We start off this week’s news round up in Kenya where the electoral commission yesterday dismissed out of hand the possibility of changing the election date from March 4, next year the Daily Nation reports.
Plans have been made to conduct voter registration quickly once the Biometric Voter Registration equipment is supplied, Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission chairman Issack Hassan said.
He was responding to claims by Deputy Speaker Farah Maalim that the country is not ready for the election next March.
There have been persistent rumours in Parliament that the election could be moved to August next year, on account of the electoral commission not being ready.
The debate comes as voters in three constituencies and 15 wards go to the polls on Monday in what is being seen as a test of strength for presidential candidates and their parties.
By-elections are taking place in Kangema, Ndhiwa and Kajiado North, seats which fell vacant with the death of Mr John Michuki, Mr Orwa Ojodeh and Prof George Saitoti, respectively.
The commission’s credibility has taken a hit after it was unable to procure the BVR kit apparently because of competing corruption networks.
Parliament’s Constitution Implementation Oversight Committee chairman Abdikadir Mohamed said the Deputy Speaker was “irresponsible” for saying that Kenya was not ready for a March election.
In Gambia President Yahya Jammeh has suspended the execution of prisoners on death row, amid an international outcry.
Jammeh issued a statement on Saturday saying that he has suspended the imminent executions of 37 inmates sentenced to death, as long as violent crime does not rise in Gambia.
Nine prisoners have been executed since his vow in August to clear death row. Another 37 inmates remain on death row.
The executions were the first in 27 years, and human rights groups say it was mostly political prisoners who died.
Mr Jammeh’s statement said the suspension of the executions followed numerous appeals at home and abroad, but warned that the halt could be temporary.
“What happens next will be dictated by either declining violent crime rate, in which case the moratorium will be indefinite, or an increase in violent crime rate, in which case the moratorium will be lifted automatically,” the statement said, according to Reuters news agency.
The death penalty was abolished when former President Dawda Jawara led the country but was reinstated shortly after Mr Jammeh seized power in 1994.
In Libya authorities have arrested at least 50 people in the wake of last week’s killing of US ambassador Chris Stevens in a mob attack in the city of Benghazi, RNW and Aljazeera report.
“The number reached about 50,” Mohammed al-Megaryef, president of the Libyan National Congress, told CBS News in an interview.
Stevens and and three other Americans were killed on Tuesday when suspected Islamic militants fired on the US consulate in the eastern Libyan city with rocket-propelled grenades and set it ablaze.
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has said in a statement the attack was in revenge for the killing of the terror network’s deputy leader Sheikh Abu Yahya al-Libi in a drone strike in June.
Colonel Ramadan El-Dressi told Al Jazeera that an initiative to invite civilians and militia members to hand in weapons obtained during Libya’s 2011 conflict had been rescheduled for next Friday.
The event was organised by local NGOs with the support of the military and the government, he said, to try to prevent further violent attacks.
In Somalia African Union troops have surrounded Kismayu ahead of a major offensive to liberate the last remaining Al-Shabaab stronghold in southern Somalia, the Daily Nation reports.
The forces have recently captured a number of key towns around the port city from the Al-Qaeda-linked militants.
By Sunday, the AU troops were advancing on Birta Dheer, a strategic Al-Shabaab outpost 60 kilometres west of Kismayu.
Reports from Jubaland said that the Amisom troops and their allies — Somali National Army and Ras Kamboni Brigade have intensified attacks against Al-Shabaab fighters at Birta Dheer.
Birta Dheer, a heavily fortified outpost, has been under the control of Al-Shabaab for the past three years. The allied forces were reportedly advancing from Bibi, which they captured on Friday.
On Sunday, Department of Defence spokesman Major Emmanuel Chirchir, said the Somali government forces and KDF troops were in the afternoon engaged in a fierce battle with Al-Shabaab fighters for control of Jana Abdallah town, also in southern Somalia.
Security experts said Amisom troops had delayed the capture of Kismayu to give time to a political process on how the port city would be governed after its capture.
But KDF spokesman Col Cyrus Oguna said the capture of the port city was not dependent on a political process. “Military operations are not tied to political processes,” Col Oguna said.
Military sources said the Ugandan and Burundian contingents were expected to capture the town of Jawhar to completely pacify Sector I.
The sources said the Ugandan and Burundian contingents are moving in more ground troops towards Kismayu although their capacity to move faster has been hampered by the lack of an air wing, after their helicopters crashed in Kenya in August.
