Kenya's parliament has approved a controversial plan by the government to deploy about 1,000 police officers to Haiti to help stop gang violence. This is despite a court order barring any deployment, pending the outcome of a legal challenge into the plan.

Nairobi

Kenya's parliament backs Haiti mission despite court case

First, Thursday saw Nairobi's bid to send troops to Haiti, both overcome a hurdle and encountering a new one. Parliament approved the government's request to send 1,000 police officers to help the Caribbean nation battle gang violence. However, just hours later, the High Court effectively extended orders first delivered in October to block that deployment by saying that it will not be ruling on whether it could go forward until January. Now, earlier this year, Nairobi agreed to lead the multinational force to Haiti, backed by the UN Security Council, but opposition MPs have been fiercely opposed to the bid. Earlier, I spoke to Dr. Frederick Adjuang, and I asked him about what this back and forth between the government and the judiciary meant for the deployment in the long term. So I would say that tentatively for now, we can assume that the deployment will go ahead, give or bar the crucial High Court ruling in January 26. So because we know the Kenyan legislators have officially sanctioned the deployment of the 1,000 Kenyan police officers to Haiti today, so we are halfway towards the deployment. So we have to wait until the High Court will actually make a decision on this in January. The Kenyan opposition, as you clearly say, it has contested the deployment, asserting that the Kenyan constitution specifically permits the deployment of the Kenyan armed forces, but not the police. But despite the opposition making a case against the deployment, the government majority secured the passage of the motion. So the constitutional legality of the deployment of the police officer is also to be determined by the High Court. So that's why the problem is, does the Kenyan constitution allow the deployment of Kenyan police officers outside the Kenyan judicial boundaries or not? So we know that the High Court is supposed to make a decision on this issue in January. So we have to wait until the court make the decision before the deployment can go ahead. But again, very much familiar with the Kenyan legal system, it's pretty much possible if the High Court allows and sanctions the deployment, then the civil society organization might again go to the Court of Appeal to stop the deployment. And so we can have this case going all the way to the Supreme Court, and that might take a bit of time. So it could be quite a protracted battle to get the police to Haiti, should the government be determined to pursue it. But in general though, why has there been quite so much back and forth over this? Why has there been so much criticism of plans to send Kenyan police officers to help another country? I think precisely because there's no public buy-in to the whole decision to take Kenyan policemen to Haiti. Really, Kenyans cannot really understand why the president want to send 1,000 police officers to Haiti, a country that really has no geopolitical relevance to Kenya. And essentially, Kenya also has its own internal security issues. In the coast region, in the northern part of Kenya, we have the Al-Shabaab problem. So that's why the question is arising that why should we essentially, reduce the capacity of the Kenyan police forces to sort of ensure security in the state and deploy those police officers in Haiti, a country that has no complete economic or geopolitical relevance to Kenya. And so that's why the problem is coming in. There is no public buy-in into this process of deploying the police officers to Haiti. I think the president has not really made a robust case to the Kenyan population on why we need to deploy the police officers to Haiti in the first place.

Hong Kong's first district elections saw a turnout of 27.5 percent, the government said Monday, a record low for a race that had shut out all opposition candidates. China has barred pro-democracy candidates from entering the race this year, reserving the ballot for "patriots."

Sha Tin

Hong Kong elections witness record low turnout

Elon Musk has reinstated far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on the social media platform X, a year after vowing never to let him return. Jones, who claimed that a December 2012 school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, that killed 20 children and six educators was a hoax, was banned from the platform in 2018 for violating its "abusive behavior policy."

Mountain View

Elon Musk lifts X ban on far-right conspiracist Alex Jones

The UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon is warning the escalation in hostilities along the Israeli border could widen. The Israeli army has carried out multiple air strikes on frontline villages in some of the fiercest bombardment yet. The Lebanese armed group Hezbollah is also stepping up attacks against Israeli military outposts. 

Beirut

Israel-Gaza War

Violence escalates between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah

The Federal Government has announced its new migration strategy, which plans to reduce migrant intake by raising requirements for international students and some workers to get a visa, including minimum English language requirements.

Canberra

Government announces crackdown on migration

As Israeli troops move closer to the centre of Khan Younis, Gaza, and residents attempt to find safety, the UN warns that half of Gaza’s population is starving.



Sderot

More people flee Gaza as UN warns of mass starvation

In the final days of COP28, finding greener ways to produce clean drinking water is a big topic of conversation, but the pressure is on for an official statement about fossil fuels.

Dubai

Climate Crisis

Drinking water, fossil fuels lead COP28 agenda in final days

Residents as far south as Mackay are being warned to brace for damaging winds as Cyclone Jasper continues to track toward the coast. It's expected to cross as a Category Two on Wednesday.

Mackay

North Queensland residents prepare for Cyclone Jasper landfall

The competition to follow Annastacia Palaszczuk as Queensland Premier is heating up after her announcement that she's retiring from politics at the end of this week. 

Brisbane

Race to replace Queensland Premier heats up

Israeli tanks battled their way to the centre of Khan Younis in a major new push into the heart of the main city in the southern Gaza Strip which is sheltering hundreds of thousands of civilians who fled other parts of the enclave. 

Israeli tanks reach center of Khan Younis

Three Hong Kong pro-democracy activists have been arrested, just before voting began in a "patriots only" district election that has marginalised formerly popular opposition figures in the city amid a national security clampdown.

Shenzhen

Hong Kong activists arrested in city's 'birdcage' election

Foreign investors who leave their homes vacant will be slugged with a six-fold increase to penalties as the Federal Government seeks to free up more housing stock.

Foreign investors to be penalised for leaving homes vacant

The Federal Government is set to unveil a major new migration strategy tomorrow that aims to dramatically cut Australia's intake.

Government plans to 'drastically cut' migration

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Friday approved two gene therapies for sickle cell disease, making one of them the first treatment in the United States based on the Nobel Prize-winning CRISPR gene editing technology.

Maryland

US approves two gene therapies for sickle cell disease

Israel bombing of the Gaza Strip has intensified in an expanded phase of its war against Hamas. This is after the United States wielded its U.N. Security Council veto to shield its ally from a global demand for a ceasefire.

Jerusalem

Intensified fighting in Gaza as U.S. vetoes ceasefire

EU lawmakers and policymakers have reached a deal on rules regulating the use of artificial intelligence, EU industry chief Thierry Breton said on the X social platform.

Brussels

Rise of AI

EU reaches landmark deal to regulate AI threat

The U.S. has vetoed an emergency resolution at the UN security council — triggered by the secretary-general with a rarely-used power to force a vote — for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and to allow more aid into the area.

New York

United States vetoes UN vote on immediate Gaza ceasefire

Israel's military says it has struck 450 targets in Gaza over the past 24 hours, roughly double the figure it's typically reported since the end of the truce with Hamas. It marks a new expansion of the war.

Israel ramps up airstrikes on Gaza targets amid new phase

Russians and Belarusians who qualify in their sport for the Paris 2024 Olympics can take part as neutrals without flags, emblems or anthems at the event next year, the International Olympic Committee has ruled.

Paris

IOC rules Russian athletes can compete at Paris Olympics

Cyclone preparations are underway in north Queensland. Communities in North Queensland are bracing for Category Four Jasper to approach mainland Queensland by mid-next week.

Townsville City

North Queensland braces for Category Four cyclone

The Hamas-run health ministry reported 40 dead in strikes near Gaza City on Friday, and dozens more in Jabalia and the main southern city of Khan Yunis. So far, the fighting in the Palestinian enclave has left 17,487 people dead, according to the ministry's latest published figures. 

Hamas health ministry says over 17,000 dead in Gaza

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday told soldiers who had fought in Ukraine that he would run for the top job again in the 2024 election - a move that will allow the former KGB spy to stay in power until at least 2030. 

Moscow

Ukraine Invasion

Russia's Putin tells soldiers he will run for president again

Ahead of a U.N. Security Council vote on a resolution for a ceasefire in Gaza, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in his strongest public criticism of Israel's conduct of the war on Hamas in south Gaza, said there was a gap between the government's declared intentions to protect civilians and the casualties.

Washington

U.S criticizes Israel over Gaza civilian toll

2023 has been declared the hottest year in recorded history a month earlier than scientists would usually confirm the evidence. Temperatures are now nudging one and a half degrees Celsius higher than pre-industrial levels, giving the UN climate talks in Dubai a heightened sense of priority.

Council of the City of Sydney

Scientists confirm 2023 is the hottest year on record

The Department of Justice filed new criminal charges against U.S. President Joe Biden's son, Hunter, indicting him for allegedly failing to pay $1.4 million in taxes while spending millions of dollars on a lavish lifestyle. 

Delaware

Hunter Biden hit with new charges for tax evasion

Two months since the initial Hamas attack on southern Israel, doctors in Gaza are treating many times the number of patients they are equipped to handle, and a UN official says there is no safe place for humanitarian operations to continue.

Israel pushes deeper south as war with Hamas passes 2 months

Emergency authorities are on alert as severe Tropical Cyclone Jasper intensifies in the Coral Sea. The category four system is continuing its gradual march towards the North Queensland coast, but its exact path remains uncertain.

Tropical Cyclone Jasper strengthens off Queensland coast

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan visited Greece and met with Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Thursday. The two leaders agreed to reboot their relations, establishing a roadmap designed to usher in a new era of closer ties between the two NATO allies but historical foes. 