What the New Partnership for African Development (Nepad) and the African Growth and Opportunities Act (Agoa) have in common is that they both seem to hold a promise of prosperity for the world's poorest continent. At the same time, they are fundamentally different. Most significantly, Agoa has started bearing fruit while Nepad seems doomed to fail.

President Moi has denied charges that Kanu planned to rig the coming General Election. The President said that the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK), which organises and conducts the polls, was not under the control of the governing party.

What are the fundamental needs for development fieldwork? Of course there are technical skills, experience and organisation. But to surpass the status quo of fieldwork, to achieve real impact, it is also crucial to be innovative, flexible, interactive and collaborative. To be willing to break some of the old conventions and think "out of the box." This is according to the organisation CARE, who are showcasing their community based water and sanitation projects in Western Kenya.

President Daniel arap Moi's maneuverings ahead of December 27 elections could be taking place with the tacit approval of the Bush administration. A Washington Post report emphasised the importance of Kenya within the Horn of Africa region and its strategic importance in the US government’s planned war against Iraq. “The future of this East African nation has become increasingly important to the United States because Kenya is a relatively stable American ally in a neighbourhood that includes the warring nations of Sudan, Somalia, Rwanda and Congo. It may also be crucial if the United States decides to attack Iraq. Under agreements with the United States, Kenya could lend its Indian ocean bases,” the Post states.

Malaria prevention using insecticide-treated bednets (ITNs) can increase child survival, reduce illness among pregnant women and improve birth outcomes. But what is the best way to deliver ITNs to those at risk? Researchers from the Kenya Medical Research Institute, UNICEF and the Kenyan Ministry of Health assessed the success of a scheme to distribute free ITNs to pregnant women.

The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), in the framework of their joint programme, the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, would like to express their deepest concern regarding the break-in of the offices of the "HUREDICA Violence Victims Organisation" NGO that occurred in Nakuru, on 26th of October 2002. According to the information received from the Kenyan Human Rights Commission, five Criminal Investigation Department (CID) officers raided the offices of "HUREDICA Violence Victims Organisation," alleging that the premises were being used to print counterfeit Kenyan currency. No evidence was later found related to this allegation. The officers confiscated documents and files containing crucial evidence on the ethnic violence reported by the organization.

The Kenyan authorities and relief organisations have launched an emergency programme to assist thousands of people who have been displaced by severe flooding in the eastern part of the country. A senior official at the UN Disaster Prevention, Management and Coordination Unit for Kenya told IRIN on Thursday that the floods had killed at least five people and displaced some 3,000 people in the Madogo division of Tana River district.

This 119-page report, entitled Playing with Fire: Weapons Proliferation, Political Violence, and Human Rights in Kenya, documents the dangerous nexus between arms availability and ethnic attacks in Kenya. The report highlights politically instigated armed violence on Kenya's coast during the last general election cycle, in 1997. Human Rights Watch describes in detail the armed political violence in Kenya's Coast Province in mid-1997 and the role of ruling-party officials in stoking the violence. A quasi-military force of well-organized and well-armed attackers carried out brutal attacks on civilians from other ethnic groups in areas around Mombasa, Coast Province.

When the cassava mosaic disease hit the western Kenyan region in 1995 it wiped out one of the most important food crops in Jane Achieng's family. Africa's most friendly crop was on its way out. Like many other households in Kenya's Bondo district, whose food security relied on cassava, Achieng had to look elsewhere for survival. "It was a blow to us", she now says. Getting the Cassava back to farms in Western Kenya and restoring food security in the region is the new challenge facing extension officers in the region - more so when the mosaic resistant varieties are few.

"To root out Moism, we have to intensify our political work under and above ground. We have to forge the broadest possible unity to show that the problem in Kenya is not Kalenjin, or Gikuyu or Luo or Somali or Kamba. It is the dictatorship and the politics of greed which are the real enemy of us Kenyans. Moi and KANU must go, but more importantly, Moism as a neo-colonial system must be uprooted from our midst," writes Mukoma Ngugi in this commentary for www.zmag.org.

Outgoing Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi on Friday dissolved the country's parliament, effectively signalling his plans to call general elections before the end of the year. The elections will mark the end of Moi's 24 year rule.

Merlin has been operational in Kenya since 1998 and maintains a Regional Office in Nairobi, which currently supports Merlin's programmes in Kenya and in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Merlin plans on expanding its present programme portfolio and further developing the role of the Regional Office in Nairobi.

Police paid two boys Sh300 to implicate a suspect with the murder of Kilome MP Tony Ndilinge, one of the boys has confessed.

An independent commission has called for the return to their homes of thousands of people displaced by violent clashes around the time of Kenya's last two general elections, in 1992 and 1997.

The International Women's Tribune Centre (IWTC), working in partnership with the International Development Research/Eastern and Southern Africa Office (IDRC/Nairobi), has developed a new information tool that offers direct access to information for women who are among the most marginalized in development --poor women with little or no reading ability. The starting place for this initiative is Africa and the starting point is a CD-ROM Rural Women in Africa: Ideas for Earning Money.

Kenya's estimated 240,000 public school teachers at the weekend called off their nationwide strike, much to the relief of the country’s education sector, which had been plunged into crisis for four weeks.

Refugees from Kakuma and Daadab refuge camps are being registered as voters contrary to the law, Parliament has been told.

Kenya's opposition alliance have named a 71-year old former vice president as their candidate for presidential elections expected in December. Mwai Kibaki, the official leader of the opposition in parliament, will be the candidate for an alliance of more than 12 parties known as the National Rainbow Coalition (Narc).

As the cotton industry limps back to life in Kenya, experts are warning that only a concerted effort by all stakeholders would see farmers reap benefits once again and help sustain the industry. Ever since the industry hit the ground and many ginneries closed shop in the western Kenyan cotton belt of Nyanza, farmers who had lost hope are slowly streaming back.

When Marita Barassa's husband died in 1990, she knew he had died of an AIDS-related illness. She also knew she was HIV-positive herself. So when his family announced that a cousin would inherit her as his wife, she realised she had to make a choice.