Deputy President Ruto's Ksh.100M jet report delayed

The office of the Auditor General is yet to complete investigations into the government’s controversial leasing of a jet for the Deputy President William Ruto during his West African tour in May this year, on grounds of technicalities. The Auditor General once again failed to give satisfactory reasons for the delay and failure to beat the three week deadline issued by the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee.

Tunisian Education Minister resigns,pressure on government grows

Tunisian Education Minister Salem Labyedh has resigned, the prime minister's spokesman said on Wednesday, as pressure mounted on the Islamist-led government to step down. Protests against the moderate Islamist Ennahda party intensified after last week's killing of a leftist politician, the second to be slain in six months, disrupting a political transition that began when Tunisians toppled an autocratic leader in 2011. Opposition parties, the largest labor union and the secular Ettakatol party, the ruling Ennahda party's junior coalition partner, have all demanded the government's departure. Labyedh, a secular independent, had said he was considering resigning after fellow leftist Mohamed Brahmi was shot dead on Thursday in an assassination the government has pinned on hardline Salafi Islamists. The opposition blames Ennahda. The minister of culture, Mehdi Mabrouk, also told local media he was hoping to convince all ministers to resign. "I hope to see the resignation of all members of the government in the coming days," he told the local Shems radio station. "I hope these will be the last days I spend as the minister of culture." While politicians feud, the army is struggling to contain Islamist militants, who killed eight soldiers on Monday in a mountainous region near the Algerian border in one of the bloodiest attacks on Tunisian troops in decades. A small roadside bomb exploded on Wednesday south of the capital as a police patrol passed, but no injuries or damage were reported. Last Saturday, the day of Brahmi's funeral, the capital Tunis was hit by its first car bomb, but again no one was hurt. "We are facing two choices. Either we confront terrorism together, or we will distract the army and security forces with political battles that are much less dangerous than terrorism," Noureddine Bhiri, the prime minister's spokesman, told a news conference. Ennahda has softened its rejection of opposition demands in the face of increasing pressure. It said on Tuesday it was open to the possibility of a new government, but has firmly rejected the opposition's demands that the transitional Constituent Assembly also be disbanded. The body is just weeks away from completing a draft of a new constitution to be put to a popular referendum. Prime Minister Ali Larayedh will meet the head of the powerful Tunisian General Labor Union on Thursday to discuss the political crisis and a new initiative to deal with the situation, the prime minister's office said. The 600,000-strong union is calling for a compromise that would remove the current government and put a technocratic government in place, but would not dissolve the Assembly.

Egypt says to 'put and end' to Muslim Brotherhood vigils.

Egypt's new rulers declared two Cairo vigils by supporters of the deposed president threats to national security on Wednesday and instructed the interior ministry to "put an end" to them. Thousands of supporters of the Islamist Mohamed Mursi and his Muslim Brotherhood have been staging sit-ins at two locations in the Egyptian capital for the past month, protesting against his overthrow by the army on July 3. The Brotherhood says its supporters will stay put until Mursi is reinstated. At least 80 of them were shot dead by security forces at dawn on Saturday in the second mass killing of Mursi supporters since his overthrow. Wednesday's statement by the cabinet raised the specter of yet more bloodshed. In a televised statement, an interim cabinet installed by the military said the "terrorist acts" and traffic disruption stemming from the protests were no longer acceptable and "represent a threat to Egyptian national security". "The cabinet decided to begin taking all necessary measures to address these dangers and put an end to them, commissioning the interior minister to do all that is necessary regarding this matter within the framework of the constitution and the law," it said. Minutes before the statement, authorities said they had referred the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohammed Badie, and two other senior movement officials to a court on charges of inciting violence.

Israel,Palestinians deeply divided despite renewed peace talks

Israel and the Palestinians remain far apart over terms of any peace deal, officials from both sides made clear on Wednesday, a day after talks resumed in Washington for the first time in nearly three years. Israel's lead negotiator, Tzipi Livni, said the parties "need to build confidence" after what she called an encouraging start in Washington, and disputed a Palestinian demand to focus first on agreeing the frontiers of an independent state. "The goal is to end the conflict," Livni said on Israel Radio. "It cannot be ended merely by setting a border." Yasser Abed Rabbo, who is close to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, forecast "huge difficulties" for the talks begun after intense diplomacy by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. Abed Rabbo, speaking on Voice of Palestine radio, cited Israeli settlement construction in the occupied West Bank and said any further building there would scupper the negotiations. He was alluding to Israeli media reports that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had cajoled far-right allies to back the talks by pledging to permit more settlement expansion. Kerry has said the negotiators will reconvene in August, aiming to achieve a "final status" deal within nine months. Previous peace talks collapsed in 2010 over settlement building in the West Bank, which Palestinians see as grabbing land they want for a state that would include the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, all territories captured by Israel in 1967. Israel annexed East Jerusalem in a move never recognized internationally. Palestinians want it for their capital. Abed Rabbo said borders, which the Palestinians say must be based on pre-1967 war lines, were "the first issue that must be resolved", countering Israel's demand that all issues, including refugees and Jerusalem, should be tackled simultaneously. "Putting all the dishes on the table at once may be an attempt to undermine the process," Abed Rabbo said. Israeli Finance Minister Yair Lapid defined the ultimate goal of negotiations as the creation of a Palestinian state in "the majority" of the West Bank, but said Israel would keep three large settlement blocs there, as well as East Jerusalem. The Palestinians might eventually accept this "because they will have no choice", the centrist minister said. "What we are looking for is a fair divorce from the Palestinians, so that we can stand on one side of the border and they on the other." Decades of peace negotiations sponsored by the United States, Israel's main ally, have failed to resolve the conflict.