The flamboyant governor of Kenya&#8217;s capital city has pleaded not guilty to a list of corruption charges that include embezzlement and money laundering, VOA news <a href="https://www.voanews.com/africa/nairobis-governor-faces-corruption-charges">reports</a>. 



Mike Gideon Mbuvi was arraigned before the anti-corruption court Monday in Nairobi.



Mbuvi is a member of President Uhuru Kenyatta&#8217;s ruling Jubilee Party.



Because of his glitzy lifestyle, Mbuvi is known by the name &#8220;Sonko&#8221; which mean &#8220;rich&#8221; in Swahili. He often wears expensive gold and diamond jewelry.&nbsp; The French news agency AFP says the politician has also been known to wear golden shoes and is the owner of a fleet of gold-colored cars.



In the slums of Nairobi, Mbuvi commands a lot of support because he has presented himself as a defender of the poor, one who of provides useful projects and jobs.



Security was tight at the courthouse in anticipation of a demonstration by Mbuvi&#8217;s supporters.



Corruption has run rampant in Kenya for decades.&nbsp; Successive presidents have vowed to combat it, but critics say there is no commitment for the fight.



The 2018 Corruption Perceptions Index by Transparency International ranked Kenya among the most corrupt countries.

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Nairobi’s Governor Faces Corruption Charges

The Sengwer, an indigenous hunter-gatherer community in western Kenya, presented a petition Monday morning to the government in Nairobi demanding the return and protection of what they call their ancestral lands. The community says it faces threats of eviction as Kenya&#8217;s government takes over conservation of the country&#8217;s forests and water supplies, VOA news <a href="https://www.voanews.com/africa/kenyas-sengwer-people-demand-recognition-ancestral-land">reports</a>. 



Hundreds of members of the Sengwer, a community that lives in the Embobut forest, spent two days marching from their ancestral land in Kenya&#8217;s North Rift Valley to Nairobi in hopes of meeting President Uhuru Kenyatta.



Dressed in traditional regalia, they sang traditional songs as they arrived in Nairobi with the petition to the government.



85-year-old Moses Leleu took part in the march.



Leleu says, “As a community, we are yet to be recognized as a Kenyan tribe. That&#8217;s one of the main reason we are here. The second is that we have been evicted several times from our ancestral land. We are now living in a small portion in these lands and still face imminent eviction. We want to go back to the areas we have been evicted from and be recognized as the owners of our ancestral land.”



Hunter-gatherer communities in Kenya are facing threat of eviction as the government takes over management of the country’s forests and water catchment areas.



Embobut forest is listed as one of the five most important water catchment areas in Kenya.



Since the 1970’s, Kenya&#8217;s government, through its Forest Service guards, has carried out a series of forceful evictions of the Sengwer in Embobut.



An Amnesty international report said that during evictions in 2017, forces burned more than 300 houses, injured hundreds and killed a Sengwer man.



Amnesty International&#8217;s director in Kenya, Irungu Houghton, walked with the Sengwer in Nairobi Monday.



“Their community is not considered by the economists to have economic value to this country nor are they considered to be politically very powerful. But they are Kenyans and they deserve their rights like other Kenyans. But in addition, they are indigenous people, which means they have a responsibility to the Earth that is very different from the rest of us. Their land is ancestral; they have for centuries been responsible for taking care of the forests in places like Embobut in Elgeyo Marakwet,” Irungu said.



Speaking to VOA, a senior Kenya Forest Service official said Embobut forest was &#8220;a government-gazetted forest and not an ancestral land. The official said the Sengwer were not a tribe but a &#8220;clan within another community that is not laying claim to the forest.&#8221;



The Embobut forest is not the only area witnessing disputes between indigenous people and the government.



In August, the government announced plans to evict thousands they considered &#8220;encroachers&#8221; in sections of Kenya&#8217;s Mau Forest, arguing that the move was to save the Mau ecosystem, which is threatened by heavy deforestation and encroachment.



In a report last month, Human Rights Watch asked the government to stop the &#8220;excessive use of force&#8221; during the Mau evictions and uphold proper guidelines in the ongoing process.



Kenya&#8217;s Ministry of Environment and Forestry set up a task force late last year to advise the government on how to resolve disputes regarding indigenous people&#8217;s claims to forest lands that are critical to Kenya&#8217;s conservation efforts. The task force is set to present its findings to the ministry this month.

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Kenya’s Sengwer People Demand Recognition of ‘Ancestral Land’

Medical experts in Kenya are banking on human breast milk to save the lives of newborn babies, VOA news <a href="https://www.voanews.com/africa/breast-milk-bank-nairobi-shows-impact">reports</a>.
Nairobi&#8217;s Pumwani Maternity Hospital has set up East Africa&#8217;s first breast milk bank  the second in Africa — to provide donated milk to babies in need.
At the hospital it is feeding time as Mary Auma holds onto a bottle with one hand as the other supports her baby, who was born one month early.
Auma has been sick so she cannot breastfeed as recommended by the World Health Organization and  would have been forced to use less healthy formula milk.
A first for region
In March, Nairobi&#8217;s Pumwani Maternity Hospital opened the region&#8217;s first human milk bank.
Auma said the milk bank has helped her because when she became ill, making her unable to nurse the child, the baby was given milk from the bank.
Kenya&#8217;s Ministry of Health and PATH, a U.S.-based nonprofit health organization, launched the milk bank plan in March with the hope of reducing the number of newborn deaths which are currently at 39 per every 1,000 live births.
The milk bank is for premature babies, those born with low birth weight and those whose mothers may not be able to breastfeed them.
While only 58 babies have benefitted from the milk bank so far, hospital staff said more mothers are leaving with healthy newborns.
Mortality rate drops
&#8220;Though the project is still very young we have noted that the neonatal mortality rate is going down drastically,.” said Keziah Njau, the head nurse at the hospital.
The breast milk bank is the first in East Africa and the second opened on the continent after South Africa.
The WHO says premature babies have a higher chance of survival if fed breast milk instead of formula.
Dr. Elizabeth Kimani-Murage, the senior research scientist at Nairobi&#8217;s African Population and Health Research Center, led the push for the Nairobi milk bank.
&#8220;Research where human milk banking has been implemented has shown that neonates like pre-term babies and low birth weight babies or sick children, when they are given human donor milk instead of formula, they survive better,” Kimani-Murage said.
Donor happy to help
Donors are sourced among mothers within the hospital. Mary Ndinda, one of the donors, said she is happy to save lives.
She said she opted to donate to women who do not have milk or to babies who do not have mothers because her breasts were engorged and very painful just days after she gave birth.
Kenyan authorities plan to set up other milk banks across the country, if the one in Nairobi proves a success.

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Breast Milk Bank in Nairobi Shows Impact

Kenya’s high court on Friday upheld laws that criminalize gay sex. The much-anticipated ruling Friday was decided by a three-judge bench on Kenya’s High court in Nairobi, VOA news <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/kenya-upholds-ban-on-same-sex-relations/4932182.html">reports</a>.
The laws, sections 162(a) and (c) and 165 of Kenya’s Penal Code, criminalize consensual sexual conduct between two adults of the same sex, an act that as of Friday’s ruling remains punishable by up to 14 years in prison.
Justices Roselyn Aburili, Chacha Mwita and John Mativo issued the ruling.
In arguments read in court, the three judges stated there was not enough evidence of discrimination against members of the LGBTQ community.
The judges also argued that decriminalization would open the door for same-sex marriage and said there was no scientific evidence that pointed to LGBTQ persons being born as they are.
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</div><figcaption>LGBT activists react after a ruling by Kenya&#8217;s high court to uphold a law banning gay sex, outside the Milimani high Court in Nairobi, Kenya, May 24, 2019.</figcaption></figure>
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Justice Aburili commented for the court panel.
“Decriminalizing the impugned provisions would indirectly open the door for unions among persons of the same sex. If this were to be allowed, it would be in direct conflict with article 45 sub article 2 of the constitution. We take this view fully aware of numerous decisions from different foreign jurisdictions, which we have referred to that have decriminalized provisions similar to ours, however persuasive this decisions may be, they are not binding on this court,” Aburili said.
Friday’s ruling is a result of a petition that dates from 2015, when the National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (NGLHRC), Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Kenya (GALCK), and the Nyanza Rift Valley and Western Kenya Network (NYARWEK), all LGBT rights organizations, filed petitions with Kenya’s high court asking it to declare Sections 162 (a) and (c) and 165 unconstitutional.
Court hearings began in February 2018.
In a series of proceedings through 2018, the petitioners argued the laws, as stipulated in the penal codes, violated the right to privacy, freedom of expression, the right to health, human dignity and the right to freedom from non-discrimination.
The petitioners behind the historic case wanted the high court to declare unconstitutional the sections of the penal code that discriminated against members of the LGBTQ community.
Eric Gitari was one of the petitioners who was present during the ruling.
“It sends a very chilling message, not just to LGBT people in Kenya but LGBT people across the African continent that there is preference, as you heard the judges say, certain cultures, which is the heterosexual culture and protection of the family. When judges have to weigh the protection of human rights of LGBT persons, they will give preference to majoritarian views and majoritarian interest of protecting families — that’s what we have been told and so we will remain criminals,” Gitari said.
After Friday’s ruling, members of Kenya’s LGBT community were clearly distraught.
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Outside the courts, members of various Christian churches congregated, singing songs of jubilation.
One of them is Pastor Katy Kageni of the Sozo Church.
“So it’s not a sin worse than the other sin, but the problem is what it does to the family,” Kageni said. “Our fight is for the family unit. I am a mother of four, I came to this court, I told God, ‘don’t let us get into a position where I have to explain to my children why a man is holding a man.’ If he does it in the bedroom, that’s up to them, and between them and God — but not in public.
For the LGBT community, decriminalization of gay sex would provide guaranteed freedoms that they once only dreamed of, Gitari said.
He said because of today’s ruling, many of Kenya’s LGBT community would remain in the closet, and some will be too ashamed to access basic services, like health care.
Countries such as South Africa, Angola, Mozambique, Sao Tome, and Principe and Cape Verde have struck down anti-homosexuality laws from their constitutions through court rulings or changes in their laws.
Twenty-eight of 49 countries in sub-Saharan Africa continue to uphold laws penalizing same-sex relationships, Kenya included.

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Kenya Upholds Ban on Same-Sex Relations

Seven people have been arrested following Tuesday&#8217;s terror attack at the DusitD2 complex in Nairobi that killed at least 21 people, Kenyan media reported, VOA news <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/identity-nairobi-attack-suspect-shocks-neighbors/4749054.html">reports</a>.
Five suspects appeared in court Friday, and Kenyan security agencies are seeking more suspects in the attack claimed by al-Shabab. Officers requested the four men and one woman be detained for 30 days while an investigation is completed.
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</div><figcaption>Suspects, left to right, Osman Ibrahim, Oliver Muthee, Gladys Kaari, Guled Abdihakim and Joel Nganga stand in the dock inside the Mililani Law Courts where they appeared in connection with the attack at the DusitD2 complex, in Nairobi, Kenya, Jan. 18, 2019.</figcaption></figure>
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Authorities searched a house northwest of Nairobi on Thursday, where one suspect is believed to have lived.
Neighborhood butcher Paul Kariuki was shocked to find out the suspect — Salim Guchunge — had visited his shop many times.
&#8220;I could not believe he did that,&#8221; Kariuki said. &#8220;I am surprised.&#8221;
But not all Guchunge&#8217;s neighbors are rushing to judgment.
&#8220;It&#8217;s quite uncertain,&#8221; said one woman, who did not wish to be identified. &#8220;It&#8217;s quite shocking. It was very unexpected. … he was also on our WhatsApp group for the estate [and] has made a contribution toward some of the activities and projects we have.&#8221;
The suspect&#8217;s last message to the group was a comment on improving neighborhood security.
Sleeper cells
Somali terrorist group al-Shabab has claimed responsibility for Tuesday&#8217;s attack.
Security analyst Mwenda Mbijiwe says the militant group is changing tactics to use so-called sleeper cells within Kenya.
&#8220;They were able to camouflage and hide to stay among that community without anybody ever detecting that these people are living in our midst,&#8221; Mbijiwe said.
Nairobi&#8217;s Eastleigh neighborhood, which has a large ethnic Somali population, is sometimes vilified as a haven for terrorists. But on Friday, Nairobi&#8217;s Somali community rallied in a show of solidarity against terrorism.
Crowds chanted &#8220;We will defeat them!&#8221; and shops closed their doors for an hour to honor victims of the attack.
&#8220;We feel that we stand together with the rest of Kenyans. We are part and parcel of Kenya,&#8221; said Yusuf Hassan, a Somali-Kenyan lawmaker. &#8220;The problems of Kenya [are] our problems, the successes of Kenya are our successes. And we cannot be separated as a community and, therefore, the community is here to say no terrorism, no to extremism.&#8221;

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Identity of Nairobi Attack Suspect Shocks Neighbors

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A gun attack is underway at an upscale hotel in the Kenyan capital Nairobi, say witnesses, <a href="https://www.euronews.com/2019/01/15/gun-attack-underway-after-explosion-at-upscale-hotel-in-kenyan-capital-nairobi?fromBreakingNews=1">reports</a> Euronews.
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It followed at least one explosion at the same site earlier.
Workers at the hotel and office block were seen running for their lives, reports Reuters.
&#8220;We have sent officers to the scene, including from the anti-terrorism unit, but so far we have no more information,&#8221; police spokesman Charles Owino told Associated Press.
Somali Islamist militant group al Shabaab has claimed responsibility for the attack.
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