Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki has announced a new cabinet line-up, including several leading opposition politicians. Mr Kibaki made the announcement in a previously unscheduled TV address. The new cabinet includes two prominent members of the main opposition Kanu party and the leader of the smaller Ford-People party.

Kenya is to develop a national strategy for both promoting and regulating the use of traditional medicine, and providing alternative forms of treatment to the country's poor. The new arrangement will boost research into the use of both traditional knowledge and modern medicines to curb major diseases such as HIV/AIDS and malaria.

Some 5,000 nurses will be hired next month to ease an acute shortage in public hospitals, an assistant minister has said. Recruitment would be conducted at the constituency and district levels to improve local medical services, said Mr Gideon Konchella of the Health ministry.

Kenya's war on Aids has suffered a major setback after the World Bank withheld crucial funding. The decision not to release Sh1.7 billion has crippled the National Aids Control Council, the organisation charged with coordinating a national response to the epidemic. The bank says it will not release the money until it gets an audit report for the past financial year that will take months to prepare.

Pulp and paper production in Kenya is presently dominated by one firm, Pan African Paper Mills (Panpaper), which is a joint venture between the Kenyan Government, the World Bank's private investment arm International Finance Corporation (IFC), and Orient Paper Mills, part of the Birhla group from India. The pulp mill was established in 1974 and is based in Webuye town, with a population of some 60,000 people, on the banks of the Nzoia River which drains into Lake Victoria. From the start, despite the potential environmental impacts concerning plantation establishment, liquid effluents, air emissions, sludge and solid waste disposal, the project did not benefit from a full environmental assessment.

Corporate sectors worldwide have been in denial of their obligation to ensure that human rights are upheld within their company, argues Steve Ouma, Deputy Executive Director of the Kenya Human Rights Commission. "Until recently, the Government had been given full responsibility for building an environment conducive to ensuring non-punitive laws absolving investors from responsibility. At the same time, the Government was supporting their business. This lack of accountability was fuelled by the non-profit sector's narrow interpretation of their obligation to protect and promote human rights. Human rights activists, theoreticians, and practitioners left it to the state to ensure a human rights order from within itself and the non-state actors within its sphere."

A teenage bride has escaped from the home of a Mandera businessman whom she accused of torturing her. The 15-year-old girl, who had been forcefully married to the 60-year-old businessman, made her dramatic escape and appealed to the government and human rights organisations to rescue her from the forced marriage.

A businessman at the centre of an inquiry into Kenya’s biggest financial scandal has claimed that former President Daniel arap Moi made him buy a bank to cover the trail of Moi’s millions of pounds stashed abroad. Pattni’s testimony to an inquiry further implicates Moi in a corruption scandal that cost the cash-strapped East African nation hundreds of millions of pounds at a time when the economy was spiralling toward recession, largely because of government mismanagement.

Despite its oft-stated commitment to the fight against corruption, the Kibaki administration has been rocked by scandals in which Sh20 billion of tax money was at risk of being misused. None of the culprits in the scandals have been dealt with and the feeling across the country is that someone in very high levels of Government is protecting them. And amid this, President Kibaki has been accused of doing little, save for the occasional public pronouncement on zero tolerance to corruption.

Isnino Shuriye grew up in the northeastern Kenyan District of Garissa believing that circumcision of women was an important aspect of her culture. As an adult, she learnt how to circumcise girls and spent many years practising her trade. Two years ago, however, she got "converted". That was when she turned into an anti-FGM [female genital mutilation] activist and started sending away women who come to her to have their daughters circumcised.

Out of every hundred births, seven newborn babies do not survive the first week of life in Africa. In developed countries only 1% of babies die during this period. The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, together with the Kenya Medical Research Institute, studied the maternity ward of a rural Kenyan hospital to find the causes of perinatal mortality, that is, stillbirth or death in the first week of life.

Increases in production and incomes, the development of contract-farming arrangements with smallholders, and attention to market dynamics, including a lack of recurrent subsidies, have positively impacted on the Kenyan horticulture export situation, according to a paper from the International Food Policy Research Institute. The brief examines some of the factors that have contributed to the over six percent growth in Kenyan horticulture exports over the last 30 years. The article highlights specific elements of Kenya's horticultural export market that have led to its success and specifies more general characteristics that could be applied to other markets seeking further improvement.

The Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Kenya (ICPAK) has accused the Narc Government of blackmailing citizens under the pretext of the war on corruption. Addressing the society's 20th annual seminar, Ms Rose Ogega, the ICPAK chairman, told Ethics and Governance Permanent Secretary John Githongo and Constitutional Affairs minister Kiraitu Murungi to stop cheating the Kenyans that they are combating corruption in Government.

In its advocacy for worker’s rights, the Kenya Human Rights Commission’s research into Women Working in Precarious Conditions in Export Processing Zones confirms the negative effects the conduct and actions of these key non-state actors have on human rights hence justifying the need for monitoring by civil society in this new world order, where private corporations exercise inordinate influence over local laws and policies. A new publication from the Kenyan Human Rights Commission, Manufacture of Poverty, focuses on this issue.

"My marriage to a black African man, who is part Kenyan and part Malawian, stirred a variety of reactions, ranging from curiosity and admiration to disdain and downright hostility. I must admit that I am still surprised at the level of support I received from some members of my immediate family. There are no 'pluses' for marrying an African, at least in the eyes of the Asian community in Kenya."

As the clock ticks closer to the deadline for introducing a new constitution in Kenya, Atsango Chesoni – for one – is filled with anticipation at the coming change. The women’s rights activist and official at Bomas Katiba Watch says the country’s existing constitution discriminates against women, especially on the issue of property rights – and that change in this matter is long overdue. ("Katiba" is the Swahili word for constitution, while Bomas refers to the venue on the outskirts of the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, where constitutional negotiations took place.)

“The contributions that older persons continue to make towards development, sustenance of their nation and the care role they give in the face of the HIV/AIDS pandemic can no longer be ignored,” Ambassador Nancy Kirui, from the Ministry of Gender, Sports, Culture and Social Services said in a speech read on her behalf by Deputy Permanent Secretary Mr M. C. Gitari. Mr Gitari was opening a workshop organised by HelpAge International and HelpAge Kenya to look into older people’s involvement with governments and civil society in the enactment and implementation of effective policies and programmes of demonstrable benefit in their lives.

A total of Sh234 billion has already been traced by a firm contracted by the Government to track down loot stashed abroad by key figures in the previous Government. Justice and Constitutional Affairs minister Kiraitu Murungi shocked MPs when he said that of the amount, Sh78 billion belonged to just three individuals.

The UK wants the Kenyan government to speed up reforms and has warned the governing National Rainbow Coalition (Narc) that its honeymoon is running out. Among the reforms that a Select Committee of the UK's House of Commons (Parliament) wants implemented urgently are the retrenchment of parastatal staff, speeding up of the fight against corruption and a solution to problems dogging the free education plan.

Kenya recently held a national ICT convention aimed at bringing together a wide group of stakeholders to discuss Kenya's information and communications technology (ICT) policy and most importantly work towards an implementation strategy. The convention was organised by the Kenya ICT Federation (KIF), a body incorporating many private sector organisations involved in the sector such the Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA) and the Kenya ICT Board that was recently formed to try and incorporate all the main actors including civil society organisations.