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

A UN report calling on countries to consider financial reparations for transatlantic slavery has been hailed as a significant step forward by campaigners.

The report by the UN secretary general, António Guterres, said no country had comprehensively accounted for the past and addressed the legacy of the mass enslavement of people of African descent for more than 400 years. 

“Under international human rights law, compensation for any economically assessable damage, as appropriate and proportional to the gravity of the violation and the circumstances of each case, may also constitute a form of reparations,” the report said.

“In the context of historical wrongs and harms suffered as a result of colonialism and enslavement, the assessment of the economic damage can be extremely difficult owing to the length of time passed and the difficulty of identifying the perpetrators and victims.”

The report stressed, however, that the difficulty in making a legal claim to compensation “cannot be the basis for nullifying the existence of underlying legal obligations”.

Campaigners have described the report as an important step forward in the fight for reparative justice.

Bell Ribeiro-Addy, the Labour MP and chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Afrikan reparations, said: “This is a hugely significant step for the international reparations movement. For decades, grassroots organisations have fought for this level of recognition for their claim. 

“Those who were enslaved were not in a position to push for reparations, but their descendants who continue to suffer the impact of African chattel slavery are.”

She added: “UK civil society organisations are coming together in Black History Month to discuss this more widely as the all-party parliamentary group on Afrikan reparations hosts its inaugural conference – Charting a Pathway to Reparations.”

Michael McEachrane, a researcher and member of the UN permanent forum on people of African descent, agreed the report was “a huge step forward”, but added it came amid significant recent activity on the international stage.

McEachrane said: “There seems to be a big emphasis on reparations as a matter of financial compensation [in the report]. Various initiatives at the UN level, including the Caricom call for reparatory justice, moves way beyond a conception of reparations as a matter of financial compensation.

“There is no financial compensation for 500 years of enslavement and colonialism, and what most of us are calling for is a systemic and structural transformation.”

A recent report by the UN permanent forum on people of African descent, which was sent to the human rights council and general assembly, also called for reparative justice.

McEachrane said: “To address the lasting consequences of these histories – in terms of inequities, structural and systemic injustices, lack of equal enjoyment of human dignity and rights – that will include financing, but the point is not the financial compensation, but the structural and systemic transformation.”

The secretary general’s report concluded that states should consider a “plurality of measures” to address the legacies of enslavement and colonialism, including pursuing justice and reparations, and contributing to reconciliation.

A leading UN judge stated recently that the UK would no longer be able to ignore the growing calls for reparation for transatlantic slavery.

In April the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, refused to apologise for the UK’s role in the slave trade or to commit to paying reparations.

Judge Patrick Robinson, who presided over the trial of the former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milošević, said the international tide on slavery reparations was shifting and called on the UK to change its stance.

Robinson said: “I believe that the UK will not be able to resist this movement towards the payment of reparations: it is required by history and it is required by law.” 

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

The Media Council of Kenya (MCK) has condemned the attacks on journalists who were covering a security operation at an illegal alcohol brewing den in Matungulu, Machakos County on Monday.

The journalists, Mike Ndunda from Kamba TV, Richard Muasya from Athiani FM and Boniface Mutisya from Mutongoi TV, had been invited by the local chief Francis Mulinge to cover the raid in Katine area.However, they were attacked by a group of individuals as they recorded the operation.

The MCK said that the attacks violated the journalists’ basic human rights and undermined the principles of free speech and open discourse that are vital for a democratic society. 

“Freedom of the press is a fundamental pillar of a democratic society, and journalists play a crucial role in keeping the public informed by highlighting societal evils. It is essential that journalists can carry out their work without fear of violence or intimidation,” MCK CEO David Omwoyo said in a press statement on Tuesday, September 19.

Omwoyo urged the law enforcement authorities to take swift and decisive action to investigate and prosecute those responsible for the attacks, which it said were crimes against the journalists’ rights and privileges protected by law under the Constitution and the Media Council Act, 2013.

“Protecting the safety and freedom of journalists is a shared responsibility, and we must all work together to ensure that they can continue to do their vital work without fear of violence or reprisal,” said Omwoyo. 

He encouraged anyone aggrieved by the media to report any complaints to the Complaints Commission, which is legally mandated to mediate on the same, instead of taking the law into their own hands. By David Njaaga, The Standard