Women in Kenya are vulnerable to poverty, HIV infection and violence because of discriminatory property inheritance practices, says a report from the New York-based Human Rights Watch. The United States based NGO says that after the death of their husbands, women are often evicted or made penniless, or forced to engage in traditional sexual cleansing rituals risking HIV infection, in order to stay in the property.

Kenyatta National Referral and Teaching Hospital (KNH) is a classic metaphor of what ails the public healthcare delivery system in the country: A colossal monolith that is structurally unsuitable for efficiency and organisational order, the hospital has a capacity of accommodating upward of 2,000 patients, making it truly one of the biggest hospitals in the world. But the hospital has for many years been a monumental dysfunctional edifice that has defied efficiency and proper management of medical service delivery.

The government has recovered Sh15 billion stolen from public coffers in the ongoing fight against corruption. The money had been siphoned by well-connected people in the former Kanu government, Justice and Constitutional Affairs minister Kiraitu Murungi disclosed at the weekend.

Government's plan to provide free health care for all may be difficult to implement unless the economy improves, says Avenue Healthcare Chairman Dr Amit Thakker. Thakker, who is also the chairman of the unregistered Kenya Association of Healthcare Organisations (KAHO) feels that the only time Kenyans can have reasonable access to health care is when the government revives the ailing economy.

Some 20 million Kenyans - more than half the entire population - are regularly affected by the most deadly malaria parasite: Plasmodium falciparum.The cumulative human suffering and economic damage caused by malaria is immense. Children and pregnant women are most at risk. Each year, an estimated 26,000 children, that is a staggering 72 per day, die from direct consequences of malaria infection in Kenya.

Some 20 million Kenyans - more than half the entire population - are regularly affected by the most deadly malaria parasite: Plasmodium falciparum.The cumulative human suffering and economic damage caused by malaria is immense. Children and pregnant women are most at risk. Each year, an estimated 26,000 children, that is a staggering 72 per day, die from direct consequences of malaria infection in Kenya.

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has installed a new high-tech monitoring station in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, to monitor air quality and detect ozone depletion in the eastern African region. The Kenya-based environmental body said on Thursday that the newly installed Nairobi Validation Station, within the world environmental headquarters grounds in the Gigiri suburb, was the first of its kind in "tropical and subtropical" Africa.

Kenya's Anti-Corruption Police Unit (ACPU) have interrogated officials of Kenya's Euro-Bank, which collapsed last week, taking with it billions of shillings of depositors' money, an ACPU official said on Thursday. "We recorded statements late Wednesday from four top officials of the bank, including its chairman and managing director, on the whereabouts of the depositors money," ACPU representative Kaplich Baristo told AFP by telephone.

A raging fire - suspected to have been started by arsonists - has now burned over 4,000 hectares (15 square miles) of Mount Kenya forest and is threatening the Mount Kenya ecology and some 882 rare plant species, unique to the area, government officials here say. The fire came weeks after the new government of President Mwai Kibaki announced tough measures to stop illegal logging, encroachment of the forest by neighbouring communities, and growing of narcotics inside the forest.

The Kenya Community Abroad has added its voice to those of millions around the world who have come out to demand a peaceful resolution to the stand off between the United States and Iraq on the question of weapons of mass destruction.

Kenya's most senior judge, Bernard Chunga, under investigation for allegations of corruption and torture, resigned as chief justice on Tuesday, the president's office said. "President Mwai Kibaki has today accepted the resignation of Honourable Bernard Chunga as chief justice," the presidential press service said in a statement. They gave no further details.

Kenya's much awaited prison reforms began this week with the release of 29 death row inmates. President Mwai Kibaki, who issued the order, also commuted the sentences of another 195 death row prisoners to life imprisonment. Most of those released had already been in prison for more than 20 years, according to media reports.

Wildlife authorities in Kenya have made their biggest seizure of ivory for three years. Five men were arrested in northern Kenya with a load of 33 elephant tusks.

The prevalence of parasitic infections is high among low-income communities in such tropical countries as Kenya, Joyce Onsongo, the country's Deputy Director of Medical Services, told workshop participants in Nairobi recently. Speaking at the closing of an international workshop on control of parasitic diseases in eastern and southern Africa at the Kenya Medical Research Institute (Kemri), Onsongo said that the infections not only have a serious impact on human health, but are also a hindrance to economic growth and development.

The Government has conceded to an acute shortage of teachers following the introduction of free primary education.

Sixteen out of Kenya’s 42 languages are at serious risk of disappearing, according to “Extinct and Endangered Languages”, a recent report by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).

President Mwai Kibaki has announced a probe into Kenya's biggest scandal, the "Goldenberg affair". The fraud, which began in 1991, is estimated to have cost hundreds of millions of dollars and implicated senior political figures.

As African countries grapple with dwindling crop yields and famine, some farmers in east Africa have discovered a new way to replenish soil fertility and increase farm yields. Eunice Gichiku Kinyua, a 40 year old Kenya farmer, is among hundreds of farmers in rural Kenya who have discovered that the wild sunflower (Tithonia diversifolia) replenishes soil fertility and helps increase crop yields.

A non-governmental organisation has sued the Kenya government to compel it to make public the report of the Environmental Management Plan (EMP) for a titanium mining project in Kwale District of Coast Province. The case against the National Environmental Management Authority (Nema) was filed in the High Court by George Mulama Wamukoya on behalf of the Centre for Environmental Legal Research and Education (CELRE) on February 6.

The minister for Health, Mrs Charity Ngilu, has led a high-powered delegation of doctors on a tour of various health facilities in Kitui District, where a malaria outbreak has killed 68 people since last month.