Rift Valley Railways is to spend $62 million buying new wagons and restoring old ones to help it win a bigger share of the region's freight market, the Kenyan firm said on Thursday. Owned by, among others, Kenyan infrastructure firm TransCentury and Egyptian group Citadel Capital , RVR, which operates the Kenya-Uganda railway, plans to nearly double capacity on every train to 1,500 tonnes. Along with track renewal to allow trains to move goods faster, RVR hopes the investment will help it to raise its share of freight to 35 percent from 4 percent in the next 2-1/2 years. "We will be able to run bigger capacity trains, thereby improving our loading capacity and reducing the operation's transit times," executive chairman Brown Ondego said. More»

Britain has the biggest stockpile of Plutonium in the world, but there are no definite plans for how to get rid of it - and the delays are costing the UK taxpayer billions, according to news reports. ­A record number of radioactive particles have been found on beaches near the Sellafield nuclear plant, in North West England. The authorities who run it admit it’s the most radioactive place in Western Europe but insist it’s safe, Russia Today reported. Sellafield is where all storage of radioactive materials and nuclear reprocessing in the UK takes place. It was once at the heart of plutonium manufacturing for the British atomic weapons program. More»

Anti-war protesters have organized a demonstration outside the Bahraini embassy in London to condemn the crimes of the al-Khalifa regime in Bahrain and demand the release of arrested protesters in the tiny Persian Gulf kingdom. The protest organized by the London-based Bahraini Freedom Movement and supported by the Stop the War Coalition will be held on Saturday July 14. The demonstration comes after a 25-year-old youth was run down by a Bahraini police vehicle during anti-al Khalifa protests and was later martyred in a military hospital due to lack of care. More»

The failure of a London Olympics security contractor to supply the 13,700 guards for the Games has reportedly forced the British government to seek army’s help in a bid to prevent a shambolic situation. The Home Office reportedly lost patience with G4S’s delays last weekend and asked the armed forces to compensate for the resultant gap. According to The Guardian, the Home Office has called on the military to provide an extra 3,500 as a desperate move to fill in the possible security gap if G4S fails to fulfill its contract only two weeks ahead of the Olympics opening on July 27. "This has been an accident waiting to happen. The Home Office has waited to make a decision on this because G4S has been saying it is all in hand. But we've run out of time,” the paper quoted a Whitehall source as saying. More»

Iran’s amicable relations with Latin American states, in particular Venezuela, has become a sticking point in the US presidential campaign, with both leading contenders trading accusations on policies towards South American states allied with the Islamic Republic. The tit-for-tat began when Republican candidate Mitt Romney and his party attacked US President Barack Obama for asserting in a Tuesday interview that Venezuela’s ties with Iran are not a “serious threat” to American national security, The Hill newspaper reported Wednesday. “This is a stunning and shocking comment by the president,” said Romney in a statement, warning that Chavez, along with Cuba’s Castros, is seeking to lead an “anti-American, Bolivarian revolution across Latin America.” More»

South African cement maker Pretoria Portland Cement is to sell a 6.5 percent stake to its staff and black investors in a deal worth about $133.4 million, to meet the country's affirmative action rules. PPC said the deal - the second in four years - would take shareholding by black investors in its domestic operations to 26 percent and enable it meet the rules set out by the government. Companies in South Africa have to meet quotas on black ownership, employment and procurement as part of a government drive to shift more of the mostly white-controlled economy into the hands of the black majority. More»

Rival powers China and the United States will work together in Asia and find common ground to ensure proper handling of sensitive issues, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Thursday. "I want to stress the importance of U.S.-China cooperation in regional institutions," Clinton told reporters ahead of a meeting with Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi on the sidelines of a regional forum in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh. "I am delighted that we are going to be issuing a joint media note ... It is an important signal that the United States and China not only can but will work together in Asia." More»

The United States said on Wednesday it was concerned by Russian legislation that would force rights and campaign groups funded from abroad to register as foreign agents, saying it would impose tough new limitations on pro-democracy organizations. State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said the United States had communicated "deep concern" to Moscow after the Russian lower house of Parliament gave initial approval to the bill, which is supported by President Vladimir Putin's United Russia party. "We believe that people everywhere should enjoy the same fundamental freedoms and universal human rights," Ventrell told a news briefing. "The Russian people like people everywhere deserve the right to be heard and have a voice in government. That's why we are raising our concern about the potential passage of this NGO legislation." More»

Dozens of Afghan women’s rights activists took to the streets Wednesday to protest against the recent public execution of a young woman for alleged adultery, which was captured in a horrific video. The 22-year-old victim was shot dead as dozens of men cheered in a village about 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of the capital Kabul. The execution was blamed by the authorities on Taliban militants and caused global outrage, with world leaders denouncing the Islamists, who are waging an insurgency against the Western-backed government. “We want justice,” the protesters, almost all women, shouted as they marched from the women’s affairs ministry towards the U.N. headquarters in Kabul. More»

The US Congress has made allegations of corruption against acting Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas, accusing him of taking advantage of his position. The House Subcommittee on the Middle East held a hearing on the issue on July 10 titled “Chronic Kleptocracy: Corruption within the Palestinian Political Establishment.” The chairman of the committee, Ohio Congressman Steve Chabot, said that Abbas has reportedly taken advantage of his position to “line his own pockets as well as those of his… sons.” Chabot stated that the media, however, blame the “plight of the Palestinians” only on the policies of the Tel Aviv regime and its illegal settlement activities in the occupied West Bank. More»