• Rhinos are returned to a plateau in central Kenya, decades after poachers wiped them out
• 'It was incredible to see': Kenyans dig deep on first national tree planting day
• Kenya declares a surprise public holiday for a national campaign to plant 15 billion trees

• Nandi Hills, Kenya: Local people enjoy Transcendental Meditation, Consciousness-Based Education
• Kenya: Nandi Hills a bright spot with hundreds practising Transcendental Meditation
• A Maharishi Vastu community centre begins to rise in Kenya

• Online disinformation stokes tensions as Kenya elections near
• Power from Kenya's planned coal-fired power plant could cost 10 times more than estimated: study
• Tens of thousands of Kenyans go hungry after floods - aid agencies

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Positive Trends
Short Summaries of Top Stories

Rhinos are returned to a plateau in central Kenya, decades after poachers wiped them out
15 March 2024 - Conservationists in Kenya are celebrating as rhinos were returned to a grassy plateau that hasn't seen them in decades. The successful move of 21 eastern black rhinos to a new home will give them space to breed and could help increase the population of the critically endangered animals. It was Kenya's biggest rhino relocation ever. (more)

'It was incredible to see': Kenyans dig deep on first national tree planting day
6 December 2023 - Geoffrey Mosoku and his two daughters have been digging a seedling deep into the ground of the Ngong forest in Kenya's capital, Nairobi.The trio were one of hundreds of people who showed up at the forest on Monday 13 Nov] to plant saplings for Kenya's first national tree planting holiday despite heavy morning rains. (more)

Kenya declares a surprise public holiday for a national campaign to plant 15 billion trees
6 December 2023 - The Kenyan government announced Monday [7 November] a surprise public holiday on November 13 for a nationwide tree planting day, part of its ambitious plan to plant 15 billion trees by 2032. Interior Minister Kithure Kindiki made the announcement via a gazette notice [official notice] posted on the social network X, formerly known as Twitter, following a cabinet meeting held last week and chaired by President William Ruto. ...Climate change is worsening droughts in the Horn of Africa, including Kenya, where rains have failed for five seasons in a row. (more)

In Kenya, an electric transport plan for clean air, climate
11 February 2023 - Electric motorcycles are gaining traction in Kenya as private sector-led firms rush to set up charging points and battery-swapping stations to speed up the growth of cleaner transport and put the east African nation on a path toward fresher air and lower emissions. (more)

Kenya Power to convert its 2,000 vehicles to electric over 4 years
9 February 2023 - Kenya's sole power distributor Kenya Power aims to convert its 2,000 petrol and diesel-driven vehicles to electric over the next four years, it said on Tuesday [7 February]. The move is part of a rising trend in the East African economy to take advantage of the abundant electricity supply from renewable sources, and switch vehicle and motorcycle engines to electric from fossil fuels. (more)

AP Photos: In Kenya, nearly a decade of mangrove restoration
28 June 2022 - The village of Gazi Bay on Kenya's coast, just 55 kilometers (34 miles) south of bustling Mombasa and tucked away from the country's well-trodden tourism circuit, has gained traction in recent years as a model for restoring and tending carbon-sucking mangrove trees that now crowd its bright green shoreline. Now entering its 10th year, the award-winning project has inspired other nations to follow suit. (more)

A story of 90,000 trees: how Kenya's Kipsigis brought a forest back to life
9 May 2022 - Indigenous trees were being lost, and a way of life with it. So local villagers decided to replant their historic woodland. (more)

Kenyan farmers turn to organic farming for better yields
12 March 2022 - Kenyan farmer Judith Mumbua noticed that using commercial fertilizers was creating problems for both her crops and the dirt on her farm in Mwania village, eastern Kenya. That was three years ago. Now, she has switched to organic farming, which, she says, has created a more positive outcome and a healthier way to grow crops. It is even better for her livestock, she says. (more)

Opibus: The mobility startup converting Kenya to electric vehicles
1 March 2022 - A university research project that turns into a startup, which within a few short years partners with Uber and attracts millions of dollars of investment from around the world, including Silicon Valley. It's the stuff of entrepreneurial dreams, and yet that's what's happened to Opibus, a Swedish-Kenyan electric mobility company. Based in Nairobi, Opibus gives new life to old vehicles by converting them to run on electric motors. (more)

Kenya to use solar panels to boost crops by 'harvesting the sun twice'
26 February 2022 - Successful trials found growing crops beneath panels -- known as agrivoltaics -- reduced water loss and resulted in larger plants. Solar panels are not a new way of providing cheap power across much of the African continent, where there is rarely a shortage of sunshine. But growing crops underneath the panels is, and the process has had such promising trials in Kenya that it will be deployed this week in open-field farms. (more)

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Success of Maharishi's Programmes
Short Summaries of Top Stories

Nandi Hills, Kenya: Local people enjoy Transcendental Meditation, Consciousness-Based Education
1 May 2014 - The beautiful Nandi Hills area of Kenya is located near the equator at 2,000 metres above sea level, overlooking the famed Rift Valley. In 2009 people in some of the villages in this rural part of Kenya began learning Transcendental Meditation (TM). There are now over 700 people in Nandi Hills practising the simple, natural technique. The District Chief once commented that 'Fairfield (in Iowa, USA, the home of Maharishi University of Management) may be ''TM Town'', but I want Nandi Hills to be ''TM Town 2''.' Many children in the area have learned Transcendental Meditation, and one of the school principals has been trained as a TM teacher. Inspired by the positive changes and academic progress of the children, many adults are also learning the technique, including most of the children's mothers. (more)

Kenya: Nandi Hills a bright spot with hundreds practising Transcendental Meditation
19 June 2013 - In the beautiful greater Nandi Hills area of Kenya, about 250 km west of Nairobi, a community hall under construction this year is nearly completed. Recent visitors reported that the roof was going up on the single storey, 300 square metre building. The new centre was designed and is being built in accord with the principles of Maharishi Vastu architecture, and will serve as a hub for people in the area to practise Transcendental Meditation together, generating peace and harmony in the region. (more)

A Maharishi Vastu community centre begins to rise in Kenya
15 January 2013 - Construction has begun on a community hall fully in accord with the principles of Maharishi Vastu architecture, to accommodate the activities of the Transcendental Meditation programme and serve the meditating community of Nandi Hills, Kenya--as a gathering place and a source of coherence and peace. (more)

Kenya: Women and girls in Nandi Hills thriving on Transcendental Meditation
27 July 2012 - In the beautiful Nandi Hills region of Kenya, above the famed Rift Valley, a village continues to thrive and grow through the Transcendental Meditation programme. Among the meditators is a large, enthusiastic group of women--more than 55 mothers and grandmothers--many of whom meet several times a week to meditate together. Transcendental Meditation 'has brought a lot of happiness and a lot of love in our homes,' said one mother. 'It has brought us together as a community.' (more)

Kenya: Fulfilling the desire of 'these serious and sincere young people' for an enlightened education
24 March 2012 - After visiting a primary school in Kenya where all the students practise Transcendental Meditation, Dr Bevan Morris said, 'You just want [the students] to have everything in the world. Your heart pours out to them. They're very serious and sincere young people and you want to do everything, give everything to them, that they could have an enlightened education' through the gift of Maharishi's system of education. (more)

Kenya: Headmistress praises students' increased confidence after learning Transcendental Meditation
24 March 2012 - The former headmistress of a school for girls in Nairobi, Kenya recently spoke at length about the dramatic effects the school saw when Transcendental Meditation was first offered there. She said that a lot of the girls, before they learned to meditate, wouldn't speak up in class; they would never speak in front of a group. In contrast, 'after they learned, they became confident and began to speak in an articulate fashion.' The girls also began to enjoy their math and physics classes. (more)

Kenya: Transcendental Meditation welcomed by local leadership in Nandi Hills
24 March 2012 - Nandi Hills, Kenya is a beautiful and special place, said Dr Bevan Morris, President of Maharishi University of Management, who visited there recently on his tour of Africa. 'This is a place where there is a great concentration of the practice of Transcendental Meditation.' Many in the community practise Transcendental Meditation, and community leaders have expressed the desire for it to be 'a Transcendental Meditation town'. (more)

Kenya: Warm welcome for Consciousness-Based Education pioneer from community, primary school
24 March 2012 - Dr Bevan Morris, President of Maharishi University of Management, received a warm welcome from a primary school in Nandi Hills, Kenya, in which many students practise the Transcendental Meditation Technique. In addition to students and parents, the district school chief welcomed the visitors as well. Dr Morris said that it is not just the children who are affected by the school's implementation of Consciousness-Based Education, 'the community is deeply involved in practising Transcendental Meditation.' (more)

Kenyan educator on Transcendental Meditation: 'This is something universal'
24 March 2012 - Arriving in Nairobi, Kenya on his 14-country tour of Africa, Dr Bevan Morris, President of Maharishi University of Management, focused on presenting the benefits of Consciousness-Based Education and Transcendental Meditation for Kenyan students and schools. In meetings with education leaders, he gave a talk to an organization that develops curriculum for schools. The director was very interested in the presentation and later commented: 'This is something universal. This is something that relates to the human being, to any human being. It's about the brain and the development of the brain. It's about intelligence and the development of intelligence.' (more)

Washington, DC conference on Kenya highlighted Maharishi's programmes for Africa
27 July 2010 - A conference for Kenyans living in the United States featured experts in the health and education programmes offered by the Global Country of World Peace presenting their benefits for traditional African communities. The conference was held in Washington, DC, and titled Gotabgaa, 'our homeland family'. (more)

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Flops
Short Summaries of Top Stories

Online disinformation stokes tensions as Kenya elections near
27 June 2022 - TikTok, Facebook, and Twitter found hosting political disinformation. Social media users in Kenya are being exposed to political disinformation, hate speech, and incitement against ethnic communities ahead of elections in August, with rights groups warning the posts are stoking tensions around the vote. ... The posts are raising tensions in a 'highly volatile political landscape' which has previously seen deadly post-election clashes, said the report's author, adding that the platforms are failing to effectively clamp down on abuse. (more)

Power from Kenya's planned coal-fired power plant could cost 10 times more than estimated: study
11 June 2019 - Electricity from a coal-fired power plant due to be built in Kenya by a Kenyan-Chinese consortium will cost consumers up to 10 times more than planned, a U.S. thinktank says, raising further doubts about the long-delayed project. Construction of the plant on the Kenyan mainland opposite the tourist island of Lamu was scheduled to begin in 2015 but has been repeatedly halted ... (more)

Tens of thousands of Kenyans go hungry after floods - aid agencies
4 July 2018 - Tens of thousands of survivors of Kenya's worst floods in recent years are living on the brink with barely enough food to eat two months after the disaster, aid workers warned on Wednesday (4 July), calling on authorities to provide increased funding and support. Incessant heavy rainfall in March and April caused dams and rivers in parts of the East African nation to overflow, submerging crops, and washing away homes. At least 186 people died and more than 300,000 others were forced to flee. (more)

Drug use in Kenya's coast communities up as West-bound heroin flows through
3 July 2018 - Heroin use is increasing in Kenya's coastal communities as international traffickers use them as a transit point for drugs bound from Afghanistan to the West, creating health and social problems, a European Union-funded report said on Tuesday (3 July). The port cities of Mombasa, Malindi, and Lamu have been particularly hard hit in recent years, it said. (more)

Fears for refugees health in Kenya as food aid rations halved
6 December 2016 - Food rations to more than 400,000 refugees in Kenya have been halved due to severe funding shortages, and existing supplies will run out completely at the end of February, the United Nations said on Tuesday. Kenya hosts 434,000 refugees from 21 countries, mainly from war-torn neighbouring South Sudan and Somalia, in two overcrowded camps on its northern borders. (more)

From cattle raiders to heavy rains: Kenya's displaced families under threat
31 December 2015 - In Baringo country, the impacts of climate change have been devastating. Droughts have exacerbated cattle raiding, while now heavy rains threaten to wash away makeshift homes. 2015 has been another dry year and what were once rivers look more like dusty roads. Water scarcity has led to diminishing lands for pasture. And this, in turn, has led to a rise in cattle raiding. Traditionally, cattle raiding was as way of raising a dowry, but it has since taken on a more criminal and violent nature, often leading to deaths and displacements. In Baringo county, around 1,500 families are reportedly displaced due to cattle raids, and prolonged dry spells have exacerbated this trend. (more)

Kenya tourist numbers down by a quarter so far in 2015
12 June 2015 - The number of visitors to Kenya fell by 25 percent in the first five months of 2015, according to tourism board figures, showing just how badly the industry has been damaged by a spate of Islamist militant attacks that have killed hundreds. Tourism is a vital foreign exchange earner for the east African nation, which boasts palm-fringed beaches and safari trails, but a two-year slump has forced hotels to shut, cut job numbers, and sent the shilling to 3-1/2-year lows. (more)

Al-Shabab militants kill 147 at university in Kenya
2 April 2015 - Al-Shabab gunmen rampaged through a university in northeastern Kenya at dawn Thursday, killing 147 people in the group's deadliest attack in the East African country. The masked attackers armed with AK-47s singled out non-Muslim students at Garissa University College and then gunned them down without mercy, survivors said. Others ran for their lives with bullets whistling through the air. Four militants were slain by security forces to end the siege just after dusk. Most of the 147 dead were students. (more)

Four rhinos killed in Kenya's worst poaching attack in years
13 July 2014 - Two armed gangs killed four rhinos for their horns in rural Kenya this week in possibly the worst rhino poaching incident in the country in more than 25 years, the spokesman for Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) said on Friday. Poaching across sub-Saharan Africa is on the rise as armed criminal gangs kill elephants for tusks and rhinos for horns, usually to be shipped to Asia for use in ornaments and medicines. The poaching on Wednesday night took place at the private Ol Jogi ranch near Nanyuki, about 200 km (120 miles) north of Nairobi. Paul Muya, a spokesman for KWS which has overall responsibility for wildlife in Kenya, told Reuters the rhino bodies were found on two separate sites on the 58,000-acre ranch and the poachers escaped with three of the animals' eight horns. One conservationist said the Ol Jogi raid was the worst poaching incident in Kenya since five white rhinos were killed in one swoop in Meru Park in 1988. Muya said he also believed it to be the biggest attack since then. 'They've got high levels of security there, so the implications are that really rhino are not safe anywhere,' said the conservationist. (more)

Red Cross: 22 dead in attacks on Kenyan coast
6 July 2014 - Twenty-two people were killed in overnight attacks by gunmen in two counties on the Kenyan coast, where al-Qaida-linked militants last month claimed responsibility for killing 65 people, the Kenya Red Cross said Sunday. The Saturday night attacks took place in the towns of Hindi in Lamu county and Gamba in Tana River, Kenya Red Cross chief Abbas Gulet said. Al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab militants from Somalia claimed responsibility for the attacks. According to the Lamu county commissioner Njenga Miiri, a group of about 15 gunmen raided the Malamandi village of Hindi and started shooting at residents. The gunmen also attacked Gamba police station, Kenya's police chief David Kimaiyo said. The nine victims in Gamba included five inmates said to be non-Muslim, who were killed when the gunmen attacked the police station, said a senior police officer who insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to speak with the media. Three other inmates escaped with the gunmen. Kenya has suffered a spate of gun and explosive attacks since deploying its troops in October 2011 to fight al-Shabab militants. (more)