After claiming the world title with an impressive display of front-running in South Korea last August, the 23-year-old will be a strong favourite to claim his first Olympic gold in London on August 9.

Rudisha, who will run the 400 metres at the Sydney Track Classic on February 18 and step up to the two-lap race in Melbourne on March 2-3, said he was looking forward to commencing his season Down Under, as he has for the last two years.

“The people are friendly, the meets are good and it works as a very good start to my year,” he said in a news release.

“This year we of course have the Olympic Games and that is the big focus for all athletes but I want to run well throughout the year.”

Rudisha, who set his 800m world record time of one minute 41.01 seconds in Italy in 2010, said running the 400m in Sydney could lead to a bid to run in the relay in London.

“My personal best in the 400m is still from when I ran in Sydney two years ago, so I’m hoping that I can maybe lower that time,” he added.

“People have asked me if I will run on our 4×400 relay team, at the moment all I can say is that anything is possible but the focus for me is the 800. Having won the world championships I of course want to add that Olympic title.”

Reuters.

Under the plan, AU forces will push towards a Somali rebel stronghold outside the capital and Kenyan forces will focus on the Islamists’ bastions in the south.

Augustine Mahiga, who relocated to Mogadishu from Nairobi to become the most senior U.N. official in Somalia for 17 years, cautioned it was hard to predict if the complex strategy would defeat the rebels given their sophisticated weaponry and ability to melt into the population.

African Union and U.N. officials at an AU summit in Addis Ababa are optimistic the twin track of a coordinated military campaign as well as a political roadmap, which envisions elections by August, means “the prospect for peace in Somalia has never been so real”.

“AMISOM (the AU force) is (conducting) operations on the outskirts of Mogadishu and they’ll be heading towards the Afgoye corridor. That is where al Shabaab has retreated to and has the highest concentration of its troops,” Mahiga told Reuters on the summit’s sidelines.

“They (Kenyan troops) take Kismayu and from there … they’ll progress northwards to Marka and the AMISOM troops from Mogadishu will also be going further south. It is a strategy that has been divided into sectors,” he said.

It may not be that simple. The Ugandan and Burundian troops who make up the AMISOM force encountered fierce resistance in the battle for Mogadishu.

Equally, the advance of Kenyan soldiers towards the port city of Kismayu has been slower than anticipated since they crossed into Somalia in October.

Ethiopia, which has also deployed troops on Somali soil and seized some territory close to their shared border, said its force would stay put until AU troops replace them, to avoid a power vacuum.

Somalia has been in conflict for two decades with no single entity ever fully in control. Warlords and Islamist militants vie for control while drought has compounded hardship for many Somalis.

KISMAYU HEAVILY DEFENDED

Kismayu, the centre of al Shabaab’s operations, will be a tough battle but a necessary one to crush the militants, diplomats say.

Mahiga said the port served as an entry point for the foreign fighters in al Shabaab’s ranks and accounted for about 90 percent of the rebels’ revenues.

“(It’s) the place where imports and exports have been taking place including arms and export of charcoal … so this is heavily, heavily defended and it’s going to be quite a battle,” said Mahiga.

What’s more, seizing control of Kismayu is the relatively easy part, counter-insurgency experts say. Holding on to the city will be tougher.

Kenya wants to integrate its troops inside Somalia into the AMISOM force as soon as the U.N. Security Council approves an increase in the force’s current size from 12,000.

The AU wants to increase AMISOM’s numbers to close to 18,000. Mahiga said he had met EU officials who said they would “consider seriously” funding the extra troops. Under the current structure, the European Union, particularly Italy, is in charge of paying wages.

Al Shabaab’s growing recourse to al Qaeda-inspired suicide attacks makes quashing the five-year insurgency more difficult.

“They have always proven to be quite agile and they have over the years built a formidable arsenal of weapons,” Mahiga said. “They have been training all these years (and) can retreat and regroup.”

Reuters.

Githae, a lawyer and minister for metropolitan development, was named to the finance portfolio after Uhuru Kenyatta quit the post on Thursday to face charges over the deadly post-election violence at the war crimes court in The Hague.

Githae’s statements and policies will be watched closely because east Africa’s largest economy is battling double-digit inflation, a weak currency, slowing growth and a deteriorating balance of payments position.

Githae said his first task will be to address a clamour from legislators for a law to cap interest rates.

An aggressive tightening cycle since October last year to stabilise the exchange rate and fight inflation, now at 18.9 percent, has given rise to concerns about what will happen to the quality of credit.

Kenya’s benchmark interest rate is at 18 percent.

“We have to sit down and reach an agreeable and amicable solution. The aim is to help the borrowers, not to kill the banks,” reported Kenya’s leading newspaper.

Parliament will debate a motion to set the minimum deposit rate at 70 percent of the central bank rate and cap lending rates at no more than 400 basis points above the rate.

The International Monetary Fund opposes the proposed cap.

Githae told Reuters on Friday he would formally address the media on Monday about his new role.

Githae also said he would focus on reducing the import bill to help ease pressure on the shilling.

“We must reduce the import bill. Why, for example, should we import eggs, oranges, sausages, maize, rice, sugar and wheat?… In my view, the only thing we should be importing is oil,” said the newspaper in remarks attributed to Githae.

The volatile shilling hit a record low of 107 hit on October 11, but has since recovered, helped by the central bank’s tightening stance following remarks by Kenyatta at the time that he would act decisively to stem the currency’s volatility.

Kenyatta quit the finance docket after being indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity during violence that followed the disputed election of 2007, where he is accused of directing violence.

Reuters.

“The pipeline will be developed through Kenyan territory and will be built and owned by South Sudan,” the Kenyan government said in a statement late on Tuesday, without giving a timeframe.

South Sudan’s deputy petroleum and mining minister Elizabeth James Bol told Reuters it would take around 11 months to build the pipeline.

“They will start as soon as possible,” she said, adding that the company which has won the contract will be announced this week.

Landlocked South Sudan has been seeking to build a pipeline to Kenya to end dependency on Sudan through which Juba now needs to exports its crude via a pipeline to the Sudanese port of Port Sudan.

South Sudan and Sudan are locked in a row over how to disentangle their oil industries.

Juba said on Monday it had started shutting down its oil production after Khartoum said it had begun seizing southern oil as compensation for what it called unpaid transit fees.

Officials said in November that South Sudan was producing about 350,000 barrels of oil per day. No recent update has been given.

China is the biggest buyer of oil from the two countries, some 12.99 million barrels last year. That amounted to five percent of last year’s crude imports by China, which is also the top investor in South Sudan’s oilfields.

Reuters.

The decision to hold a trial could wreck the plans of either politician, or both, to run in a presidential election expected next year and risks sparking protests, possibly riots, in Kenya if people feel it is unfair or fails to hold those responsible for the violence accountable.

It could also backfire on another presidential contender, Prime Minister Raila Odinga, who is accused by Kenyatta’s and Ruto’s respective supporters of trying to exploit the criminal charges for his own political gain.

The six politicians and officials are suspected of orchestrating violence that killed at least 1,200 people and forced hundreds of thousands from their homes.

ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo has applied to bring two separate cases before the court, reflecting the ethnic faultlines behind Kenya’s post-election violence.

Kenyatta, Kenya’s finance minister, is a member of the Kikuyu tribe, the country’s largest, while former minister Ruto’s powerbase consists of the ethnic Kalenjin, the only group besides the Kikuyu to have provided a Kenyan president.

One case groups Kenyatta, the country’s richest man and son of Kenya’s founding father Jomo Kenyatta, together with Francis Muthaura, who is civil service head and cabinet secretary, and Mohammed Hussein Ali, the former police commissioner.

They are accused of crimes against humanity, including murder, rape and persecution. The ICC says Kenyatta mobilised a local mafia-style Mungiki militia made up of his Kikuyu tribesmen to hit back at members of the Kalenjin tribe over violence in the Rift Valley targeting Kikuyu.

The other group consists of Ruto, a former higher education minister, Henry Kosgey, the former industrialisation minister, and Joshua arap Sang, the head of operations at Radio KASS FM.

All three are ethnic Kalenjin, and are accused of crimes against humanity, including murder and persecution.

Ruto is accused of plotting for years to drive President Mwai Kibaki’s supporters out of farms and towns in the Rift Valley using a network of politicians, media representatives, financiers, tribal elders and former members of the security forces.

All six suspects appeared in The Hague for confirmation of charges hearings in 2011 – proceedings which were closely followed in Kenya – and all denied the accusations.

Support in Kenya for the ICC prosecutor’s efforts to put the six men on trial in The Hague dropped to 54 percent earlier this month, from 59 percent in October, reflecting worries about the impact of the case on Kenya’s stability.

Respondents who opposed it said they believed local courts should handle the trial or that they feared the process would divide Kenya. Those in favour saw it as the only way to ensure justice for the victims or prevent a repeat of the violence.

Reuters.

Scores of gunmen threw grenades and other explosives as they stormed the police camp in Gerille, a town near the porous frontier, Regional Commissioner Wenslas Ongayo said. Several people were missing after the evening raid, and believed kidnapped.

“They killed three administration police officers, a police reservist and two civil servants working with the registration department,” Ongayo told Reuters by telephone.

A local councillor and an education official said that a primary school teacher had also been killed in the crossfire.

Kenya has beefed up security along its border with Somalia since it sent troops into the anarchic Horn of Africa country in October to crush the al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab insurgents.

Wednesday night’s attack highlights the difficulties they face securing the frontier, days after Britain warned Islamist militants were in the final stages of preparing an attack on sites in Kenya frequented by expatriates and tourists.

A police spokesman could not confirm the death toll and said details of the attack in a remote, arid corner of the country were still emerging.

Explosions and gunfire rang out across Gerille’s dusty wastelands, Ongayo said, before the assailants seized a government vehicle. A police source in the area said its driver, three local officials and two other people were now missing and presumed kidnapped.

Reuters.

The Central Bank of Kenya took out a total of 8.6 billion shillings through repurchase agreements and sold an unspecified amount of dollars last week, stemming the shilling’s slide in a bid to avoid last year’s scenario when it was heavily criticised for letting the currency sink.

At 0654 GMT, commercial banks quoted the shilling at 86.80/87.00 against the dollar, barely changed from Friday’s close of 86.90/87.10.

“The market has its eyes on the MPC (Monetary Policy Committee) meeting,” said Dickson Magecha, a trader at Standard Chartered Bank.

“We are likely to play in the 85.00 to 88.00 range to the dollar, with the up side being support from the central bank and the down side persistent corporate dollar demand.”

Traders said they expected the central bank to hold its benchmark lending rate at Wednesday’s rate setting meeting, as higher costs of credit were likely to hurt economic growth.

Policymakers adopted an aggressive tightening stance in the third quarter of last year, raising the central bank’s key lending rate four times to 18 percent in December, to stem exchange rate volatility and high inflation.

“Authorities, fearing that a weaker shilling could undermine their efforts to tame inflation, have persistently intervened in the market to prop the shilling,” said Bank of Africa in a daily report.

Inflation eased to 18.93 percent in December from 19.72 in November, the first decrease since October 2010, and traders expect it to keep edging lower in the months ahead.

In fixed incomes the central bank accepted all the 1.34 billion shillings bids for the 12-year infrastructure bond tap sale at a coupon rate of 12 percent, the bank said on Monday.

The central bank has said it will be selling the next infrastructure bond tap sale between January 3 and Feb 1, at an average yield rate of 16.64 percent.

Reuters.

Emmanuel Chirchir told Reuters the fighters of the al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab group at the camp situated south of Garbahare had been planning to attack Kenyan and Somali troops in two nearby towns captured by Kenyan forces this week.

“This is one of the biggest losses to the al Shabaab. The concentration of fighters was believed to be preparing to attack our troops in Fafadun and Elade,” Chirchir said.

Kenya sent troops into neighbouring Somalia last October after a string of kidnappings and cross-border attacks it blamed on the militants and which threatened Kenya’s tourism industry.

The militants pose one of the biggest threats to stability in east Africa, encouraging the African Union, which has peacekeeping forces in the Somali capital Mogadishu, to extend the peacekeeping mandate and to request the United Nations bolster the force’s size to close to 18,000.

The Kenyan military said it took over the town of Fafadun in a battle which killed three militants as well as Elade, both of which are in the southwestern Gedo region.

Al Shabaab confirmed the air raid through a senior official who did not wish to be named. It said it had ambushed Kenyan and Somali government troops who were on their way to Elade, killing 10, mainly Somalis.

After initial advances, Kenya’s troops, who are fighting alongside Somali government forces, have been largely bogged down due to heavy rains.

It has instead relied on air strikes in areas where al Shabaab has a presence in the south of the country, but the end of the rainy season has seen a dramatic escalation in the number of villages taken over by Kenyan, Somali and Ethiopian forces.

Elade resident Abdiwahab Ali said Kenyan and Somali troops had moved heavy armoured vehicles into the town.

“Al Shabaab left for Baardhere after three days of fighting outside Elade. The city is now calm but people have not opened business yet,” he said. Baardhere is the last major stronghold for al Shabaab in Gedo.

Chirchir had told Reuters earlier that the capture of Baardhere will ensure than the “entire Gedo region will be under the control of friendly forces”.

REBELS VOW FIERCE ATTACKS

Al Shabaab denied Kenya could capture all of Gedo.

“Should Kenya keep on advancing towards us, we swear we shall enter Kenya,” Shabaab spokesman Abdiasis Abu Musab said.

“Let them boast of going deeper into Somalia. They will see al Shabaab behind them and fierce fighting and attacks in Kenyan towns,” Abu Musab told Reuters on Friday.

Last week, Ethiopian forces captured Baladwayne in the central Hiiran region, opening a new front against al Shabaab, which has been waging an insurgency against Somalia’s Western-backed government since 2007.

AU Peace and Security Council head Ramtane Lamamra said as a military force, al Shabaab was being “systematically and steadily destroyed”.

“They have been defeated in Mogadishu, they are being defeated in the Gedo and Juba regions and the same happened in Baladwayne,” he told reporters in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa late on Thursday.

So far, Burundi and Uganda make up the current AMISOM force, Djibouti is sending a contingent and Kenyan soldiers intend to join as well. That would mean the peacekeepers can extend their capabilities beyond the capital, most of which is under the control of African and Somali government troops.

“The overall strategy is to reduce al Shabaab’s effectiveness to wage any meaningful fight,” Chirchir said.

“In doing so we are using intelligence on all their locations, intentions and immediate operations to hit them while in that planning phase so we ensure they can’t carry out any attack,” he said.

Since Kenyan forces moved into Somalia, at least 30 people, including several policemen have been killed in attacks in the northeastern Kenyan districts of Wajir, Mandera and Garissa, attacks that Kenya has blamed on the militants.

On Thursday, Kenyan police seized explosive equipment in the Dadaab refugee camp near the Somali border, calling it a major breakthrough in their investigation into the attacks.

Reuters.

The clashes that flared up on December 26 have engulfed several villages in Kenya’s far north near the border with Ethiopia, prompting authorities to deploy security forces.

So far, more than 20 people, including the six on Wednesday, have been killed in the towns of Moyale and Isiolo, and hundreds have been displaced.

“We have deployed security personnel but the two groups must stop fighting, killing each other,” said Issah Nakoru, the regional commissioner for Upper Eastern Province.

Nakoru said three of the six were children, and did not give other details.

Aid workers said they had been unable to reach most of the villages because the two groups drawn from the Gabra and Borana communities were still engaged in fierce fighting.

“Hundreds of families have fled six villages in the Moyale town. We cannot access them because fighting is going on. We believe more people have been killed and many injured,” said a worker with the Kenya Red Cross in the area who did not wish to be identified.

Grazing land is highly valued by Kenya’s pastoralist communities, and they have often clashed in the past. Kenyan security forces struggle to keep peace due to the vast, harsh terrain.

Residents said politicians were doing too little to stop the clashes.

“Some community leaders, both in Kenya and Ethiopia, are responsible for the killing we are now witnessing in Moyale … Our government is hopeless, incapable or unwilling to arrest people who are behind these clashes,” said a resident of the Oda village who had been displaced by the fighting.

Reuters.

Kenya’s airforce twice bombarded an insurgent camp in Hosungow village near the two countries’ common border on Tuesday, killing a rebel commander and seventeen al Shabaab combatants, spokesman Emmanuel Chirchir said in a statement.

Local residents, however, said between 12 and 14 civilians had been killed when the first strike bombed the outskirts of the village while the second air raid struck the village centre.

Al Shabaab said on Tuesday a jet had targeted the group in the village but denied suffering any casualties.

“Grenade attacks in Dadaab camp (were) planned from this camp,” Chirchir tweeted, referring to a wave of low-level blasts in Kenya’s Dadaab refugee camp that have targeted Kenya’s security forces, forcing many refugee operations to be halted.

Western aid workers have also been kidnapped from Dadaab in recent months.

Kenyan forces crossed into Somalia in October after a wave of kidnappings and cross-border raids on its soil, blaming the rebels who control large swathes of southern-central Somalia.

Al Shabaab have denied responsibility for the kidnappings and have threatened major retaliatory attacks on Kenyans.

On Wednesday, Kenyan lawmakers were shown a letter dated December 15 from the president’s office which said it had received information al Shabaab operatives had been dispatched to assassinate Defence Minister Yusuf Haji and deputy speaker Farah Maalim.

The letter also said some militants had been sent to attack the Habaswein and El Wak markets in Kenya.

ROADMAP TALKS

Al Shabaab has waged a bloody five-year campaign to drive the largely impotent government from power, quitting in August most of its bases in the capital, Mogadishu, where it continues to launch guerilla-style attacks.

The festering instability across much of the Horn of Africa country presents a major obstacle to the interim government tasked with holding elections and adopting a new constitution by August next year.

Somalia’s top political leaders as well as top officials from the semi-autonomous Puntland region, members of the pro-Mogadishu Ahlu Sunna militia and the United Nations met for a three-day summit in the town of Garowe, Puntland, on Wednesday.

The talks are aimed at gauging progress on the implementation of a political road map designed to pave the way to a presidential vote and end a string of transitional governments plagued by corruption and infighting.

Reuters.