This is relief money, meant to cushion suffering Kenyans against the ravages of Covid-19.

Samuel Murithi’s decision to grow the niche crops pays off as demand for the two vegetables picks up, thanks to their health benefits

Over 6,000 farmers have already planted the new varieties. The factory will need over eight tonnes of banana produce daily.

The propensity to steal and misuse public cash is confounding.

Ataro is also an assistant coach for multiple Kenyan champions Blazers.

“The crisis has helped us learn, react, engage and think deeper,” said Mutuku.

Last year, May was Las Vegas's second-busiest month, drawing nearly 3.7 million visitors.

Many individuals with disabilities have been hard hit due to loss of income.

To win back the public's favour, the leaders must ensure essential services are provided.

She takes over the Public Affairs Department at a time when the military is slowly embracing openness.

He was described as a leader who remained calm in a raging storm.

He claims bank accounts were opened unprocedurally with signatories not known

Amoth warns those plotting to sneak out of the region, saying they will worsen the situation.

Revenue projections have suffered a serious hit as a result of virus pandemic.

Currently, platform has attracted over 100 million users.

Madame Connoissuese engages her family sweet tooth and is more than happy with the results.

There is an urgent need for comprehensive legal proposals of transition and continuity despite Covid-19.

Ahmedabad, a city of 5.5 million, has become a major concern for authorities.

Kenya reports a total of 649 cases, 207 recoveries and 30 deaths.

Contractor expresses confidence about project but notes effects of the pandemic.

Kenya Police Sacco distributes face masks, gloves and sanitisers in Trans Nzoia.

Hong Kong doctors have performed Asia’s first heart transplant using a new technology invented in the United States that keeps the organ warm, beating and supplied with blood during the transfer, in a medical breakthrough that will enable more life-saving operations across borders.Dr Timmy Au Wing-kuk – chief of Queen Mary Hospital’s cardiothoracic surgery department, which carried out the medical procedure – hailed the Organ Care System as a success story that could not only allow up to five…

Alarmed by the amount of rubbish they were generating by just drinking coffee and eating cup noodles, two former garments entrepreneurs decided it was time to find an eco-friendly alternative to all the plastic packaging that ends up in landfills globally.George Chen Dah-ren and Vivian Chang first approached material scientists in Hong Kong and mainland China, and were in 2013 pointed in the direction of Alexander Bismarck, then a Materials Science professor at Imperial College London. The…

Charles Li, one of the longest-serving chief executives of a global financial marketplace, has thrown in the towel after more than a decade as head of the Hong Kong stock exchange (HKEX), in a surprise announcement to let his contract lapse in October 2021.The former oilfield worker, journalist and banker, also known as Li Xiaojia, will not seek reappointment when his current term expires at the end of October next year, according to a statement. He will continue to lead Asia’s third-largest…

The production of reusable masks for all Hongkongers was not for profit, a government official said as she revealed the manufacturer’s identity and defended the lack of a public tender for the project worth hundreds of millions of dollars.Annie Choi Suk-han, permanent secretary of the Innovation and Technology Bureau, said most of the masks were being made by Crystal International Group at a facility in Vietnam.The rest were assembled, disinfected and packed using three local facilities offered…

A Hong Kong decorator who suffered a loss of income during anti-government protests was sentenced to four months’ jail for attacking a man following a row over posting messages on a so-called Lennon Wall last year.Kwun Tong Court heard that around 10pm on August 26, Hui Ching-ngai engaged in a heated argument with Ho Chin-leng, who saw Hui tearing down posters from a Lennon Wall inside a pedestrian tunnel in Tseung Kwan O.Hui, 39, who was drunk, picked up a broom and an umbrella from the ground…

Disqualified lawmaker Lau Siu-lai was denied the opportunity to respond to allegations of not genuinely upholding Hong Kong’s mini-constitution before she was barred from trying to win back her seat in the Legislative Council, a judge has observed.Mr Justice Anderson Chow Ka-ming made the remark on Thursday while hearing an election petition from Lau, who has asked the High Court to determine whether pro-establishment lawmaker Chan Hoi-yan had been duly elected to the office of Kowloon West…

Professor Samuel Yeung-shan Wong says he loves Canada, and wants it to learn from Hong Kong’s successes in the battle with Covid-19.Wong, director of the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s school of public health, earned his medical degree at the University of Toronto in the 1990s and did his residency in Halifax, Nova Scotia.When he chats with his Canadian cousins they tell him that “they aren’t going out”, he said. Hong Kong, meanwhile, has avoided a Canadian-style lockdown, and on Friday…

A meeting in Hong Kong’s legislature descended into shouting matches and scuffles as 11 opposition lawmakers were thrown out by a pro-establishment leader who took control of a key committee to begin clearing a backlog of bills for review.The pan-democrats walked out of talks on Friday after losing their hold over the House Committee, threatening court action against Legislative Council staff, including legal advisers and security guards, whom they accused of abandoning political neutrality and…

Bars and other entertainment venues were finally allowed to reopen their doors on Friday after more than a month of coronavirus measures, but Hong Kong’s famed nightlife scene was far from buzzing as people remained wary over the potential risk of infection.But along with the caution there was a sense of optimism from customers and business operators alike.A day after the city detected four imported cases in Hong Kong residents returning from Pakistan, the number of new infections dropped to…

Investors and lawmakers in Hong Kong are urging regulators to seek compensation for people who lose money when listed companies collapse shortly after their initial public offerings.Under the current system, when banks sponsoring IPOs are found to have fallen short in their due diligence duties, the proceeds of any fine imposed by the watchdog goes to the government, not investors. Those fines amount to almost HK$1 billion (US$130 million) over the last 20 years, according to calculations by…

Ocean Park could run out of cash by September, its CEO warned on Friday as he estimated the Hong Kong attraction had missed out on nearly 1 million visitors over three months of its coronavirus shutdown.With the health crisis intensifying the resort’s financial woes, Matthias Li Sing-chung said no decision had been made on when the park would emerge from the shutdown imposed on January 26, but said it could return within two weeks once conditions were deemed suitable, even if some social…

The fate of some 27,000 Hong Kong cross-border pupils living in mainland China was in limbo, as the education minister said on Friday that it could not be guaranteed whether they would be exempted from quarantine rules amid the coronavirus pandemic when classes resumed in late May.Although Hong Kong’s government last week decided to exempt these cross-border students from a 14-day mandatory quarantine period when entering the city, a similar rule had so far not been lifted by the Shenzhen…

Police dispersed lunchtime protesters with pepper spray in an upscale Hong Kong shopping centre just 12 hours after the government relaxed some coronavirus social-distancing measures and allowed people to gather in groups of eight on Friday.Shortly after dozens of anti-government demonstrators began yelling slogans and belting out their anthem, officers entered the IFC Mall in Central to cordon off their protest site, forcing the Apple store to lower its shutters.Later, police used pepper spray…

A Hong Kong man has admitted in court to raping his nine-year-old daughter and telling his younger son that it was none of his business when the child caught him in the act.The High Court heard the sexual attacks spanned nearly six years, since 2011, when the casual vegetable seller, who could not be identified for legal reasons, first attempted to rape his daughter after school.At the time she was only six, while he was 40.Acting deputy director of public prosecutions Catherine Ko said the…

A senior civil servant overseeing the distribution of reusable masks to all Hongkongers has promised to put the production of their replacement filters out to tender after admitting to shortcomings in the transparency of the original contract awarded by the government.Annie Choi Suk-han, permanent secretary of the Innovation and Technology Bureau, on Friday rejected suggestions the government had intentionally hidden the identity of the manufacturer chosen for the HK$320 million (US$41 million)…

A combination of three drugs suppressed the coronavirus within seven days when used on patients in Hong Kong, nearly twice as fast as a single medicine did, in a result seen as a leading hope in the fight against the pandemic, a study has found.The findings of the research, led by University of Hong Kong academics and published in The Lancet on Saturday, could signal progress in the search for a standard form of therapy for Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes the Covid-19 disease.It discovered…

After almost three months of hectic preparation, Denis Huen Yin-fan’s Hong Kong factory started delivering masks to customers last week to help protect them against the Covid-19 pandemic.Just as the supplies began reaching his clients, the Hong Kong government announced it will be distributing reusable and disposable masks to all households, free of charge, within weeks.Every household will receive reusable masks that can be washed up to 60 times, as well as a pack of 10 disposable masks.1.5…

It is about 7pm when Muslim community leader Raheel Ahmed, 57, gathers with his wife, two sons and daughter for a home-made meal of dates, rice and spicy curried chicken, salad, fresh fruit and juice.For this Hong Kong family of Pakistani origin, it is their first meal after fasting for more than 12 hours, as this is the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.The world’s 1.8 billion Muslims mark the month by abstaining from food or drink from sunrise to sunset, and gathering as a community in mosques to…

Hong Kong recorded zero new Covid-19 cases on Saturday, as a government adviser suggested that border control measures between the city and Macau could be the first to be lifted.It was also the 20th day in a row without any local infections, although a handful of imported cases over the past week had taken Hong Kong’s tally to 1,044 with four related deaths.Health experts earlier raised the prospect of Hong Kong being declared free of local transmission if there were no such cases after 28 days…

As a journalist, you want to report the story – you never want to be the story. So after weeks of covering the coronavirus crisis, it was a shock to learn I had tested positive for Covid-19.Unfortunately, though I did not know it at the time of my diagnosis, my story with the disease would soon be taking an even darker turn when it left my 73-year-old mother Lien comatose and struggling for her life.I had arrived in Hong Kong from Britain on Monday March 23, following a holiday to see my family…

China Evergrande’s weekend sale of its Emerald Bay flats in Tuen Mun has flopped for the third time in as many months, as Hong Kong’s homebuyers shunned its meagre discounts in anticipation of further price declines.The developer managed to find buyers for 41 flats, or 12 per cent of the 335 units on offer at 8:30pm, according to sales agents.In March, the developer sold 49 of 141 flats when it launched the project in the midst of the city’s coronavirus outbreak, at a time when social…

A top police officer told me an interesting story about the siege of Polytechnic University last year, when anti-government protesters of the militant persuasion had occupied the campus. He recalled intercepting and arresting a group of youngsters trying to flee the war zone and how he was struck by the reaction of a petrified teenager among them when she was being booked. “Absolutely terrified, shaking,” was how he remembered her. “She thinks I will take her around the back and shoot her…

OSCE Special Representative for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings offers recommendations to governments on short-term responses to COVID-19:

“Human trafficking feeds off vulnerability. It is precisely when our global community is shaken by a crisis of this magnitude that our obligation to combat the exploitation of vulnerable people becomes most acute.”

The post OSCE PRESS RELEASE: COVID-19/Human Trafficking appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The post Freedom of the Press as a Guarantee for Human Dignity and Well-Being appeared first on Inter Press Service.

As the sun sets over the hills, Prafulla Debbarma, a small tea grower in Dhanbilash village in north eastern India, walks along the labyrinth path of his farm and past a thick blanket of well-grown tea plants. In the fading light, the farmer appears deeply worried. This tea farm, the sole source of his livelihood, […]

The post Has COVID-19 Reversed Progress for India’s Small Tea Growers? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

David Medine is Senior Financial Sector Specialist at the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP). He is also CGAP’s lead on data protection and security and works to develop novel, consumer-oriented approaches to data protection and to encourage the creation of cyber security resource centers for developing countries.

The post Financial Scams Rise as Coronavirus Hits Developing Countries appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Interruptions to vaccination programmes caused by the COVID-19 pandemic could result in new waves of measles or polio outbreaks, health experts warn. A growing number of one-off immunisation campaigns and national routine vaccine introductions are being delayed amid social distancing and other measures to curb the spread of SARS-CoV-2, leaving millions unprotected. Uptake of routine […]

The post Polio, Measles Outbreaks ‘Inevitable’, Say Vaccine Experts appeared first on Inter Press Service.

It’s eight o’clock in the morning and Pascuala Ninantay is carrying two large containers of water in her wheelbarrow to prepare with neighbouring women farmers 200 litres of organic fertiliser, which will then be distributed to fertilise their crops, in this town in the Andes highlands of Peru. “We grow healthy, nutritious food without chemicals,” […]

The post Coronavirus Hasn´t Slowed Down Ecological Women Farmers in Peru’s Andes Highlands appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The world’s poorer nations, reeling under an unrelenting attack on their fragile economies by the COVID-19 pandemic, have suffered an equally deadly body blow: being buried under heavy debt burdens. Abiy Ahmed, prime minister of Ethiopia who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019, said last week that in 2019, 64 countries, nearly half […]

The post World’s Poor Hit by Double Jeopardy: a Deadly Virus & a Devastating Debt Burden appeared first on Inter Press Service.