Kenya's rival parties have agreed to change the Constitution and bring the opposition into government in what was described yesterday as a "half-way deal" to end turmoil that has left more than 1,000 dead.
Former UN chief Kofi Annan was to announce yesterday details of the accord signed by negotiators for President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga, whose dispute over the December presidential election exploded into violence.
Talks led by Annan are to resume on Monday when US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrives to deliver a message to Kenya's leaders that "there must be a full return to democracy."
PHOTO: EPA
Nairobi's Daily Nation newspaper carried the headline: "Annan's team strikes half-way deal in talks," while the Standard sounded a more pessimistic note: "48 hours later ... and no deal yet."
Kenya descended into violence when Kibaki, 76, was declared the winner of the Dec. 27 vote that the opposition said was rigged. International observers also found flaws in the tallying of ballots.
According to the Kenyan Red Cross, more than 1,000 people have died in rioting, tribal clashes and a police clampdown while 300,000 people have been uprooted, shattering Kenya's image as one of Africa's most stable countries.
Annan has been pushing for a power-sharing deal that would bring together the government and the opposition to oversee reforms and pave the way for fresh elections, possibly in two years.
But during crunch talks, Kibaki's camp balked at proposals for "power-sharing," saying it would only go so far as to appoint opposition members to a government under the strong executive leadership of the president, a top government official said.
The opposition had been pushing for the appointment of Odinga as prime minister with full powers as head of government, a post that would require changes to the Constitution.
The parties agreed to launch a one-year constitutional review that could address many of the grievances that fueled the violence -- which appears to have subsided over the past seven days.
But the constitutional review would be conditional on first striking a deal on the makeup of the new all-inclusive government, said the official, who asked not to be named. Talks on that point appeared to be bogged down in disagreement.
"We are still talking and we have not agreed conclusively," said Martha Karua, minister for justice and constitutional affairs who is also the government's lead negotiator.
The text of the agreement signed by the two sides was to be released yesterday.
Kibaki has been under international pressure to make concessions, with the US and Britain threatening visa bans and other sanctions if the mediation fails.
US President George W. Bush announced ahead of a five-nation Africa tour that he had asked Rice to travel to Kenya to support Annan's mediation efforts.
Rice is due to hold talks with Kibaki and Odinga, meet with leaders of civil society and of the business community in Nairobi on Monday.
Former colonial power Britain angered Kibaki's camp when High Commissioner Adam Wood said London did not recognize the government "as presently constituted."
The former UN chief had been holed up with the two negotiating teams at a safari lodge in southern Kenya since Tuesday to try to finalize a deal away from the media glare.
At the request of the African Union, Annan launched his mediation mission on Jan. 29 in a bid to end the violence that saw Kenyans hacked to death by machete-wielding mobs, burnt in churches where they had sought refuge and driven off their land.
The turmoil has laid bare tribal rivalries as well as simmering resentment over land issues and wealth disparities in Kenya, long considered a model of stability in Africa.
Kenya's world-famous safari resorts and beach hotels have suffered a bruising loss of business while the country's economic upswing, with growth at seven percent, could soon flatten out.
An endangered baby pygmy hippopotamus that shot to social media stardom in Thailand has become a lucrative source of income for her home zoo, quadrupling its ticket sales, the institution said Thursday. Moo Deng, whose name in Thai means “bouncy pork,” has drawn tens of thousands of visitors to Khao Kheow Open Zoo this month. The two-month-old pygmy hippo went viral on TikTok and Instagram for her cheeky antics, inspiring merchandise, memes and even craft tutorials on how to make crocheted or cake-based Moo Dengs at home. A zoo spokesperson said that ticket sales from the start of September to Wednesday reached almost
‘BARBAROUS ACTS’: The captain of the fishing vessel said that people in checkered clothes beat them with iron bars and that he fell unconscious for about an hour Ten Vietnamese fishers were violently robbed in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, with an official saying the attackers came from Chinese-flagged vessels. The men were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan claims, as do Vietnam, China, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Vietnamese media did not identify the nationalities of the attackers, but Phung Ba Vuong, an official in central Quang Ngai province, told reporters: “They were Chinese, [the boats had] Chinese flags.” Four of the 10-man Vietnamese crew were rushed
Scientists yesterday announced a milestone in neurobiological research with the mapping of the entire brain of an adult fruit fly, a feat that might provide insight into the brains of other organisms and even people. The research detailed more than 50 million connections between more than 139,000 neurons — brain nerve cells — in the insect, a species whose scientific name is Drosophila melanogaster and is often used in neurobiological studies. The research sought to decipher how brains are wired and the signals underlying healthy brain functions. It could also pave the way for mapping the brains of other species. “You might
STICKING TO DEFENSE: Despite the screening of videos in which they appeared, one of the defendants said they had no memory of the event A court trying a Frenchman charged with drugging his wife and enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her screened videos of the abuse to the public on Friday, to challenge several codefendants who denied knowing she was unconscious during their actions. The judge in the southern city of Avignon had nine videos and several photographs of the abuse of Gisele Pelicot shown in the courtroom and an adjoining public chamber, involving seven of the 50 men accused alongside her husband. Present in the courtroom herself, Gisele Pelicot looked at her telephone during the hour and a half of screenings, while her ex-husband
RSS