News stories by Mike Elkin

NAIROBI, Nov 21 (IPS) - A new website linking corruption and other scandals to high-ranking Kenyan politicians, created by a team of political provocateurs, has become one of the most-visited web pages in the country.

, Nov 05 (IPS) - During an interview at the Hilton Hotel in downtown Nairobi, David Kuria Mbote, Kenya's first openly homosexual candidate for public office, stresses that his campaign will not be only about gay rights.

A year after the Libyan uprising that overthrew dictator Muammar Gaddafi, the National Transitional Council (NTC) has yet to provide adequate security. Many armed groups are still calling the shots, as the NTC moves to restore normalcy.

With the June deadline for congressional elections approaching, Libyans previously in exile are returning home to take part in the construction of a new political landscape. Political churning is well under way as Libya marks the first anniversary of the ouster of the Muammar Gaddafi regime Friday.

Egyptians in Cairo and Alexandria went to the polls on Monday in the first parliamentary elections since the January 25 protest movement drove former president Hosni Mubarak from a 30-year grip on power.

The red, green and black flag-waving Libyans calling for the downfall of Muammar Gaddafi are staging a show of force in Benghazi. The support for the three-week-old revolution comes at the rebels' lowest military moment.

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi claims Al-Qaeda and other Muslim extremists are behind the recent rebellion to oust him from power. Salem Geber, the most well-known cleric in Benghazi, Libya's second-largest city, says this explanation is not only wrong, but a vintage Gaddafi tactic to inspire fear.

The soldiers fighting against Muammar Gaddafi's forces in central Libya lack training, equipment and numbers, yet somehow continue to withstand attacks and push forward toward Tripoli.

The rebel forces fighting to oust dictator Muammar Gaddafi from power are slowly moving towards the Libyan leader’s bastions in the cities of Sert and Tripoli. Ordinary citizens are responding to the call to arms, even though they have no weapons.

The walls outside the Al-Jalah Hospital in downtown Bengazi are covered with posters of missing persons, mostly teenagers and young men who disappeared after the protests began. Inside, hundreds of gunshot victims recover from the street battle between Muammar Gaddafi's forces and Benghazi's citizens.