Man shot dead after stabbing guard at US Embassy in Kenya
Kenyan security forces stand next to the body of a man who was killed outside the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya Thursday, Oct. 27, 2016. A Kenyan police official said the man was shot dead after stabbing a policeman guarding the perimeter wall of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi. (Associated Press)
NAIROBI, Kenya — A man was shot dead after stabbing a policeman guarding the perimeter wall of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi and trying to take his gun, a Kenyan police official said Thursday.
The policeman who had been stabbed opened fire in self-defense and killed the attacker, said Vitalis Otieno, the officer in charge of the Gigiri area that hosts several embassies and the U.N’s African headquarters.
“He fired first and shot the person and the person died on the spot,” Otieno said.
The identity of the attacker, a Kenyan from the volatile region of Wajir near Somalia, is known to police, Otieno said.
Federal Bureau of Investigation personnel were seen collecting evidence at the scene of the shooting.
The U.S. Embassy confirmed there was a shooting and said no embassy personnel were involved.
Wajir county has been cited by Kenyan authorities as a hot spot for recruitment by the Islamic extremist group al-Shabab from neighboring Somalia.
Al-Shabab has vowed retribution on Kenya for sending troops to Somalia to fight the militants. The group has carried out a wave of attacks in Kenya that have left hundreds dead.
The extremist group claimed responsibility for an attack Tuesday in Mandera county that killed 12 people, saying its fighters were targeting Christians.
Al-Shabab is al-Qaida’s affiliate in the region, and it hosted Fazul Abdallah Mohammed, who was accused of masterminding the U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 that killed over 200 people. Mohammed was shot dead by Somali troops in 2011.
Recently, Kenya has been battling the recruitment of youth by the Islamic State group, which is al-Qaida’s rival. Kenyan police have linked three women who were killed after they allegedly attacked a police station in Mombasa to the Islamic State.
‘Heinous killing’ of Kenyan lawyer Willie Kimani must be investigated say human rights groups
Human-rights lawyer Willie Kimani was last seen on 23 June. His boday, along those of his client and taxi driver, were found on 30 June in a river 73km northeast of NairobiInternational Justice Mission
Bodies of lawyer Willie Kimani, his client, and their driver found prior to police trial.
More than 30 Kenyan and international human-rights organisations are urging Kenyan authorities to investigate the “shocking abduction, enforced disappearance and extrajudicial killings” of a human rights lawyer, his client and a taxi driver.
Later on 4 July, human rights activists will hold demonstrations in Nairobi and other parts of Kenya to protest whatHuman Rights Watch(HRW) called “heinous killings.”
Thebodies of lawyer Willie Kimani, his client Josphat Mwenda, and their taxi driver Joseph Muiruri, were recovered from Ol-Donyo Sabuk River in Machakos County, 73km north-east of Nairobi, on 30 June, aweek after the three went missing.Several organisations have suggested they werevictims of enforced disappearance.
Before the bodies were discovered, 34 Kenyan and international human rights organisations claimed the three men were allegedly abducted by the Administration Police (AP) as they left a court in Machakos County, outside of the capital Nairobi, last week.
A lawyer working with the International Justice Mission (IJM) said Kimani had been representing Mwenda in a case stemming from 10 April 2015 – in an incident where an officer from Syokimau AP Camp shot him during a traffic stop.
Three police officers suspected to be behind killing of lawyer and 2 others were arraigned in court.
Initial reports suggest that Administration Police officers, one of whom Mwenda was defending himself against in court that day, may have abducted them.
On 2 July, Inspector-General of Police Joseph Boinett confirmed three AP officers attached to the Syokimau AP Camp – Frederick Leliman, Stephen Chebulet and Sylvia Wanjiku – were being held over offences relating to the killings. They appeared in court on Monday (4 July).
Killings are threat to rule of law in Kenya
Rights activists have urged Kenyan agencies, such as civilian body the Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA), and the police,to find those responsible for the killings and hold them to account in fair trials.
They warned the crimes “should be cause for alarm over the state of human rights and rule of law in Kenya”. Activists also reminded Kenya’s international partners, such as Sweden, United Kingdom and the US, that those providing financial support to Kenyan police units implicated in extrajudicial killings shouldinsist on accountability for violationscommitted.
“A transparent process of investigating and prosecuting those responsible is what is now needed, to reassure shocked Kenyans of their safety and restore their faith in the national police,” said Kamau Ngugi, National Coordinator at Kenya’s National Coalition of Human Rights Defenders. “That a lawyer working for an international organisation and his client could be abducted and disappeared in broad daylight only to be found dead is a matter that cannot be taken lightly.”
The call for prompt, independent, impartial and effective investigation was echoed by Muthoni Wanyeki, Amnesty International’s Regional Director for East Africa, the Horn and the Great Lakes, who said theextrajudicial killings “are a chilling reminder that the hard-won right to seek justice for human rights violations is under renewed attack.”
Henry Maina, regional director at rights organisation Article 19, Eastern Africa, meanwhile, insistedPresident Jomo Kenyatta must take decisive steps to assure Kenyans and the international community that the government is serious about addressing police killings.
Activists will hold demonstrations today (4 July) in Nairobi and other parts of Kenya to protest against the killings.
Kenya Says It Will Shut Down The World’s Largest Refugee Camp
A refugee stands with her son just outside a fenced perimeter at the sprawling Dadaab refugee camp in May 2015.
Kenya says it plans to shut down two refugee camps, including the world’s largest, due to security concerns. The announcement was swiftly condemned by human rights groups that say the move puts some of the world’s most vulnerable people at risk.
In a statement, the Kenyan government says it is working to expedite the closure of the Dadaab and Kakuma camps. They’re home to hundreds of thousands of refugees, the vast majority fleeing violence in neighboring Somalia.
The government has made such threats previously. Last year, it announced it was closing the camps but later “backed down in the face of international pressure,” CNN reports.
As NPR’s Gregory Warner reported last year, “With every new terrorist attack in Kenya, there’s another call to close Dadaab,” the world’s largest camp. Gregory says “the 23-year-old refugee camp is more like a small city than a tented village. More than 300,000 Somali refugees call it home.”
The statement from the Kenyan government on Friday said: “The Government of Kenya has been forced by circumstances to reconsider the whole issue of hosting refugees and the process of repatriation.” Here’s more:
“Under the circumstances, the Government of the Republic of Kenya, having taken into consideration its national security interests, has decided that hosting of refugees has come to an end.
“The Government of Kenya acknowledges that the decision will have adverse effects on the lives of refugees and therefore the international community must collectively take responsibility on humanitarian needs that will arise out of this action.”
It adds that the government has disbanded the Department of Refugee Affairs, which “works with humanitarian organizations looking after the welfare of refugees,” according to The Associated Press. It also is in charge of processing refugee registration, Human Rights Watch says.
The statement provided no details about a timeline or where the hundreds of thousands of refugees would go should the camps be closed.
It cited security concerns about the Al-Shabab militant group, which has carried out attacks in the country including the assault on Garissa University last year in the country’s northeast that killed 147 students.
However, according to Human Rights Watch, “officials have not provided credible evidence linking Somali refugees to any terrorist attacks in Kenya.”
The Two-Way spoke with 23-year-old blogger Nadifa Abdullahi in Dadaab, who hails from Somalia and was born in the camp.
“People call this place a refugee camp but me, I call it home, because this is where I grew up and where I learned everything,” she says.
She describes the scene at Dadaab after the news:
“You see when you’re walking the streets yesterday and today, it’s like people are so sad. And saying to each other, ‘Where are we going? When the government of Kenya told us to go, we don’t know where to go. What are we going to do?'”
Abdullahi adds that people in the camp are hoping Kenya will continue hosting them: “Please, don’t close us down. Don’t send us back…We are in their hands.”
Rights groups have swiftly condemned Kenya’s decision. “This reckless decision by the Kenyan government is an abdication of its duty to protect the vulnerable and will put thousands of lives at risk,” Muthoni Wanyeki, Amnesty International’s Regional Director for East Africa, the Horn and the Great Lakes, says in a statement.
Wanyeki adds: “It could lead to the involuntary return of thousands of refugees to Somalia and other countries of origin, where their lives may still be in danger. This would be in violation of Kenya’s obligations under international law.”
Woman rescued after 6 days in collapsed building in Kenya
NAIROBI, Kenya – A Kenyan woman has been rescued after being trapped for six days in the rubble of a collapsed building.
Live TV footage shows the woman being carried away on stretcher covered by a blanket and with an oxygen tank by her side to a waiting Kenya Red Cross ambulance.
Kenya’s Disaster Management Unit said earlier Thursday medics had managed to give woman oxygen, water and glucose intravenously while she was stuck.
Her rescue Thursday comes as the death toll from the collapse of the seven story building rose to 36 and 70 people remain missing.
A nearly six-month-old baby was rescued on Tuesday, a development which raised hopes that more survivors would be found. The infant was found unharmed in a washbasin four days after the building collapsed.
Dealeryn Saisi Wasike, the nearly 6-month-old girl who was rescued early Tuesday from the rubble of a building that collapsed in Nairobi, Kenya. (Photo: Sayyid Abdul Azim, AP)
With housing in high demand in Nairobi, some unscrupulous developers bypass regulations to cut costs and maximize profits.
After eight buildings collapsed and killed 15 people, President Uhuru Kenyatta last year ordered an audit of all the country’s buildings to see if they are up to code. The National Construction Authority found that 58 percent of buildings in Nairobi are unfit for habitation. Most of Nairobi’s 4 million people live in low- income areas or slums.
Kenya says arrests key member of militant group plotting attacks
NAIROBI (Reuters) – Kenyan police have arrested a suspected key member of an Islamist militant group that was plotting attacks similar to one in 2013 on the Westgate shopping mall that killed at least 67 people, authorities said on Tuesday.
Militant attacks mostly by al Shabaab militants from neighbouring Somalia have increased in recent years in Kenya, which has a large Muslim population concentrated mostly along its Indian Ocean coast.
President Uhuru Kenyatta sent troops into Somalia in 2011 to join African Union military operations against al Shabaab that have driven it out of its major territorial strongholds but not ended its ability to carry out selective, deadly attacks.
Al Shabaab has vowed to fight Kenya until it withdraws its troops and it claimed responsibility for the assault on the Westgate Mall in the capital Nairobi as well as on a university in eastern Kenya where at least 148 people were killed.
In a statement, Kenyan police said Muhammed Abdi Ali was arrested on Friday as a suspected member of an east African militant group with links to Islamic State, which has seized large areas of Iraq and Syria and inspired offshoot groups elsewhere in the Middle East and Africa.
Ali worked as a medical intern at a hospital in eastern Kenya before his arrest and also studied at a university in neighbouring Uganda, the police statement said.
“Ali has been engaged in the active radicalisation, recruitment of university students and other Kenyan youth into terrorism networks,” it said.
His militant group was also planning “large-scale attacks akin to” the Westgate Mall, the statement said, and Ali’s network included medical experts who were plotting a biological attack in Kenya using anthrax.
The police statement said two suspected accomplices of Ali – Nuseiba Muhammed Haji, who is also his wife, and Fatuma Muhammed Hanshi – had been arrested in neighbouring Uganda.
Police did not say whether Ali’s group had links to al Shabaab. The Somali jihadist group aims to topple the Western-backed government in Mogadishu and impose its own strict version of Islamic law on the Horn of Africa country.
The African Union peace force known as AMISOM has managed to push al Shabaab out of Mogadishu and large parts of Somalia although analysts say it remains a resilient force.
Kenya’s former first lady Lucy Kibaki dies in London
Kenya’s controversial former first lady, Lucy Kibaki, has died in a London hospital of an undisclosed illness.
She gained notoriety for slapping a cameraman in 2005 when she stormed the offices of a private media group in anger at the way a story about her had been reported.
In a tribute to Mrs Kibaki, President Uhuru Kenyatta praised her for her role in fighting HIV/Aids in Kenya. Mr Kenyatta succeeded her husband Mwai Kikabi, who governed from 2002 to 2013. Mrs Kibaki, who was born in 1940, had withdrawn from public life during the latter part of her husband’s rule.
She was last seen at a public function was in August 2010, when she seemed excited about the adoption of a new constitution, dancing to a famous gospel song, Kenya’s Daily Nation newspaper reports.
Mr Kenyatta said she had been unwell for the last month, receiving treatment in both Kenya and the UK.
Mrs Kibaki trained as a teacher, leaving her job not long after her marriage in 1962 to raise her four children.
“Her Excellency will be remembered for her immense contribution in the development of country,” Mr Kenyatta said in a statement.
According to the Daily Nation, she organised the First International Aids Run in 2003.
But correspondents say she also provoked condemnation when she said unmarried young people had “no business” using condoms, calling on students to abstain from sex in order to avoid infection with HIV.
US President George W. Bush (R), First Lady Laura Bush (2nd-L), President Mwai Kibaki (2nd-R) of Kenya, and his wife Lucy Kibaki (L) pose for a photo.
‘Disturbing the peace’
Mrs Kibaki was the most controversial of Kenya’s first ladies, crossing swords with politicians, diplomats, journalists and policemen she believed had not treated her with sufficient respect.
Just months after her husband became president, she is reported to have shut down a bar inside State House that was a watering hole for ministers and close allies of Mr Kibaki.
In 2005, she stormed into the house of her neighbour, the World Bank’s then-country director Makhtar Diop, in a tracksuit at midnight and demanded he turn his music down at a private party to mark the end of his posting in Kenya.
She also went to the local police station in shorts to demand that Mr Diop and his guests be arrested for disturbing the peace. Later, she burst into the offices of the influential Nation Media Group with her bodyguards and demanded that the reporter who had written about her confrontation with Mr Diop be arrested.
She slapped cameraman Clifford Derrick who was filming her and refused to leave the offices until 0530 the next day. He tried to sue for assault, but the case was thrown out of court. In 2007, Mrs Kibaki was filmed by Nation TV slapping an official during an independence day celebration at State House. Security officials seized the video images and erased the slapping incident, before returning them.
Africa’s top 4 economies are in trouble
JOHANNESBURG — South Africa teeters on the edge of an economic cliff. At the bottom is the debt rating known as junk, which economists say is a distinct possibility in coming months.
Growth in Africa has outpaced most emerging markets in recent years, but that’s changing fast as a slew of problems beset its leading economies. Here’s what you need to know about sub-Saharan Africa’s big four:
SOUTH AFRICA
The prospects for Africa’s most advanced economy are not looking good. The country is set to grow by just 0.6% this year, according to the International Monetary Fund. It’s one of the slowest growing countries in one of the world’s fastest growing territories.
The rand plummeted 30% last year, and not just because of an emerging market sell-off. Political turmoil has also had a big impact.
Just this month, South African President Jacob Zuma survived impeachment despite the highest court in the land finding him guilty of breaching the constitution over how public money was spent renovating his home. Well known figures from the anti-apartheid struggle are now calling for Zuma to step down.
Chaos in government isn’t helping either. Zuma stunned investors by replacing Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene with a little known politician. The president then backtracked and asked Nene’s predecessor Pravin Gordhan to take the position in order to stop the rand’s freefall.
The rand has steadied this year, rallying by about 7%. It’s been helped by a broader rally in markets driven by rising commodity prices. As a platinum, gold and coal producer, South Africa is sensitive to shifts in the commodity cycle.
But the country is not out of the woods yet. It’s on the brink of a ratings downgrade that would plunge its sovereign debt into junk status.
Still, investors are showing some renewed confidence, buying up $1.86 billion worth of bonds so far in 2016 — the best start to a year since 2010.
NIGERIA
Africa’s largest economy is buckling under the low oil price. Nigeria relies on oil for 70% of government revenue and accounts for 90% of export revenue. That leaves very little room to adjust the country’s budget. For an emerging market that can only mean one thing — slower growth. The West African nation is expected to clock in growth of 2.3%, the lowest rate in 15 years, according to the IMF. Its facing a shortfall of $11 billion in its 2016 budget.
Nigerians have grappled with unending shortage of petrol products across the country.
Discussions between Nigeria and the World Bank are continuing on a possible loan or credit facility that would be tied to policy reforms. It has drawn down its currency reserves and implemented capital controls, making access to dollars very difficult. In an economy that relies on imports, the controls have made life difficult for companies and two South African businesses have already pulled out.
Index compiler MSCI is considering removing Nigeria from its frontier market index because the restrictions have made it harder for investors to repatriate money. To make matters worse, the country is facing a fuel crisis. Despite being Africa’s largest oil producer, it has never had enough refining capacity, and the scarcity of dollars is making it harder for importers to bring gas into the country. The war against Al-Qaeda linked terror group Boko Haram, which the government has vowed to eradicate, is placing further strain on the country’s finances.
ANGOLA
What was once one of Africa’s fastest growing economies is now on its knees and asking for help from the IMF. Angola is Africa’s second largest oil producer and relies on oil for 95% of government revenue.
After debuting on the international debt market last year, the country appears unable to meet its budget and debt obligations. It has requested assistance from the IMF in the form of monetary support. Angola is also bound to money-for-oil deals with China. It has used oil as collateral for loans from China, and that is further squeezing state finances. The country is set to grow by 3.5% this year, down from 6.8% in 2013, according to the IMF.
KENYA
Kenya’s economy is more resilient and diversified but there’s trouble brewing in its banking sector. Three banks are being wound down by the central bank. Two of the banks failed last year, and a third was forced into the arms of the lender of last resort this month. A fourth bank is being investigated, and analysts believe consolidation in the industry is inevitable.
The East African nation has 43 banks, most of which have overstated profits and are buckling under the weight of non-performing loans and a big fall in deposits. A dozen banks may end up under central bank control as it tries to clean up the sector. All this is weighing on Kenya’s growth prospects: The IMF has just cut its forecast to 6% for 2016, down from 6.8% previously.
