Kenya

Police say attackers fired shots and detonated grenades outside a nightclub in Kenya's coastal town of Mombasa after they were denied entry, killing one person and injuring four. Aggrey Adoli, the police chief on Kenya's coast, said Wednesday a security guard died in the hospital while four people were receiving treatment for wounds from the Tuesday night attack. He says the assailants fired shots at security guards who had denied them entry into the club, before detonating the grenades.

Sri Lankan customs officials say they have seized about 1.5 tons of elephant tusks in the largest ever such seizure in the country. Udaya Liyanage, a customs official, says the tusks were being transported through the capital, Colombo, in a container that arrived from Kenya and was bound for Dubai. The container was stopped at Colombo's port on May 14. Liyanage says intelligence reports were analyzed and the container was opened Tuesday. Customs officials found 359 ivory tusks, weighing about 1.5 tons.

"I don't know why. " FINDING A GUIDE: After researching several outfitters, Freeman heard from a friend about TraveLearn (www.travelearn.com; 800-235-9114), which stresses educational opportunities. A TALL ORDER: Before their tour started, Freeman had arranged for a stay at Giraffe Manor, just outside the capital, Nairobi.

Police say attackers fired shots and detonated grenades outside a nightclub in Kenya's coastal town of Mombasa after they were denied entry, killing one person and injuring four. Aggrey Adoli, the police chief on Kenya's coast, said Wednesday a security guard died in the hospital while four people were receiving treatment for wounds from the Tuesday night attack. He says the assailants fired shots at security guards who had denied them entry into the club, before detonating the grenades.

NAIROBI - Vitalis Odhiambo walks 6 miles to work every day, wearing away the soles of his shoes along Nairobi's potholed, crumbling streets. He doesn't do it to save the bus fare, or even the environment. He does it to save time. "If you look at the traffic jams in Nairobi, you have no option but to walk," Odhiambo said as gridlocked cars and trucks inched forward, spewing black exhaust while drivers pounded their horns. "Walking to work is faster and less stressful. " Once known as East Africa's gleaming "City in the Sun," Nairobi has become so snarled with traffic that the government estimates...

NAIROBI, Kenya -- Nurse Carolyne Mujibi went to work in Kenya's largest hospital after her father died there -- from nursing neglect, she believes. But too much work, too little pay, and an assault by a frustrated patient chipped away at her desire to try to make a difference in Kenya. She is preparing to leave to go work in the United States, hoping for greater job satisfaction and more material rewards, and joining a brain drain from the developing world to the West that experts worry is only making it harder for Africa to pull itself out of poverty.

MOMBASA, Kenya - Shabbily dressed and solemn, 18 Somali men nabbed at sea and hauled ashore by European navies crowded into a Mombasa courthouse yesterday to face piracy charges that could put them behind bars for life. Kenya appeared to be ramping up prosecutions amid talk of establishing an international piracy tribunal in the country that borders Somalia, the lawless epicenter of a flourishing pirate industry off the Horn of Africa. The hearings came as a US court this week brought its first piracy charges in over a century, charging a skinny Somali teenager with...

NAIROBI - Protesters set fire to a government office building yesterday, forcing workers to climb out windows as former UN chief Kofi Annan tried to resolve the dispute over Kenya's presidential election. The melee started after police fired tear gas at stone-throwing youths during a memorial service organized by the opposition to honor those killed since the Dec. 27. election. President Mwai Kibaki won a second five-year term, but the opposition and international observers say the vote tally was rigged.

Kenya’s security minister says investigators think a recent explosion that killed two and injured 45 was not the work of terrorists. George Saitoti told Parliament on Tuesday that preliminary investigations found a leaking petrol tank may have caused Sunday’s explosion in a highly populated part of downtown Nairobi. He said bomb experts found no evidence of an explosive device. Kenya has been on high alert since the killing of Osama bin Laden because of threats from al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab militants in neighboring Somalia.

NAIROBI - Kenya wasted millions through corrupt deals in a government program meant to feed the country’s poor, a senior private auditor said yesterday. A government-commissioned investigation by global audit firm PricewaterhouseCoopers found that Kenya lost as much as $26.1 million to corruption in a program meant to provide subsidized maize to the poor. Those losses are drastic in a country where the government estimates that 46 percent of the population of 30 million lives on less than a dollar a day. Philip Kinisu, chief executive of PricewaterhouseCoopers’s operations in...

A Kenyan official says a German man is sought for questioning about the activities of an al-Qaida-linked militia group. Police spokesman Eric Kiraithe said in a statement Saturday that Ahmed Khaled Mueller is wanted for questioning over the criminal activities of the Somalia-based al-Shabab militia. He says Mueller may be armed and goes by the aliases Andreas Martin Muller and Abu Nusaibah. Kiraithe says Mueller may have entered the country illegally. Al-Shabab, Somalia's most dangerous insurgent group, has threatened to bomb Kenya for sending troops into Somalia.

The trial of a British man who faces terrorism charges in Kenya has started in the coastal town of Mombasa. The suspect, who is identified as Jermain Jhon Grant in court documents, sat silent Thursday as the prosecution's first witness told a magistrate's court of his first meeting with the suspect. Grant faces charges stemming from what Kenyan police say was his role in a failed terrorist plot in Kenya late last year. The witness, Hassan Mohammed, said he helped Grant find a Kenyan wife.

One person died and 15 people were wounded when a grenade was thrown into a church in Kenya's capital during Sunday service, an official said. Nairobi's deputy police chief, Moses Ombati, said the grenade exploded at God's House of Miracles International Church in Nairobi. Doctors at Nairobi's Kenyatta Hospital said they had treated 11 patients wounded in the attack. None of the injuries were life-threatening, said a doctor who refused to give his name because he was not authorized to speak to reporters.

NAIROBI — The US government warned Monday that a terror attack on prominent government buildings and hotels in Kenya's capital could be imminent. The US Embassy in Kenya said the timing of the attack is not known but American officials believe it to be in its final planning stages. They did not give further details. The embassy urged Americans to be vigilant. Al Shabab militants from neighboring Somalia, who are linked to Al Qaeda, have vowed to carry out an attack on Kenya for sending troops into Somalia.

LONDON (AP) — Kenyan marathon runners showed their superiority ahead of the Olympics on Sunday, with Wilson Kipsang and Mary Keitany coasting to victory in London to virtually assure themselves of selection for the games. Kipsang, the second-fastest marathon runner ever, won the 42.2-kilometer (26.2-mile) race for the first time, more than two minutes ahead of fellow Kenyan Martin Lel. Kipsang had stormed ahead of the pack with around 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) to go in the British capital before winning in 2 hours, 4 minutes, 44 seconds.

The Kenya Wildlife Service says its game rangers have shot and killed five suspected poachers in the country's western region and recovered elephant tusks weighing 110 pounds. Kenya Wildlife Service spokesman Paul Udoto said Saturday two game rangers were wounded in the gunfight that lasted 40 minutes early in the morning in Chepareria in West Pokot County. Udoto says three AK-47 rifles were recovered from the suspects and rangers are pursuing a suspect who escaped. Kenya rangers shot and killed six suspected poachers last month.

NAIROBI — Sudan’s president defied an international arrest warrant by visiting Kenya yesterday, causing an outcry from the International Criminal Court, which fruitlessly pressured authorities here to arrest the man accused of masterminding the genocide in Darfur. Rather than arrest President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, who was invited along with other regional leaders for the signing of Kenya’s new constitution, officials treated him with the dignity accorded a head of state.

NAIROBI - The Peace Corps said yesterday it has suspended operations in Kenya after weeks of post-election violence, another blow to confidence as business leaders voiced concerns over the turmoil's effect on the economy. Unrest has devastated the nation's once-impressive economy, decimating its vital tourism industry and prompting foreign companies to consider pulling out, business leaders said. The Peace Corps said it was withdrawing its remaining 58 volunteers. Eighty-six volunteers were sent home in January after clashes first erupted.