Author: Kelvin Funkeye

A video clip of West Pokot youths on a roadshow drumming up support for Deputy President William Ruto’s election as president in 2022 is doing the rounds on social media. The caravan is bedecked with a banner boldly proclaiming, “Vijana West Pokot for Ruto 2022-2032 Tumeamua”. Despite supporters of Dr Ruto insisting that they had not defied President Uhuru Kenyatta’s call to stop premature campaigns for 2022, the clip appears to be just what the…

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko announced Tuesday that he sought peace with Russia, despite accusing his rivals in Moscow of sponsoring an eastern insurgency and interfering in Kiev’s internal affairs. Poroshenko made the remarks as he officially announced his bid for re-election during a forum entitled “From Kruty to Brussels. We are going our way” at Kiev’s International Exhibition Center. The Ukrainian leader came to power after a 2014 revolution that expelled a pro-Moscow president and saw Russian…

A new UN report on Tuesday says more than 30,000 people have fled the northeast Nigerian town of Rann and across the border to Cameroon in recent days because of fears of renewed Boko Haram attack. The latest mass movement comes as the world body voiced renewed concern about the effect of the bloody conflict on civilians and launched a longer-term plan to help those made homeless by the fighting. Rann, in northern Borno state,…

 Hundreds of Zimbabwean lawyers marched on Tuesday to demand justice for people detained in jail and others facing fast-track trials after violent protests this month led to mass arrests and a brutal security crackdown. Police say more than 1,000 people have been arrested since Jan. 14, when a three-day stay-at-home strike called after President Emmerson Mnangagwa raised fuel prices led to street violence and looting. Those charged have been denied bail in a pattern lawyers…

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) – Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Al-Hamdallah has tendered his resignation and that of his unity government to President Mahmoud Abbas, he said on Tuesday, dealing a blow to faltering reconciliation efforts with Gaza’s Islamist Hamas rulers. The government will continue to carry out its duties until a new one is formed, it said in a statement issued after a weekly cabinet meeting. There was no immediate comment from Abbas, but his…

R Kelly is reportedly being investigated by the FBI over a claim the singer committed a federal crime by arranging transportation to fly an underage girl across state lines in 2015. According to TMZ, R Kelly arranged the coast-to-coast flights for Azriel Clary, who was 17 at the time. Clary, who was featured in the Lifetime documentary Surviving R Kelly, flew from Palm Springs to Phoenix to Orlando on May 25 2015. The flights were reportedly booked by a…

FIFA says a former African player of the year and Confederation of African Football executive committee member had his ban for taking cash payments cut on appeal. FIFA’s appeal panel reduced Kalusha Bwalya’s ban from soccer to the time he already served. His fine was reduced to 10,000 Swiss francs ($10,090) from 100,000 Swiss francs ($100,900). FIFA ethics judges banned Bwalya, the former Zambia soccer federation president, for two years last August. He took payments…

Former First Lady Grace Mugabe has been ordered to pay $278 304 to a local law firm which represented her in several court cases involving a botched $1,4 million diamond ring deal. Manase and Manase Legal Practitioners represented Grace in cases where she claimed to have been duped by Lebanese businessman Jamal Ahmed. In a bid to recover the money, Grace is alleged to have “grabbed” three properties, namely No 409 Harare Drive, Pomona, No…

The US Justice Department on Monday unveiled sweeping charges against Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei in two cases likely to ratchet up tensions between the two superpowers — including that of a top executive arrested in Canada on a US warrant. The department unveiled 13 charges against Huawei Technologies, its chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou — the daughter of the company’s founder who is currently out on bail in Canada — and two affiliates related to…

Brazilian firefighters and Israeli rescue workers poked sticks into treacherous mud Monday looking for bodies as pressure mounted on the mining company responsible for a dam that burst and spilled a flood of iron ore waste. By late in the day, the death toll rose to 65, with 279 people still missing, said Lt. Col. Flavio Godinho of the civil defense department in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais. In a sign of the risks…