Kenya's wildlife policy is being reviewed in line with emerging conservation challenges, Environment minister Newton Kulundu has disclosed. The process will culminate in the Wildlife Bill, Kulundu said, and will involve consultations amongst ministry officials, experts and the public. The process, funded by the United States Agency for International Development, will take six months in its initial stages. Kulundu said the current Wildlife Act was outdated and did not address emerging conservation challenges.

Throughout the world, thousands of people live under threat and are being denied their most fundamental rights twenty-four hours a day. Leading our work across the sub-Saharan Africa, you will play the role in establishing and protecting their rights. Whether human rights violations are taking place in major cities or in rural areas, you will maintain an in-depth overview of the issues at stake.

May 1st was a first for William Owusu, the promising young film director from Kenya who recently attended the Berlinale Film Talent Campus in Berlin. His entry, "The Epilogue", 15 minutes long, has been chosen as the only African film featuring at one of the most renowned short film festivals, the Oberhausen International Short Film Festival. "The Epilogue" joins a host of innovative and original short films which have a tradition in Oberhausen. Most films entered there come from the numerous film academies like Munich, Berlin, Potsdam, Ludwigsburg and other art and media schools in Germany and the rest of the world. Today, about 800 short films are made in Germany alone. Others films have come from as far as Asia and the Americas.

Jomo Kenyatta, the first president of independent Kenya, wrote this book as a graduate anthropology student in London. As a primary source, this book is invaluable. It gives detailed analysis of many aspects of pre-Mau Mau Gikuyu cultural ceremonies. However, as it is a product of the structuralist school of anthropology, many of its conclusions and findings are problematic, most notably in its opinion of culture as a fixed entity which determines human behaviour. For students of colonial Africa, this piece will inevitably be of use.

Internews has opened a Media Resource Centre in Nairobi, stocked with more than 2000 HIV/AIDS publications, to provide Kenyan journalists with desperately needed resources to produce stories about HIV/AIDS. The Media Resource Centre has five computers with high-speed internet access available for research, and radio digital editing programs for producing stories on HIV/AIDS. An electronic database system makes the publications easily searchable and accessible. All services are available to journalists free of charge.

Corrupt individuals linked to former President Daniel arap Moi's regime are attempting to regroup and re-establish their old networks, governance and ethics permanent secretary, John Githongo, said. He said that even in the current government, a few individuals "may have become captives of these corrupt networks that are trying to regain their hold on the state." Githongo was addressing participants at a conference organized by the International Finance Corporation - the private lending arm of the World Bank - and London-based Financial Times.

Kenyans living in areas dotted with the country's world famous wildlife said last Thursday they wanted a larger share of tourism revenue and higher compensation for deaths and destruction of their property by the animals. Tourism is one of Kenya's key foreign exchange earners, providing about 500,000 jobs and contributing about 26 billion shillings (US$328 million) to the economy in 2002. People living in areas frequented by elephants, lions, and wildebeest have lost their lives, property, or livestock to the animals.

Virtually everyone agrees that information and communications technology (ICT) must be a key component of any viable development strategy for African countries. But lip service is still easier than charting and implementing a coherent strategy. Recent meetings in Nairobi and Cairo provide ample evidence of both lively debate and continuing obstacles. A recent edition of the AfricaFocus Bulletin contains an article on national ICT policy in Kenya, with an extended critique of what the writer calls "the government's ill-coordinated, non-inclusive attempts to draft a national ICT policy."

"The stability of any government is measured by the freedom it gives to the press. If the government is clean in its dealings, then I see no reason why it should be worried about the press," says Kenyan media activist Mitch Odero. Recent statements by authorities indicate that they have a less sanguine view of the country's journalists, however. Odero's comments come in the wake of a letter issued by the head of the public service and cabinet secretary, Francis Muthaura, warning civil servants against releasing classified information to the press. The April 27 document says there will be dire consequences for those who disobey the directive.

The Government was expected to announce this week the retrenchment of 20,000 civil servants, the East African Standard has learnt. Donor sources said the Government will reveal the number of civil servants to be laid off, a process expected to be carried out in three phases. It is understood that the Government has been in talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on its promises on civil service reform, which it made to donors and which it has made little progress in fulfilling.

The Kenyan Government plans to buy abortion kits for its public hospitals to deal with emergencies arising from unsafe abortions. The announcement was made by Director of Medical Services, Dr James Nyikal, at the launch of a new report about unsafe abortion. The kits, including manual vacuum aspiration, will be put on the health ministry's essential equipment list. The kits will be used to help deal with complications arising from unsafe pregnancy termination in areas that lack equipped hospitals.

Kenya is studying the education systems of Japan, Korea and Malaysia to see how it can reform its own system to spur industrialisation. This was disclosed by the chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Education, Mr Daniel Karaba, as his committee left for Japan. Karaba said during the two-week visit his 6-man committee would critically study the education systems of the three countries and Thailand if time allows. He said the trip has been necessitated by the envisaged reforms in the Kenyan education system to make it more responsive to the needs of the country.

Kenya is not among eight African countries chosen last Thursday to apply for a new set of US development grants totalling one billion dollars. It was excluded mainly on the grounds that it had not adequately controlled official corruption. It was also given failing grades on some of the other 16 tests for eligibility for the new aid programme, known as the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA). In Nairobi, the US embassy said that Kenya remained eligible "for consideration" during next year's selection process.

Nine out of 10 women workers in Kenya have been victims of sexual discrimination in their jobs, a survey has suggested. The study, by the International Labour Rights Fund (ILRF) in Washington, USA, found that the women were putting up with the harassment in order to keep their jobs. "In Kenya, we found that the working conditions, at least in terms of women workers, are rather poor," ILRF spokeswoman Natacha Thys told BBC World Service's Africa Live programme.

A report suggesting the legalisation of abortion in Kenya to reduce maternal mortality has sparked a heated debate in the country. Pro-life organisations claim that preventing unwanted pregnancies is a better way of reducing these deaths. The study, ‘A National Assessment of the Magnitude and Consequences of Unsafe Abortion in Kenya’ recommends that "There should be a review of the policy and law on abortion in Kenya." At present, termination of pregnancy is outlawed in the East African country, except in instances where a woman’s life is in danger.

Fresh cracks have emerged in the ruling coalition over the fight against corruption, even as the government reiterated its commitment to fight the vice, no matter the price. The government sent a powerful message that it was prepared to pay any price to fight corruption within its ranks. But even as it was doing so, it also emerged that corruption is likely to become the new battlefield between wrangling factions of the ruling coalition.

As recently as 10 years ago, the words "environment," "recycling," and "waste" were rarely heard in the east African country of Kenya. But today, many Kenyans - especially young people - eagerly pitch in to recycle waste, protect the environment, and improve the daily lives of their people. One of the forces behind this change is a young man named Vincent Ogutu.

The 1st Nairobi International Poetry Festival has announced its poetry festival which will be held on March 21 ­ 23rd 2005. The theme of the festival will be "The Imagination of Poetry in the HIV/AIDS Pandemic". Poetry performances are encouraged as there will be poetry readings from renowned African poets, as well as from the rest of the world.

The notion that the truth will set you free has enduring appeal in developing countries which are newly free of repressive governments, and anxious to explore past abuses in an effort to avoid repeating them. Kenya is no exception to this trend. However, the country is also discovering that setting up a truth commission to probe human rights violations is less straight forward than it might appear. Although a commission has yet to open its doors in Kenya, fierce debate is already underway about the period of time that should be surveyed by the body.

Conflicts between African lions and human communities threaten the lion's survival throughout its range. A new study by Earthwatch Institute-supported scientists working in the Tsavo region of Kenya investigates the annual toll on livestock and provides a hopeful model for coexistence through compensation and seasonal livestock management. The study, published online in the journal Biological Conservation, concludes that $8,749 would be needed annually to offset the economic damage of a vigorous population of 26 adult lions inhabiting two ranches in Kenya totalling 160,000 acres.