THE LATEST KENYAN NEWS

Thursday, August 28, 2014

Ruto's ICC witnesses to give evidence from Nairobi

Deputy President William Ruto and Kwale Governor Salim Mvurya during the opening of the Kwale County Investment Forum at Leisure Lodge Resort in Kwale on Monday. Photo/REBECCA NDUKU/DPPS

NINE reluctant witnesses compelled to testify against Deputy President William Ruto by the ICC will take the stand in Nairobi, the Star has established, even as he sits in court at The Hague.

The witnesses will testify from a secret location, mostly likely the highly secure United Nations Office, via video link. Ruto and former broadcaster Joshua arap Sang will fly out to The Hague on Sunday.

Multiple sources said yesterday that the ICC has finalized logistical issues to ensure flawless communications when the trials resume from Monday next week.

“The logistical issues have already been settled,” the lawyer for the victims in the case, Wilfred Nderitu, confirmed. ICC Judges ruled in April that the Government of Kenya is required to “make appropriate arrangements for the security of the witnesses until they appear and complete their testimonies".

The appearance of the witnesses now means that the government has finally thrown in the towel and successfully summoned the witnesses, whom Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda insists have “insider accounts” of Ruto's role in the post-election bloodletting of 2007-08.

Ruto and Sang are both facing three charges of crimes against humanity. The charges are murder, deportation or forcible transfer of populations, and persecution.

However, sources familiar with the Kenyan cases indicated that Bensouda is likely to drop some of the nine witnesses for allegedly “adding no probative value”.

“We are likely to see a situation where only a section of the nine witnesses testify. The prosecution now says some of the witnesses will add no probative value to their case,” the source said.

Some legal experts have warned that forcing witnesses to testify could work against the prosecution if the witnesses give evidence that exonerates the defendants.

Bensouda has insisted that the recalcitrant witnesses are crucial in proving her charges, saying, for example, that Witness P0015 has evidence that Ruto organised and bankrolled the deadly violence.

"According to the witness, Ruto was present and participated in 11 meetings to prepare for the attacks, during which the participants discussed the procurement of firearms, the selection of field commanders and the arrangement of finances and logistics. P0015 also described the network that Mr Ruto allegedly utilised to commit the crimes," Bensouda claims.

She also said a number of witnesses described Sang's radio programmes on Kass FM in which, they said, he incited his audience to violence Ruto will be in court for five days. Yesterday, Sang’s legal team was at the Netherlands Embassy in Nairobi to get their visas ready for the trip.

The evidence section in the case against the two will end before October 7, to pave way for the trial of President Uhuru Kenyatta that kicks off on the same day. Trial Chamber judges had ruled last year that the trials of Uhuru and Ruto would alternate to allow them to govern the country uninterruptedly.

- See more at: http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/article-186659/rutos-icc-witnesses-give-evidence-nairobi#sthash.O10rGStC.dpuf

Jeff Koinange Live [Part 3]: - with Francis Atwoli - discussing Referend...

Bill approved for CSs to be picked from Parliament

The speaker of the eleventh parliament Justin Muturi. Photo/Jack Owuor

NATIONAL Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi has approved a constitutional amendment proposal that will compel the President to appoint future Cabinet secretaries from among members of the National Assembly.

The proposal by Lugari MP Ayub Savula seeks to amend Article 153 (3) of the constitution that says a Cabinet secretary shall not be an MP. This was a change from the previous constitution that said MPs will comprise the Cabinet.

Savula also wants the constitution changed so that governors appoint members of their county executive committees from among the MCAs. Like the national government, governors are not allowed to appoint their executive committee members from the assemblies.

The Bill now goes to the Justice and Legal Affairs Committee chaired by Ainabkoi MP Samuel Chepkonga for approval, before it is sent to the Attorney General to prepare it for publication. Once published, it will be introduced in the House but it will take three months before MPs start debating it.

In his defence of the Bill, Savula said the current 18-member Cabinet was prone to inertia, and there was discontent and disappointment over its performance a year-and-a-half after it was formed.

“The key reason behind this inordinate turn of events is the ever-growing perception that the appointment mechanism used to identify Cabinet secretaries is wanting. The men and women charged with the task of driving the government’s executive agenda have continued to lose touch with the public,” Savula said.

“Since MPs are elected representatives, they are, by default, accountable to the people and hence in the public interest,” he said.

Savula said that the lack of political drive among the CSs has also affected the implementation of government policies and that their goodwill rating at the grassroots level is at an all-time low.

Cabinet ministers were appointed from the National Assembly for mrs than 50 years, but Kenya’s departure from this tradition came with the second Kenyatta administration in 2013, based on the new constitution promulgated in 2010.

However, Savula said that in developed countries that use the Westminster system such as the United Kingdom, the Cabinet collectively decides the government’s direction, especially in regard to the legislation passed by Parliament. Enacting legislation is a political process.

Such countries appoint the ministers from among the sitting members of the legislature. Though the current presidential system has done away with Prime Minister's Question Time in the House (the position lapsed with the 10th Parliament) Savula said that CSs must respond to questions raised by MPs.

He said that the current arrangement where committee chairmen respond to issues raised by members was unpopular because they only act as conveyor belts.

The National Assembly in its recent amendment to the Standing Orders sought to have Cabinet secretaries appear periodically in the House to respond to issues raised by the members.

The changes saw a special place, Treasury Square or Cabinet Corner, created to accommodate the CSs as opposed to having them seat on the benches reserved for MPs.

But the move hit a snag after Attorney General Githu Muigai advised the ministers against appearing in the House. The AG said it would violate the separation of powers principle.

Consequently, Speaker Muturi announced the creation of a special committee to guide the National Assembly on the way forward before the House goes on recess tomorrow.

- See more at: http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/article-186658/bill-approved-css-be-picked-parliament#sthash.rGamXae0.dpuf

Uhuru wins admiration for pallbearer role at Dr Magana's send-off

HUMBLE: President Kenyatta seen as one of the pallbearers at the funeral of Dr Njoroge Mungai Magana who was the personal physician of Kenya's first President Jomo Kenyatta. Photo/PSCU

President Uhuru Kenyatta has received an outpouring of admiration after pictures of him surface on social media showing that he was the pallbearer at the funeral of Dr Njoroge Mungai.

Dr Mungai who was laid to rest on Tuesday was the personal physician to President Kenyatta’s father and founding father of the nation Jomo Kenyatta.

Social media users expressed their admiration for the president’s humility despite his status and wealth.

“Politics aside, tribal affiliations aside, sir you are one humble man, wishing you God's Favor Mr. President, you have won my respect effortlessly,” one user posted on Facebook where the images first surfaced.

President Kenyatta eulogised the late Dr Mungai as a model leader full of insights and one whose legacy people should learn from.

“He [Dr Mungai] has been a true mentor in life and politics. One of the lessons we need to learn from our founding fathers is that sacrifice, commitment, dedication in service are key to success.

- See more at: http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/article-186796/uhuru-wins-admiration-pallbearer-role-dr-maganas-send#sthash.fNEk6XN1.dpuf

Sonko takes Mercedes Benz from socialite daughter

Saumu Mbuvi

Mike Sonko.

Nairobi Senator Mike Sonko has blasted his daughter Saumu Mbuvi over remarks she made attacking socialites. Sonko told his girl to keep off the media and maintain a private life.

"I am against my own daughter. She has no right attacking the so called socialites using my position. I have blasted her and taken the keys of her smart Mercedes Benz. I have also suspended her weekly budget. I never inherited wealth from my dad. I struggled for it through my sweat. I totally disagree with her," the Senator said.

Saumu was reported in The Standard telling off socialite girls trying to get public attention through posting nude photos on the internet.

"It is a pity that someone can go all nude to earn popularity. The so called Kenyan socialites are an embarrassment to us. Real socialites are girls from influential settings or families who have real money to afford the limelight stage, not the kind of wannabes we are seeing here," she was quoted saying.

Sonko yesterday said he had instructed his daughter to avoid any media appearances.

- See more at: http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/article-186765/sonko-takes-mercedes-benz-socialite-daughter#sthash.zPp9OMAI.dpuf

The Moon Smells: Apollo Astronauts Describe Lunar Aroma

By by Leonard David, SPACE.com's Space Insider ColumnistAugust 26, 2014 6:43 AM

Apollo 11 lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin kicks up moon dust during a moonwalk on NASA"s historic …

The moon has a distinctive smell. Ask any Apollo moonwalker about the odiferous nature of the lunar dirt and you'll get the same answer.

With NASA's six Apollo lunar landing missionsbetween 1969 and the end of 1972, a total of 12 astronauts kicked up the powdery dirt of the moon, becoming an elite group later to be tagged as the "dusty dozen."

From the modest 2.5 hour "moonwalk" of Apollo 11 to the forays totaling just over 22 hours outside a spacecraft on Apollo 17, NASA's Apollo landing crews could not escape tracking lunar material inside their moon lander homes. [The Moon: 10 Surprising Facts]

Decades later, moonwalkers and lunar scientists are still trying to appreciate exactly what the moon's aroma brings to the astronaut's nose.

That fresh lunar regolith smell

“All I can say is that everyone's instant impression of the smell was that of spent gunpowder, not that it was 'metallic' or 'acrid'. Spent gunpowder smell probably was much more implanted in our memories than other comparable odors," said Apollo 17's Harrison "Jack" Schmitt, a scientist-astronaut who walked the moon's surface in December of 1972.

Schmitt said that he believed all the moonwalkers agreed and commented at the time that, when they took their helmets off, 'fresh' regolith (the scientific name for moon dirt) in the cabin air smelled like spent gunpowder. [Apollo Quiz: Are You A Moon Landing Expert?]

"For what it is worth, I always have suspected that the olfactory sensors are reacting to a variety of unsatisfied electron bonds as one would have in both just fired gunpowder and lunar dust newly introduced in the cabin," Schmitt said. "By the way, the time from starting re-pressurization [of the lunar lander] to my first comment about gunpowder was almost exactly seven minutes."

Mucus membranes in space

Larry Taylor, director of the Planetary Geosciences Institute at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, agrees with Schmitt's take. He served in the "back-room" at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston during the Apollo 17 mission, and was one of those who directly advised the astronauts on the moon during their trots across the lunar landscape.

"When the entire subject of the dust smell came up several years ago, I put forth that what the astronauts were smelling, that is, what their mucus membrane sensed, was highly activated dust particles with 'dangling bonds,'" Taylor said.

Taylor said that when a geologist smashes a rock here on Earth, that person will smell some odor that has been generated by the smashing of minerals, thereby creating the so-called dangling bonds.

But on the moon, the dangling bonds can exist for a long time, Taylor said. And because lunar rock and soil is roughly 43-percent oxygen, most of these unsatisfied bonds are from oxygen.

"In a nut-shell, I believe that the astronauts all smelled unsatisfied dangling bonds on the lunar dust … which were readily satisfied in a second by the lunar module atmosphere, or nose membrane moisture," Taylor told Space.com.

Grab specimen

Apollo 11 lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin also recalls the smell of the moon. As Armstrong and Aldrin re-entered and re-pressurized the Eagle lunar lander, their suits and equipment were soiled by lunar dust. That dust has a definite odor, he said.

"It was like burnt charcoal," Aldrin said, "or similar to the ashes that are in a fireplace, especially if you sprinkle a little water on them."

Aldrin also noted yet another lunar dust episode on the Apollo 11 mission.

"Before we left Earth, the lunar dust was considered by some alarmists as very dangerous, in fact pyrophoric, capable of igniting spontaneously in air," Aldrin said. "The fact that the lunar dust had been so void of contact with oxygen, as soon as we re-pressurized our lunar module cabin it might start to heat up, smolder, even burst into flames. At least that was the worry of a few. A late-July firework display on the moon was not something advisable."

So Aldrin and Armstrong staged an ad hoc moon dust test. They did it using a so-called "grab sample," a lunar sample collected quickly by Armstrong and stashed in his spacesuit pocket in case there was a problem that forced the moonwalkers to depart the scene in a hurry.

That grab specimen was placed on the cylindrical flat top of the Eagle's ascent engine cover. And as the cabin began to fill with air, both Armstrong and Aldrin waited to see if the lunar sample would indeed smoke and smolder.

"If it did, we'd stop pressurization, open the hatch and toss it out. But nothing happened. We got back to the business of readying for departure from the moon," Aldrin said.

A reactive lunar nature

It was Thomas Gold, a professor of astronomy at Cornell University who died in 2004, that first flagged the explosive potential of moon rock, said Donald Bogard, a Heritage Fellow at the Lunar Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas.

From 1971 until his retirement from NASA in 2010, Bogard was a principal investigator in NASA’s lunar and meteorite research programs and was a member of the science team that performed quarantine testing of Apollo lunar samples between 1969 and 1971.

"Tommy Gold was partly correct when he warned NASA prior to Apollo 11 that the lunar dustbrought into the lunar module might spontaneously combust and produce a safety issue. I was called into a JSC meeting prior to Apollo 11 to discuss this possibility," Bogard said. "Gold had realized the likely reactive nature of lunar material surfaces, but had over-emphasized their reactive effects."

Leonard David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. He is former director of research for the National Commission on Space and is co-author of Buzz Aldrin's 2013 book "Mission to Mars – My Vision for Space Exploration" published by National Geographic. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.