Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta, who is seeking a second term, has urged people to vote and remain peaceful.

Opposition leader Raila Odinga, who has pulled out of the election re-run, has called on his supporters to boycott it.

Mr Kenyatta was announced the winner in an 8 August vote but the poll is being held again because of “irregularities”.

The polls on Thursday opened at 06:00 (03:00 GMT) with tens of thousands of police and other security personnel deployed to protect voters and polling stations.

One voter in Nairobi’s Mathare slum, taxi driver David Njeru, 26, told the AFP news agency: “It is my duty to vote. Last time the queue was all around the block and I waited six hours to vote, this time the people are few.”

On the eve of the vote, Mr Kenyatta urged people to cast their ballots: “Our forefathers fought and died for the right of the African to vote, we dare not reject this inheritance.”

As the polling stations opened their doors, opposition protesters attempted to block roads in parts of Nairobi’s Kibera slum, with riot police using tear gas in a bid to disperse the crowds.

The announcement by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) of Mr Kenyatta’s victory on 8 August led to inflammatory rhetoric and attacks on the body.

Last week, a senior member of the IEBC fled to the US amid death threats.

About 70 people have been killed in violence since Mr Kenyatta was declared the winner in August’s election.

Mr Odinga had wanted the repeat ballot to be held at a later date, but a bid to delay the election re-run fell apart after only two out of seven Supreme Court judges attended a hearing on Wednesday.

One judge, Deputy Chief Justice Philomena Mwilu, failed to appear after her bodyguard was shot and wounded by unknown gunmen on Tuesday.

What went wrong in August?

Kenya’s Supreme Court took the unprecedented decision to annul the August presidential election and demand a re-run in September citing “irregularities and illegalities”.

Chief Justice David Maraga said the election had not been “conducted in accordance with the constitution” and declared it “invalid, null and void”.

He said the verdict, which was backed by four of the six Supreme Court judges, found that the IECB had committed irregularities “in the transmission of results”.

The court said the result was “neither transparent nor verifiable”.

The court ruling did not attribute any blame to President Kenyatta’s party or campaign.

The ruling raised tensions, with rival protests in support of and against the court.

There were running battles between police firing tear gas and stone-throwing protesters in the city of Kisumu, an opposition stronghold, on Wednesday.

‘We want a better election’

Mr Odinga has said that the IECB has failed to make the changes needed to prevent a repeat of the mistakes that marred the earlier poll, although the IECB disputes this.

His opposition coalition – the National Super Alliance (Nasa) – made clear its participation in the election was contingent on reforms being made.

Mr Odinga has vowed to disrupt Thursday’s vote and has called for “massive” demonstrations, but asked his supporters to stay away from polling stations in an attempt to avoid violent clashes.

In a statement earlier this month, he accused the government of instituting a “dictatorship”, adding: “We are going to win the battle for a free and fair election”.

“Our opponents want an election for the sake of it, we want a better election,” he said.

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Source: BBC

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Rifath Shaarook’s 64-gram (0.14 lb) device was selected as the winner in a youth design competition.

The 18-year-old says its main purpose was to demonstrate the performance of 3-D printed carbon fibre.

Rifath told local media his invention will go on a four-hour mission for a sub-orbital flight.

During that time, the lightweight satellite will operate for around 12 minutes in a micro-gravity environment of space.

“We designed it completely from scratch,” he said. “It will have a new kind of on-board computer and eight indigenous built-in sensors to measure acceleration, rotation and the magnetosphere of the earth.”

The satellite has been named KalamSat after former Indian president Abdul Kalam, a pioneer for the country’s aeronautical science ambitions.

His project was selected in a challenge called Cubes in Space, organised by education company idoodle with support from Nasa and the Colorado Space Grant Consortium.

Newcomer scientist Rifath comes from a small town in Tamil Nadu and now works as lead scientist at Chennai-based Space Kidz India, an organisation promoting science and education for Indian children and teenagers.

The KalamSat is not his first invention: at the age of 15, he built a helium weather balloon as a part of nationwide competition for young scientists.

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Source: BBC

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The discovery of the planets, which are all about the size of Earth or smaller, was announced at the NASA headquarters in Washington, DC, and published in the journal Nature on Wednesday.

“Looking for life elsewhere, this system is probably our best bet as of today,” said Brice-Olivier Demory, professor at the University of Bern’s Centre for Space and Habitability and one of the authors of a paper on the planets around TRAPPIST-1, a small, ultracool star.

The TRAPPIST-1’s planets are similar to the inner solar system around Earth’s sun, Demory’s analysis of data from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope showed.

The discovery sets a new record for the greatest number of habitable-zone planets found around a single star outside our solar system, NASA said.

Like previous exoplanets – or planets beyond Earth’s solar system – TRAPPIST-1’s satellites were spotted when astronomers saw the planets “transit” the star, blocking some of the light captured by telescopes.

“The discovery gives us a hint that finding a second Earth is not just a matter of if, but when,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA.

“This discovery could be a significant piece in the puzzle of finding habitable environments, places that are conducive to life,” Zurbuchen added.

“Answering the question ‘Are we alone?’ is a top science priority, and finding so many planets like these for the first time in the habitable zone is a remarkable step forward toward that goal.”

‘Habitable zone’
All seven planets are in orbits even closer than Mercury, the Sun’s nearest planet, causing frequent transits and plentiful opportunities for observation and collection of data.

But because TRAPPIST-1 is so small and cool – about one-tenth the size and half the temperature of the sun – at least three of the planets could be cool enough for water and, possibly, life, despite their tight orbits.

They fall clearly within the so-called habitable zone.

Further data used in the Nature paper was collected from several ground telescopes around the world.

Demory said that future telescopes, including the James Webb Space Telescope, which is to succeed the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope, “will have the possibility to detect the signature of ozone if this molecule is present in the atmosphere of one of these planets”.

He said that ozone “could be an indicator for biological activity on the planet”, but cautioned that signs of life are difficult to assert from interstellar distances.

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Source: Aljazeera

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The Buduburam  refugee camp was established by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in 1990 for Liberian refugees.

The camp serves as home to more than 12,000 refugees from Liberia who fled their country during the first and second Liberian Civil War.

Speaking to Citi News, the District Crime Officer for the Winneba Police Command, DSP Kofi Sarkodie says it has become necessary for the camp to be shut down because it is being used for criminal activities.

“It has now become a den of criminals both alien and nationals. A series of meetings have gone on within the region to ensure that measures are devised to remove these criminals from the camp.”

By: Marian Efe Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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