I have received a copy of The Sexual Offences Bill, 2006 (Kenya) currently before parliament. I had to format it a little bit to make it easier to read otherwise there are no changes. You can download it here [The Sexual Offences Bill, 2006 (Kenya), MS Word doc 225 KB].
As with everything else trust, but verify.
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9 comments Friday, April 28th, 2006 at 2:02 PM
The Kenyan constitution drafted at independence was a bit of a mess. A mix match merger of parliamentary and presidential systems of government that kept the worst and left out the best of both systems. No “separation of powers” or “checks and balances” of the presidential system and virtually none of the parliamentary oversight over the government which is necessary in an “executive within parliament” system of government.
While the British parliamentary system has its flaws one of the best things about it is that once a week the Prime Minister has to turn up in parliament and spend half an hour answering questions in front of the whole house during a session called Prime Ministers Questions (PMQs).
MPs can get up and ask him anything, and he has to make an attempt at an answer. You never know what you are going to get. It can be boring, exciting, solemn, or ridiculous. You just never know. But we watch because every once in a while you get a gem of a question that is just brilliant.
A couple of months ago, during a PMQs that would have otherwise been filed in the “Boring” category, an MP called Sir Peter Tapsell rose to ask a question. This guy had been against the War in Iraq since day one and had made his objections known but he seemed to have calmed down for a couple of months. But when Blair decided to commit more British troops to Afghanistan a week after he went on to a talk show and said God would judge him on Iraq, that was it for Sir Peter, he could take no more. He stood up and asked:
Now that the Prime Minister has used up all mortal excuses for his folly in invading Iraq and is relying on divine guidance, a factor which was oddly omitted from the dodgy dossier, will he tell us which archangel is now beckoning him towards southern Afghanistan?
The whole place erupted in laughter. Even Blair couldn’t help but smile. He raised his eyes and hands towards heaven and asked, “So what is the answer?!”
If only every week Kibaki had to turn up in parliament and spend at least half an hour answering questions from MPs and it was televised for the whole country to see live. As Bankelele pointed out we have the capability to televise parliament. We just lack the political will.
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9 comments Wednesday, April 26th, 2006 at 2:14 PM
I am lucky that I have had a healthy life so far (touch wood etc). I do not remember any major childhood illnesses and even when I got Chicken Pox I was happy because I got to stay away from school (although my mood changed when I learnt that I was not allowed to mix with my friends and that I had to stay out of sunlight or something and was itching like crazy). So I was never really sick. Apart from one time.
I was, if I remember correctly, 15 or 16 and probably at the height of my physical fitness. At school every Monday we would do twenty lengths in the pool immediately AFTER a 1hr cross country run, no lie. For the first four weeks of term Monday evening prep time you would find nearly all the boys asleep on their desks with pens in their hands. On Tuesday and Thursday mornings a bunch of us were selected for hill training. This involved spending just under an hour, sprint up two steep hills and jogging down, spiriting up and jogging down. On top of all that it was rugby term, and rugby training, in a word, was not romantic. By the time we went home for the holidays we were physically fit machines ready for everything, or so I thought.
Almost everyday during the hols, after I got back from shags, my cousins, a couple of friends and I would wander from Ngummo to Good Shepherd church on Ngong Road to play basketball. (I hear these days they have stopped random kidos from using the court which is a shame.) We would find other people there and play pick up games from around 10am till 6pm. In the Kenyan December heat, non stop, at high intensity, machines all of us. One Friday we had gone through this normal routine and were wandering back home to Ngummo. Everyone was bragging about plans for the night, how we were going to sneak into this party or that party, in reality deep down inside, we all knew we would be in bed by 11.
About half way home I started feeling a pain in my lower back, right where my spine meets my hip bone. I thought nothing much about. “Probably just tired from all the running around”, I told myself. By the time we got home the pain had spread up my spine. “I must be really tired”, I told myself. I told my boys to go ahead I would catch up with them later. I found a bed and decided to lie down.
Then I started shivering violently. I was feeling very cold but I was sweating like a pig. I could not stand up, in fact I could barely lift my head to take a sip of water. I lay there scared out of my mind. What the hell was going on? I couldn’t think, I couldn’t move, I was shaking violently, I couldn’t even focus my eyes. With the last bit of energy I had I dragged myself out of bed. I got to the living room just as my mother was walking into the house and collapsed into her arms. My mother is a medical doctor but she did not need her medical expertise to know what was wrong with me. She looked at me and uttered one word, MALARIA*.
After that everything is a blur. I was rushed to a hospital, blood was taken. My malaria was so bad tablets were useless. Instead I was given a couple of the biggest injections I have ever seen. It is impossible to explain how bad my situation was. I could not walk; I had to be carried into the hospital. I could not see; everything was a blur. I could not chew, even swallowing soup was mayhem. I could not dress myself. I could not wash myself. Luckily if you got me to a toilet I was able to do the necessary, just about. I could not lift my head of the pillow. I was shivering with cold and sweating like a pig. My eyes would close I would wake up many hours later to eat. Sleep, soup, sleep soup. And when I say eat I mean someone would kneel beside me and lift a spoon to my mouth. And that was when I was not vomiting my guts out. I cant even remember how long I was in that bed for and it would be interesting to find out how much weight I lost.
I was captain of a rugby team. I played basketball for hours. I run cross-country for fun. And in less than half an hour Malaria had reduced me to nothing. Totally incapacitated. If it was not so scary it would have been pretty impressive. Machine kitu gani? However I was lucky. I lived. According to the World Health Organization there are 300 to 500 million clinical cases of malaria each year resulting in 1.5 to 2.7 million deaths. Children aged one to four are the most vulnerable to infection and death. Malaria is responsible for as many as half the deaths of African children under the age of five. In regions of intense transmission, 40% of toddlers may die of acute malaria. The disease kills more than one million children - 2,800 per day - each year in Africa alone.
2800 each day. Two thousand eight hundred.
2 deaths per minute. Every minute.
Malaria has been estimated to cost Africa more than US$ 12 billion every year in lost GDP, enough to cost some African nations up to 5 percent of their GNP, even though it could be controlled for a fraction of that sum.
Yesterday was Africa Malaria Day which is what prompted me to write my story. The politics behind the fight against Malaria are ridiculous. This is one problem that can actually be solved and in fact in the 1970’s nearly was. according to Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières rolling back malaria is a political, not a medical problem.
For MSF, it is clear that the major problems in tackling malaria are not technical, medical or scientific. It is entirely feasible to produce enough artemisinin-based combinations (ACTs) and get them distributed so that treatment can reach people in need. But that will only happen if there is urgent and sufficient political action.
A most insightful article I read on this subject is Michael Specter’s article called “Healing Africa” which was carried in the October 24th 2005 issue of the New Yorker. Rather than throw statistics at you I urge you to read the article for some insight as well as a detailed account on the efforts of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in the fight to conquer malaria.
As for me I am grateful. I did not end up a statistic but could have done. For many The Forgotten Killer is part of everyday reality.
*Malaria: An acute and sometimes chronic infectious disease of the red blood cells. Malaria is transmitted to a human by the bite of an infected female Anopheles mosquito. The mosquito becomes infected by ingesting the blood of an infected human. Of the 1.8 billion persons at risk of malaria worldwide, there are an estimated 500 million clinical cases and nearly 3.5 million deaths each year. It is therefore one of the most important infectious diseases in the world. There is no vaccine for malaria.
From Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières
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7 comments Wednesday, April 26th, 2006 at 5:52 AM
At 5 pm this past Saturday there was TV programme on Channel 4 called Supernanny. The premise of the show is simple; you have a household that is in chaos because the children are rude and disrespectful. The Supernanny, Jo Frost, then comes in to force some discipline into the badly behaved children. The first lesson is to remind the ill behaved rabble who is boss.
Fittingly, at the exactly the same time on another TV channel The Mighty Liverpool Football Club (WWI5T) were doing exactly the same thing to Chelski, installing some much need discipline and reminding Maureen’s bunch of divers and cheats, just who is boss. Supernanny is not allowed to spank and but Liverpool are not as constrained, we spanked those Crimalsea muppets up and down the Theatre of Nightmares so bad they wont be able to sit still for a month. (For once there was high quality football at Old Trafford as the GlazerPizzaHutB&QTraffordBowl Dome Buccaneers were not allowed anywhere near the pitch).
Like another banner says you have “no history” the last time you won the league it was in black and white. Maureen has now got his tactics wrong in two crucial games, against Barcelona in the Champion’s League and against The Mighty Reds (WWI5T). So let’s make it clear, in RAFA WE TRUST.
In a good weekend for the Mighty Reds, Steven Gerrard has been voted the PFA Player of the Year by his peers. He follows in the footsteps of five all-time Liverpool greats Terry McDermott (1980), Kenny Dalglish (1983), Ian Rush (1984), John Barnes (1988). On top of that Liverpool held off Manchester City to claim the FA Youth Cup trophy for the first time in 10 years. All in all Manchester has been good to Liverpool this weekend!
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10 comments Monday, April 24th, 2006 at 3:11 PM
“Thank you for taking part in the Kaybees” Podcast 
Please let me know what you think in the comments or via email.
Background music
Song: Kenyan Gal, Kenyan Boy
Artist: Necessary Noize
Album: NECESSARY NOIZE II - Kenyan Gal, Kenyan Boy
Necessary Noize are, in my opinion, the leading Kenyan music group out there. In this post on the Kaybees it was only natural I would choose a Kenyan group.
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16 comments Monday, April 24th, 2006 at 7:28 AM
Crossposted from KenyaUnlimited
The winners of the Kaybee Awards 2006 have been announced.
Along with the thirteen categories, we would like to take this opportunity to announce two special awards. The Founder’s Award which recognizes the Kenyan Blog Webring (KBW) member who has given outstanding service to the KBW and KenyaUnlimited (KuL) project and The KBW/KuL Admin Award for Outstanding Member aimed at the KBW member the KBW/KuL admin team recognizes as deserving special mention.
We would like to this opportunity to thank everyone who submitted their nominations and sent in their votes and to congratulate all our winners and nominees.
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10 comments Friday, April 21st, 2006 at 11:59 AM
The new picture in the masthead of this blog shows the scenic view of the endless green tea fields rolling over gentle hill slopes in Kericho, Kenya. I took it this past December. It is actually made up of four photos taken in sequence and then merged together. You can see the four photos separately in all their glory in my “Beautiful Kenya” Flickr photo set. I’ll be adding more pictures to the set as I sort through them.
Kenya is very beautiful and its beauty is very diverse. My father once told me that when he was in secondary school a popular and frequent question in geography exams asked the pupils to describe what they would see on a journey from Mombasa to Kakamega focusing on the change in terrain, climate, industry etc. You could write a whole thesis on that!
I know I am showing bias here because it is a journey I take many many times but if you really want to appreciate the beauty of Kenya and the different terrains you should head west from Nairobi. The dry plains around Longonot, the dip into the rift valley, the climb up towards the rolling tea fields of Kericho, the humidity and lake community of Kisumu, the sugar plantations of Kakamega/Mumias, the rolling maize of Kitale etc etc (simply too many places to point out!!). I know many people automatically think east and head towards the coast as Bankelele points out, I always feel sad when I meet other Kenyans who have only been as far west as Nakuru or some only up to Naivasha. Come west, explore Kenya!
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14 comments Wednesday, April 19th, 2006 at 3:29 PM
Bloggers and internet pundits are exerting a “disproportionately large influence” on society, according to a report by a technology research company [reported in the Guardian]. Its study suggests that although “active” web users make up only a small proportion of Europe’s online population, they are increasingly dominating public conversations and creating business trends
“We’re seeing this growing,” said Julian Smith, an online advertising analyst with Jupiter Research and author of the report. “The strongest part of their influence is on the media: if something online suddenly becomes a story in the local press, then it matters.”
Although the report focuses on Europe I can see this trend becoming increasingly true in Africa in general and Kenya in particular.
Here is an example from Mentalacrobatics. Typically my daily stats show that 25% of the readers of this blog are in the United States, another 25% are in the UK. Kenya is normally around third or fourth with around 10% or 15%. This is more or less what I would expect simply due to the volume of online activity in each of those countries.
The busiest day for Mentalacrobatics this year was when I published CCTV footage of the Raid on the EA Standard and when I put together a quick round up of the reaction of the Kenyan blogosphere to the raid. This is where the country stats got interesting. Have a look at this image:
I found this amazing. The raid on the EA Standard was a massive local story. Although the international media switched on for a while, they quickly moved on as they do. For the Kenyan public and the Kenyan press however, the raid remained the biggest news story for a couple of weeks. Despite having a wealth of information on the raid available in the local press and through international media outlets Kenyans still went online in search of information.
Up to now I have always assumed that Kenyans in Kenya went online to find out what is going on OUTSIDE Kenya. Now it is increasingly clear that Kenyans in Kenya are going online to get an alternative view on the events that are going on INSIDE Kenya. I had another spike in my readership from Kenya in the 24 hours after the Marsabit plane crash. And if an alternative view on Kenya is what you want then a search engine query will probably guide you to one of the Kenyan blogs.
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7 comments Wednesday, April 19th, 2006 at 1:30 PM
At Anfield, home of Liverpool Football Club WWI5T, we have a player the fans named god.
I remember watching the sports news the day he left the club, people were walking around in disbelief. A few months ago god returned to heaven to do what he does best, scoring heaps of goals.
But this post is not about Robbie Fowler, it is dedicated to another genius of the Beautiful Game.
Ronaldo de Assis Moreira a.k.a Ronaldinho is a genius in his own lifetime. A friend of my said we do not realise how good he is because he is here now and playing now. Unlike legends no longer playing he has to prove himself to us week in week out and sometimes that exposure blunts his genius in our eyes.
I was watching a match a few months ago when the man pulled a move so spectacular I could not believe my eyes. It is impossible to explain in words what he did but I was far from the only one impressed. The player he ended up passing the ball to at the end of the move did not move because he, and the rest of us, assumed there was no way Ronaldinho would get the ball to him. We had not factored in genius. The TV commentators were silent for around 20 seconds (and that is a life time on live sports commentary) when they picked their jaws of the ground the first commentator said, “I not having that.” the second one replied, “We might as well pack our bags and go home now, well never see anything to top that.”
LOL.
Nike has launched a new ad campaign for the World Cup called Joga Bonito (Portuguese for “play beautiful.”). The ad campaign features most of Nike’s global football stars but is heavily dominated by the Brazilians. That makes economic sense. Brazil is everyone’s second team and many people would support them against their own country too!
One of the ads features Ronaldinho. It is called Brazilian Ping Pong. You need to see it to believe it. A massive debate is raging online. Is it real? Is it fake? There is even a spoof ad doing the rounds. Everyone has their own opinion. Yeah it may be camera tricks, CGI, juju or something. But would you bet against the man’s skills?
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5 comments Wednesday, April 19th, 2006 at 6:09 AM
I feel like this is going to be a football week. So first some friendly advice to the boys from “Lah’n'dan”:
If you Gooners do not win it this year, you never will. Never. It is destiny time. Now or never. The European Cup is the most fussy of mistresses. She does not take kindly to new suitors. Every once in a while she lowers her defences though and looks at the potential new suitors straight in the eye. Most blink.
And Gooners forget about Barca, it is the revenge of Milan that should be keeping you up at night. (Assuming Juan Roman Riquelme doesn’t spank you first.)
Friendly advice from THE Champions at LFC WWI5T.
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10 comments Tuesday, April 18th, 2006 at 6:30 PM
Manchester Passion is a contemporary retelling of the last few hours of Jesus’ life using popular music from the cream of Manchester bands.
The BBC plans to mark the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ this Easter with an hour-long live procession through the streets of Manchester featuring pop stars from The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays and featuring songs by The Smiths and New Order.
In the programme a character representing Jesus will sing the legendary Joy Division anthem Love Will Tear Us Apart before dueting his arch-betrayer Judas on the New Order hit Blue Monday, according to senior church sources involved in the production.
When Jesus arrives in Manchester for the performance tonight it won’t be on a donkey - it will be on a bike. A procession of 250 people will snake through the city centre carrying light sticks and the centrepiece of the show - an eight-metre-long luminous cross, weighing half a ton. It will take 20 men to carry it into Albert Square for the Crucifixion.
Bishop of Manchester Nigel McCulloch said: “Manchester Passion has a sincerity and ability to shock and connect that is not far removed from how it must have been on the first Good Friday.”
I’ll check it out and take some pics.
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7 comments Friday, April 14th, 2006 at 11:13 AM
The nominees for the 2006 Kaybees - The Kenyan Blog Awards - have been announced!
Check out the Kaybees blog for all the information.
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14 comments Tuesday, April 11th, 2006 at 4:08 AM
Last week it was just a drill, unfortunately today we were not so lucky. 14 people, among them several members of parliament and government officials, were killed when a military aircraft crashed as it prepared to land on an airstrip near the northern Kenyan town of Marsabit on Monday.
This is sad news indeed. The group were travelling to the region to mediate in a bloody feud between rival communities near the border with Ethiopia. These were men on a vital peace mission to an area of our country that has had more than its share of turmoil.
Among the dead are four MPs from the area including Dr. Bonaya Godana one of the most effective Foreign Ministers Kenya has ever had, who luckily escaped a aircraft crash at the same airstrip in Marsabit around 10 years ago. A political vacuum has been created. It is vital that what is left of law and order and the fabric of society in that region is not allowed to filter away. How the government handles this will shape the region and the relationship between northern Kenya and the rest of the country for decades.
While it is not useful to speculate on the cause of the crash without knowing the facts we have to recognise that big accidents in Kenya seem to be increasing. A few months ago after the rescue mission following a building which collapsed in Nairobi was brought to a close the Chief of General Staff Jeremiah Kianga said, “There are very important lessons to be learnt here. Similar lessons have been learnt in the past. We cannot be students forever. It’s time to take action that will enable us to respond faster in future.”
Indeed.
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4 comments Monday, April 10th, 2006 at 4:25 PM
Update 1: Bankelele is also in the money. Proving the point that you can make money from your blogger blog! Any other KBW members out there cashing google cheques?
I set up Google AdSense on my blog to see how much money this site could generate. For the first three days or so I would log into my AdSense account to see how my earnings were growing only to find I had earned around 50 cents.
Google does not reveal exactly how they calculate how much money your website generates. Some ads pay 1 cent a click others 2 cents etc. But even if no one clicks on the ads on your site you can still make money as some advertisers may pay you, through google, to have the ads on your site. I soon forgot about it. It sounded impossible to make money from the AdSense programme. Especially as google do not send out AdSense cheques for less than 100 dollars. In fact the main reason I kept AdSense was because AdSense has a twisted sense of humour and I read somewhere having the ads on your site makes the google bots spider your site immediately, which means your posts are indexed by the google search engine immediately. I’m not sure if it is true but hey it wouldn’t hurt to try.
Then I got home one day to an ordinary letter and opened it to see this:
100 dollars sixty eight cents! Brilliant. I pay USD 95.40 a year for this site and now it is paying for itself.
Now for the painful part. When I switched servers and blogging software I forgot to put the AdSense ads up on this my new WordPress blog. In the busiest two weeks for Mentalacrobatics ever, when I was linked by Boing Boing, The Daily Nation and The Financial Times amongst others I had no ads on my blog. I made no money!
ARRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!
As you can see once I saw the cheque I put the ads back up quickly. This however highlights an important point. You do not need your blog linked by big media outlets to make money from AdSense. Joining a community like the Kenyan Blogs Webring of regular blog readers and writers who link each other and highlight each others posts goes a long long way. So here is another reason to join KBW if you still need one, it will help you make money from your blog*! You do not need any complicated blogging software to take advantage of and make money from the scheme. Blogger has a help page with information on how to get AdSense ads on your blogger blog. Put it up and you never know. In a few months time you may get a cheque in the post as well. Your blog content is what will make you money, no matter where it is hosted.
My new aim is to get one of those Google Christmas presents that are out of this world!
*maybe!
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5 comments Monday, April 10th, 2006 at 2:45 PM
Everybody and their dog are going for the horse I predicted last year, Clan Royal, or the favourite Hegdehunter. But take it from me; put your life savings on Garvivonnian. You can thank me after your big win.
(Some people still have doubts in my abilities but this time it’s for real!)
If you have no idea what I’m banging on about, sort yourselves out!
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6 comments Saturday, April 8th, 2006 at 1:11 PM
