The Kenyan Community Abroad will be holding its fifth Annual Conference and AGM in Nairobi from December 14th to 18th. This will be the first time that the Kenyan Diaspora is holding an event of this magnitude and pomp in Kenya. The event, dubbed the KCA homecoming 2004 will be held at the historic Kenyatta International Conference Centre in Nairobi. Being a first of its kind, the forum brings together 400 high caliber Kenyans from across the globe. Kenyan's abroad are ready to show what they are capable of and where they can add value.

The third edition of "Kenya - The Top 100 People" looks at the power handover to current President Mwai Kibaki, through exclusive biographies on the former and current President and other influential people who currently hold the true keys to power. This book reveals the personalities of the new president's inner circle of power, the young members of civil society who joined the new government, rising Kikuyu businessmen, the new heads of State companies and the regime's new security bosses. In addition to government officials, The Top 100 People discloses who are the men and women who really count in Kenya.

Kenya's war on graft came under the spotlight yesterday at a meeting of anti-corruption experts, with President Kibaki asking to be judged fairly. Saying he was personally in charge of the war on graft, the President said he had not wavered and would live true to his promise of zero-tolerance to corruption. But he pleaded for more time, explaining that fighting corruption was not simple. Soon after the President left, anti-corruption experts made a strong case for the immediate sacking of Cabinet ministers and top government officials implicated in corruption.

A group of Kenyans are making a case for a new publication which can focus on the political, economic and social struggle in Kenya from a different ideological perspective. At the moment, the mainstream print media is dominated by the Daily Nation, The Standard and Kenya Times, three major publications which, according to the Mapambano working group, although very informative in news and analysis, are publications that project a one-sided ideological point of view.

Kenya will soon be declared a polio free zone. Minister for Health Charity Ngilu says this follows the formulation of a taskforce on polio-virus laboratory containment. The Polio Taskforce would be charged with the responsibility of preparing the country for polio free certification and is also expected to provide a systematic national plan of action to minimize the risk of reintroduction of wild polioviruses from the laboratory.

A Kenyan woman with HIV has won the first round of a landmark court case claiming discrimination by her former employer. The waitress was sacked by her bosses at Home Park Caterers in Nairobi because, they discovered she had the virus that leads to AIDS from a hospital doctor who told them the results of the HIV test, which had been conducted without her consent, thus violating her right to privacy. In an 18-page ruling announced yesterday, High Court judge Lady Justice Murugi Mugo said the case was sufficiently reasonable to be heard and should go ahead.

Brick-making, an important economic activity in the highlands of western Kenya, may be the cause of recent malaria epidemics in the area, where the disease was not naturally endemic, a recent study has shown. The study showed that brick-making generated dry season habitats for malaria vectors in western Kenya. The research findings were published by the BMC Public Health, an online journal that carries research articles. It is available at: www.biomedcentral.com/bmcpublichealth/.

Anti-corruption police yesterday questioned former permanent secretary and Public Service chief Sally Kosgey over the Sh7 billion Anglo Leasing and Finance scandal. Anti-corruption police have flown to Switzerland to hunt down three men linked to the scandal. Two KACC detectives will travel also to Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands and the US for further investigations.

British Royal Military Police Special Investigations Branch and Kenyan police have been looking into 650 allegations by hundreds of Samburu and Masai women that they were raped, dating from the 1980s and 90s . The body of Mantoi Kaunda, who was 16 when she was allegedly raped and killed by British soldiers, has been exhumed by forensic experts for further investigation.

Kenya's human rights commissioner Tirop Kitru has criticised conditions at Meru jail, where seven prisoners have died. After a tour of the prison, Kitur said many of the inmates had open wounds because of the cramped conditions and poor ventilation. Prison officials say the prisoners who died suffocated in a cell the size of a single bed. Another 28 inmates are in hospital in a critical condition.

Kenya is pushing for an international ban on trade in lion trophies and skins, arguing that the number of the animals has declined sharply over the years as a result of hunting, loss of habitat and lack of prey. Kenya will press world governments to give the African lion maximum protection under an international treaty governing trade in endangered or threatened plants and animals.

Google search engine already supports more than 104 languages or dialects while offering a personalized version of its engine for over 90 countries and it has just added one more country to that list. Google-Kenya available in English and Kiswahili with a Kenya-specific search function is now available at www.google.co.ke

Britain on Friday renewed corruption charges against Kenya, saying the drive to fight endemic graft in the east African country was "evidently flawed" and devoid of "political will". British High Commissioner Edward Clay however commended Nairobi for setting up the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission (KACA) and other bodies charged with probing incidents of graft.

Reporters sans frontières (RSF) has condemned a 24 September 2004 attack on two alternative newspapers, the "Weekly Citizen" and "The Independent", in Nairobi. The newspapers were attacked by a gang of masked gunmen claiming to be police officers who ransacked the papers' offices, confiscated material and threatened staff.

This week, teachers in Kenya vowed to resist by all means any attempt to re-negotiate the contentious 1997 salary award. Kenya National Union of Teachers told the World Bank to keep off the internal affairs of Kenya after the World Bank proposed a number of austerity measures that could be taken to contain ministries that are spending more than their allocations from Treasury.

The Witness Protection Bill 2004 empowers the Attorney-General to provide a new identity, relocate, provide accommodation, transport and a "reasonable financial assistance" to witnesses who testify in graft and terrorism inquiries. If passed by Parliament, the law would usher criminal investigation and prosecution into a new era of public support widely cultivated in developed nations.

While the Kenyan government was hosting an international conference on female genital mutilation (FGM) in Nairobi between 16-18 September, two Kenyan sisters mutilated two weeks before were calling for justice in their case. Santeyian and Dorcas Keiwua, 16 and 14 years old, respectively, were cut on August 28, 2004 in their home in Orkiriaine at Lolonga Division of Narok District.

About 20,000 Ogiek live in the Mau Forest in Kenya's Rift Valley province, and also in Mount Elgon Forest in the western part of the country. Authorities sought to remove the Ogiek from their ancestral lands, on the grounds that the community was responsible for environmental degradation. Many viewed this as an attempt to provide land to members of the neighbouring Nandi community in a bid to gain support for government.

An international conference to press for the eradication of female genital mutilation in Africa and around the world took place in Kenya from 16-18 September. A testimony from a thirteen-year-old Kenyan girl was especially shocking as she described what it is like to be forcibly circumcised at the age of 11 to ambassadors, activists, health workers, policy-makers and other guests.

The killing remains vivid in their minds. And the deep scars on their bodies will for a long time remind them of the slaughter of their compatriots at a refugee camp in the tiny central African nation of Burundi. These are the survivors of the Aug. 13 massacre at Gatumba refugee camp, about 20 kilometres from Bujumbura, the capital of Burundi.