The United Democratic Alliance (UDA) Party has distanced itself from Nandi Senator Samson Cherargei’s proposal on the extension of presidential term limits.

In a statement by UDA Secretary-General Cleophas Malala on Monday morning, the party says it has respect for all lawmakers’ views.

“The UDA Party respects and upholds the Senator's personal views but particularly on the referenced subject, those views do not reflect the perspectives of the UDA Party and/or its Party Leader, the President, William Ruto,” Malala’s statement reads in part. 

“The President solemnly swore to respect, uphold and defend the Constitution which is abundantly clear and categorical on the Presidential term limit.”

Malala says the ruling party’s focus is on delivering on its promises to the People of Kenya.

In his proposal, Malala suggests that five years in office is not sufficient for the running of government and forming a formidable team to implement the election manifesto.  

The constitution only stipulates a five-year term and allows for a chance to get re-elected only once. Cherargei also wanted the talks team to establish the Office of the Prime Minister who will sit in parliament and be the official spokesman of government in the house. 

The proposal has elicited mixed reactions online with some supporting the proposal as the opposition and its supporters strongly criticized the move. By Winfrey Owino, The Standard

Under the Hollywood deal, the Invention Studios will promote Kenya as a filming destination, shoot multiple movies in Kenya, and support the Talanta Hela Initiative.

Kenya has inked a deal in Los Angeles, California to bring Hollywood Invention Studios to Kenya.

Cabinet Secretary for Sports Ababu Namwamba announced the deal on Saturday, a day after another agreement with National Basketball Association (NBA) agreed to establish an office in Nairobi to promote basketball in the region. 

Under the Hollywood deal, the Invention Studios will promote Kenya as a filming destination, shoot multiple movies in Kenya, and support the Talanta Hela Initiative.

“The deal will see e-Talanta become a global platform for Kenyan and African creative content. It will help in growing talents and promoting the protection of Kenyan creatives’ intellectual property and access to royalties,” a statement released by Ababu’s office read in part.

Additionally, the Invention Studios deal will offer an outlet in global marketing of Kenya and its products.

It will also provide master class clinics for creatives, employment opportunities during movie productions, capacity building for Kenyans in the creative sector and upgrading of the capabilities of the Kenya film school.

“The ultimate goal is to elevate Kenya to the continental hub for filming commerce in Africa,” read part of the statement.

With the agreement in place, Invention Studios agreed to commence preparations to start filming in Kenya.

Along with signing the agreement, Hollywood also committed to provide consulting assistance for Kenya’s YouthConneckt Summit. 

The Film Incentive Framework will be the main topic of discussion at the summit, which will take place from December 8^th –12^th in Nairobi.

The agreement was witnessed by Kenya’s Consul General in Los Angeles Ted Kwakwa and top Hollywood agent Ozi Menakaya. By Sharon Resian,, Capital News

The father of a 10-year-old girl who was defiled by an SSPDF soldier in Nimule town on the South Sudan-Uganda border has vowed to kill the suspect after the latter’s army colleagues forcefully sprang him out of a court hearing.

Earlier this month, elements of the SSPDF stormed Nimule High Court and removed one of their own who had been arraigned for rape and defilement.

Peter Panyiong, the complainant whose daughter was violated, said he was disappointed that the suspect was whisked away from court by his army cronies and that he would kill him on sight.

“I will kill him. I will look for him and kill him straight away. That is my stand and the only thing I will do and that is my last say. I reported the case to the government (police) to handle and the person (suspect) was forcefully taken out of court,” he said. “If I get him, I will immediately kill him and not spare him. He was taken to Uganda after he raped (defiled) my daughter. During the court hearing, his soldier friends came and forcefully removed him from court to subvert justice. He was taken out of court by force by SSPDF forces.”

“Even if he is in Juba, when I meet him, I will fight him and If the government wants to imprison him or not, that is their problem,” Panyiong added.

When contacted, Major David Kamsiro, the inspector of police in Nimule, confirmed the incident and called for justice.

“When the suspect was arrested, the army came and took him away to his unit in Juba and he is in detention there and has never been brought back,” he said. “During the first court sitting here in Nimule, the police were not able to intervene because the suspect was already under the detention of his unit. The matter is now between the court and the suspect’s military unit.”

“The complainant (father of the victim) is infuriated and up to now is unhappy,” Kasmiro added.

However, Police Spokesperson Major General Daniel Justin told Radio Tamazuj Saturday that they got a report about the matter and are investigating.

“The report reached us and investigations are ongoing. We did not get his full name but we got a report that the incident happened,” he said. “So, the investigation is to locate him and who he was with. For the sake of investigations, we cannot tell you too much.”

“What we can confirm to you is that we have knowledge and we have taken measures,” Gen. Justin added.

SSPDF Spokesperson Major General Lul Ruai said he had no idea about the incident. Radio Tamazuj

Aliberal elite out of touch with the conservative instincts of the British people. A political realignment defined by an electorate more culturally conservative but economically leftwing. A working class hostile to liberal norms, especially on immigration.

It is a picture of contemporary politics that many have come to embrace, assiduously promoted as it is by a range of academics and commentators, from conservatives to “postliberals”. It shapes policies of left and right, from Labour’s debates about how to win back the “red wall” seats to Rishi Sunak’s desperate attempts to turn “stop the boats” into a wedge issue. 

It’s a perspective that has gained traction because it contains a germ of truth, particularly in its understanding of the corrosiveness of social atomisation and of the gap between working-class and elite perceptions of the world. But reality is also more nuanced and, as the new British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey reveals, these nuances often cut against the grain of the postliberal argument.

It is 40 years since the BSA launched its first survey of social attitudes, and this year’s report focuses on how British society has changed over that time. Often forgotten in debates about “social conservatism” is that what today we consider to be conservative or liberal is very different from that of 40 years ago. On issues from gender roles to same-sex marriage there has been, in the words of the psephologist John Curtice, “a near-revolution in the country’s cultural outlook and social norms”. Contemporary conservative beliefs about gay rights or the relationship between race and British identity would have seemed outlandishly liberal in the 1980s. 

This “onward march of social liberalism”, in the words of a previous BSA report, has enmeshed with shifting attitudes to class in complex ways that have served often to distort perceptions of that liberalisation. “We are all middle class now,” the former Labour deputy leader John Prescott claimed in 1997. We are not, either objectively or in our self-perceptions.

The BSA survey shows that people today are more likely to declare themselves working class than they were in the mid-80s at the height of Margaret Thatcher’s assault on the unions. This is true not just of the mythicised “white working class” but also of ethnic minorities, who are more likely to identify as working class than white Britons, of women, and of young people, too.

How we perceive class boundaries has, however, dramatically changed. Education is now a more discriminating class signifier than occupation. To be “working class” is defined less by whether you are in a white-collar or blue-collar job than by whether you went to university. While 60% of people who left school with a GCSE or less identify as working class, just 28% of university graduates do so. 

No longer does the workplace, or the trade union, or the community bind people together, infusing them with a sense of common purpose. Class is perceived less as a collective identity than as a personal disposition, not so much an economic or political marker as a cultural identifier. 

People who identify as working class are more leftwing (on issues such as the redistribution of wealth and the significance of class conflict) than those who view themselves as middle class. They are also, however, less liberal and more sceptical of immigration. This might provide weight to the postliberal argument about the significance of a socially conservative working class with values distinct from those of the liberal elite. It is, however, not so straightforward.

For a start, the working class, like the rest of society, has also become more liberal on social issues, even if less so than the middle class. The BSA uses a “libertarian-authoritarian” scale, based on attitudes to issues such the death penalty or “traditional values”. A majority of working-class people (56%) are on the “libertarian” rather than the “authoritarian” side of the divide.

Those who see fewer barriers to social mobility are more negative about immigration and more rightwing

Working-class attitudes to immigration have also become more liberal. The BSA defines respondents as “pro-” or “anti-” immigration depending on the degree to which they view it as “bad or good” for Britain. Working-class respondents have over the past decade become increasingly pro-immigration, and those pro and anti are now almost evenly divided, 48% to 52% (where have we seen that ratio before?). 

Contrary to conventional wisdom, it is not that working-class people have become more hostile to immigration but that liberalisation within the working class has moved at a slower pace than within the middle class. Nor does polarisation exist simply between the working class and the liberal elite but lies within the working class, too.

At the same time, what the report calls “class awareness” dampens hostility to immigration. Working-class respondents who are more concerned by inequalities and think it more difficult to move between classes – that is, those who have a more politicised view of class – have more positive views about immigration and are more leftwing. 

Those who see fewer barriers to social mobility, and so are less concerned with inequalities, are more negative about immigration and more rightwing. Another way of reading this is that those for whom being working class is a cultural identity are likely to be more rightwing and more hostile to immigration whereas those for whom it is more a political marker lean to the left and are more welcoming of immigration.

The BSA report adds to the wealth of data that has accumulated in recent years providing for a more nuanced understanding of working-class attitudes to social issues, including immigration. The distinctions it draws between cultural and political identities, and between class “identity” and “awareness”, are important, both in shaping policy and for engaging with voters.

As Oliver Heath and Monica Bennett, authors of the survey’s chapter on social class, observe: “People who are concerned about class inequalities in Britain may be more receptive to economic policy proposals that seek to limit the influence of big business and of the rich and powerful than they will be to policies that seek to blame immigrants for squeezing the labour market and making economic conditions more difficult for British workers.”

That is a significantly different approach from the claim that politicians can appeal to working-class voters only by embracing social conservatism and hardline immigration policies. It is a lesson the left would be wise to heed. • Kenan Malik is an Observer columnist/Guradian