the maximum wind speed and rainfall rates of tropical cyclones in the 21st century is likely”

Yet most groups that have published papers on the matter project a growing future influence of human-induced climate change on tropical cyclones, including increased average intensity, decreased global frequency and increased tropical cyclone rainfall rates.

Historical data

Tsz-Cheung Lee, of the Hong Kong Observatory and one of the authors of the new UNESCAP/WMO assessment, said that reliable tropical cyclone data is available only from the 1950s. This leaves a relatively short period from which to draw conclusions, especially when there is significant variability in western North Pacific cyclonic activity between decades.

In the mid-1960s, “we began to be able to see tropical cyclones with satellites and thus could monitor large expanses of ocean for the presence of cyclones,” explained Thomas Knutson, a US hurricane specialist and an author of the new assessment. “Prior to that, and especially prior to aircraft reconnaissance beginning in the 1940s, historical records [were] mostly dependent on chance encounters between tropical cyclones and ships at sea to detect the presence of tropical cyclones – especially the ones that never made landfall.”

Knutson, who is a climate modeller with the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, added that the practices for observing typhoons “have changed a lot over time, so that if one sees trend-like behaviour, it is difficult to know whether it is a real climate-change effect or just due to issues with changing observing systems over time.”

As part of the study, researchers asked individual countries in the basin to provide historical data on tropical cyclones that had made landfall.

“Our assessment of that information again led us to conclude that there is not any clear anthropogenic climate-change signal in the tropical cyclone data to date,” said Knutson.

The assessment, produced after two years were spent reviewing new studies, found considerable variations in cyclonic activity from year to year and as well as between decades. But the causes are complex, Lee said in an email to IRIN, and may include the influence of human-induced climate change and natural factors like El Niño/La Niña. The assessment has called for more studies.

Changes on the way?

The experts also found that in coming years, “it is likely that the global frequency of tropical cyclones will either decrease or remain essentially unchanged owing to greenhouse warming. Moreover, some increase in the maximum wind speed and rainfall rates of tropical cyclones in the 21st century is likely,” said Lee.

Photo: Karl Anthony Ebol/Philippine Red Cross

Bopha left a trail of devastation

“The vulnerability of coastal regions to storm-surge flooding is expected to increase with future sea-level rise and coastal development. Moreover, the assessment also noted that there [has] likely [been] a shift of the tropical cyclone track pattern in the western North Pacific in the last couple of decades, though the possible connection of this observed change with anthropogenic climate change is still subject to further research,” he said, citing the assessment.

Knutson says current short-term forecasts of tropical cyclones are better for predicting storm tracks rather than intensity. “Intensity seems to be a tougher problem to address, even with the help of our best computer forecasting models.”

Lee says Typhoon Bopha, in his opinion, was an extreme event. “In studying the impact of climate change, we usually refer to the changes in climate (average of weather) over a period of time, say decades or centuries. For individual extreme events like Bopha, it will require further analysis and model simulations to confirm the relative contribution of anthropogenic climate change to the chance of occurrence of this extreme event.

“Nevertheless, as per the projections from a number of studies against the background of global climate change, the chance of having more intense tropical cyclones which pack… more heavy rain is likely to increase in the 21st century.”

Knutson says Lee’s views on Bopha are consistent with his own. Asked how scientists can be certain about the influence of future emissions given that they are uncertain about the impact of past emissions, he said: “The relatively modest level of likelihood that Dr Lee and I attach to such projections reflects, in part, the fact that such a change has not yet been detected in the observed tropical cyclone record… The changes of intensity induced by climate change that we are referring to would be difficult to detect at this stage even if we had 60 years of perfect intensity data in the Northwest Pacific, which we do not.”

jk/rz  source http://www.irinnews.org