Daily Nation (Kenya)
“Cabinet of Peace”
Kenya’s Daily Nation headline calls the new Kibaki-Odinga coalition government a “Cabinet of Peace”. Critics have called the 40 member government top heavy but the paper allows them some breathing space. The paper likes the fact that there are 7 women on the team (the highest number in the country’s history).
Its editorial is upbeat: “Cabinet's here; let’s get down to work”
The basic message is that the new team should have the benefit of the doubt as long as they work as a team, rather than as two teams forced to work together.
But it seems the new government already faces a looming crisis. An opinion peace by Rasna Warah warns: “Handle the inevitable food crisis before it is too late ".
“Unless the government addresses the food crisis as a matter of priority, the country will be ungovernable in a few months,” writes Warah reminding us Kenya has not had a government for 3 months now, and thousand of farmers are sitting idle in refugee camps. The solution then: the government needs to start pumping subsidies into farming and quickly!
Libération (France)
“Les Raisons de la Colère – Reasons for the Fury”
Liberation headlines with “Reasons for the Fury », looking at the global ramifications of said food crisis.
In Haiti for example, a price of rice has doubled over the last week. Amongst the reasons the paper touches on are the biofuel debacle in the US where nearly half the world’s maize crop ends up in petrol tanks rather than on the table but also market speculation, and climate change.
One paper you will not find in news agents today is Le Monde. The paper is on strike for the first time in its over 60 year history. The strike is over job cuts the papers says are necessary to save it. Le Monde, like many papers here in France, and indeed the world over, is losing money.
Daily Mail (United Kingdom)
“A footless Iraqi war victim, Kate Lawler in her underwear and Maasai with tyres for shoes: The weird world of the London Marathon”
The Daily Mail takes a look at the weird and wonderful side of Sunday’s London Marathon. The biggest cheers were apparently reserved for six Maasai warriors who ran to raise money to build a well back in their village in Tanzania. They were kitted out in full traditional regalia complete with shields and spears (sheathed in keeping with local safety regulations).
But the photograph of the day shows Iraqi refugee Shaho Qadir crossing the finish line.
He lost his legs when Saddam Hussein bombed his village. Meters from the finish line he got out of his wheelchair, pushed it over, and then finished on his hands.
