Meshack Onyango was at work when the bulldozers came, but his neighbours rescued his mattress and paraffin stove before the demolition crews ploughed his ramshackle home back into the red earth. The tin roof of his shack was stripped off by thieves before the wrecking started, but he counts himself lucky to have saved a few possessions. More than a third of a million people living in the slums around Kenya's capital, Nairobi, now face a similar fate as the government prepares to clear shanty settlements which have encroached on to the borders of railway tracks and on land reserved for road building.

The Government is moving to stem the leakage of confidential documents as continuing press revelations exposing the level of corruption become embarrassing. The Office of the President has written to all Permanent Secretaries warning against the leakage of classified information to the press and other unauthorised persons or institutions.

Kenyan authorities are taking the first steps towards freezing property and other assets in the UK, Switzerland and other countries in a $1bn-plus corruption probe involving former senior government figures. Investigations under way since June last year have uncovered a link with the $3bn (?2.5bn, £1.7bn) alleged to have been channelled abroad by the former Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha, and his family during the 1990s. Officials conducting the Kenyan investigation in conjunction with Kroll, the international risk consultancy, said they had identified a "key Geneva-based individual" who was central to money-laundering operations in both cases. Switzerland has promised co-operation in freezing assets.

Parsalelo Kantai has been shortlisted for The Caine Prize for African Writing (http://www.caineprize.com/) 2004 for his story, Comrade Lemma (http://www.kwani.org/comrade%20lemma.htm). He was recently awarded a Reuters fellowship at Oxford University for a year. Parsalelo is one of Kenya's leading investigative journalists, and the editor of Ecoforum. His Ecoforum cover story, A Deal in the Mara, has thrown light on the business practices in the Mara Conservancy.

Accused of airing pornography and political propaganda, and of inflaming ethnic tensions, Kenya's numerous private FM radio stations may soon face curbs following a controversial probe into their content. Attorney-General Amos Wako said on 28 April that the government would soon take to parliament a Media Commission Bill aimed at ensuring professionalism among media practitioners.

Hundreds of Ethiopian students have arrived in a remote Kenyan border town in recent days, saying they had crossed over from the Ethiopian side of the town after holding a demonstration at their boarding school that was quelled by the army. After the first two dozen Ethiopian ethnic Oromos arrived in the border hamlet of Moyale a week ago, the influx has quickly gathered pace. There are now some 560 young Ethiopians encamped on the grounds of a Kenyan police station, a compound hardly suited to shelter such a large group. The new arrivals are composed of primary and secondary school-age students who were attending classes at a school in neighbouring Moyale, Ethiopia.

A community based grass-roots organisation in Nairobi (Kenya) involved in disability, child rights, income generation and development issues, is looking for a short term consultant preferably from Kenya itself. The person should have experience in participatory methodologies and non-governmental organisational development. The total duration of the consultancy for conducting a workshop will be around 7 days, some time in November or December 2004. Interested persons should send their CV to [email protected]

The Kenyan government has announced a new anti-malaria policy which encourages the use of more effective combination drugs for treatment, alongside the promotion of insecticide-treated nets to prevent exposure to mosquitoes that carry the disease. Health Minister Charity Ngilu said in a statement to mark the annual Africa Malaria Day on Sunday that her government was trying to find US $20 million a year to implement the new policy.

A referendum on the draft constitution will plunge the country into political turmoil, Constitution of Kenya Review Commission vice-chairman Okoth Ogendo said. Kenyans must be prepared for an automatic enactment of the draft if it is subjected to a referendum. "If we go to a referendum on the entire document, we will immediately have a new political order," he told journalists at the commission's headquarters.

HIV/AIDS and poverty have led to increased numbers of orphans, abandoned children and youngsters living on the streets of Kenya, according to the co-author of a report presented at a workshop in Nairobi in March 2004 organised by the Commonwealth Service Abroad Programme (CSAP) and the Department of Children's Services in Kenya's Ministry of Home Affairs. "More than a million children in Kenya below the age of 15 have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS," said Cecilia Manyame, a CSAP volunteer expert and co-author of the report, who visited the Commonwealth Secretariat in London, UK, last week.

Scores of human rights activists on Friday demonstrated in the streets of the Kenyan capital Nairobi against what they called "blatant violation of human rights across the country". The demonstrators raised banners that condemned the increase of rapes, extra-judicial executions and inability of the government to offer security to Kenyans. The Kenya Human Rights Commission, a non-governmental organisation which organised the demonstration, presented a memorandum detailing rights violations to the justice ministry.

A number of employees in Kenya’s export processing zones claim they have been threatened with dismissal should they continue associating with human rights groups that are championing better conditions for workers. However, certain companies in the zones also appear to have taken heed of the groups’ concerns. The employees who are alleging threats of dismissal work in textile firms. Their employers have reportedly complained of several contracts being cancelled by foreign buyers who were concerned about poor conditions in the export processing zones (EPZs).

Lack of skilled labour is a major obstacle to achieving development goals. Kenya has devoted the largest share of its budget (29% in 1998) to expanding education. Has substantial state and private investment in education been worthwhile? How are returns to education different for men and women and for primary, secondary and tertiary education?

The constitutional review process in Kenya has reached its final stages after the presentation of a draft Constitution to the Attorney General on 23rd March. However a constitutional court has ruled that Kenya’s parliament be given powers to alter the draft Constitution document, a move which minority and indigenous rights groups claim could seriously weaken important provisions for minority and indigenous rights, which they have lobbied hard to achieve.

A Kenyan writing about the taboo subject of incest has taken first prize in the BBC's African Performance playwriting competition. John Rugoiyo Gichuki's prize-winning play looks at the after-effects of conflict on family relationships. A Time for Cleansing tells the tale of a couple returning to visit their family in Rwanda.

Slightly more than a year after the National Rainbow Coalition (Narc) took power on a “popular wave”, the Front for Popular Change has been launched in Kenya. The move follows the launching early this year of “Masikini Liberation Front” and “Chama cha Wananchi”, two ambiguous formations which were launched without political programs, profiles or funfair. The emergence of new “popular” fronts and Movements in Kenya is a direct reaction to the political vacuum that currently exists in the opposition after Narc came to power, failure of the government to honour basic election promises and mass disillusionment with the Kibaki administration due to internal wrangling, power struggles and personality clashes.

Kenya has sought a delay in its participation in an African governance rating system designed to win donor and investor dollars for the globe’s poorest continent, a senior evaluator has said. Last month the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) said Kenya would be among the first four countries to be scrutinised under a peer-review system being closely watched by Africans and international lenders.

Will the recent salary and harmonisation of housing allowance for public university lecturers stem the brain-drain from the country? Universities Academic Staff Union (Uasu) secretary-general, Charles Namachanja, doesn't believe so. "What we have been offered is way bellow our expectations. We wanted to be paid salaries that could attract the best brains from any part of the world," says Namachanja.

The Government is going to appoint a special team to investigate reports of employees' rights violations within Export Processing Zones (EPZs) in Changamwe area of Mombasa. Coast Provincial Commissioner, Cyrus Maina, said he would set up the team, after being informed by officials of the Central Organisation of Trade Unions (COTU) that the lives of hundreds of employees in three EPZs were in danger, as they were forced to work overnight under lock and key.

A high-profile Kenyan opposition lawmaker was on Wednesday charged in court with corruption in connection with a land transfer deal that cost a state firm 272-million shillings (about $3,5-million), police said. William Ruto was charged together with a former commissioner of lands, Samuel Mwaita, in a Nairobi magistrate's court with "obtaining money by false pretences and handling false documents", said a spokesperson for the anti-corruption police.