The Kenyan government on Saturday called for more Chinese investment especially in the areas of infrastructure and energy.
Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka said Kenya is positioning itself to benefit from the 5 billion U.S. dollars which the Chinese government is investing in Africa through the China-Africa development Fund.
Musyoka noted that the partnership between the Kenyan and Chinese governments in the High Grand Falls power generation project along Athi and Tana basins would inject additional 200 MW to the national electricity grid.
He said when the project is completed it would not only boost electricity power capacity, but also provide enough water for irrigation besides environmental conservation.
“We need this project to revolutionize our food production from over-dependence on rain fed farming to irrigation. We can overcome the perennial famine situation and ensure constant food security,” he said in a statement.
The statement came after he received Chief Executive Officer of the China-Africa Development Bank Chi Jianxin, who paid him courtesy call.

China’s stocks rose the most since March, erasing losses from Wednesday’s rout, after better-than-estimated earnings at Bank of Communications Co revived confidence that the economy is recovering.
The Shanghai Composite Index climbed 126, or 4.5 percent, to 2911.58 at the close, the most since March 4. The gauge fell 4.3 percent on Wednesday, briefly dipping more than 20 percent below its Aug 4 high, the threshold for a bear market.
“It’s normal and healthy for the market to have a correction after pretty fast share price gains,” said Xu Lirong, a Shanghai-based fund manager at Franklin Templeton Sealand Fund Management Co.
The CSI 300 Index gained 4.3 percent to 3144.39.
Bank of Communications advanced 4.4 percent to 9.19 yuan. First-half net income was little changed at 7.62 billion yuan, beating the average estimate of 7.24 billion yuan from nine analysts in a Bloomberg survey.
PetroChina added 6.9 percent to 13.88 yuan, the biggest gain since November. China Petroleum & Chemical Corp, Asia’s biggest oil refiner, also known as Sinopec, rose 2.9 percent to 13 yuan. Crude oil rose for a third day in New York, extending the advance since Aug 17 to 8.9 percent as US stockpiles last week dropped the most since the week ended May 23, 2008.

The free fall seen on the bourses of late has not put off domestic companies from seeking fresh listings, with China CNR Corporation Limited, one of the country’s top two train makers, too set to join the initial public offer bandwagon.
The China Securities Regulatory Commission, the nation’s stock regulator, will review CNR’s IPO application today, sources said.
CNR is reportedly planning to issue 3 billion A-shares to raise a total of 6.436 billion yuan. The capital gathered through the IPO will form no more than 34.09 percent of CNR’s total capital.
The Beijing-based train maker said the company would use the money to upgrade technology, such as the development of high-speed trains.
CNR, together with its archrival China South Locomotive & Rolling Stock Corp (CSR), which is listed in both Shanghai and Hong Kong, are the major two train makers in China, altogether taking up more than 95 percent of the domestic market.

Extensive damage from Friday night fiery rioting at Northpoint Training Center at Burgin in northern Kentucky forced the transfer of some 1,200 prisoners to other facilities Saturday, reports reaching Chicago said.
By 1 a.m., firefighters had extinguished the blazes at the medium-security prison and the inmates were quarantined in the prison yard overnight, according to Jay Blanton, a spokesman for Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear.
Earlier in the evening, inmates at the facility set fire to several buildings, including areas that housed the kitchen, medical services facility, canteen and sanitation services. Also damaged were visiting areas.
Eight staff members and eight inmates at the train center sustained minor injuries, but there were no escapes during the rioting and no hostages were taken.

Colombian police have detained a rebel accused of kidnapping and killing U.S. citizens, authorities said Saturday.
Jose Armando Cadena Cabrera, alias “Bronco,” was arrested during an operation in the capital launched by the police on Friday, said Luis Gabriel Ramirez, commander of the Criminal Investigation Office of the National Police.
Cadena was a member of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Colombia’s largest anti-government group.
He was accused of kidnapping three Americans and killing another American and a member of the Colombian military, said the police.
A plane carrying four U.S. nationals and a member of the Colombian military had an accident in woodland in southern Colombia in February 2003. The rebels seized them and subsequently killed U.S. citizen Thomas Jannis and Colombian Luis Alcides Cruz, in which Cadena allegedly participated.

The central Chinese government has so far allocated 182 million yuan (26.65 million U.S. dollars) as of Wednesday to fight the ongoing drought, the Ministry of Finance said Wednesday.
The fund has been allocated to the provincial and regional governments of Liaoning and Jilin provinces and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, according to the ministry.
About 182 million mu (12.13 million hectares) of crops across the country suffered serious drought as of 7:00 p.m. Tuesday, 9 million mu less than the previous day, according to the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters (SFDH) Wednesday.
Drought quickly expanded through northern and northeastern China since late July, as a result of insufficient rainfall and continued high temperatures.
The SFDH said rainfall over the past three days helped ease the drought in some parts of these regions, but some areas were still suffering serious drought which left people with difficult access to drinking water.

A controversial former top judge, understood by some media outlets last year to be the subject of a corruption investigation, has suggested in a new book that China sets up a special team to probe alleged graft.
Scholars said the idea of establishing a unified State-level anti-corruption organ, proposed in the postscript of Xiao Yang’s new book, was a step in the right direction. But they said the concept put forward by the former president of the Supreme People’s Court was “hardly realistic” in the existing political and judicial system.
Xiao’s book, Anti-corruption Report, was formally released yesterday by the Legal Press. In it, Xiao says corruption in China is the result of a lack of supervision and the absence of a sound anti-graft mechanism.
He called for the setting up of a unified State-level organization capable of adjusting and optimizing existing anti-graft resources, which are presently scattered throughout many disparate departments.
He suggested that the organization be elected by, and report to, the National People’s Congress, the country’s top legislature. The Congress could make the necessary laws to grant the organ the power to receive public reports and investigate possible corruption cases, as well as the authority to detain and arrest officials who refuse to declare their property.

Argentinean scientists discover long-term memory mechanism
A team of Brazilian and Argentinean researchers made an important discovery on the role of neurotransmitter dopamine in the consolidation of memories, the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUC-RS) announced on Friday.
The research was also published on Friday’s edition of Science magazine. It lasted two years and was headed by PUC-RS’ Medicine School Professors Martin Cammarota, Janine Rossato, Lia Bevilaqua and Ivan Izquierdo, as well as visiting Professor Jorge Medina, from the Buenos Aires University.

In the study, the scientists managed to demonstrate through biochemical tests and experiments with mice that dopamine is responsible for the long-term memorization or forgetfulness of a traumatic event.
According to the scientists, 12 hours after a crucial event occurs (in the experiment, the mice were subjected to an electric shock), the brain produces a high dose of dopamine, which leads to the mice remembering the painful experience for a long time.
If the mice’s brain does not produce dopamine at this point, however, the event is forgotten, and the mice will not be able to avoid a second shock. This disorder could explain why certain individuals, such as drug addicts, insist on destructive behaviors despite their negative effects.

U.S. reports 45 more A/H1N1 flu deaths, 472 more hospitalizations in past week
The A/H1N1 flu death toll in the United State has reached 522 with hospitalizations of 7,983, according to the latest statistics released by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta on Friday.
The CDC said that 45 more deaths have been reported in the past week, a big jump from the previous record of 477 released a week ago by the agency. Meanwhile, there have been 472 more patients of the new virus admitted to the hospitals in the past week, bringing the total number of the hospitalizations around the country to 7,983, compared with the previous record of 7,511.
Since the outbreak of the A/H1N1 flu in late April, The CDC has reported on its website the latest development of the new virus every weekend including numbers of deaths and conformed and probable cases of the new flu virus. But beginning from July 24, the CDC has changed the reporting requirements for the A/H1N1 flu by local health jurisdictions.
The new reporting requirements will track mainly hospitalized and fatal cases, the CDC said, adding that non-hospitalized case reporting is no longer needed at this stage of the pandemic.

Xinhua News Agency and China Telecom, one of China’s three leading mobile telecom carriers, on Saturday launched a Xinhua TV News channel through the high-speed third-generation network (3G) in Shanghai.
Subscribers in Shanghai can get multimedia news services of Xinhua with their “e surfing” cell phones provided by China Telecom, said Zhang Weihua, general manager of China Telecom Shanghai Branch.
Xinhua will provide China Telecom Shanghai Branch with exclusive news about the Shanghai Expo, analysis reports and various news items, while the latter will offer telecommunications services, according to the deal.
Lu Wei, vice president of Xinhua, attended the ceremony to launch the service. Xinhua started its video news service on March1 this year.
High-quality information services are needed to build Shanghai into an international financial center as well as an international shipping center, said Zhang.
State-owned China Telecom boasted 214 million fixed-line telephone subscribers, 35 million mobile phone subscribers and 47 million broadband customers at the end of 2008.