NAIROBI: Kenyan members of parliament, already among the world’s best-paid lawmakers, voted yesterday to increase their salaries to more than 130 times the minimum wage in defiance of government plans to cut them as part of spending reforms.
Lawmakers on both sides of the house voted overwhelmingly for higher pay. Lawmakers argued they needed high wages because constituents expected them to provide charitable support. Some also said MPs could be vulnerable to bribes if their salaries were set too low.
Belgian ban on headscarf goes
BRUSSELS: The Belgian city of Ghent has scrapped its ban on civil servants wearing headscarves after its Socialist and Green majority scrapped a measure imposed in 2007 when centre-right parties dominated the city council.
More than 10,000 adult citizens, or about five times the number required to call the vote, had signed a petition calling for the prohibition to be lifted. In practice the ban prevented Muslim women in headscarves from sitting at public counters in city offices.
Ethiopia starts diverting Nile
ADDIS ABABA: Ethiopia began diverting a stretch of the Nile yesterday to make way for a $4.7bn hydroelectric dam that worries downstream countries dependent on the river for water.
The Horn of Africa country has laid out plans to invest more than $12bn in harnessing the rivers that run through its highlands, to become a power exporter. Central to the plan is a dam being built in the Benishangul-Gumuz region bordering Sudan. It is eventually expected to have a 6,000 megawatt capacity.
Georgia slams Russian barrier
TBILISI: Georgia yesterday lashed out at arch-foe Russia over the construction of a new barrier along its disputed frontline with the breakaway region of South Ossetia.
The building of the “wire fences by the Russian occupation forces across the Tskhinvali region’s occupation line” was a “blatant violation” of both international law and a ceasefire agreement signed in 2008 to end a brief war between Georgia and Russia, a statement said.
Irish cigarette packs go plain
DUBLIN: Ireland is to become the first country in the European Union to ban branding on cigarette packages by using plain packaging and uniform labelling, the government said yesterday.
All trademarks, logos, colours and graphics will be removed from tobacco products sold in Ireland under the new rules, the Health Ministry said. The brand name will be presented in a uniform typeface in packs of one plain neutral colour, which has yet to specified.
12 missing after tug sinks
LAGOS: A tugboat contracted by oil giant Chevron has sunk off the coast of Nigeria, leaving 12 sailors missing, an official said.
Corrie van Kessel, a spokeswoman for Sea Trucks Group, which owns West African Ventures Limited, operator of the vessel, could not confirm the nationalities of the sailors aboard the Jascon 4, which sank off southern Nigeria’s Escravos, the site of a Chevron oil terminal.
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