The US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) has pledged US$2.7 billion over the next five years to advance HIV programmes in Kenya - a 112 percent increase.

Pastoralists in parts of the semi-arid eastern region of Isiolo are abandoning their nomadic lifestyles in favour of farming to improve their food security and livelihoods. Successive droughts in arid and semi-arid parts of Kenya have led to livestock deaths, affected pastoralist nutrition and, in places, led to pastoralist drop-outs.

Just a few hundred kilometres north of the glittering skyscrapers of Nairobi and game parks that attract tourists from across the world, a common greeting when strangers meet is, “Habari ya Kenya?” – What news from Kenya? For although districts such as Moyale, Marsabit, Samburu and Wajir are in the same republic as Nairobi, their residents are resigned to living in what amounts to another country.

Dulane Jama and his family suffered in silence for three years in a remote corner of eastern Ethiopia before he finally decided to go and look for a safe place to live before they all died. After an arduous and dangerous trek across Somalia, he ended up about four months ago at Dadaab, a sprawling and overcrowded refugee complex in north-east Kenya housing almost 300,000 refugees. Most are Somalis who have fled conflict or persecution in their troubled homeland.

Three experts from The Hague are in Kenya to hear the views of victims of post-election violence on how they would like those responsible for the chaos punished. Their arrival signals that the court is firmly focused on Kenya although the judges took a break for the annual Judicial Winter recess last Friday. The recess ends on January 4. Right, post-election violence in Naivasha.

Kenya is seeking the services of leading mobile phone companies in an ambitious campaign to market the East African Community Common Market. In an Obama-inspired campaign -- where ICT played a major role in galvanising public support -- the country plans to educate all the 17 million Kenyans who own mobile phones on how they stand to benefit from the Common Market, whose protocol was signed a month ago.

United Nations humanitarian agencies are providing emergency supplies and other forms of assistance to Kenyan Government officials as they respond to an outbreak of cholera in the northwest of the country that has left at least 26 people dead.

Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki has ordered a probe into the disappearance of millions of shillings meant to finance the free primary school initiative, which attracted over seven million children previously locked out of school.

Kenya's main political groupings, the Party of National Unity (PNU) and the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) continued to wrangle over the constitutional powers to be given to future President and Prime Ministers of the republic.

Kenya's assistant Minister for Trade Omingo Magara, who is a top leader of the ruling Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), lost his parliamentary seat this week after a petition against his 2007 parliamentary victory succeeded, following months of trial.

Corruption in Kenya has been a challenge since colonial times and the enthusiasm to fight it seems to be diminishing if Kenya’s poor score on the 2009 TI Corruption Perception Index is anything to go by. Kenya now ranks with Zimbabwe and Sierra Leone and well below Nigeria. This publication is an extract form a forthcoming report which reviews the effectiveness of the KACC after five years of it existence. (AFRICOG)

Every December, the village of Kangete, in eastern Kenya's Nyambene District, gears up for yet another season of festivities - not Christmas, however, but the initiation of hundreds of young men into manhood through circumcision

An initiative by a mobile phone manufacturer, Samsung, and three non-governmental organisations to train youth from poor backgrounds in Nairobi in ICT and entrepreneurship is beginning to bear fruits.

In this week's emerging powers watch, Stephen Marks reports back on the proceedings of Fahamu's two-day CSO FOCAC workshop in Nairobi on 26 and 27 November, 2009.

Multimedia company, Wananchi Group, moved to slash the cost of its internet offering by half, saying it was keen to cash in on its investment in fibre optic technology as it passed on savings to its customers.

In its endeavor to bring to the fore, health needs of lesbians and gays, as a group that is also affected by HIV and AIDS, Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Kenya (GALCK) organized a march on World Aids Day, themed Universal Access and Human Rights.

Kenyan farmers are concerned about climate change as they see crop production decrease because of rising temperatures, unreliable rainfall, soil erosion and drought.

COPA will for the period 15th to 25th February 2010 hold 10 day peace building training in Nairobi for peace and development practitioners from from Sudan, Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda. The training is ideal for persons wishing to build their skills in different thematic areas related to peace matters.

In his Kenya diary, Guardian journalist Xan Rice reports on how a decision by the prosecutor of the international criminal court, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, to investigate the 2008 post-election violence in Kenya threatens the corrupt elite.

Construction is cleared to begin on the SIDAREC-Mukuru Kwa Njenga Center, giving the expectant community a powerful tool to end the cycle of poverty. The community center, designed for Slums Information Development Resource Center (SIDAREC) and the needs of Nairobi youth, will give Mukuru residents access to the Internet, computer and technology training, health clinic services, early childhood development programs, and a community theater.