Former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan sought yesterday to quickly shore up his peace effort in Kenya as weeks of explosive violence showed no sign of abating, with scores killed over the weekend.
Annan met representatives of Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga at a Nairobi hotel after the sides on Friday agreed to a "roadmap" for negotiations to end the crisis over flawed elections in December.
"The dialogue has resumed and both sides have reiterated their determination to end the crisis, giving priority to ending the fighting," a foreign ministry official said.
PHOTO: AFP
Annan's mediation effort has been seen as the nation's best hope of ending violence that has left more than 1,000 people dead and between 250,000 and 300,000 displaced in once stable Kenya.
Police said 74 people died over three days last weekend during fighting in the volatile west, this time pitting ethnic Kisiis and Kalenjins. About 20 Kalenjins died in clashes with police after attacking a police station.
Members of Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe suffered heavily in the first wave of violence at the hands of Odinga's Luo tribe and other ethnic groups, but have since carried out numerous revenge attacks.
Western Kenya remained tense as police vowed to take on roaming bands of armed youths who on Friday attacked a local police station and stole weapons.
Hundreds of ethnic Kikuyus, Kenya's dominant tribe, fled a small village outside Molo township in western Kenya over the weekend, saying they had been threatened by rival Kalenjins.
"The Kalenjins came on Friday night and started burning houses," 14-year-old Evans Njoroge said.
Annan has set a deadline of seven to 15 days to resolve all outstanding issues from the Dec. 27 election that Odinga claims was rigged and international observers have said was flawed.
Meanwhile, South African business tycoon Cyril Ramaphosa, chosen by Annan to head long-term mediation efforts in Kenya, pulled out yesterday because of reservations expressed by the Kenyan government.
"Kofi Annan reluctantly accepts the withdrawal of Cyril Ramaphosa from the role of chief mediator. Withdrawal is a result of reservations expressed by the government," a UN official said.
Kenyan officials have said that Ramaphosa, the chief negotiator for South Africa's African National Congress in talks that produced a peaceful end to apartheid in 1994, has business links to Kenyan opposition leader Odinga.
EXPRESSING GRATITUDE: Without its Taiwanese partners which are ‘working around the clock,’ Nvidia could not meet AI demand, CEO Jensen Huang said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and US-based artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Nvidia Corp have partnered with each other on silicon photonics development, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said. Speaking with reporters after he met with TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) in Taipei on Friday, Huang said his company was working with the world’s largest contract chipmaker on silicon photonics, but admitted it was unlikely for the cooperation to yield results any time soon, and both sides would need several years to achieve concrete outcomes. To have a stake in the silicon photonics supply chain, TSMC and
‘DETERRENT’: US national security adviser-designate Mike Waltz said that he wants to speed up deliveries of weapons purchased by Taiwan to deter threats from China US president-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for US secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, affirmed his commitment to peace in the Taiwan Strait during his confirmation hearing in Washington on Tuesday. Hegseth called China “the most comprehensive and serious challenge to US national security” and said that he would aim to limit Beijing’s expansion in the Indo-Pacific region, Voice of America reported. He would also adhere to long-standing policies to prevent miscalculations, Hegseth added. The US Senate Armed Services Committee hearing was the first for a nominee of Trump’s incoming Cabinet, and questions mostly focused on whether he was fit for the
IDENTITY: Compared with other platforms, TikTok’s algorithm pushes a ‘disproportionately high ratio’ of pro-China content, a study has found Young Taiwanese are increasingly consuming Chinese content on TikTok, which is changing their views on identity and making them less resistant toward China, researchers and politicians were cited as saying by foreign media. Asked to suggest the best survival strategy for a small country facing a powerful neighbor, students at National Chia-Yi Girls’ Senior High School said “Taiwan must do everything to avoid provoking China into attacking it,” the Financial Times wrote on Friday. Young Taiwanese between the ages of 20 and 24 in the past were the group who most strongly espoused a Taiwanese identity, but that is no longer
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake and several aftershocks battered southern Taiwan early this morning, causing houses and roads to collapse and leaving dozens injured and 50 people isolated in their village. A total of 26 people were reported injured and sent to hospitals due to the earthquake as of late this morning, according to the latest Ministry of Health and Welfare figures. In Sising Village (西興) of Chiayi County's Dapu Township (大埔), the location of the quake's epicenter, severe damage was seen and roads entering the village were blocked, isolating about 50 villagers. Another eight people who were originally trapped inside buildings in Tainan
RSS