The lecturers strike bit harder as another university was closed, while some institutions refused to release the tutors' salaries. It was a rude shock for some lecturers yesterday (30 October 2006) who had gone to banks to withdraw their October pay, only to be turned away. Investigation by The East African Standard showed that at least three universities have not released the salaries. At Kenyatta University, which has 700 lecturers, only 100, who are also administrators, have been paid.

This journal published by AGenda, creates a space for discourse between generations. Feminists and activists of the 'older generation', the stalwarts of the women's rights movements, investigate the successes as well as the short-comings of the last two decades.

Kenya Community Based Health Financing Association was registered in 2002 under the Societies Act of Kenya. Currently the Association has nine member organizations and it seeks to participate in advancing access to quality and affordable health care through initiatives that are based on the values of justice, peace, good governance, human rights, gender equality and equity and sustainable human resource development.

Ethnic conflicts over land and the issue of absentee landlords, who control huge tracts of land, are some of the critical issues addressed by Kenya’s new National Land Policy document. Other key areas that the proposed land policy seeks to address are problems related to historical injustices over land tenure, the mushrooming of slums and other unplanned settlements.

An overflowing pit latrine empties its contents in a thick stream of worm-infested filth at the doorstep of Catherine Kithuku's home in Matopeni, a slum on the outskirts of the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. Less than ten such latrines serve a population of two to three thousand people in this area.

What Kenyans believed all along is now official. The Kenya government has admitted sinking over Ksh600 million ($8.2 million) into commissions of inquiry over the past three years, commissions whose findings never see the light of the day.

About 160km from its source on the northern slopes of Mount Kenya, the great River Ngiro was just ankle deep on Friday (20 October 2006) as nomadic farmers walked through waters that have become the focus of conflict. Kenya's second-largest river is a life-sustaining resource for these farmers, but it also sustains big business for flower farms supplying United Kingdom supermarkets.

Between 3,000 to 6,000 women in Kenya die of pregnancy related complications every year, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said. WHO Kenya representative, Dr Peter Eriki, said one in every 20 expectant women risked dying from pregnancy related conditions. Eriki put the number of total pregnancies in the country at 1.5 million every year.

The existing Aliens Restrictions Act and the Immigration Act are inadequate to deal with the changing dynamics of refugee situation, in line with international agreements that Kenya has signed. The Immigration Act was enacted to govern migration and deal with matters incidental to immigration. It provides for entry permits for refugees within the framework of the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention.

The Secretariat in Nairobi started the individual registration process on the event site (www.wsf2007.org) on Oct. 4th, 2006. The individual registration form is available in English, Spanish, and Kiswahili. The registration of activities will be available shortly. Nine thematic terrains have been defined to register activities online.

The 6th edition of the World Social Forum will bring together activists, social movements, networks, coalitions and other progressive forces from Asia-Pacific, Latin America, the Caribbean, North America, Europe and all corners of the African continent. They will converge in Nairobi, Kenya, for five days of cultural resistance and celebration; panels, workshops, symposia, processions, film nights and much, much more; beginning on the 20th of January and wrapping up on the 25th of January 2007.

For the first time, the World Social Forum will be taking place on the African continent, promising to bring together popular forces from a wide variety of constituencies from around the globe. It is time to spell out the broad principles that inform the WSF steady build up into a consistent continuum and powerful platform of social movements from around the globe - building constrictive alternatives as a challenge to neo-liberal globalization.

For Jane Muthoni Mara, the memories of her experiences during British rule in Kenya are still horribly vivid - even though they took place more than half a century ago. She recounts that women who supported the Mau Mau, a militant group opposed to colonial administration, were subjected to various forms of torture by African soldiers under the supervision of the mzungu (the Kiswahili word for "white man") - to force the women to disclose what they knew about Mau Mau activities.

Agenda Feminist Media

Hosted by African Woman and Child Services (AWC)

Invites You To The Launch Of Its Nairobi +21 journal

Guest Speakers: Wambui Kiai, Director, School Of Journalism, University of Nairobi

Thursday, 26 October 2006
9h00 - 11h00
Sarova Panafric Hotel

RSVP by 23 October, 2006: Ruth - [email][email protected]

The Germans know how to build cars. When the organisation I used to work for was getting a new office car, our choice - from the make to the colour - was primarily dictated by concerns about carjacking. A year later I was involved in a head-on collision, following which the car rolled. The car, a new Volkswagen Jetta, was written-off. But I, amazingly, emerged unscathed thanks to its airbag and seatbelt.

Victims of Kenya's independence war with Britain 50 years ago are to start proceedings to claim compensation from the British government. Veterans of the Mau Mau - who fought a guerrilla war with their colonial masters - are demanding an apology and an out-of-court financial settlement. Tens of thousands of Mau Mau fighters were killed or imprisoned in camps. "Many are in their 70s and 80s and would like to see reparations before they die," lawyer Martyn Day said. Mr Day added: "We recognise the pain, suffering and torment that these freedom fighters have gone through - many of them are still suffering from the after effects today.

Three political parties are engaged in a secret fight to have President Kibaki as their candidate in next year's General Election.The Democratic Party, of which the President is the official chairman, the National Rainbow Coalition (Narc) and government-leaning Narc Kenya want the President to state categorically the party on whose ticket he will seek re-election.

Four former Kenyan ministers should be prosecuted for their part in one of the country's biggest corruption scandals involving about $300-million, Kenya's anti-graft body said on Monday (October 2). It did not name names in the statement, which was issued amid mounting political pressure over the slow pace of investigations into the so-called Anglo Leasing affair, which involved state tenders awarded to fictitious firms.

IOM, in collaboration with Kenya’s Department of Immigration, has developed a manual on border procedures to help immigration officers, particularly in remote border stations, deal with procedural challenges in situations where they need to act promptly. IOM has also developed a manual on procedures for examining passports.

The Kenyan blogging community is one of the largest in Africa. 18 months ago the online community was created for Kenyans and friends of Kenya. It consists of a webring and an aggregator of all members’ blogs. Earlier this year the KU community held their first Kaybees Blog Awards under 13 categories.

One of the most innovative Kenyan sites is Mzalendo, set up to monitor and report on the activities of the Kenyan parliament. The site content includes Bills, Committees, Constituencies, Ministries, Motions, MPs, Political Parties, Provinces and Districts. The site is also a forum for discussion by Kenyans and in future could well form the basis of a platform for citizens to interrogate and call ministers to account for their actions.

The Kenyan Democracy Project is a blog that has just recently returned from a long hiatus. As well as some very good political commentary the site is full of interesting links on social justice and gender issues. This week KDP writes on “How the other Kenyan half subsists”. While discussions on corruption continue to be the mainstream focus, the concerns of Kenya’s marginalised groups go unnoticed.

“For instance over the last seven days, I have seen on Kenyan national television, countless stories featuring the demolition and eviction of hundreds of slum dwellers in the Embakasi neighbourhood of Nairobi. A couple of nights ago (Friday, September 22, 2006) I watched as a group of evictees, featuring a sixty something Akorino man, a forty something woman among others, complain bitterly how they were now rendered homeless despite the fact that they had spent up to 200,000 Kenya shillings (representing, in the case of the Akorino man, his entire life savings) on setting up and maintaining their structures only to be thwarted by the violent attacks instigated by a private developer...The sickening thing was that these vicious acts of inhuman vandalism were being supervised by uniformed members of the state employed and tax-payer bankrolled police force.”

Steve Ntwiga is an excellent resource for African music. Steve manages to dig out forgotten artists and music from the 60’s and 70’s as well as contemporary artists.

White African is the creator of the African Network project which is a “centralised web portal for information important to Africans, customized for their location, their tastes and their needs. It consists of: a vertical search engine, news portal and community site.”

The community site Zangu, as well as being online, hopes to enable access via mobile phone technology. White African also writes about the latest in “Web2” technology and how bloggers can use these to improve their blogs.

Soyapi Mumba's Blog is also a technology blog. Soyapi writes on technological developments in Malawi, East and Southern Africa. This week he reports that Mozambique may be in the picture to assemble Chinese computers.

"Indeed, it has been reported that negotiations are underway to build a plant to assemble Chinese computers in Mozambique...I haven't seen any report or news article about the negotiations. Have you? If it is true, this is good news for Mozambique and its neighbouring land-locked countries of southern Africa like Malawi, which is almost surrounded by Mozambique.”

Bankelele like the name suggests, is a blog on banking, finance and business news in Kenya. Bankelele,along with Kenyan Pundit, is also behind the Kenyan parliamentary blog mentioned earlier, Mzalendo. Bankelele also has a weekly job spot where he posts the latest job opportunities in the sectors he covers.

Finally Mental Acrobatics is a general blog by a Kenyan man who has just recently left rainy Manchester for sunny Nairobi. This week he comments on the state of Kenya’s breakfast radio which he says should be “safe” for children but instead is crazy and in fact pornographic.

“Take this example from last week. A lady wrote into a station asking for advice as a foreign man she had met on the internet had just sent her a plane ticket to go visit him. For the next half hour we were subjected to a discussion on penis size and which countries you should travel to for some good loving. A few days later another show was discussing a couple who had not had sex for 6 months and what sex advice we could collectively give to get them at it like rabbits again. Now these are all valid topics for discussion I agree, but I am just not sure why these discussions are taking place when the nation is having its morning uji [porridge consumed for breakfast in Kenya].”

* Sokari Ekine produces the blog Black Looks, www.blacklooks.org

* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org