Xinhua, China - 1 hour ago
CAPE TOWN, June 6 (Xinhua) -- Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga told the 18th World Economic Forum on Africa which concluded here on Friday that the grand ...
Kenya PM sees grand coalition as positive example for Africa
www.chinaview.cn 2008-06-06 22:47:30
CAPE TOWN, June 6 (Xinhua) -- Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga told the 18th World Economic Forum on Africa which concluded here on Friday that the grand coalition that emerged from his country's post-election strife could serve a blueprint for the resolution of ethnic-based conflicts elsewhere in Africa.
"I think the Kenyan experiment is a pioneering one and that it holds hope for the rest of Africa if it succeeds," Odinga said.
Violent clashes erupted after the presidential elections in Kenya in December.
Over 1,500 people died in clashes between rival tribes affiliated to the political parties. Hundreds of thousands were forced to flee their homes.
Calm returned after several months and a deal brokered by former United Nations chief Kofi Annan which saw a power-sharing government, with Odinga sworn in as prime minister in April.
Some observers have questioned how long the coalition can hold together and divisions have already emerged over how to deal with people arrested during the post-election violence.
However, Odinga believes that the coalition government is the best solution to Kenya's and Africa's tribal conflicts.
Editor: Yan Liang
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Obama Cheered in Kenya
NPR - Jun 5, 2008
The TV audience included his grandmother, Sarah Obama, in the village of Kisumu, Kenya. Her neighbors packed into her home to watch with her, too. ...
Election 2008
Obama Cheered in Kenya
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Morning Edition, June 5, 2008 · The world watched on television Tuesday night as Barack Obama gave his victory speech. The TV audience included his grandmother, Sarah Obama, in the village of Kisumu, Kenya, and her neighbors. Other supporters in Kenya, where Obama's late father was from, toasted with a local Kenyan beer nicknamed "Obama Beer."
Video: Small Kenyan Village Rooting for Obama
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Rejoicing in Kenya at US Triumph of a Sort of Native Son New York Times
June 5, 2008
Rejoicing in Kenya at U.S. Triumph of a Sort of Native Son
By REUBEN KYAMA
NAIROBI,
A day after Senator
Here in the capital, office workers turned their attentions to the radio and television stations that constantly replayed Mr. Obama’s victory speech. Unemployed men in the slums toasted the moment with a popular brand of beer, Senator Keg lager, that Kenyans have renamed “Obama.”
Beneath the sense of joy was cautious optimism. Despite the milestone reached by Mr. Obama, whose father was Kenyan, many Kenyans say that Republicans in the United States remain powerful, well financed and difficult to beat and that Senator
“It’s still too early to celebrate,” Joyce Nkuubi, 45, a florist, said. “He has some more work to do if he’s to defeat McCain.”
The day was certainly not as jubilant as it was when Mr. Obama visited Kenya in 2006 in an orchestrated four-country African tour to raise awareness of AIDS and connect with his roots. Thousands of people lined the streets of Nairobi to catch a glimpse of him, waiting hours in the sun.
But in the west, in Nyangoma-Kogelo, a collection of tin-roofed shacks and rutted dirt roads with little electricity or running water, a celebration occurred without him. Scores of villagers flocked to the home of Sarah Obama, his step-grandmother, to dance in the family compound and pray.
“Everybody there is full of excitement,” Barack Karama, a journalist in western Kenya, said. “There are many journalists, as well as people who are streaming in and out to offer congratulatory messages to the grandmother.”
Ms. Obama said she had predicted the victory, Mr. Karama said.
Many residents of Nyangoma-Kogelo are subsistence farmers, and Mr. Obama has come to represent pride and hope for them.
Because of his celebrity, the village has become something of a focal point, with journalists of many stripes putting up at a nearby port, Kisumu.
“I have spent the whole day here in Kisumu talking with journalists,” said Said Obama, an uncle of the senator.
Many Kenyans seemed to have few expectations that Mr. Obama, if elected president, would suddenly steer American policies to their advantage. But they saw significant, if sometimes indirect benefits.
“Since Obama has his roots in Kenya, it is obvious that Kenya and Africa will receive a lot of international attention,” Maurice Ogola, 31, computer technician, said. “That international limelight on Kenya and Africa is very good.
“We need much foreign aid, we need a lot of help to boost our economic growth, and that can come from a new America. Obama has a lot of potential to bring the much needed change.”
Kenya's 'national hero' BBC News
Kenya's 'national hero'
By Adam Mynott BBC News, Nairobi
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Kenyans give their views on the man who may be the next US president
Eighteen months ago, few Kenyans had even heard of Barack Obama.
He was a little known US senator from Illinois. Those who were aware of his existence lived in western Kenya near to the village of Alego-Kogello, 60km (37 miles) from the town of Kisumu where the Kenyan side of his family live.
Now his meteoric rise to political fame has propelled the name Barack Obama onto the lips of millions of Kenyans.
He has Kenyan blood coursing through his veins and has been adopted as a Kenyan national hero, who just might become the most powerful man in the world.
Barack Obama has never lived in Kenya and he has visited the country just three times.
The Kenyan blood comes from his father, Barack Obama senior, who was born in the remote village of Alego where he herded goats as a child.
Interview by appointment
He set off to the New World in search of a broader education. He was a brilliant economist and returned to Kenya to work as a civil servant.
Obama senior died in a road accident in 1982. So Barack Obama's links with Kenya are not strong, but he is said to speak of the country as his "second home".
His grandmother Sarah Obama still lives in the village where she receives an endless stream of journalists and well-wishers wanting to find out more about the US Democratic super-star.
I was in a queue of three other camera teams when I went to see Sarah Obama. Her family insists on appointments being made.
Sarah Obama must have answered the same questions hundreds of times and there will be many more to come in the next six months.
When she's not answering reporters' questions she looks after some cows and a few chickens.
But Sarah Obama has been keeping up with her grandson's progress, and says she is delighted and not surprised by his success.
"He's a good boy, and very clever," she tells me. "I never thought he would become president one day, but Barack's mother kept a close eye on him and made sure he did his studies at school."
Barack Obama is already a Kenyan hero. A school near Alego and at least one bar in Kisumu are named after him.
In the coming weeks, as the November general election gets closer, his fame will grow and grow.
When he joined the race to win the Democratic presidential nomination, hospitals around Kenya reported lots of new-born babies being named Barack.
The Barack Obama phenomenon in Kenya is just starting.
Welcome relief
Kenyans I spoke to in Nairobi said they hoped that Mr Obama's links with Kenya and his status as the first African-American to have a serious shot at the US presidency will improve relations between Africa and the US.
Some, though, were brutally realistic, fearing that despite his political credentials he might face defeat "because the US is not yet ready to elect a black man".
Others said that they were proud that a Kenyan had laid out a political programme which had gained respect throughout the world.
Barack Obama's success as a politician stands in stark contrast to many in Kenyan political life.
His nomination has provided welcome relief and distraction against a Kenyan political backdrop.
More than a thousand people were killed in the violence which followed December's disputed general election. There is also a general contempt for the political elite in the country.
Some I spoke to are so enthusiastic about Barack Obama that they have over-looked the fact that his real political battle, against Republican Senator John McCain, is about to begin.
Those Kenyans have already anointed him President of the United States.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/7436493.stm
Published: 2008/06/04 21:29:10 GMT© BBC MMVIII
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AFP - 5 hours agoNAIROBI (AFP) — Suspected members of Kenya's banned Mungiki gang murdered a pastor by slitting his throat and skinned his face in the country's western town ...
Kenya gang slits pastor's throat
5 hours ago
NAIROBI (AFP) — Suspected members of Kenya's banned Mungiki gang murdered a pastor by slitting his throat and skinned his face in the country's western town of Eldoret, police said Friday.
The gruesome murder sparked demonstrations late Thursday by protestors demanding tougher police action against the gang, a mafia-like organisation running an extortion empire in the country and notorious for its brutal methods.
"We are investigating the murder which has been linked to the notorious Mungiki sect members," said Munga Nyale, head of Eldoret's Criminal Investigation Department.
In the capital Nairobi, three suspected Mungiki members were killed in separate incidents, two of them stoned to death by residents.
Police shot dead the third and arrested six Mungiki followers.
The Mungiki gang was once a quasi-religious group of dreadlocked youths who embraced traditional rituals, but it has evolved into a powerful crime ring with political links that police have been trying to eradicate.
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