Kioo17 Journal

The Kenyan government has banned evening prayers popularly known as “kesha” in Narok County. Narok County Commissioner George Natembeya made the directive following rising statistics of early pregnancies among school going teenagers in the county. The county commissioner was speaking at an affirmative action campaign during which bursary cheques were issued to students from various institutions. At the same time, Narok Woman Representative Soipan Tuya called on local administrators to heighten the fight against female genital mutilation in the region saying it continues to have devastating effects on the education of girls. Early last month, 17 girls from Suswa Girls Secondary School in Narok County were found to be pregnant. SOURCE: Citizen.

Saudi political analyst called “Mujtahid” and who is well known for leaking exclusive information about the Saudi royal family via social media has exposed that Saudi Arabia is buying drones from Israel through South Africa. According to the twitterwhistleblower, Saudi Arabia had announced that it is building a drone plant in cooperation with South Africa, but that is only a guise to hide the clandestine purchases of aircraft from Israel. Tweeting about the scandals of the Saudi royal family since 2000, “Mujtahid” wrote in a series of remarks on Wednesday “"The report aims to hide the fact that Saudi Arabia intends to purchase drones from Israel via South Africa.” The Saudi analyst assured that the official report released by the Saudi Defense Ministry according to which the kingdom would build a drone factory in collaboration with South Africa is false. In a description to the mechanism developed to carry out the deal, “Mutahid” further noted  "Saud...

Tia Freeman and her son Xavier in a photo from her Twitter account. Image: Twitter. A pregnant woman from the US who thought her labour pains were food poisoning ended up delivering her own baby in a Turkish hotel room with a kettle, shoelaces and a series of YouTube videos. Tia Freeman, from Nashville, later related the whole experience in a string of tweets. Both Tia and her baby boy Xavier are both now doing well, she told the BBC. Tia, 22, says she didn't realise she was expecting until towards the end of pregnancy. "I found out mid-January," she told the BBC's Newsbeat. "I gained just under 20 pounds (5kg) the entire pregnancy, so weight gain was little indication." In fact, Tia thought the weight gain was normal "seeing as though I hadn't been to the gym in a while". But eventually, "it started to round out in the typical pregnancy fashion", prompting her to take a test. Despite learning the news...

Riyadh, SAUDI ARABIA: Saudi authorities apologized Saturday for videos with scantily clad female performers shown at a pro-wrestling event, highlighting the tension the ultraconservative kingdom faces in opening its society while respecting cultural and religious restrictions. The promotional ad was aired between wrestling matches at the World Wrestling Entertainment Co.’s Greatest Royal Rumble, a pay-per-view, government-sanctioned event that Saudi authorities said was the first live wrestling event with women allowed to attend at ringside. The audience’s men cheered as close-up clips of female wrestlers in skimpy outfits filled a big screen in King Abdullah Sports City stadium in Jeddah. The WWE event was broadcast on Saudi state television. Saudi Arabia’s General Sports Authority, which sanctioned Friday’s event, issued a statement on Twitter apologizing for “the scenes of indecent women that featured in an ad before one of the matches.” The authority ...

Hundreds of opposition People’s Party (PP) supporters on Saturday turned out to welcome Malawi’s former president, Joyce Banda, who has been abroad for four years. Security has been tight, especially on road between the Blantyre commercial city and Chileka International airport. Banda and her husband retired Chief Justice Richard Banda, waved the crowds on arrival sporting her signature attire of a wrap on her shoulder and had dark glasses. The former Malawi leader addressed reporters at airport’s VVIP lounge where she rebutted claims that she fled the country in 2014 when she lost power after being embroiled in the so-called Cashgate scandal, in which government officials siphoned off millions of dollars of public money. Banda — only the second woman to lead a country in Africa — who landed at midday (1000 GMT) on a flight from Johannesburg, explained that after losing elections she went to a summit in United States and returned home. She said a...

Zimbabwean Government has legalised the production of cannabis (mbanje, dagga or Marijuana) for medicinal or scientific purposes. This was announced by Health and Child Care Minister Dr David Parirenyatwa in a Government Gazette yesterday under Statutory Instrument 62 of 2018 (Dangerous Drugs – Production of Cannabis for Medicinal and Scientific Use Regulations). Zimbabwe's Health and Child Care Minister Dr David Parirenyatwa. Image: Herald ZW. Producers of mbanje must be licensed by the minister. “An application for the issue of a licence in terms of section 27 of the Act shall be made to the Minister, in duplicate and shall be accompanied by the appropriate fee and three copies of a plan of the site proposed to be licensed which shall comply with the requirement specified in these regulations. “In case of an individual, proof of citizenship or proof of being ordinarily resident in Zimbabwe or proof of an exemption by the Minister (will be required),” Reads...

Texas, UNITED STATES: U.S. authorities have arrested the son of a former president of the West African country of Guinea and his wife for allegedly enslaving a countrywoman in their Texas home. Mohamed and Denise Cros-Toure were being held in a federal detention facility Friday pending a probable cause hearing Monday in Fort Worth on a forced labor charge. Toure’s attorney, Brady Wyatt, told The Associated Press that his client is the son of late Guinean President Ahmed Sekou Toure, who helped lead Guinea to independence from French rule in 1958. Sekou Toure was the country’s first president, a role he held until his death in 1984. Ahmed Sékou Touré (January 9, 1922 - March 26, 1984) was a Guinean political leader who was elected as the first President of Guinea, serving from 1958 to his death in 1984. Touré was among the primary Guinean nationalists involved in gaining independence of the country from France. According to an arrest affidavit, the defendants ...

Ontario, CANADA: A man has been banned for life from owning or caring for animals after pleading guilty in the deaths of more than 1,500 pigs. The Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals says Ben Stein, 28, pleaded guilty on Jan. 18 to four counts of animal cruelty and was sentenced on Thursday in Simcoe, Ont., court. Ontario SPCA officers went to a pig farm in Langton, Ont., on Feb. 17, 2017, after receiving a concern about the welfare of pigs on the property. The say the officers found dead and dying pigs, and moved the surviving animals to a dry, well-lit area of the barn where they could be triaged. An estimated 1,265 pigs were dead when officers arrived and an additional 250 pigs had to be euthanized due to the severe condition in which they were found. Stein pleaded guilty to permitting an animal to be in distress, failing to provide adequate and appropriate sanitary conditions, failing to provide adequate and appropriate ventilation an...

The wedding of Soumya and Reema in the city of Bolangir in India’s eastern state of Odisha was solemnized in February this year like any other Indian wedding, except for a surprise gift they received five days after the wedding, which ended their short-lived marital bliss. New Delhi (Sputnik) — Police in India's eastern state of Odisha claim to have cracked the sensational parcel bomb wedding gift case after two months of investigation. The police said that after looking at the many aspects of the case, they zeroed in on Punjilal Meher, a colleague of the groom's mother who has reportedly confessed to have packed a bomb and sent to it the newly-wed couple wishing them a happy married life. The incident took place on February 23 this year, five days after Soumya and Reema tied the knot. They received a parcel from an unknown sender. When opened, the parcel exploded, killing Soumya on the spot, while Reema and another family member were severely burnt. The Odish...

Sierra Leone’s President Julius Maada Biohas sacked all political appointees at the country’s foreign missions including ambassadors and information attachés. He has also retired all  workers in the public service who have attained the age of 60, except those under special employment approved by parliament. The sackings were contained in an executive order President Maada Bio  issued on Wednesday, in which he announced a wide range of measures to reduce financial waste. He also embargoed recruitments in the public service. Here are the measures announced on Wednesday: *With immediate effect, purchase of vehicles by all Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) and public corporations has been banned until a new Fleet Management Policy is put in place. *Payment for fuel, telephone and internet services to public servants in Ministries, Departments and Agencies for their residences are suspended with immediate effect pending a new benefit policy. ...

Nairobi, KENYA: Kenyan authorities have banned a film that tells the love story of two women on the grounds that it promotes lesbianism but activists said the ban would only promote interest in the movie. “Rafiki”, a word that means friend in KiSwahili, was this week invited to premiere at next month’s Cannes Film festival — the first Kenyan film to receive such an invite. The Kenya Film Classification Board announced the ban on Friday and said in a tweet: “Anyone found in its possession will be in breach of law”, referring to a colonial-era Kenyan law under which gay sex is punishable by 14 years in jail. Board spokeswoman Nelly Muluka tweeted: “Our culture and laws recognize family as the basic unit of society. “The (board) cannot, therefore, allow lesbian content to be accessed by children in Kenya.” Film director Wanuri Kahiu said:  “I’m really disappointed because Kenyans already have access to watch films that have LGBT content, on Netflix, and in i...

Accra, GHANA: The African Regional Director of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Dr Matshidiso Rebecca Moeti, has said the inflow of poor quality drugs into Africa is affecting the quality of health care. According to her, to reverse the trend, WHO is collaborating with governments, manufacturers and regulatory bodies in various countries to ensure that all medicines meet the requisite standard. She was speaking to the media at the WHO country office in Accra on Wednesday, 25 April 2018 as part of her seven-day visit to Ghana. She said they are exploring legal means “to stop and limit the illegal importation of medicines of poor quality” as it remains “one of the key challenges of quality health care in the African region”. Explaining the state of mental health facilities in Africa, she said it was “one of the areas of health in our region that receives very little support in relation to what it needs and deserves and this is an issue all over I will say, in a...

A Zimbabwean Village head in Mashonaland Central Province's Bindura area has told the villagers that if they do not submit their Biometric Voter registration slips they will not receive food aid. This was revealed by Heal Zimbabwe Trust in its latest report. "On the 3rd of April 2018, Councillor Patrick Masango instructed Rose Nyampala, a ZANU PF member to embark on a door to door exercise forcing community members to submit their serial numbers to her. All those who refused were threatened with violence,"  Said the trust.  "At Mbire ward , Village head Kamanura on the 6th of April 2018 intimidated community members during a community meeting conducted in Nyakatondo village. The Village head highlighted that people who did not submit their voter registration slips will not receive food aid." The trust said at Bindura ward 6 ZANU PF member only identified as Gweva on the 4th of April 2018 intimidated community members at Trojan mine. G...

Johannesburg, SOUTH AFRICA: Former President Jacob Zuma has reportedly questioned why it's taken the country so long to introduce free higher education for poor and working-class students. Zuma delivered a lecture in Umlazi in KwaZulu-Natal on Thursday night. The former head of state announced free education during his term in 2017, after a wave of nationwide student protests. According to News24, Zuma has questioned the amount of time it’s taken government to introduce free higher education, saying that when the decision was taken last year it was already three years late. He's cited the Freedom Charter as having guaranteed the move but says it took over 20 years for it to be realised. The former president is quoted as having said since the introduction of free higher education, the poor and working class finally have a chance to break the painful culture of excellent black matriculants never going any further with their education. He's als...

A teenage girl crowned the world’s hairiest child has started shaving and bagged herself a husband — whom she calls the “love of her life.” Sumatra Susuphan, 17, from Bangkok, Thailand, was born with Ambras syndrome — an extremely rare condition also known as “werewolf syndrome.” Ambras, which only 50 people in the world are known to have suffered from since the Middle Ages, causes excessive hair growth. Despite being proud of her condition when she was given the award by Guinness World Records in 2010, Sumatra has now been pictured on social media completely hairless. And her father, Samrerng, has confirmed that his daughter, once dubbed “Werewolf” by her pals, still has the condition but has started shaving her face and body. Her Facebook profile also shows that the brave teen is now married to her “first love,” whom she heaped praise on in one post. She wrote:  “You’re not just my first lover, you’re the love of my life.” Whi...

Pennsylvania, UNITED STATES: Bill Cosby, who once embodied the idealized American father on a wildly popular sitcom, was convicted of sexual assault on Thursday in a high-stakes retrial after a half-dozen women testified that the famed comedian drugged and assaulted them. Bill Cosby arrives for his sexual assault trial led by his spokesman, Andrew Wyatt, right, at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday. Image: Corey Perrine / Pool via Getty Images The jury found Cosby guilty on all three counts on Thursday afternoon, drawing an emotional reaction from his accusers. Cosby remains free on bail until sentencing. Upon reading of the first guilty verdict several of Cosby's alleged prior victims sobbed and shook with joy. Cosby's head was bent slightly, eyes shut. Cosby, who has faced dozens of sexual misconduct allegations spanning decades, was charged with three counts aggravated indecent assault against one woman, And...