The government of Kenya and the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) have signed a Sh8.7 billion second threshold program agreement to improve urban connectivity and ease the transition to e-mobility.

 The deal was signed on the sidelines of the ongoing United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York.

“Mobility in Nairobi is very important to us. The city has 5 million people during the day and 4 million at night, so this means there are 1 million people who come every day, posing a very significant challenge to the infrastructure. The bus transport system is a very important component,” said Ruto.

“Today’s signing ceremony marks an exciting milestone in the growing partnership between Kenya and the United States.”

 The funding is aimed at providing support to climate-friendly buses for the emerging Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) network that will ease traffic congestion in Nairobi. 

 MCC Chief Executive Officer Alice Bright termed the grant as one of the “largest and most ambitious threshold programs” that the firm has ever offered with any partner country.

 “It reflects MCC’s confidence in Kenya to address its own challenges to economic growth and is yet one more symbol of the longstanding relationship between our two countries,” she said.

 MCC is an independent U.S. government agency working to reduce global poverty through economic growth by providing time-limited grants and assistance to countries with standards for good governance. 

 During his tour in the U.S., the president also met other international leaders on the event sidelines who expressed their commitment to Kenya.

In a meeting with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ruto said that the Ukrainian government is committed to setting up a grain hub to fight food insecurity in Kenya and East Africa at large. 

 “In New York, United States held talks with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy who committed to establishing a grain hub in the Port of Mombasa to address food shortage in East Africa,” Ruto stated on the X platform, formerly known as Twitter.

 President Ruto further reiterated Kenya’s support for a peaceful resolution to the Russian-Ukraine conflict.

 “Kenya advocates for a peaceful resolution of the Russia-Ukraine conflict to restore stability, alleviate the suffering of the people, and stop the destruction of property.” 

 He remarked that conflict resolution among the warring nations is a priority to all in the world as a sense of humanity.

 President Ruto also held talks with various international leaders including President of the World Bank Ajay Banga, Zuzana Caputova (Slovakia), Gambia Vice President Muhammad Jallow, Denmark and Sweden Prime Ministers Mette Frederiksen and Ulf Kristersson respectively. By Sharon Wanga, The Standard

President William Ruto has appointed Renson Mulele Ingonga as the new Director of Public Prosecutions.

In a Gazette notice dated September 20, 2023, Ruto announced appointing Ingonga who is set to serve on an 8-year term.

"In exercise of the powers conferred by Article 157 (2) of the Constitution and in accordance with the procedure set out under section 8 (8) of the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions Act, 2013, I appoint Renson Mulele Ingonga as the Director of Public Prosecutions," the notice read in part. 

Last week, Members of Parliament unanimously approved Ingonga's nomination to the position.

He now officially succeeds Noordin Haji who is at the helm of the National Intelligence Service as the Director General. 

Before his appointment, Renson was a Senior Deputy Director of Public Prosecution in charge of the North Eastern region. By Mate Tongola, The Standard

Diane Abbott has accused Labour of leading a “fraudulent” investigation into her comments about racism that left her suspended from the party.

Abbott, who became the UK’s first black female MP in 1987, has claimed the party’s whips office is no longer conducting a formal investigation. Instead, she claims the internal inquiry is “now run entirely out of the Labour party HQ, which reports to Keir Starmer – and there is no investigation”.

Her comments may raise eyebrows within the party, given some frontbenchers claim to have urged officials to allow the senior MP to be given a “respectful sendoff”. Others have said Abbott should consider stepping down.

Abbott said: “I am the longest-serving black MP. Yet there is widespread sentiment that as a black woman and someone on the left of the party, that I will not get a fair hearing from this Labour leadership.”

A number of senior Labour figures on the right of the party have privately expressed their sadness over Abbott’s suspension, acknowledging the glass ceilings she has broken, but they feel unable to publicly defend her record.

The 69-year-old MP had the Labour whip withdrawn in April after she suggested that Jewish, Irish and Traveller people were not subject to racism “all their lives”, in a letter to the Observer. 

Abbott says she has remained silent over the issue during the investigation, which has now gone into its fifth month, as she had hoped that “some sense of decency and recognition of the tenets of natural justice might prevail”. But she said in a lengthy statement on X, formerly known as Twitter, that “the Labour party disciplinary machine has clearly shown that it has little interest in either”. 

The former shadow minister claims Labour’s London regional office had closed down the executive committee in her constituency party and replaced its principal officers. “In effect, the Labour apparatus has decapitated the elected leadership of the constituency party to install its own, hand-picked personnel and replace me as the candidate prior to the next election,” she said.

Related: The lesson from the Diane Abbott furore: neither false equivalence nor hierarchies of victimhood help us | Marcus Ryder

“This is what some have clearly wanted all along. Taken together, the procedural impropriety, Starmer’s pronouncement of my guilt, the four-month delay in the investigation, the repeated refusal to try to reach any accommodation, all point in the direction that the verdict has already been reached. The crushing of democracy in my local Labour party is the latest confirmation.”

Labour swiftly suspended Abbott in April after the letter had swiftly circulated on X, prompting a huge backlash from senior Conservatives and faith groups. The longtime MP had already “wholly and unreservedly” apologised, withdrawn her written remarks and said she “wished to dissociate” herself from them, suggesting “errors arose” in what she described was an initial draft letter to the newspaper.

But justifying the party’s quick action in suspending her, Starmer said the party would never “accept the argument that there’s some sort of hierarchy of racism”.

The day after Abbott’s suspension, Starmer said during a visit to a community project in Camberwell, south London: “In my view what she said was to be condemned, it was antisemitic. Diane Abbott has suffered a lot of racial abuse over many, many years … that doesn’t take away from the fact that I condemn the words she used and we must never accept the argument that there’s some sort of hierarchy of racism. I will never accept that, the Labour party will never accept that, and that’s why we acted as swiftly as we did yesterday.”

In a rare move, Jeremy Corbyn has publicly defended his long-term ally. “The treatment of Diane Abbott – Britain’s first female Black MP – is a disgrace,” he said on X. “The latest stitch-up represents yet another flagrant attack on local democracy. A lifelong anti-racist campaigner, Diane deserves so much better. So do party members being treated with contempt.”

Abbott also cited the Forde report, which found that some of the attitudes expressed towards Abbott and other BAME MPs in private WhatsApp messages among staffers hostile to Jeremy Corbyn represented “overt and underlying racism and sexism”.

The Labour party has been asked for comment. Story by Aletha Adu Political correspondent, Guardian