Global warming has precipitated the frequency and severity of droughts and floods, the Executive Director of Network Africa, Ms Grace Akumu says. Akumu said climate change was causing weather variability and that displaced weather patterns would be further witnessed in the future.

The Government will soon take action against management of factories which pollute rivers and other water resources in the country, Environment Minister Dr Newton Kulundu said. Kulundu said the Government had put in place new laws to regulate factories from discharging pollutants into water resources.

The government has lost 120bn shillings [about 1.6bn dollars] in the last five years through illegal use of Telkom facilities for private business. Those involved in the scam install communication dishes to make international calls.

A Sh4.5 billion project to end frequent power blackouts has won donor backing. The project is expected to be completed by May next year and would improve power distribution.

Kenya is among nine African countries with the highest number of Tuberculosis (TB) infections. Kenyan Assistant Minister for Health Gedion Konchellah said there had been an upsurge of TB due to the HIV/Aids epidemic, urbanisation, increasing poverty and declining social economic trends.

When 54-year old Mary Kuluo saw a poster urging Maasai women to rear dairy goats that had high milk potential she got interested. "The women are only allowed to own chickens, goats and donkeys", says Bernard Momanyi, the Narok District Agriculture and Livestock Extension Officer. "Thus any introduction of dairy goats among the Maasai had to involve women and they are excited about it".

The World Trade Organisation (WTO) is not just about imports and exports of goods, but increasingly is encroaching on people's democratic control over and access to resources and on governments' abilities to regulate social and economic policies and formulate human development. Civil society groups from Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe, Canada and New Zealand met in Nairobi from 27 29 May 2003 to study, analyse and exchange views on the impact of neo-liberal globalisation specially on the south manifesting itself in the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and the forthcoming WTO Ministerial Conference in Cancun. The GATS represents a powerful and totally unacceptable instrument that limits policy space and restricts popular access to services which are essential to people's livelihoods and economic development, a statement on the meeting said.

Anti-corruption police are investigating the loss of more than 36m shillings (approximately 450,000 US dollars) from the Attorney-General's chambers. This is part of a wider inquiry on corruption in the Justice and Constitutional Affairs Ministry.

"We have noticed a big increase in the abandonment of babies since the new year," says Clive Beckenham, the co-director of the New Life Home Trust for abandoned, orphaned and HIV-positive babies in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. Last week alone, the home was contacted by two hospitals with 11 unwanted babies needing homes.

Despite the introduction of Free Primary Education (FPE), latest statistics indicate that out of the 1.9 million child labourers in Kenya, 1.3 million are completely out of school, while the rest combine work with school. These children, aged between five and 17, still prefer to stay at home or seek permanent employment rather than enrol in school.

Water privatisation is a monster that is hanging over the heads of many unsuspecting Kenyans, says this commentary in the East African. It is a buck-passing tactic that just won't solve the problem. South Africa recorded one of its worst cholera outbreaks soon after privatising its water supply systems. The government later admitted that the poor had little access to safe drinking water because of the prohibitive costs.

A meeting of Kenyan women has called for a truth and justice commission as a platform for them to speak out about the injustices of the past as a first step towards healing. Speaking at a May 28 consultation to reflect on the need for a truth, justice and reconciliation commission, women victims of repression gave accounts of how they were manhandled by the previous regime.

Oxfam plans to implement a Cash for Work programme in the Northern part of Turkana. Nineteen villages will participate in the programme, producing a range of projects that are beneficial to the whole community, as a secondary output. As part of the mitigation programme, it is also essential that key water points are also repaired, and infrastructure is put in place to ensure sustainability.

Corruption is costing Kenya as much as $1bn a year, which new anti-corruption measures will hopefully recoup to help provide better public services to Kenyans, the government believes. Despite rich natural resources, Kenya's growth has stagnated for years, with the economy expanding by just 1.1% in 2002, said Planning Minister Peter Anyang' Nyong'o.

The Rockefeller Foundation is currently seeking an Associate Director for its office in Nairobi who will have overall responsibility for providing thematic leadership for grant activities in the AIDS area of work in the development of programs related to the Health Equity (HE) theme and the Africa Regional Program (ARP) in Eastern and Southern Africa.

Equality Now, an international human rights organisation dedicated to end violence and discrimination against women and girls globally, is looking for a Program Officer with experience in human rights work focusing on protecting the fundamental rights of women. Based in the Africa Regional Office of Equality Now, located in Nairobi (Kenya), the Program Officer will be responsible for program work in French Speaking Africa, with a particular focus on Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). She/he will report to the Africa Regional Director.

Hundreds of women have gathered in a garden in Dol Dol, a remote town in Kenya's windswept highlands. The garden is full of colour, because these are Masai women, most of whom wear scarlet and white necklaces like beaded ruffs and wrapped skirts in sun-bright colours. One of their chiefs, a tall man wearing a faded baseball cap, is addressing the crowd. "Do you want to go on with your action against the British army?" he asks in their language. A ripple of agreement passes through the women. This action is based on the staggering claim that, over the last 20 years, British soldiers stationed in Kenya on training exercises have been carrying out rapes against local women, and that no soldier has ever been investigated or punished for those rapes.

There is no lock on the door, no phalanx of guards, no visible impediment to the drugs leaving the glass chamber that the laboratory technicians call a "stability room". The pills come in little white boxes with labels such as lamivudine, zidovudine and efavirenz, technical names disguising the fact that these tablets are the stuff of life. Take them together and if you have HIV you can stave off death for years. Millions in Africa have the virus but not the pills. A stone's throw from the laboratory Aids is wiping out communities, yet these pills cannot leave the stability room.

Judges and magistrates are barred from active participation in fund-raising meetings, a new code of ethics says. The code requires them to maintain strict discipline and decorum in public life. The Judicial Service Code of Conduct and Ethics published in the Kenya Gazette also compels members of the judiciary to police one another in the fight against corruption.

In 2001, the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change revealed that although due to underdevelopment Africa emits negligible amounts of greenhouse gases, it will suffer the most from the impact of climate change. Africa's fate will lie squarely on the doorsteps of the industrialised countries responsible for spewing out greenhouse gases. Their reluctance to reduce these emissions will only make matters worse.