Kenya

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Ethiopia’s military has launched a “large-scale” offensive for the first time in a year in the country’s northern Tigray region, Tigray authorities alleged Wednesday, while the government countered that Tigray forces attacked first.

The renewed conflict is a significant setback to mediation efforts and the work to reach millions of people starved of food and other needs.

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Kenya’s losing presidential candidate Raila Odinga has filed a Supreme Court challenge to last week’s election result, asserting that the process was marked by criminal subversion and seeking that the outcome be nullified and a new vote be ordered.

Odinga arrived to cheers Monday and helped to hoist boxes of material for the petition into place, starting the 14-day period in which the court must rule. At least two other petitions were filed by human rights figures.

BULLA HAGAR, Kenya (AP) — The United States is stepping up to buy about 150,000 metric tons of grain from Ukraine in the next few weeks for an upcoming shipment of food aid from ports no longer blockaded by war, the World Food Program chief has told The Associated Press.

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — A U.S. congressional delegation has arrived in Kenya to meet with the new president-elect and the opposition figure likely to file a court challenge to his election loss in the latest electoral crisis for East Africa’s most stable democracy.

NAIROBI/KISUMU, Aug 16 (Reuters) - Kenyan politician Raila Odinga rejected as a "travesty" the result of an Aug. 9 presidential election he was declared to have lost to Deputy President William Ruto and warned on Tuesday of a long legal crisis facing Kenya's democracy.

His first comments on the result came after four of the seven election commissioners said they stood by their decision a day earlier to disown figures announced by electoral commission chairman Wafula Chebukati.

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Kenya’s electoral commission chairman has declared Deputy President William Ruto the winner of the close presidential election over five-time contender Raila Odinga, a triumph for the man who shook up politics by appealing to struggling Kenyans on economic terms and not on traditional ethnic ones.

Ruto received 50.49% of the vote, the chairman said, while Odinga received 48.85%.

NAIROBI, Aug 13 (Reuters) - Veteran opposition leader Raila Odinga led Kenya's presidential race, official election results showed on Saturday, pushing Deputy President William Ruto into second place.

With just over 26% of votes counted, Odinga had 54% and Ruto had 45%, according to results provided by the Kenyan election commission and displayed on a large screen at a national tallying center in the capital, Nairobi.

East Africa's wealthiest nation and most vibrant democracy held presidential, parliamentary and local elections on Tuesday.

NAIROBI, Aug. 12 (Xinhua) -- Kenya's general elections, held Tuesday to choose the fifth president, county governors, senators and members of the National Assembly, were largely peaceful, free and fair, pan-African blocs said Thursday.

NAIROBI/ELDORET, Kenya, Aug 11 (Reuters) - Kenyans crowded round radios and televisions on Thursday, increasingly anxious for news of who their next president might be, two days after voting in an election ended.

The East African country's election commission (IEBC) has neither released a running tally of results nor said when it plans to announce the winner, but unofficial and sometimes conflicting media counts show a nail-bitingly close race.

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Human rights groups on Wednesday warned anxious Kenyans over “rising levels of false or misleading information being shared on social media” as the country awaited results of a close presidential election. The electoral commission indicated it would be at least Thursday before a winner is declared.

High-profile supporters of the two leading candidates were tweeting claims of victory, citing counts based on more than 46,000 results forms posted online by the electoral commission in a gesture of transparency.