Kenya

According to a new scientific report, a species of rat has masterminded an ingenious strategy that will see any predators that try to eat it fail miserably.

Pope Benedict XVI has called for an "international mobilization" to help the victims of a severe drought in Eastern Africa, which has been hit by drought and is now threatened by a famine that could endanger the life of more than 11.8 million people.Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia are the countries the most hit by the drought and aid agencies worry a lack of funds could hamper international effort to bring the situation under control.

Four elderly Kenyans today won a ruling which takes them one step nearer to winning damages from the Government over alleged colonial atrocities during the Mau Mau uprising.

The Somali president issued an urgent appeal for international aid as his drought-stricken country faces a famine that has left half of the population in dire need."The situation is very severe. The conditions are very harsh," President Sheikh Sharif Sheik Ahmed told CNN Wednesday during an exclusive interview at his residence in Mogadishu.

The United Nations declared today that famine exists in two regions of southern Somalia: southern Bakool, and Lower Shabelle," a statement by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs for Somalia said.

Somalia is close to famine, causing over a 1,000 people a day to travel over the border into Kenya and Ethiopia, according to the United Nations.

With the UN warning that both East and the Horn of Africa have been hit by the worst drought in 60 years, international aid agencies have warned of an alarming gap in the food pipeline to reach those most in need.More than 10 million people are thought to be affected across the East African region and the UN has warned that large swathes of northern Kenya and Somalia are now in the "emergency" category, one phase before what is officially classified as famine.

The long-serving second-in-command of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has been appointed its head following the death of Osama Bin Laden, the militant organisation said in a statement.

Yesterday the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for the Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi, raising as they did so an interesting question. Why does the ICC only seem to target African despots?

Makwaia wa Kuhenga writing for Tanzania's leading English language newspaper, The Citizen, on Sunday 17 April 2011, tells us he witnessed the Libyan troops of Colonel Qaddafi being mowed down, scores of them being buried and the rest rounded up and returned home. This was during a little known war in October 1978, now almost forgotten in the West, when Colonel Qaddafi gave military support to General Idi Amin of Uganda on his invasion and annexation of the Kagera salient in Tanzania.

On his visit to Pakistan the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, said that Britain is responsible for many of the world's problems, referencing in particular the ongoing Kashmir dispute.

Clarence House has announced that Prince William will be marrying his long-term girlfriend Kate Middleton in the Spring or Summer of next year.