Author: NLM Correspondent

BY Yasin Arkanuddin My abdomen clenched like a fist, my bladder tightened, and any need I had to relieve myself instantly disappeared. I wretched and recoiled in disgust as I reflexively ducked back out of the police prison cell toilets. I have grown up in boarding school and lived in the poor areas of Nairobi city without sewerage but nothing can prepare you to board in the stench generated by the mound of human faeces that was slowly decomposing two walls away from the office of the Officer in Charge of Station Kilimani Police Station. How did he survive here?…

Brace yourself, lovers of diet sodas and sugary drinks. It’s more bad news and yet another reason to consider ditching your favourite soft drink. A new study followed more than 450,000 people from 10 European countries for up to 19 years and found those who drank two or more glasses of any type of soda a day had a higher risk of dying from any cause of death than people who drank less than a glass each month. None of the people had cancer, diabetes, heart disease or stroke before their participation. The study, published in September in the journal…

By Agencies When you first start out in the creative industries, there is a lot of received wisdom. “This is how it works.” “That’s just the way it is.” But how true are these truisms? Success and burnout go hand in hand Ah, the creative brain. A wondrous, magical, mysterious thing. Always on the lookout for untapped observations or sparks of divine inspiration. Marinated in coffee, it doesn’t conform to the nine-to-five because being busy is what it’s best at. Sleep? Sleep is for the weak! That is, until it all comes crashing to a halt. Welcome to burnout. “I…

By WALTER KHOBE The normative grounding of the 2010 Constitution sought to deal with three “sins” that have historically bedevilled the Kenyan judiciary. These “sins” are: corruption, executive mindedness, and formalist/legalistic reasoning. While the post-2010 judiciary has, to a large extent, tried to reverse the legacy of the judiciary with respect to the first two, the “sin” of pathological formalism and amoral legalism is still ingrained in Kenyan legal culture and endures in the post-2010 dispensation. This was evident in the recent Supreme Court decision in ‘Hon. Martha Wangari Karua v the IEBC and 3 Others’, Petition Number 3 of…

By Denis Ndiritu The right to religion falls right at the heart of our constitution and society. Article 32 of the Constitution espouses the right to freedom of conscience, religion, thought, belief and opinion and in doing so vests the Kenyan citizen with the power to manifest this religion whether in person or as a group through practice teaching or observance. Recently, a father sued the Education ministry and Olympic High School in Kibra seeking to compel them to admit his daughter to Form One without having to shave her dreadlocks. In JWM (AliasP) v Board of Management(Particulars Withheld) High…

By Demas Kiprono Demonstrations, public assemblies or protests are part of Kenya’s history. They form an important tool Kenyans use to show displeasure against injustices, marginalisation, discrimination, environmental degradation and oppression. As far back as 1922, protests were held when Harry Thuku was arrested. Thuku was arrested for his political agitation and involvement in the Young Kikuyu Association. It led to the killing of 20 Africans by the colonial government. A year later, Nandi Orkoiyot Barserion was arrested and deported for organizing a cultural assembly known as Saket ap Eito.It agitated for Nandi non-cooperation in protest of punitive taxes and…

By Lord Jonathan Sumption When the French political writer Alexis de Tocqueville visited the United States in the 1830s, one of the things that struck him most forcibly was the dominant place occupied by lawyers in the public life of the nation. In his classic account of early American democracy, de Tocqueville suggested that lawyers, as a class, had succeeded to the beliefs and influence of the old landed aristocracy. They shared its habits, its tastes and, above all, they shared its contempt for popular opinion. “The more we reflect upon all that occurs in the United States,” he wrote,…

Last month, millions of people across the world, many of them children who skipped school, took part in protests calling for action against climate change. From Australia to America, the “climate strike” day was meant to urge governments and world leaders to end the age of fossils and up their climate efforts. The protests were inspired by teenage activist Greta Thunberg, who sailed across the Atlantic in an emission-free sailboat in August, to attend the landmark Sept. 23 United Nations climate summit in New York. Across Africa, both the young and the old left their classrooms and workplaces to join…

By Federico de Nardis As digital media has grown and become more sophisticated, enabling precise and behavioural communication with individuals, so has the complexity and the potential risk of harm to advertisers. Contextual brand safety awareness really accelerated in February 2017 when The London Times published an exposé in which journalists discovered brand advertising appearing in extremist videos on YouTube. Marketers were therefore inadvertently funding terror organisations through the advertising revenue they received. The potential for reputational damage to the brands created an instant reaction in the marketing community. Advertising on YouTube was suspended by many advertisers, and marketers looked…

Dubai based airline Emirates is considering flight frequencies to key African destinations including Morocco, Ghana, Senegal, Egypt, and South Africa as it sees the potential for growth in Africa. Orhan Abbas, senior vice-president of commercial operations in Africa for Emirates, said that Africa has been one of the strong performing markets for the carrier over the past two years, even amid challenges there. In the year ending March 31, 2019, Emirates saw a 9% rise year-on-year in revenues from its operations to and from Africa, with the region registering the strongest growth compared to other markets. Abbas said the growth…