Kenya: President Uhuru Wednesday nominated Joseph Kipchirchir Boinet to be the Inspector-General of Police. Mr Boinet is the National Intelligence Service (NIS) Principal Intelligence Officer based at the headquarters in Ruaraka. President Uhuru Kenyatta with Joseph Kipchirchir Boinet who he has nominated to the post of Inspector General of Police. Looking on is the immediate former IG David Kimaiyo. Photo/PSCU  Wednesday’s nomination followed the resignation of former IG David Kimaiyo on December 2. Kimaiyo and Interior Cabinet Secretary Joseph ole Lenku resigned following an attack in Mandera in which 36 people were killed by terrorists. President Uhuru Kenyatta appointed Mr Kimaiyo as the chairman of the Kenya Airport Authority. The IG nominee is a career policeman who joined the intelligence service in 1998. He is also a nephew to former National Security Intelligence Service director general Brig Wilson Boinett. A statement from State House said the IG nominee has two Ma...

Woman was carrying a concealed gun in her purse A two-year-old boy in an Idaho Walmart  accidentally shot and killed a woman  Tuesday, authorities said. Early reports of the incident said the woman was the toddler’s mother. The woman, 29, was shopping in the Hayden, Idaho store when the boy reached into her purse and discharged the concealed weapon, the Associated Press reports. The store was closed following the shooting. Kootenai County sheriff’s spokesman Stu Miller said the shooting was accidental, and that the woman, whose identity has not been released, had a concealed weapons permit. times.com

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Indonesian president Joko Widodo talks to the media in Surabaya after meeting relatives of the missing AirAsia plane passengers. Photograph: Made Nagi/EPA Indonesian search and rescue teams begin recovering bodies as officials say scattered debris is from missing flight QZ8501 Teams searching for AirAsia flight QZ8501 have begun recovering dozens of bodies from the Java Sea, as Indonesian officials confirmed that scattered debris found nearby came from the plane. A major search and rescue effort involving at least 30 ships and 15 aircraft from nine countries has been looking for the aircraft since it vanished early on Sunday morning while carrying 162 people from Surabaya, Indonesia, to Singapore. The findings mark a major breakthrough on the operation’s third day. The flight’s carrier, AirAsia Indonesia, an affiliate of the Malaysian budget carrier AirAsia, confirmed in a statement posted on Facebook that the debris belonged to the missing flight. “I am absolutely deva...

France, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore and China send ships to help look for plane that vanished off Indonesia with 162 on board The huge international search for missing AirAsia QZ8501 is set to expand on Tuesday with France, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore and China all sending ships and aircraft to join the operation off the Indonesian coast. At least 15 ships, seven planes and four helicopters searched on Monday for any signs of the Airbus A320-200, which vanished from radar screens on Sunday morning with 162 people on board as it approached violent weather about 40 minutes into a two-hour flight between Surabaya in east Java, Indonesia and Singapore. An Indonesian search and rescue official said the plane was presumed to be “at the bottom of the sea”. No wreckage has been found. Weather has impeded the search, with rough waves decreasing visibility on the water and intermittent rain clouds obscuring the waves from above. The airliner, operated by an Indonesian subsidiary of the...

By X.N. Iraki NAIROBI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The morning scene is increasingly routine for Kenyans. When it's time to start the day, the power is already out. Somewhere nearby, the shell of a wrecked electrical transformer lies on its side underneath the pole where it had been fixed 20 feet off the ground. The culprit is an unusual one: A vandal who is selling the toxic oil, drawn from the transformer, to chefs who use it for ‎frying food in roadside stalls. Five liters of the viscous, PCB-laden liquid sells for $60. It looks like cooking oil, but lasts much longer, users say. Kenyans' appetite for fried food and cheap frying oil is stalling the country's urgent efforts to build a modern electrical grid, even as it sews the seeds of a public health crisis, experts say. And with utility companies reporting similar vandalism across East Africa and as far away as South Africa and Nigeria, the crime spree is becoming another thorn in ambitious plans to electrify Afr...

President Barack Obama says the longest war in American history is coming to a responsible conclusion. Obama is welcoming the end of U.S. combat operations in Afghanistan. The war came to a formal end Sunday with a ceremony in Kabul. Obama says in a statement that the effort has devastated al-Qaida's core leadership, brought justice to Osama bin Laden and disrupted terrorist plots. He says U.S. troops and diplomats have helped Afghans reclaim their communities and move toward democracy. Obama is also honoring the more than 2,200 Americans who have died in Afghanistan since the war started 13 years ago. Obama says those years have tested the U.S. and its military. From a peak 140,000 troops in 2010, the U.S. and NATO plan to leave just 13,500 behind. From a peak 140,000 troops in 2010, the U.S. and NATO plan to leave just 13,500 behind. Read Obama's full statement below: Today's ceremony in Kabul marks a milestone for our country. For more than 13 y...