Author: NLM Correspondent

In February 2014, the Director of Medical Services (DMS) in the Ministry of Health issued a memo prohibiting health workers from participating in trainings on safe abortions or the use of the drug Medabon, which has a combination of mifepristone and misoprostol for medical abortion purposes. The memo was titled “Training on Safe abortions and the use of Medabon”. It is curious that the memo was issued a short while after the withdrawal of the “Standards and Guidelines for Reducing Morbidity and Mortality from Unsafe Abortion in Kenya” that was meant to ensure that health facilities assist women who deserve…

By Justus Jeffery Olaka A committal to a civil jail is where a judicial officer or judge sends a borrower – sued by a lender – to jail, usually for inability to pay a debt owed. It is a kind of arrangement where the lender is obligated to pay the government for each and every day the debtor stays in jail. Some of the reasons why one may be committed to a civil jail include, inter alia, failure to pay: money one agreed to pay if someone they know was on bail and did not turn up in court; money…

By Julius Mukono “A corporation is a person, artificial, invisible, intangible, and existing only in the contemplation of the law. Being a mere creature of law, it possesses only those properties which the character of its creation confers upon it either expressly or as incidental to its very existence” This statement mirrors the difficulty of prosecuting corporations, particularly on criminal charges, which is an issue that legal jurisdictions around the world have tried to address. We can all agree, however, that corporates must account for their wrongs fully. Although corporate criminal liability is still a raw section of legal jurisprudence,…

Digital rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is attempting to overturn parts of US copyright law which, it says, are unconstitutional. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) makes it illegal to bypass software that prevents the copying of protected work in many situations. But the EFF says that violates the right to freedom of expression by limiting what people can do with things they have purchased. It is now suing the US government. What is the DMCA? The DMCA was introduced in 1998, designed to address copyright for media such as film, music and photography in the digital age.…

Spending on security is often a well-guarded secret, and little information is in the public domain regarding the purchase of the 30 armoured personnel carriers for the police. However, government’s obsession with procurement of second-hand hardware to shore up military and police capabilities is well documented. Just four months ago, the government received two of the expected four refurbished Ukranian Mi-17 military helicopters that will be used for police patrol. Reports in local media stated that the two helicopters, each with a capacity of 40, were refurbished in Prague, Czech Republic, before being handed over to the Kenyan government. Another…

By TNLM Writer They were supposed to be the machines that made the difference in the war against terror in the Kenyan story; the ones to turn cops into heroes, and the bad guys into, well, not heroes. But the chronicle of the 30 armoured personnel carriers (APCs) purchased by the Kenya government, in a shroud of secrecy, from China is one that speaks of wanton waste and abundant ineptitude. At the commissioning of the APCs in February this year, President Uhuru Kenyatta was evidently excited. He extolled the “important milestone” that his administration had attained, in its mission to…

BY KIBE MUNGAI “The First Group of heroes are those conscientious police who are doing everything they can to institute serious changes as quickly as possible. Given the resistance they face from some politicians and members of their own departments, it’s like trying to reverse the rotation of the earth. Yet they push on… The other heroes to emerge are the relentlessly committed members and supporters of Black Lives Matter.  They show up day after day, in city after city, getting their message across peacefully, articulately and with grace…  In the end, both the police and the protesters who are…

By Luke Mulunda Pity, if you will, Kenya’s media houses. On one side, they have to be independent, reporting things as they are and even digging out scandals and filth in government, private sector and the civil society. Rarely do they audit themselves, though. On the other, they need to make money – and lots of it. Often they have to polish their faces and put on a smile to talk to the same parties they hit out at and expose, to get advertising, which is their main source of revenue. That’s the love-hate relationship that media has maintained with…

By Nadrat Mazrui Kenya’s economic development has been followed with keen interest after independence. For, unlike neighbouring Tanzania and Uganda, Kenya, under the leadership of Kenyatta, settled on a liberal economic growth as outlined in “Sessional Paper No. 10” of 1965, which spelt out Kenya’s long-term economic development – a paper that, despite outlining a blueprint for export-oriented capitalist growth, was given a socialist label (“Sessional Paper No. 10 on African socialism”) to appeal to the post-colonial rhetorical stance of breaking with colonialism. Liberation from colonial rule had been predicated on undoing the economic structure on which colonialism rested, and…

Dr Charles Khamala Corruption is a multi-faceted phenomenon. Its subject matter is wide, varied and elusive in scope. Further, because “corruption research is a taboo – a corrupt process in itself,” Keith Rosenn (1971) explains, this is why it has, until recently, been shunned. Therefore, diverse disciplines improvise different definitions to delimit the relevant bribery data. At its simplest, for Rick Stapenhurst and Shahrzah Sedigh (1999), corruption is “the abuse of power, most often for personal gain or for benefit of a group to which one owes allegiance.” Moreover, “no country is today immune from corruption’s corrosive influence.” Syed Alatas…