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Archive for March 10th, 2010

Why editors might soon be farming goats and yams

Posted by Administrator on March 10, 2010

Charles Onyango-Obbo

On March 19 and 20, the Nation Media Group and the Africa Media Initiative will hold easily the most high profile African media conference ever witnessed on this fair continent (http://panafricamedia2010kenya.com).

The conference will be one of the events to mark Nation Media Group’s 50th anniversary.

What interests us is the conference theme: “Media And The Africa Promise: Reflections On The Past, Present, And Prospects For The Future”. How will the media in Kenya, or the wider Africa, look like by 2020?

One place to begin finding answers is the Internet edition of the Daily Nation (www.nation.co.ke). The Nation website is the most read news and current affairs site in eastern Africa, and when I last checked, the seventh highest ranked in that category in Africa.

The first six are all South African, so that makes it the most read site north of the Limpopo. For that reason, it tells us a lot about readers’ attitudes.

Since January 1, the most read story, by far, on Daily Nation online has been “Here is News of My Life: Arunga”, about the romantic and family struggles of the former KTN news anchor Esther Arunga, and her relationship with jazz musician Joseph Hellon’s marvellously Finger of God church.

The second biggest story of the year so far: “Is This Esther’s Hell on Earth?”

President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga squeezed into third place with “Kibaki Raila Clash Over Cabinet Purge”.

Arunga took back fourth place with “TV presenter leaves family to join church””. In fifth place was “Saudi throws Kenyan maid out of top floor window”.
Arunga was in action again in sixth place, with “Esther Arunga picture gallery”.

Seventh was “Marriage on the rocks as young educated wives wear the pants”.

Kibaki and Raila fought back, with “What if Raila walks out of the alliance?” in eighth, and “Is it possible Kibaki is setting Raila up?” in ninth.

The business of top newspapers and TV stations in Kenya is the “serious news” about what President Kibaki and PM Raila do and say, Parliament, the Constitution, and so forth. But clearly these stories are not as attractive to the millions of readers of one of Africa’s top news sites as the private torments of a catchy former TV presenter.

To make matters worse, we mainstream media are not particularly good at telling the story of ordinary people like Arunga.

THE PICTURE LOOKS BLEAK IF YOU consider which are the five least read sections of the Nation website. The most unpopular, if you may call it that, is the stocks and foreign exchange rates. Then, to my utter distress, the Opinion pages and the Editorial — which are considered the heart and soul of a newspaper. Then, finally, sports.

It is not difficult to see why these areas perform poorly. Most people get their sports news via TV, radio, mobile phone, and the Internet. By the time it appears in the paper 24 hours later, it’s not worth much.

People are no longer terribly interested in what we talking heads and commentators have to say because, with FM radio, blogs, instant messaging, Twitter, Facebook, there is now a wide array of opinions out there.

Most are fresher and devoid of the partisanship of mainstream media. With the proliferation that we shall see soon of digital TV channels, and high speed ubiquitous Internet, even FM stations will also become irrelevant.

So as the people who were raised on reading hard copies of newspapers and sitting in front of TVs retire and die off, we shall all become history.

Kenya, in particular, is a deadly place for old school journalism. Recent data by Opera Mini (the chaps who make the popular mobile phone browser by the same name) showed that mobile Internet in Africa is growing at supersonic speed.

In Libya, in a year it grew by nearly 6,000 per cent. Nigeria, nearly 3,000 per cent. Kenya almost 600 per cent.

But the devil is in the details. Kenya is now Africa’s leading digital technology adaptor. Kenyans read more on the Internet than S. Africans, Nigerians, Egyptians and (here it gets interesting) Italians, Britons, Germans, Dutch, Swedes, and Spaniards do! In other words, they are among the world leaders.

In less than 10 years, for those of us journalists who make a living writing in newspapers about Kenya’s Grand Coalition government feuds and the likely effect of an Al-Shabaab victory in Somalia, unless we embrace the many new media technology trends yet to come, we shall have no alternative but to retire to the villages to raise goats and grow yams.

cobbo@ke.nationmedia.com

-Daily Nation

Posted in Analysis and Opinion | Comments Off

Courage, and Heart, on Behalf of Kenya’s Women

Posted by Administrator on March 10, 2010

Janet Walsh- Huffingtonpost

Eight years ago, I walked into the Nairobi office of the Centre for Rights Education and Awareness expecting a mildly helpful discussion of my project on women’s property rights in Kenya. Ann Njogu, CREAW’s director, was clearly very busy and a serious lawyer. Within minutes, I knew that she was also a passionate, forceful advocate. She wasted no time in picking up the phone to hook me up with women to interview, deluging me with legal information, and guiding me on strategy.

This week, the US State Department is honoring Ann with the 2010 International Women of Courage Award. With this award the US government pays tribute to outstanding women leaders worldwide, recognizing the courage they’ve shown as they struggle for social justice and human rights. In over a decade as a women’s rights activist, I’ve never met anyone who deserves this award more than Ann Njogu.

That first day in Ann’s office, she told me harrowing stories of clients she had represented in divorce, inheritance, domestic violence, rape, and other matters. CREAW had a legal clinic to represent poor women and a psychological counseling service, and led workshops to inform women of their rights.

The next day, I got to see Ann in action at a community workshop. It was in a simple, tin-roof-and-cinderblock church in a slum. Several hundred women were packed in the church listening with rapt attention as Ann and her team explained that the practices of denying women inheritance, and sometimes even of forcing widows to marry their brothers-in-law in order to keep their property, violated their human rights. They instructed the women on how they and their husbands could write simple wills, and how to enforce them. They explained that women are entitled to keep family property upon divorce. A troupe of actors did a wild theatrical depiction of a woman being disinherited, and fighting for her rights.

The women attending the workshop cheered, asked questions, and shared their stories. They left seeming empowered to take a stand for their rights. Many asked Ann to take their cases.

Over the next few years, I saw Ann’s efforts to promote human rights explode in new directions. She has been at the forefront of campaigns for a new constitution. Her organization, not being content with welfare services, pursued social solutions that tackled the root causes of violence and discrimination. CREAW spearheaded work in taboo areas like sexuality, bride price, widow inheritance, and women’s political participation.

When violence erupted after Kenya’s flawed 2007 general election, leaving over a thousand people dead and hundreds of thousands displaced, Ann and her team sprung into action. Alongside other civil society advocates, Ann condemned the government for failing to hold anyone accountable. CREAW documented the sexual and gender-based violence experienced by women in the post-election violence. That documentation assisted a commission that investigated the violence, and is now being used by the International Criminal Court.

Recently, CREAW set up a radio station. In this venture, Ann’s team is once again taking on controversial issues. In a single day, the station’s website covered issues that stir passionate debates in East Africa, such as the rights of homosexuals, government corruption, judicial failure, and police abuse of sex workers.

All this comes with a price. Ann has been arrested and brutally beaten at peaceful protests, sexually assaulted by the police, and threatened by politicians. Staff members at her organization are constantly concerned about her–and their–security. At every step, Ann knows she is at risk. She has to wonder, every single day, whether her two children might also be at risk. Threats against her family are subtle, but sinister nonetheless.

And every day, Ann summons her courage and strength. She simply will not stop speaking out against injustice, and fighting for the right of all Kenyans to live in a fair, peaceful, prosperous society. Those who would silence Ann might as well give up. It will never work.

When I spoke to Ann about the International Women of Courage award, she instantly changed the subject from herself to all Kenyans. While honored, she sees it as an award for the many Kenyan women and men who pay a high price for demanding respect for their human rights. She hopes it will serve as an encouragement to all human rights defenders, in this generation and the next, working for a better Kenya.

Posted in Diaspora News | Comments Off

Kenyan girl stabs boyfriend to death in Kampala Campus

Posted by Administrator on March 10, 2010

A KENYAN student of Kampala International University (KIU) is held at Kabalagala Police station for allegedly stabbing her boyfriend to death. Jane Nyiha, a second-year student of bachelor’s of public administration, is accused of stabbing David Musunga Ivita in the throat, causing him to bleed to death.

She was yesterday picked from her room in Kansanga, a Kampala suburb, where she allegedly committed the crime at around 11:00am.

The Police also recovered a knife which she is suspected of having used in the crime.

Musunga, who also comes from Kenya, was a third-year student pursuing a bachelor’s degree in mass communication. He was due to sit his final exams in April and graduate in September. Almost 80% of KIU students are Kenyans.

Musunga died during examination at the university clinic where he had been rushed. The two, who had been staying in the same room, were described as long-time lovers by their landlord, John Male.

“They have been friendly and calm since they rented my house in 2008. Although the boy would drink, he was generally very cool,” he said.

Neighbours reported that trouble started yesterday morning when Musunga returned home drunk at 4:00am. Nyiha declined to open the door for him.

The landlord narrated that Musunga spent almost an hour knocking at the door but his girlfriend only peeped through the window, laughed and ordered him out of her sight.

Musunga slept at the house of a friend, David Mwenda, who is also a Kenyan.
When he returned to his room at 11:00am, a brief quarrel ensued between the two, a neighbour said.

“We heard the boy groaning and wondered what had happened.”
When some neighbours went to check, they said they were shocked to find the boy in a pool of blood.

His girlfriend reportedly dashed to a boda-boda stage to rush the victim to the university clinic where he died on arrival. By press time, the body was still in Nsambya Hospital.

For several hours, Police detectives cordoned off the scene of the crime. They broke the padlock of the deceased’s room and picked blood-stained bed sheets, photographs and a knife among other exhibits.

Other students who knew Nyiha said she was a born-again Christian and not quarrelsome. They described the deceased as a quiet, intelligent youth.

Kansanga residents complained that many of the foreign students at the university’s main campus were rowdy and indisciplined.

“They drink a lot, sparking off conflicts. I often receive complaints from landlords and residents concerning the improper behaviour of Kenyan students,” the LC1 chairperson, Francis Sseguya, said.

He called for collaboration between the Police, the community and university authorities to guarantee security in the area.

Muhammad Ndaula, the university vice-chancellor, regretted the incident but defended the Kenyan students.
The incident is just the latest in a series of murder cases involving students over love and alcoholism.

In 2007, a Kenyan student, Duncan Njogu Kamore, was expelled from Busoga University for stabbing a colleague, Paul Mogaka, after they fought over a girl.

In October 2008, 17-year-old Tadeo Bukye, an S4 student of Mpanga SS in Fort Portal, was stabbed to death by a jealous girlfriend at a school party.

Last year in September, Phiona Mutamba, a student of Makerere University Business School, was stabbed by her boyfriend, also a student at the same school, before he committed suicide at Workers House in the centre of Kampala.

Source: New Vision

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Mudavadi: I’m innocent on Nairobi cemeteries

Posted by Administrator on March 10, 2010

Peter Leftie

Deputy Prime Minister Musalia Mudavadi on Wednesday maintained his innocence over the Sh283 million cemetery land scandal and released documents showing that the money was paid out six months before the sale agreement was signed.

Mr Mudavadi at the same time denied claims that a Mr Newton Osiemo had acted as his “emissary” in the transaction and collected Sh59 million on his behalf.

Addressing a Press conference after meeting officials from the Kenya Anti Corruption Commission (KACC) in his office, Mr Mudavadi accused the anti-graft body of leaking a report to the media implicating him in the scam even before it had completed investigations into the affair.

He tabled letters he had separately written to the anti-graft body and Head of Civil Service Francis Muthaura demanding that action be taken against Local Government ministry and Nairobi City Council officials implicated in the scandal, yet no action was taken.

In the first letter, dated February 17 this year, Mr Mudavadi asked KACC to take action against all those who had been implicated in the fraud by a Special Audit report of the Controller and Auditor General.

Implicated

A day later, Mr Mudavadi wrote to Mr Muthaura demanding that action be taken against officers in his ministry and City Hall who had been implicated in the scam by the Controller and Auditor General.

“To the best of my action, no action was taken until a purported report by KACC – which until then I had not seen – was surreptitiously leaked to the media for political reasons,” he stated.

“Isn’t it unusual that a report to be handled confidentially is leaked prior to the completion of investigations or verification of information? Even in law, is KACC supposed to file a report to the Prime Minister and the Head of Civil Service or is it supposed to conduct full investigations and forward its report to the Attorney General?” Mr Mudavadi wondered.

The report in question records an allegation by the council’s legal affairs director, Ms Mary Ng’ethe, claiming that Nairobi Mayor Geoffrey Majiwa had introduced a Mr Newton Osiemo to her as a business associate of Mr Mudavadi and that he would take care of the Deputy Prime Minister’s interests in the scandal.

-Daily Nation

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Hungry and HIV-positive in Nairobi’s slums

Posted by Administrator on March 10, 2010

NAIROBI, 10 March 2010 (PlusNews) – Violet Tinah, 40, a resident of Korogocho slum in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, is living with HIV and was recently diagnosed with tuberculosis, but her biggest problem today is not disease – but hunger.

“When I went for the results that informed me that I had TB, I was very hungry; I’d had no breakfast and lunch and could barely walk,” she told IRIN/PlusNews. “I had to be supported and put in a wheelchair to collect the drugs.

“Often I go without food and during such times I feel dizzy and nauseous after swallowing the [TB and HIV] drugs,” the formerly prosperous carpenter added. “Putting food on the table is like a dream.”

On the day she spoke to IRIN/PlusNews, Tinah had had only a cup of black tea for breakfast and no lunch; a concerned neighbour has brought her some porridge “to help me swallow my drugs”. Tinah was hoping her unemployed nephew would pass by later with a little food.

Many of the slum’s residents live on food salvaged from a nearby rubbish dump and sold on the streets of Korogocho.

According to a 2009 World Bank poverty assessment, the poor in Kenya spend 70 percent of their income on food on average – those in the poorest 20 percent of the population spend 77 percent. Sharp increases in the price of staples in 2008 – maize flour rose by as much as 130 percent between 2008 and 2009 – and a national food crisis in 2009 mean poverty has been on the rise.

The urban poor, most of whom do not farm, have been particularly hard hit.

Korogocho location chief Rebecca Balongo told IRIN/PlusNews that many programmes supporting HIV-affected households had collapsed. “It is not unusual to have a family share only a plate of food in a day,” he said.

Little help

The Kenya Network of Women with AIDS, which until 2009 provided food assistance to about 4,000 HIV-positive people in slums in central Kenya, has had to shut down its feeding programme due to lack of funding.

“We are no longer giving food at our drop-in centres in Korogocho, Kiambiu, Soweto and Mathare slums in Nairobi, Kiandutu slums in Thika and Kiawara slums in Nyeri town,” said KENWA advocacy programme officer James Ndung’u.

“KENWA is only providing highly nutritious porridge to the very weak and bedridden clients.

“The slums have high HIV prevalence rates and without food there are challenges; our nurse has reported clients failing to collect ARVs on schedule – they say they are busy looking for work to buy food,” he added. “ARVs require one to have a proper diet, but on an empty stomach, there is a tendency to default and consequent risk of drug resistance.”

A few programmes continue to provide support in the form of food or cash transfers. Concern Worldwide has started a cash transfer programme in Korogocho to provide food subsidies of about US$20 per month to 2,000 extremely vulnerable households, including bed-ridden HIV-positive people.
However, Concern’s programme is due to end in June, after which the government is expected to take it over. Slum residents and officials are not optimistic; chief Balongo says the government did not send any food support to her area in 2009.

Employment is scarce for the slum’s residents, especially if they are weak. Frederick Egesa works as a watchman, earning about $47 a month. He walks to work, has no days off and is docked two-and-a-half days’ pay for every day he misses work.

“Look at my many dependents – I spend 1,000 shillings [$13] on rent and have 200 shillings [$2.60] daily for food, so we have to skip eating at times,” he said. “When I collect my ARVs I am advised to eat well, but how do I manage a balanced diet?”

wm/kr/mw

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