Ninety-eight judges and magistrates will determine poll petitions between now and October after Chief Justice Willy Mutunga made the appointments today. The team selected by the CJ comprises 39 judges picked from a total of 53 to hear the 115 petitions filed at the High Court. The 180 petitions to be considered had been filed across the country by the close of the 28-day period set out by the Constitution. In the duration that the poll petitions will be mentioned before the various appointees, only 14 judges will be at hand to determine all other High Court matters...
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Mutunga picks judges, magistrates to hear poll petitions
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Court releases Chinedu on cash bail
Suspected Nigerian drug lord Anthony Chinedu who was arrested two weeks ago has been released on a cash bail of Ksh200,000 pending the mention of his case on May 12 after which his hearing has been scheduled for June 17. Chinedu was arrested with 10 grams of white powder believed to be cocaine along with other apparatus believed to be used to make narcotics. The prosecution consequently applied to have Chinedu held in custody until his trial ends...
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Pattni lawyer defends acquittal
Businessman Kamlesh Pattni’s lawyer in the Goldenberg case, Bernard Kalove, has lashed out at Law Society of Kenya Chairman Eric Mutua over remarks the latter made following the acquittal of Pattni of criminal charges in the Goldenberg case. Kalove accused Mutua of bearing a grudge on Pattni since Mutua lost a case in which he represented the Kenya Airports Authority (KAA) against a company associated to Pattni, the World Duty Free Company Limited. Kalove further added that the ruling to acquit Pattni was his constitutional right...
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Waiganjo case for May 8
THE hearing of a case in which police impersonator Joshua Waiganjo is being charged with stealing a car was yesterday postponed to May 8. Waiganjo allegedly stole the car worth Sh550,000. The trial magistrate Lucy Mbugua put off the case after Waiganjo failed to appear in court for the hearing. This prompted chief inspector Daniel Musangi to re-apply for production order for him to be escorted to Nairobi from Naivasha maximum Security Prison...
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Medics want one of their own to head health docket
Doctors have rejected President Uhuru's Cabinet Secretary for Health nominee. Through the Kenya Medical Association and the Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists' Union , the medics said they will present a memorandum to the Committee on Appointments to reject nominee James Macharia. KMA national chair Elly Opot and KMPDU chairman Victor Ng'ani said they want a medic to head the docket. “He is a competent banker and we acknowledge that,” Opot said...
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Audit and repeal laws, says Wako
BUSIA senator Amos Wako wants parliament to do an audit of all the laws that are in conflict with devolution and ensure they are amended. Speaking yesterday at the floor of the senate while contributing to the Presidential Address, Wako said the National Government Coordination Act and all others that are in conflict with the spirit of devolution, must be repealed. He said the Act has created ambiguity in the counties where the county commissioners and the governors are engaged in turf wars...
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Spotted
Comedian Eric Omondi driving along the Kileleshwa bypass on Tuesday late afternoon. He was wearing a red t-shirt and was driving a silver Toyota Allion.
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5 Minute: I love driving by the seafront at night
Am good at ..... Empowering the disenfranchised . Am bad at ..... Retaliating from what I think is right The last book I enjoyed reading ..... The 8th Habit,from effectiveness to greatness by Stephen R. Covey A common misconception about me ..... Is about my ethnicity, people do not believe am of coastal origin One of my worst childhood fears was. ..... Taking medicines in tablet form Most surprising thing that happened to me was ........ When the people I trusted for years blackmailed me My Ideal night out is .........
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Why Leather Sector Holds Future For Jobs
One thing stood out for me during President Uhuru Kenyatta’s inauguration speech on Tuesday 9th April, 2013— the need to enhance value addition in all our products and services. Said Uhuru: “For too long our nation has exported jobs that should rightly belong to our citizens. We have focused on exporting primary products, instead of promoting value addition and manufacturing finished goods thereby creating jobs and improving our standard of living. Today, I pledge, that my administration will work towards diversifying our economic base...
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Nairobi viewing of London Marathon
Thousands of marathon fans lined-up the streets of London to cheer, among others, Kenyan athletes competing at the London Marathon held last Sunday. Back home in Kenya, Mojos Lounge at the heart of Nairobi played host to fans who turned up to cheer their fellow countrymen during the London Marathon Viewing and Quiz. Organised by Tim-Sky Media Services and sponsored by Supersport, six corporate teams battled it out in the quiz with the Media Select Team emerging tops. Team DSTV and Kenya Orient Insurance team came second and third respectively...
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Literary Postcard: Ngumi Kibera's portrait of a good cop
I met the Inspector General of Police David Kimaiyo at a cultural seminar at the University of Nairobi a few weeks before he was appointed to that daunting but noble office to serve his country. Kimaiyo presented a paper on the Marakwet people after which he fielded questions. We already knew Kimaiyo as a career policeman. But standing on the rostrum, he was scholarly and delighted the audience of mostly historians, anthropologists and political economists. On the sidelines, I probed him on the tragic Baragoi massacre where several police officers were rounded up and killed by militia...
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Is History Repeating Itself With Jubilee?
If you look at the early-1960s photos or video clips featuring our founding President Jomo Kenyatta, one thing you immediately notice is that in very many of them, the same two men stand on either side of him: the Vice President, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, and the Cabinet minister (and Kanu secretary general) Tom Mboya. Whether they were on the podium together, at a political rally at Kamkunji; or riding in the ceremonial Land Rover into a stadium during some national event; these three top politicians very often shared the limelight...
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Lawmakers Should Be Well Remunerated
The raging debate over remuneration of our Members of Parliament is assuming illogical proportions which if not checked may end up missing the whole point. I want to add my voice to the few Kenyans who support the idea of a reasonable payment for our legislators salaries. It is fair and indeed well-meaning to have law-makers with a considerable pay package. Yes, it is true that Kenya's Wage Bill at the moment may not be able to support the high salaries for MPs and other public servants...
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Uhuru government present new opportunities for Sino-Kenya relations
If the successful establishment of a mutually-beneficial Sino-Kenyan relationship over the last decade under the leadership of Presidents Hu Jintao and Mwai Kibaki has had a meaningful socio-economic impact on the Kenyan economy, then the new Kenyan administration headed by President Uhuru Kenyatta must double its efforts to build on this relationship. And this is why. As Kenya installs a new administration, China’s President Xi Jinping has already expressed his intention to maintain and enhance development ties with African countries...
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Ring-Fencing The Courts, IEBC Folly Of Reforms
The aftermath of 2013 elections has been lauded and criticised in equally measures. While a section of the country favoured by the outcome is apparently contented, the other half has resigned to uneasy calm in fear of overbearing police brutality and orchestrated ‘peace’ messages designed to stigmatise any dissent as source of violence. In a sense we are tactfully back to 2007/08 when an overbearing Executive acting with impunity listened to nobody. The difference seems that only this time we are less willing to openly admit it...
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Kenyan 'Oscars of Africa' nominees Abandoned in Nigeria
The Africa Movie Academy Awards (Amaas) is a branch of the Africa Film Academy. The Academy is geared towards research, training and propagating filmmaking in Africa. It is presented annually in recognition of professionals in the African film industry. Founded in 2005 by African Film Academy founder Peace Anyiam Osigwe, the awards recognise directors, actors, writers and other professionals in the film industry with the aim of promoting excellence in the African movie industry. In the Eastern African region, Kenya produced the most entries for the 2013 award ceremony...
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MPs target constitutional commissions
Still smarting from the Salaries and Remuneration Commission's decision to reduce their pay, MPs are now threatening to reduce the number of commissioners in all constitutional commissions. Speaking in the House, the MPs, led by John Mbadi of Suba and his Kitutu Chache North counterpart Jimmy Angwenyi claimed that commissioners have become bigger than those who gave them the job. They claimed that the number of commissioners should be reduced from 9 to 3 citing SRC which is chaired by Sarah Serem and the Charles Nyachae led Constitution Implementation Commission...
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Move From Response To Culture Of Safety
As the world prepares for the Fourth Session of the Global Platform on Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) to be held in Geneva from May 19th to 23rd 2013, it will be interesting to know what the Kenyan delegation will present as efforts undertaken by the country towards reducing deaths and economic loss from the ongoing rains. Already, 63 people have so far lost their lives and over 35,000 people been displaced. As a country, our disaster profile is closely linked to the vulnerability of the population and economy to the extremities of climate change and a culture of unpreparedness...
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Frustration at Naija movie awards
It sounds a lot like hate speech when you first hear it but the Ghanaian musical duo Fokn Bois do speak some truths in Thank God We're Not a Nigerians (sic) – a song that in many ways characterised the journey from Lagos to Yenagoa where the 2013 Africa Movie Awards were held last weekend in Bayelsa, Nigeria. If its your first time in Nigeria and if your handlers were anything like ours, then expect to be in a constant state of agitation in the first 24 hours of arrival...
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Why foreign books are popular
Many teachers of the English language in secondary school routinely complain that when our youths read at all, they are at home with foreign writers. So they are comfortable with books authored by Harold Robins, Jackie Collins, John Grisham and Danielle Steele. Other popular writers are Jeffrey Archer, Sidney Sheldon, Marcia Muller, Dan Brown and Tom Clancy and so on. The rationale here is that these authors’ books are inappropriate to our local syllabi specification. Everybody counsels about reading “good books” that can help them in improving on their grammar and vocabulary...
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