1 DEAD, SEVERAL TRAPPED IN COLLAPSED BUILDING

At least one person has died after a multi-story building collapsed on the outskirts of Kenya’s capital, Nairobi.

Dozens of people are feared trapped in the ruins of the building in Kiambu town, which was under construction.

Red Cross officials said 15 severely ill people had been pulled from the rubble and taken to hospital.

It is not clear what caused the collapse, but correspondents say Kenyan building companies are often criticised for flouting safety regulations.

There have been suggestions that heavy rain in the area recently could have weakened the five-storey structure.

The rescue operation continued late into the night, as officials said an unknown number of people could still be inside the building.

Up to 50 workers were believed to have been on site at the time of the collapse.

Some of those trapped have made mobile phone calls to alert relatives.

One eyewitness reported hearing a loud bang when the building cracked before it collapsed.

A reporter for the Associated Press news agency said he saw a woman’s body in the wreckage, while one rescued man told AP several people had been in the room with him when the building fell.

The BBC’s Will Ross in Nairobi says the incident was not the first of its kind in recent years.

Following the collapse of other buildings in recent years, there were calls for stricter building regulations to be enforced, says our correspondent.

But Nairobi is currently experiencing a construction boom, and companies are often criticised for cutting corners and failing to enforce strict safety measures as profitable high rises spring up over the city, he adds.

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DUTCH CITIZENS ARRESTED IN KENYA OVER SOMALI INSURGENCY

Four Dutch nationals have been arrested in Kenya on suspicion of aiding insurgents in Somalia.

The four 21-year-olds, three born in Morocco, the other in Somalia, were stopped by Kenyan police as they were heading for the border.

The local police were not satisfied with their claims to be tourists.

There have been a series of recent reports that young men from the US, Europe and South Asia have joined the Somali insurgents in a “holy war”.

Lamu District Commissioner Stephen Ikua told the BBC the four had travelled by boat from Lamu island before hiring a tractor.

He said it was possible they were headed to Somalia to assist one of the insurgent groups there and they would be interrogated in Nairobi.

The Kenyan authorities say they have arrested and deported several other young men from Tanzania and the United States in the same area for the same reason.

BBC East Africa correspondent Will Ross says in recent months eyewitnesses in Somalia have reported seeing foreigners amongst the insurgent fighters known as al-Shabab.

Al-Shabab wants to overthrow the UN-backed transitional government in Somalia and put in place strict Islamic law.

The hardline Islamists control much of southern Somalia.

Foreigners have headed to Somalia to take part in what they consider a holy war or jihad.

The authorities in Minnesota in the United States are investigating claims that several young men were lured to Somalia to fight.

Since early May, the fighting between the insurgents and the forces loyal to Somalia’s government has displaced nearly 250,000 people.

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KENYA AUTHORITIES SEIZED HOARDED IVORY

Kenyan authorities have seized 300kg (660 lbs) of illegal ivory hidden in coffins on a plane bound for Laos. The haul included 16 elephant tusks and black rhinoceros horns. Officials said the blood on the ivory suggested the animals had been killed very recently.

The flight – which stopped in Nairobi – originated in Mozambique and was bound for Thailand and then Laos. The haul of ivory may have had a value of about $1m (£614,000). Officials from Kenya’s Wildlife Service said the ivory might have come from Tanzania or South Africa. The black rhino is found only in eastern and southern Africa. The international ivory trade has been banned since 1989. The sale of ivory is illegal if the ivory is not from pre-1989 stockpiles. However, some countries have done little to enforce the ban.

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KOFI ANNAN HANDS OVER KENYAN LIST TO ICC

Kenya’s post-election crisis mediator Kofi Annan said on Thursday he had handed a sealed envelope with the names of top suspects behind the violence to the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor.

The ICC has vowed to try perpetrators of the worst bloodletting in Kenya’s post-independence history — in which at least 1,300 people died and 300,000 were uprooted in early 2008 — if Nairobi fails to establish its own local court.

Justice for the crisis is seen as a crucial step to ensuring stability in the east African nation of 35 million that is the region’s economic powerhouse and faces its next poll in 2012.

A government-ordered inquiry had mandated Annan to hand over the envelope, with names of at least 10 alleged masterminds, if no local court was established.

The list includes prominent politicians and businessmen, including cabinet ministers, local political sources said.

Kenyan officials told the ICC last week that they would submit a plan for a local court by September, so Annan’s move will ramp up the pressure for that to happen.

A statement from Annan in Geneva said he had informed both President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga that the envelope had been given to ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo.

The former U.N. boss “welcomed the government of Kenya’s renewed efforts to implement the recommendations of the Waki Commission and to establish a Special Tribunal”, it said.

“Any judicial mechanism adopted to bring the perpetrators of the post-election violence to justice must meet international legal standards and be broadly debated with all sectors of the Kenyan society in order to bring credibility to the process.”

Kenya’s parliament has blocked previous attempts by Kibaki and Odinga to create a local court, with some legislators arguing that past local attempts to catch those behind violence or corruption had always proved fruitless.

The ICC’s Moreno-Ocampo told Reuters this week it may take Kenya about a year to establish a tribunal if it agrees to do so in principle. “If Kenya cannot do it, I will do it. There will be no impunity,” he said.

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YEMINI CRASH VICTIMS FOUND IN TANZANIA

Debris and bodies thought to be from the plane that crashed off Comoros in the Indian Ocean last week have washed up on a Tanzanian island, police say.

A regional police commander said crash investigators in the Comoros had been informed of the find.

Security forces have been deployed to Mafia Island, several hundred miles north-west of the Comoros, to search for more bodies.

The plane came down in bad weather with 153 people on board on 30 June.

A 12-year-old girl – Baya Bakari – was the only known survivor. She was found clinging to debris some two hours after the crash.

Many of the passengers were travelling to the Comoros but had begun their journey in Paris or Marseille on another jet operated by Yemenia, the national airline of Yemen, before boarding flight IY626 in Sanaa.

Officials on Mafia Island said the bodies began washing ashore on Tuesday.

Five were found in the afternoon, and by 2100 local time the number had risen to 13.

Absalom Mwakyoma, regional police commander of the Coastal Province, said bits of wreckage had also been found indicating it could be from the Yemania plane.

“All responsible authorities including and island citizens have helped tell us where to find the bodies, for example there are unconfirmed reports that there are other two bodies found in an island called Nyoni,” he told BBC Swahili.

The bodies were being sent to a mortuary in Dar es Salaam, he said.

Over the weekend, investigators said a signal had been detected from the flight data recorders of the Yemenia Airbus 310 airliner.

Yemenia says that bad weather – strong winds and high seas – was the more likely cause of the crash.

The Comoran community in France held protests in both Paris and Marseille, saying that the 19-year-old aircraft had not been fit for service.

France’s transport minister has said that Yemenia will be “under strict surveillance”, and would have to make “big efforts” to avoid being placed on an EU blacklist of airlines banned from entering Europe.

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KENYA FIXES NEW TRIBUNAL DEADLINE

Kenya and the International Criminal Court have agreed on a new deadline to set up a special tribunal to try the ringleaders of post-election violence.

Kenyan ministers promised to establish the tribunal by July 2010 and in the meantime provide the ICC with the details of their investigations.

An ICC spokesman said ministers also promised to refer the case to the ICC if they failed to establish a tribunal.

About 1,500 people were killed in violence following the 2007 elections.

Chief mediator Kofi Annan had warned the Kenyan government he would hand over a list of suspects to the ICC if Nairobi failed to form the tribunal before the end of August 2009.

Mr Annan, the former UN secretary-general, brokered a power-sharing deal last year to end the violence.

ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo told the BBC he was satisfied with the new agreement.

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RWANDA URGED TO DROP STERILISATION BILL

Rwanda is being urged to drop a draft law which would forcibly sterilise people who are mentally disabled. US-based campaign group Human Rights Watch said the proposed law was deeply flawed and violated the government’s obligation to uphold human rights. It also requires people to have an HIV test before getting married.

“Provisions in the current bill that increase stigma, rely on coercion and deny… reproductive rights should be removed,” HRW’s Joe Amon said. Forced sterilisation is regarded as a crime against humanity by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

Rwanda has successfully managed to lower the spread of Aids in recent years thanks to its HIV campaign. Figures from the World Bank in 2007 put the prevalence of Aids in the country at about 3%, down from 11% in 2000.

“While Rwanda has made notable progress in fighting stigma and responding to the Aids epidemic, and has pledged to advance the rights of persons with disability, forced sterilisation and mandatory HIV testing do not contribute to those goals,” said Mr Amon, the health and human rights director at Human Rights Watch.

“These elements of the bill undermine reproductive health goals and undo decades of work to ensure respect for reproductive rights.”

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STRIKING NURSES IN ZAMBIA DEFY GOVERNMENT SACK THREAT

Striking nurses in Zambia have defied a government deadline to return to work or face dismissal. They have been on strike for more than three weeks demanding an increase in pay and a variety of allowances. Unions have also urged them to return to work as the government says it will only negotiate if the strike ends.

There has been a public outcry about the strike after a woman gave birth in a hospital car park in the capital Lusaka and the baby died minutes later. All nurses, with the exception of senior managers, are demanding a 25% wage increase – the government has offered 15% – and an increase in uniform, night duty and housing allowances that have not been changed for six years.

“Firing is not the answer – it is failing leaders that should fired ”

The BBC’s Musonda Chibamba in Lusaka says health services in the country are heavily dependent on nurses. At the University Teaching Hospital (UTH) in Lusaka, for example, the out-patients department is being manned by student nurses.

Our reporter says the nurses defied expectations when they continued their strike on Monday. Instead, a large crowd of the nurses gathered on the lawns of the UTH where unarmed policemen were present, she says. The nurses privately expressed their disappointment at what they called government failure to meet them half-way.

They have also been angered by an assertion by government spokesman Ronnie Shikapwasha that once dismissed, they would be replaced by nurses from neighbouring Zimbabwe, our correspondent says.

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FIRST HINI FLU VIRUS CASE CONFIRM IN KENYA

Kenya has detected its first case of the new H1N1 influenza virus in a 20-year-old British student, Public Health Minister Beth Mugo said on Monday. “This is the first confirmed case of H1N1 in Kenya,” she told a news conference.

A group of 30 students has been quarantined in a hotel in city of Kisumu in western Kenya. The student’s condition did not require hospitalisation, Mugo said. Other African countries that have confirmed having swine flu patients are South Africa, Ethiopia and Ivory Coast.

The World Health Organisation is now reporting more than 67,000 confirmed cases of H1N1 flu and some 300 deaths worldwide.

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SOMALI ISLAMISTS CARRY OUT DOUBLE AMPUTATIONS

Hardline Islamists in Somalia have carried out double amputations on four men for stealing phones and guns.

They have each had a hand and foot cut off after being convicted by a Sharia court in the capital earlier this week.

More then 300 people, mainly women and children, watched as masked men cut off their limbs with machetes.

The four men reportedly admitted to the robberies, but were not represented by a lawyer and were not allowed to appeal against their sentence.

The al-Shabab group, which controls much of southern Somalia, has carried out amputations, floggings and an execution in the southern port of Kismayo but such punishments are rare in the capital.

“ ‘Help, help, help!’ one of them shouted ”
Eyewitness Mohamed Abdi

The amputations were carried out in the open in front of an al-Shabab military camp in the north-east of Mogadishu.

A local resident said the four men cried out during and after the amputations. Each man had his right hand and left foot cut off.

“‘Help, help, help!’ one of them shouted,” Mohamed Abdi told the BBC.

Eyewitnesses estimate the age of the four men – Aden Mohamud, Ismail Khalif , Jeylani Mohamed, and Abdulkadir Adow – to be between 18 and 25.

Mr Abdi said the whole process took about an hour to complete.

Human rights lobby group Amnesty International has condemned the amputations.

“These punishments amount to torture,” said Tawanda Hondora, Amnesty’s Africa deputy director.

The group says that committing torture could amount to a war crime.

After the four were sentenced to double amputations on Monday, mosques in the area announced through their loud speakers that the amputations would take place at 0800 local time on Thursday.

Al-Shabab spokesman Ali Mohamud Rage told journalists that the amputations were a warning to all thieves.

“If they are caught red-handed in similar circumstances, they will face amputation,” he said.

He also said al-Shabab would look after the welfare of the amputees.

On Monday, the court had said it was too hot for the sentence to be carried out on that day as an amputation in such conditions could lead the accused to bleed to death.

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