In Fight Against AIDS, Kenya Confronts Gay Taboo

Confronted by growing evidence that sex between men is a significant driver of new HIV infections, the Kenyan government has shed a long-time refusal to acknowledge the existence of homosexuality and will launch a survey of gay attitudes and behaviors in its three biggest cities next year. The project is considered a landmark because the government and the vast majority of Kenyan people have long refused to address homosexuality in the fight against AIDS

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Missing couple’s yacht found abandoned in Indian Ocean

The British Royal Navy has found the yacht belonging to a British couple missing in the Indian Ocean since last week, but the yacht was empty, the British Ministry of Defence said Thursday. International military forces have been treating the case as a “potential hijacking,” Lt

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Football in the firing line: The Gaza Cup final

Terrace crowds are controlled by men wearing army fatigues and holding Kalashnikov rifles, players and press pray on the pitch at half-time and when the final whistle is blown, the trophy is handed to the winning captain by one of Israel’s most wanted men. International military forces have been treating the case as a “potential hijacking,” Lt.

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Drought, death grips Kenyan heartland

For as long as anyone cares to remember, the pastoralists of Kenya’s Rift Valley have fled with their herds to the fertile slopes of Mount Kenya when times are tough. When the rains failed this year they set off once again in search of water and pasture — but they found only despair

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Truly Worldwide Web: Broadband Finally Comes to East Africa

For weeks, it had been impossible to ignore the quiet revolution coming to East Africa. Across Nairobi, work crews could be seen unspooling thousands of meters of black cable into freshly dug trenches along the city’s roads. The flurry of work was all done in anticipation of what was heralded as the dawn of a new era: At long last, East Africa would be connected to an undersea fiber-optic Internet cable, and with it, to the planet’s cheap, high-speed information superhighway.

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Islamist Rebel Threat Pressures Somalia’s Neighbors Kenya and Ethiopia

If there was any doubt as to the character of the state that threatens to emerge in Somalia should Islamist rebels overthrow the embattled government, it was dispelled on June 22, when a militia court sentenced four men accused of stealing three mobile phones and two AK-47s to the amputation of their right hands and left legs. The sentence, whose execution was postponed after the al-Shabaab court decided the hot weather might cause the four men to bleed to death, was condemned as “cruel, inhuman and degrading” by Amnesty International

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