| Nyeri slums installed with streetlights |
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 The face of Nyeri town is changing dramatically with the installation of streetlights across various slums.The 38 million shillings project is targeting six slums area among them Majengo, Ruring'u, Kamukunji and Dedan Kimathi grounds. Mayor of Nyeri Joseph Thairu expects the lighting to not only improve security but also extend the business hours in the rural town.
According to the Mayor the street lighting project is bound to be a show-stopper. We are also going to upgrade our markets through the slum-upgarding program. We are also constructing three markets. The first market is the Sokojinga market which will now be housed in a two-story building. Presently, it is an open market and is in a very bad state.
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Amid a public outcry over negligence and poor management of the nation’s sports facilities, Keini West District is set to get a new stadium.
A six-member Athletics Kenya team last week toured the site of the proposed Mweiga Stadium on invitation by the local Member of Parliament, Nemesius Warugongo.
The proposed stadium, which Warugongo nicknamed Mweiga Wembley Stadium, will be a welcome development especially after AK abandoned the derelict Ruring’u Stadium, 17km away in Nyeri, and moved the weekend track meeting from there to Narok.
Warugongo said: “I love the UK’s Wembley Stadium and it is my dream this will become as magnificent in terms of impact and sporting activities.”
The meeting gave technical advice to the contractor, who is on site, to ensure the facility in the town centre of the Kieni West
District headquarters, along the Nyeri-Nyahururu highway, meets standards. The facility is seen as an alternative training venue for athletes, especially long distance runners.
With a football pitch, a dais, several volleyball courts and facilities for field events, Mweiga Stadium will be the only one big enough for track and field events and speed work training in Nyeri County.
“We are glad the initiative is coming from a local leader who seems to understand the needs of youths,” said Nyeri AK sub-branch chairman Mutahi Kahiga.
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| savvy granny with coveted sense of style |
 She might be old, but fashion is something she is not ready to let go easily. Eunice Wangeci Maina, 65, leaves many with their mouths agape because of her stylish dress code. Her sense of dressing developed at an early age and she has made it her trademark style, matching everything from the hat, to the handbag and even umbrella.
And indeed “Cucu wa mix and match” (fashion granny), as she is fondly referred to by residents of Blue Valley estate where she hails from, has become an icon in Nyeri Town, standing out from the rest. In fact, the widow and mother of four, has become a mentor and inspirational figure to young and old women alike.
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| Two students killed in Endarasha Boys school fire |
 Grief befell Endarasha Boys in Nyeri after two students were burnt beyond recognition after a dormitory was reportedly set ablaze by fellow students.
The two students Kennedy Karogo Njuguna and Joseph Mwangi Maina of Endarasha Boys Secondary School in Kieni West district were trapped when a fire broke out at the Fr Wambugu dormitory where 180 form one students slept.
The charred remains of the two students, blackened by the raging inferno, lay near an exit door, an indication they got burnt while trying to escape from the burning building.
The building was also badly damaged with the roof caving in and burnt metal beds and boxes which were littered outside the dormitory, perhaps as students tried to rescue some of their belongings.
Following the incident, nine form one students have been arrested. Also arrested were the owner of a petrol selling outlet at Endarasha town and a man he reportedly instructed to sell petrol to the students.
Police recovered a 10 litre container believed to have carried petrol which was used to set the dormitory ablaze.
Students are said to have jumped over the school fence and walked the 500 meters to Endarasha trading centre where they bought the fuel.
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| Butchering an Elephant for Meat and Ivory |
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 Residents of Kagochi village in Nyeri carve the meat from an elephant which died in a nearby forest from an unknown cause. The tusks were removed and the elephant was carved up for consumption, defying armed forces recommendations not to.
Its an early Christmas festival for villagers of Kagochi in Nyeri, Kenya, after an adult elephant was found dead in a nearby forest. The cause of death was not known.
Kenya Wildlife officials suspected poisoning from the farmers. However, the villagers, armed with knives and axes defied the armed officers order with some carrying pieces of meat to their homes.
Elephant invasion has been a major problem in the area. The animals come from a nearby Mt Kenya forest and now the residents are calling upon the government to install an electric fence around the area.
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 Mercy Muthoni, 27, gazes blankly into the horizon as she ponders a future without her husband.
It is more than a year since he disappeared from their Gathaithi village home in Mathira, Nyeri, as vigilante gangs roamed the area.
At the time, the gangs were hunting down members of the outlawed mungiki sect, who they accused of committing several murders.
In turn, mungiki hit back in April last year and killed 29 people at Gathaithi village.
She recalls that Mr Dickson Muhindi left without a warning, and has never been heard of since.
“I have left it all to God since my search has yielded nothing,” Muthoni said, fighting back tears.
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| Murugi urges Kenyans to accept gays |
 A Cabinet minister has stirred a hornet’s nest with a suggestion that Kenyans should accept homosexuality and learn to live with it.
Special Programmes Minister Esther Murugi told participants at a national symposium on HIV/Aids in Mombasa targeting homosexuals, lesbians and sex workers that the government had no option but to address the community’s concerns.
“We need to learn to live with men who have sex with other men… we are in the 21st century and things have changed,” she told the gathering on Thursday.
Participants at the seminar were mainly homosexuals, lesbians and sex workers, dubbed “most at risk population” because their sexual behaviour puts them at greatest risk of HIV infection.
Ms Murugi said the group was an independent constituency and should not be stigmatised because of sexual inclination.
She told the National Aids Control Council to compile statistics to enable the government to develop a policy to cut prevalence rates among the group.
“This symposium is critical in ensuring that risk factors are discussed and taken into consideration in national planning for HIV and Aids,” said the minister.
Religious leaders were on Friday furious at the minister.
Council of Imams and Preachers of Kenya organising secretary Sheikh Mohammed Khalifa said the utterances were “satanic and contrary to Africa culture”.
“God in his holy books (Quran and Bible) cursed homosexuality and directed us to fight it. The minister has offended Kenyans who passed a new constitution that criminalises the vice,” he said.
Sheikh Khalifa urged President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga to take stern action against the minister.
Kenya National Muslim Advisory Council chairman Sheikh Juma Ngao demanded that Ms Murugi resigns or be sacked.
“The minister and National Aids Control Council officials should create their own country which allows homosexual, lesbian and prostitution acts,” he said.
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| Osama wary of climate change |
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 DUBAI — Osama bin Laden has expressed concern about global climate change and flooding in Pakistan, in an audiotape aired on the Internet, his first public remarks since March, a monitoring group said Friday.
"The number of victims caused by climate change is very big... bigger than the victims of wars," said the voice, whose authenticity could not be immediately verified and made available by SITE Intelligence Group.
The tape would be the first time Bin Laden has spoken publicly since March 25.
It was not clear when the tape was made, but bin Laden congratulated Muslims on the September 10 end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan.
"The catastrophe (in Pakistan) is very big and it is difficult to describe it," he said.
"What we are facing... calls for generous souls and brave men to take serious and prompt action to provide relief for their Muslim brothers in Pakistan."
(AFP) –
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| The Kirima Saga. Witchcraft claims. |
 Claims of witchcraft and betrayal emerged on Thursday as the drama facing the family of real estate tycoon Gerishon Kirima took a new twist. His mother-in-law said in Nyeri that the men who dumped some of her daughter’s belongings, which they took from her Nairobi home, at her gate risked a curse. In Nairobi, a daughter of the ailing former assistant minister listed 15 accusations against Ms Teresia Wairimu Kirima, the businessman’s third wife, including that she was consulting a Tanzanian witchdoctor.
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| Nyeri court blocks sim disconnection |
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 Mobile phone subscribers who failed to register their SIM cards have won legal backing against being cut off following orders by a Nyeri court blocking Safaricom from barring lines not listed on its customer directory.
The orders, however, only serve as a comfort to subscribers because both the government and operators had ruled out disconnecting SIMs not registered in the absence of a legal framework. Information Permanent Secretary Bitange Ndemo said last week that amendments needed in the country’s communications laws were being processed for Cabinet approval, drafting at the Attorney-General’s office and passing in Parliament before such a drastic action could be taken.
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Ruth Nyandia is this year’s Miss Kenya Methodist University.