THE SAIWA SWAMP NATIONAL PARK

 THE SAIWA SWAMP NATIONAL PARK KITALE.

Saiwa Swamp is Kenya’s smallest national park. It basically protects a swamp fed by the Saiwa River, which provides shelter for a viable population of the rare sitatunga antelope. There are several observation towers overlooking the swamp, and with some patience, sightings are almost guaranteed. The park is only accessible on foot.

The star attraction of the park is the semi-aquatic sitatunga antelope. Other herbivores are bohor reedbuck, defassa waterbuck, and bushbuck. Several primate species can be spotted in the canopy. The black-and-white colobus and blue monkeys are common along the trail, and vervet monkeys can often be found near the entrance. You might come across the very rare de Brazza's monkey along the swamp’s edge.

Most of the park is taken up by the reed-choked Saiwa Swamp fed by the river with the same name. Around the swamp are several walking trails passing through riverine forest and savanna woodland dotted with acacia trees.

As Saiwa Swamp is situated near the equator, there’s little variation in month-to-month temperature. The main influences on the weather are the area’s distinctive seasons. The Dry season (December to March) has lots of sunshine-filled days, though precipitation is still a possibility on most days. The Wet season (April to November) sees a lot of rain falling, often for days at a time.

You can visit Saiwa Swamp at any time of year, but you’ll probably appreciate the environment more in the Dry season (December to March). This is also when migratory birds are passing through, and when offspring of the local sitatunga antelope appear. The area is best avoided from April to August, when the rain is consistently heavy.

MAIZE PRODUCTION IN TRANS NZOIA EXPECTED TO DROP THIS YEAR

 Maize production in Trans Nzoia to drop by 1.2 million bags.

Trans-Nzoia County's maize production is expected to drop by 1.2 million bags this season due to Fall Army worm invasion and poor rain patterns that has majorly affected Kwanza ,Endebess and Cherangani constituencies.

The county produces about 5 million bags annually from over 100,000 hectares of land normally put under maize production.

With an interview with the County Agriculture Chief Officer Mrs. Mary Nzomo in Kwanza kapomboi ward she  disclosed that  50 per cent of land translating to 53,500 hectares in the County have not been planted due to lack of rains.

She said that 20 per cent of land which had been planted last February had a failed germination leaving several farmers to count losses.

Tran-Nzoia County, a major maize producer contributes about 40 per cent to the country's 41 million bags annual requirement.

Mrs. Nzomo said many farmers in the county were unable to plant due to lack of rains while handful of those who engaged in dry planting were forced to replant after failed germination.

She said yields for this season will reduce following the invasion by the pest and poor rains which had delayed planting.

"We expect to harvest 3.8 million bags from the annual yields of 5 million bags. The production has been affected by the invasion of the pest and delayed planting due to poor rain pattern," said Mrs. Nzomo.

Both the County and National Government have stepped up efforts to fight the pest which has left several farmers counting losses.

John Nato  .....TBG MEDIA.

THE IMPACTS OF THE RUSSIAN UKRAINE WAR TO THE KENYAN ECONOMY

With the ravages of the Coronavirus barely behind us, the world is now faced with a great crisis that seems to dwarf all others since the second world war – the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

It is a dispute that none of the countries in the world cannot afford to turn a blind eye to nor stand at a distance and just watch as the war ensues. As a global village as we so often pride ourselves on today, a war occurring more than 3000 miles far away in Europe would still have its effects touch lives in villages and towns here at home. As such, Kenya needs to not only add its diplomatic voice over this reckless and precarious move Moscow has taken, but also brace for tough times ahead economically.

The two nations in conflict – Russia and Ukraine – bear significant contributions in the world economy that is already affected by the war. They both carry a huge percentage of wheat production in the world, with Russia contributing 10% while Ukraine is 4%. Kenya finds itself in this geopolitical conundrum that adversely affects the global agricultural market since we import a great deal of wheat from the two countries.

The latest available numbers indicate that the wheat importation stood at Ksh.11 billion and Ksh.5 billion from Russia and Ukraine respectively in 2019. The conflict directly puts a strain in this supply chain rendering the price of wheat take an upward trend. Considering how vital bread is in Kenyan households, we cannot start to imagine how that pressure could go in affecting the pocket of the ordinary Kenyan, against the backdrop of other anticipated economic shocks yet to be felt from the war.

As a matter of fact, wheat remains the third most consumed food commodity in Kenya. The anticipated price hike will only add to the misery of the locals after we experienced price increase of 800g loaf of bread by Ksh. 30 in the last five months and Ksh. 40 price increase for a 2Kg packet of wheat flour in the past half year.  

Being an election year in Kenya, we are already prone to face strain as many funds from public coffers somehow find their way for usage on the campaign trail. It leaves little funds flowing into local citizens’ pockets for expenditure, much less to pump into savings and investments. Already, we saw a decline of the stock market at the NSE last Thursday as investors lost near Ksh.100 billion in a day from price dives drawn from the invasion. This kind of decline will, as anticipated, keep off foreign investors who account for 58% of trading at the bourse and lead many investors to safe assets such as bonds. 

As such, Kenyans will do well to brace for tougher economic times ahead. Investing in capital-intensive projects now may be precarious without a critical understanding of the impact the war abroad has here at home. A humanitarian crisis looms the more from the war, adding to the misery the world already faces today on the same front. Prudent spending and seeking alternative income streams would save many from fall into an imminent bottomless pit of misery should the Russia-Ukraine crisis persists on the long haul.

FOOD INSECURITY

 FOOD INSECURITY

Food insecurity has been defined as a lack of consistent access to enough food for an active and healthy life. In other words, there are millions of people all over the world who suffer from a shortage of food and cannot tell if they will be able to feed themselves the next day or at the end of the day. According to a report by FAO in 2018 October, 5.5 million people face food insecurity and part of it is due to the conflict, land grabing, climatic change , food wastages and biomedical chemicals.

Hunger and food insecurity are closely related, and it is possible to say that when one is food insecure, they will be hungry. Hunger will lead to poverty and diseases, although not all people living below the poverty line experience food insecurity because those living above the poverty line could also experience food insecurity.

Food insecurity is a dangerous concept as it does not exist in isolation. Low-income families could be affected by multiple overlapping issues such as social isolation, acute and chronic health problems, the lack of affordable housing, low wages, and high medical costs, among others .

THE KENYAN FACTS:DISCOVER THIS AMAZING AFRICAN COUNTRY.

❤❤BY JOHN WAFULA.

Even if you have not been to kenya, chances are you know what it looks like. Kenya's savannah is familiar from movies,  television shows and books and even adverts from the telly.It is the landscape many people imagine when they think of Africa.

Kenya was a colony of Britain  and since its independence in 1963 it has been a republic with a president , national assembly called the bunge and a legal system. Each year the country celebrates its independence on 12 December with parades, dancing , political speeches and feasts.

Kenya is located in EA , its terrain rises from a low coastal plain on the indian ocean to the mountain and plateaus at its centre.  Most people live in highlands from Nairobi which decents to the great rift valley whereby we have the green waters of the famous lake Turkana.

Kenya has more than 60 languages being spoken with more than 40 ethnic groups . Millions of people visit kenya each year to see endless savannah and animals that inhabits it:Elephants, lions, cheetar, giraffes, zebras, hippos, rhinos and more.Apart from wildlife Kenya ecosysterm also include deserts, swamps, mountains and forests which also attracts tourists.

Kenya is an amazing place to visit where it has majestic mountains,  frozen glaciers and incredible wildlife.

Follow my page to discover more fantastic facts about Kenya.

The rethinking of kenya's election systerm

By john nato

There is a number of questions about election in kenya and wether they are a force for political stability or instability .I would posit that kenya has made great strides to improve electral credibility since its catastrophic 2007 election.The election credibility  and  political stability aren't mutually exclusive.

There should be a positive correlation between democracy and improved well being of state and its people.But in a country like kenya with 40+ tribes , the more populous tribes will always take advantage  of their voting might, while the less populous ones struggle to compete .The systerm just does not  work in their favour .It would be seem therefore that they are locked  out not by choice but by circumstance.

So does a majoritarian /winner takes all , systerm suit an ethnically diverse society like kenya's.

Perhaps not, I'm persueded that there is need to be  a re imagination of electrol democracy practices in kenya .Kenya should take recent events as an oppotunity to clean up its institutions and electrol  systerm .If it doesn't , future polls will continue to offer up a point of diversion between electrol  credibility  and a tenuous  political stability .

The Kenyan politics

 

In the 2002 election, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was agreed between NAK and LDP, which laid the basis for the two groups to contest the election under the NARC (Rainbow Alliance) banner. The MoU agreed that a new constitution would be established shortly after the election, which provided for the new role of a strong Prime Minister, while weakening the role of President. Raila Odinga, then leader of LDP, maintained aspirations to become Prime Minister. However, that draft constitution was modified by the government from what was written by Professor Ghai and amended by the Bomas committee.

This maintained a strong President, who controls a weaker Prime Minister. This led to a split between NAK and LDP, with the former campaigning for a 'Yes' vote in a 2005 referendum on the constitution and the latter a 'No'. Also supporting a 'No' vote was the majority of Uhuru Kenyatta's KANU party, the sole party of government from independence to 2002. The outcome of that referendum, in which the draft constitution was rejected, signalled a wider re-alignment before the 2007 elections, in which the No team reorganised itself as the Orange Democratic Movement with Raila Odinga as their presidential flag bearer whilst those in the Yes team ended up in several political parties including the Party of National Unity.

Internal wrangling within that governing coalition also negatively affected other crucial areas of governance, notably the planned large-scale privatisation of government-owned enterprises. The 2007 presidential elections were largely believed to have been flawed with international observers stating that they did not meet regional or international standards. Most observers suggest that the tallying process for the presidential results was rigged to the advantage of the incumbent president, Mwai Kibaki, despite overwhelming indications that his rival and the subsequent Prime Minister of Kenya, Raila Odinga, won the election. In July 2008, exit polls commissioned by the US government were released, revealing that Odinga had won the election by a comfortable margin of 6%, well outside of the poll's 1.3% margin of error.

There was significant and widespread violence in Kenya—2007–2008 Kenyan crisis—following the unprecedented announcement of Kibaki as the winner of the 2007 presidential elections. The violence led to the death of almost 1,000 people, and the displacement of almost 600,000 people. Some researchers note it allowed the violent settlement of land disputes between ethnic groups over controversial concepts of 'ancestral homelands'.

A diplomatic solution was achieved, as the two rivals were later united in a grand coalition government following international mediation, led by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, under a power-sharing National Accord on Reconciliation Act, entrenched in the constitution. Following the agreement, power was shared between President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister, Raila Odinga. Several steps were recommended to ensure stability and peace for the Nation during the negotiations that led to the formation of the Coalition government. One of these reforms was the famous Agenda 4 that deals with reforms in various sectors. A new constitution was identified as a key area in fulfilling Agenda 4. A draft constitution was published and Kenyans adopted it in a vote on 4 August 2010. On 2013 the coalition government was rendered ineffective due to the constitution. General elections were held and the Jubilee coalition with President, Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President, William Samoei Ruto clinched victory. The new constitution also provided for a bicameral house, the Senate and the national Assembly. These were duly filled up with elected candidates. The nation was also divided into counties headed by governors and represented in the senate by senators. Women in these counties were also represented by electing women Representatives. The five-year term ended on 2017 and the country went in for the elections. The President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy William Samoei Ruto were re-elected on 30 October 2017. This will run up to 2022 when the next elections will be conducted. The historical handshake in March 2018 between president Uhuru Kenyatta and his long-time opponent Raila Odinga meant reconciliation followed by economic growth and increased stability.

Man gets PhD aged 89

  Manfred Steiner recently became an inspiration to many people across the world after bagging a PhD. According to Fox2Detroit, Steiner finally achieved the milestone after spending about two decades working towards it and probably a lifetime thinking about the same. The old man moved many netizens after announcing he had finally earned his PhD and is now a physicist, something he chased for years.