BY AILEEN KIMUTAI Two of the current best footballing nations went head-to-head in what may bet The current crisis over drugs cheats has been years in the making, but reached a head late last year when it emerged one of the world’s top female distance runners, Boston and Chicago marathon winner Rita Jeptoo, was caught using the blood-boosting hormone EPO. Jeptoo is the biggest name in Kenyan sports ever to have been caught, and the bust has been a major trauma for a country that idolises its medal-winning and record-breaking runners. “This doping issue is just as bad as…
Author: NLM writer
BY PHILIP OCHIENG However one looks at the much touted merger between The National Alliance (TNA) of President Uhuru Kenyatta and the United Republican Party (URP) of Deputy President William Ruto — the conclusion is simply ineluctable. It appears designed to ensure Mr Ruto as the successor to Mr Kenyatta at State House. And why not? Isn’t that the stuff of what the Germans call Realpolitik? Just before the last presidential election, Mr Kenyatta must have offered Mr Ruto a quid pro quo – “something for something” — which convinced Mr Ruto to momentarily sacrifice his own personal ambition by swinging…
BY DR WILLY MUTUNGA Since the promulgation of the Constitution of Kenya 2010, the Senate and the Judiciary have engaged each other out of necessity – often as each other’s client and hardly ever as two organs of State commanded to find common ground in how best to realize the aspirations of the people. I hesitate to say this meeting has been left too late. The first years have been important for all institutions to internalize the role the Constitution created for them and find balance. We come together today, therefore, to illuminate the constitutional roles and duties of our…
Twenty five years ago wildlife conservationists swayed mandarins and senior politicians to raze ivory stockpiles – to rally the world round the Elephant and the Rhino. President Daniel arap Moi turned 60 tonnes of ivory into ash, in an exceptional move that attracted billions of shillings – a dazzling first for the conservation world. The world, in an assembly now famously known as CITES, moved with dizzying speed to slap a ban on trans-border commerce in ivory. It funneled billions into Kenya. As a result, an armada of international lobbyists sprung up ostensibly to safeguard the last vestiges of Kenya’s…
The world has finally reached “the beginning of the end” of the AIDS pandemic that has infected and killed millions in the past 30 years, according to a leading campaign group fighting HIV. The number of people newly infected with HIV over the last year was lower than the number of HIV-positive people who joined those getting access to the medicines they need to take for life to keep AIDS at bay. But in a report to mark World AIDS Day last month, the ONE campaign, an advocacy group working to end poverty and preventable disease in Africa, warned that…
BY JOHN HARBESON In early December the leaders of the African Union and members of the diplomatic corps assembled in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia,to celebrate half a Century of distinguished service to country and continent by Tanzania’s Salim Ahmed Salim. Organized by the Mwalimu Nyerere Foundation, this very distinguished gathering honored Dr. Salim’s outstanding and varied career of leadership as his country’s ambassador and its Minister of Foreign Affairs and as Secretary General of the Organization of African Union (the Africa Union’s predecessor) and member of the Panel of the Wise in more than one delicate assignment. In his lengthy tour d’…
BY DAVID WANJALA President Uhuru Kenyatta, his Deputy William Ruto and the entire Jubilee Government including its MPs believe that the Security Laws (Amendment) Act 2014 is the panacea to the runway insecurity and terror currently rocking the country. While addressing the nation during the 51st Jamhuri Day celebrations on December 12, just after the Jubilee coalition rallied its numerical strength in the National Assembly and pushed the controversial Security Laws (Amendment) Bill 2014 through the Second Reading despite the Opposition’s spirited fight, the President sought to justify why he is in full support of the new security laws. “We…
BY IAN RAMAS In his military treatise Art of War Sun Tzu talked about armed conflicts driven by variables and distinct combatants. Sadly the war that Kenya is battling isn’t, or is no longer, an art – to paraphrase writer J.R Mack in his oft-quoted article, Why Big Nations Lose Small Wars. Mack’s piece, written in 1975, long before the word terrorism confused our minds, strives to explain how some wars rebel logic. He draws examples from the Algerian and Vietnamese civil conflicts to explain what officialese describes as asymmetric (distorted) warfare – insurgency, terrorism, guerrilla warfare; all wrapped up…
BY APOLLO MBOYA The Security legal framework is governed by a complex statutory framework composed of about 22 statutes which have been established over the past twenty years. On 18th December 2014, the National Assembly held a special sitting to deliberate on the Security Laws (Amendment) Bill 2014. The proceedings were disrupted on the third reading necessitating the Speaker to adjourn the debate twice, only for the chaos to continue when it resumed a third time in the afternoon. The whole world witnessed Members of Parliament (MPs) assaulting one another and fighting on live television broadcasts. In the midst of the chaos,…
BY KIBE MUNGAI On October 31, 2014 President Uhuru Kenyatta delivered an analytically profound speech on National Security Strategy during a high level seminar on National Security Strategy at Kenya School of Government, Nairobi. Barely had the ink dried on the President’s speech when a heavily armed Pokot militia ambushed a contingent of Kenya Police killing 22 officers and seriously injuring three others. Then as I started to write this article the Al-Shabaab terrorist group massacred 64 people (all non-Muslims) in Mandera. As it always happens in Kenya the various attacks during what is turning out to be a…
