On December 10, 1948, the international community, shocked into action after the atrocities committed in the Second World War, unanimously passed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) as one of the pillars for relationships both within and between states. Fifty-five years on, much more than what the founding fathers and mothers could have expected from the UDHR has been achieved. On the other hand, a lot of atrocities have also occurred in the period since the UDHR became the norm. In Kenya too, the impact of the UDHR has been slow in coming. The urgent task before the government, and before the entire citizenry of Kenya, is to consolidate the gains made, and by institutionalising them, gain the entire gamut of rights promised by the UDHR, argues Maina Kiai, Chairman of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights.

The head of Kenya's state-owned power company plundered the institution for nearly two decades, according to an official Government investigation. Samuel Gichuru, the managing director of Kenya Lighting and Power for 19 years, is said to have stolen millions of Kenyan shillings.

Kenyan lawmakers have welcomed an historic court ruling, in which a man convicted of raping a four-year-old girl was jailed for life, terming it an important step towards deterring rising cases of sexual violence against children in the country. The 18-year-old offender, Paul Ngure Ngigi, was sentenced on Monday after pleading guilty in a trial described as one of the shortest-ever. This was also the harshest penalty ever served in Kenya for a sexual offence.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is pleased with Kenya's stand on corruption, especially in the judiciary. The visiting IMF first deputy managing director, Dr Anne Krueger, said that the measures the government had introduced had confounded sceptics on its commitment to reform. However, she warned that fighting corruption was a continuous process as "attitudes do not change overnight."

On 20th November 2003, Universal Child Rights Day, the inaugural Regional East African Juvenile Justice Network (EAJJN) was officially launched in Nairobi, Kenya. The initiative came during the CRADLE's (the Child Rights Advisory, Documentation and Legal Center) first regional conference on "Promoting juvenile justice within East Africa", which featured prominent lawyers from Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania as well as ministers and other representatives from the Kenyan government and the Swedish Embassy.

The growing culture of "handouts" which politicians give to their constituents in return for their political survival was this week blamed for promoting corruption and dependency among communities in Kenya.

Striking lecturers have urged President Kibaki to help initiate dialogue over pay increase. And in a move that signalled their preparedness to stay longer on the boycott, the lecturers' union launched a fundraising campaign to finance members' survival during the festive season.

A Kenyan journalist and graduate of Internews’ “Local Voices” media training program has just received UNESCO's HIV/AIDS Red Ribbon Media Award for Excellence in Journalism in Eastern and Southern Africa.

A non-governmental organisation that lobbies for debt relief, Chambers of Justice, has renewed its appeal for cancellation of Kenya's massive external debt. The debt burden currently stands at about nine billion dollars, three times more than the annual national revenue of approximately 2.7 billion dollars.

Concerns about a proposed anti-terrorism law in Kenya were set to reach boiling point Saturday, with a gathering of human rights activists in the capital. The activists belong to more than 40 human rights organisations that have formed an umbrella body called the Kenya Human Rights Network (K-HURINET), to sound an alarm about the Suppression of Terrorism Bill.

Kenyan primary schools are starting to equip themselves to promote gender equality, poverty alleviation and local economic growth. How can headteachers gain the necessary managerial and community liaison skills? Is a cascade system the best way to help them develop new expertise? What scope is there for learning from the bottom up to improve community-school partnerships?

The Union of Kenya Civil Servants is up in arms against a call by the donor community for further retrenchment. The union is calling on President Kibaki not to give in to "retrogressive conditionalities" for resumption of donor funding being prescribed by the World Bank and other donors.

Brigit Namwalo has nothing to celebrate. As the world marked the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women on November 25, she sat in her house, dejected, nursing a wound inflicted by her husband of 12 years. "I have lived in this abusive marriage for the last eight years. I really want to move out, but I fear that I may not be able to take care of my children," the mother of four told IPS in Nairobi.

The Kenyan government has initiated debate on a Bill which seeks, among other things, to give refugees citizenship status in Kenya. The bill was moved by Minister in the Office of the Vice President and Home Affairs Linah Chebii Kilimo and was seconded by Foreign Affairs Assistant Minister Moses Wetangula. Wetangula said the Refugees Bill was long overdue as the most dehumanising thing in a person's life was to be violently uprooted.

IRIN is working to move beyond news reporting to include more in-depth analysis of important humanitarian issues. This is being done through the increased production of thematic/global stories, special reports, features and web specials. The Nairobi-based Focal Point for Information Analysis provides IRIN's regional desks in sub-Saharan Africa and Central Asia with the guidance, advice and materials needed to boost their output of analytical and feature-type reporting, and also contributes directly in researching and writing his/her own articles.

The International Monetary Fund has ended its three year freeze of Kenya by approving a $252,75 million loan. President Mwai Kibaki has immediately appealed to other donors to resume financial aid to his east African nation. The IMF suspended lending to Kenya in late 2000 due to concerns over corruption under former ruler Daniel arap Moi.

The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) warned last Thursday that a million vulnerable Kenyan children risk dropping out of school next year, due to an unprecedented funding cut in the agency's programme of providing free meals in schools.

A daily lunch of boiled maize and beans, is not much of a meal to some, but across sub-Saharan Africa, it has become a lifeline for millions of vulnerable children. At a cost of just about nine US cents per child, such meals have proved nutritious to about 1.1 million children in Kenyan schools, improving their health and concentration.

After years of being labelled as highly corrupt, Kenya has put a number of measures in place to curb graft. The government is hoping that this will attract foreign investors back to the East African country. "Kenya is now open for business," President Mwai Kibaki said this week.

The Kenya Human Rights Network (K-HURINET) and other civil society organisations have declared their strong opposition to the Suppression of Terrorism Bill which was published earlier in 2003. They have written to Kenya's legislators appealing to "all Members of Parliament who respect justice, who feel that Kenyans are entitled to the equal protection of the law and who feel that the rights of Kenyans are worth defending to strongly oppose the bill."