Tanzania’s new suite of Internet regulations includes a $930 annual fee for anyone who runs a blog, coupled with extensive registration paperwork that includes a bizarre amount of financial information about the applicant, comparable to the business plan that would be submitted to secure a commercial loan from a bank.
Contents: Ethiopia chooses Oromo leader, Abiy Ahmed, hoping to reduce violence; Kenya’s government vs the judiciary — tensions mount over farcical deportation spectacle
The Cambridge Analytica employee who revealed the company’s alleged Facebook data mining has stated that he believes his predecessor may have been poisoned.
Contents: Massive earth fissure suddenly opens up in mid-Kenya, signaling an eventual split in all of Africa; How China would lose a war with the United States; ISIS-linked terrorists in Afghanistan kill 32 in bombing of Shia Shrine in Kabul
Medical organizations in Kenya condemned a government plan Monday to import doctors from Cuba to address the nation’s vast shortage of medical professionals, citing that more than one thousand ready-to-work Kenyan doctors are still unemployed in the country.
Contents: Thousands of Ethiopian Oromos flee into Kenya, threatening regional stability; Fears grow that Ethiopia’s ethnic clashes will destabilize the region
Contents: Kenya’s bitter rivals, Kenyatta and Odinga, become ‘brothers’ as Tillerson arrives; The Donald Trump – Kim Jong-un meeting hinges on a decision that Kim has already made
China’s Communist Party has spent years promoting the value its “One Belt, One Road” infrastructure project could have for Africa. As the Trump administration ramps up its campaign to turn Africa away from China, some columnists throughout the continent appear to be listening.
The State Department’s top official on Africa told reporters on Monday that Washington is growing concerned with China’s presence on the continent, particularly the “high rates of indebtedness” incurred by African countries accepting concessionary loans from Beijing.
Three Kenyan television stations remain off the air for defying government warnings not to cover the mock inauguration of opposition leader Raila Odinga last Tuesday, in defiance of a court order issued on Thursday.
Contents: Kenya cracks down on political opposition after mock inauguration; Fears grow of repeat of 2008 post-election violence
The messy state of Kenyan electoral politics took another turn for the worse on Tuesday as opposition leader Raila Odinga declared himself “The People’s President” and held a mock inauguration ceremony in a Nairobi park.
Although failing to match up to the dizzy heights of a U.S. presidential election year, 2017 has been another eventful year for world politics.
Contents: Severe drought in Kenya increases violence among herders, farmers and police; Tensions rise between Kenya and Tanzania over chicks and cattle
Contents: Violence in Nigeria grows over clashes between herders and farmers; Oklahoma! – The farmer and the cowboy should be friends
Contents: Pneumonic plague (Black plague) spreads rapidly in Madagascar; Kenya increase border security from Madagascar because of plague epidemic
Contents: Russia’s ‘telephone terror’ forces evacuation of over 200,000 people; Kenya’s government in chaos as it faces a new election delay
Al-Shabaab, an al-Qaeda (AQ) affiliate based in Somalia, has claimed responsibility for dressing in local military attire and decapitating up to five Christians in Kenya, where more than 80 percent of the population adheres to the Christian faith.
Contents: Floods in South Asia kill 1,400 people in four countries; Kenya’s president Kenyatta lashes out as Supreme Court judges as ‘crooks’; Burmese Buddhist attacks on Muslim Rohingyas in Myanmar becoming full-scale genocide
Contents: Kenya’s Supreme Court issues ‘historic’ ruling, overturning presidential election; John Kerry and other election observers come under harsh criticism
Contents: Kenya’s election commission announces that Uhuru Kenyatta is reelected president; Kenya’s opposition leader Raila Odinga promises to ‘remove’ the Uhuru Kenyatta government
Contents: Six Red Cross workers and 30 civilians killed in Central African Republic massacre; UN Human Rights chief warns of ‘genocide’ and ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Central African Republic
The contentious Kenyan presidential election appears to have returned President Uhuru Kenyatta to office with a ten- or eleven-point win over his main rival, Raila Odinga. However, Odinga claimed Wednesday that the official results are “fictitious” and a fair count of the votes would show him as the winner.
Contents: Torture and murder of election official raise fears of violence in Kenya; Widespread fears in Kenya of a repeat of the 2008 tribal violence
A vice-presidential candidate in next month’s election in Kenya ended up debating himself after his opponents failed to turn up for the televised event.
Israel took nine visiting UN ambassadors on a tour of the City of David archaeological park in Jerusalem on Sunday in a bid to highlight the Jewish heritage of the holy city following a spate of UN resolutions denying that historic link.
Nairobi Archbishop Cardinal John Njue has chastised Kenyan men, saying they are getting in the way of their daughters marrying by demanding unreasonable dowries from their would-be sons-in-law.
As Israeli Ambassador Yahel Vilan ends his two-year posting, Kenya is suffering from drought and food insecurity and has been forced to import food.
Contents: Kenya launches new China-built railway from Mombasa port to Nairobi; China accused of a policy of ‘debt trap diplomacy’ in infrastructure projects
A House government oversight committee is requesting the Air Force turn over documents related to a U.S. government weapons sale to Kenya pushed through on President Obama’s last day in office.
Immigration officials deported a second round of Somali illegal immigrants who had been living in the U.S. along with a few Kenyan foreign nationals.
Contents: Kenya’s herders attack well-known conservationist, stoking tribal tensions; Battle between Kenya’s farmers and herders morphs into tribal conflict
Contents: US sends dozens of troops to Somalia, first time since Black Hawk Down; Somalia’s civil war and the Black Hawk Down incident
Contents: Herders invade ranches in Kenya, ambush and kill British ranch owner; The ranchers (farmers) versus the pastoralists (herders)
A giant defense firm may be passing off another company’s equipment as its own, which could have played a role in a potentially corrupt U.S. arms sale to Kenya that the State Department approved on the Obama administration’s last day in office.
Contents: Central African Republic war morphs from religious to ethnic war; United Nations peacekeeping force MINUSCA uses airstrikes to stop bloodbath in Bambari
A group of lawmakers is planning to request a congressional investigation of a $418 million U.S. weapons sale to Kenya approved by the Obama administration on its last day in office.
On Thursday, Kenya’s High Court blocked a government directive to close the Dadaab refugee camp, in operation since 1991 and considered the largest refugee camp in the world. The government wants to close the camp because it says the Somalia-based terrorist organization al-Shabaab has been using it as a base.
Contents: Kenya’s High Court blocks attempt to close Dadaab refugee camp; Closure of Dadaab demanded after 2015 Garissa University attack in Kenya
The BBC reports that “hundreds of Kenyan girls are preparing to spend Christmas in schools, rather than with their families, fearing that their parents will force them to undergo female genital mutilation (FGM).”
