Nairobi  - A United Nations expert on extrajudicial and summary executions on Monday begins a ten-day mission to investigate the killings that followed disputed December 2007 elections in Kenya, the UN said.

Philip Alston, who was invited by the Kenyan government, is to visit some of the hotspots of violence, including the capital Nairobi and Eldoret, where dozens died when a church was burned to the ground.

Nairobi - Former UN secretary general Kofi Annan on Friday hinted he would send the names of politicians and businessmen accused of orchestrating Kenya's post-election violence to The Hague after failed attempts to set up a local tribunal.

Justice Philip Waki, who headed a probe into the violence, gave Kenya until March 1 to create a local tribunal. However, Kenyan MPs on Thursday failed to pass the necessary bill.

Annan said that he and fellow members of the Panel of Eminent African Personalities would review what actions needed to be taken "in line with the spirit, letter and intent" of Waki's probe.

Nairobi  - A Ukrainian ship laden with tanks and other armaments freed by Somali pirates last week is expected to arrive in the Kenyan port of Mombasa on Thursday, but controversy still surrounds the destination of its military cargo.

The MV Faina was released on Thursday, following months of complicated negotiations, after a ransom believed to be around 3.5 million dollars was paid.

But with the first stage of the drama over, all eyes are now turning to the arrival of the vessel and its cargo of 33 T-72 tanks, munitions and small arms in Kenya.

Kenya's government say that the arms shipment is bound for its own military.

Nairobi - Thousands of Kenyans on Monday attended a mass burial of over 100 people who died when fuel leaking from an overturned tanker caught fire and engulfed the crowds attempting to scoop up the leaking petrol.

President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga joined mourners gathered around two mass graves dug a short distance from where the accident took place near the town of Molo.

At least 130 people died and around 200 were injured in the inferno, which broke out late on Saturday, 31 January.

Nairobi - Libyan leader and new head of the African Union, Moammer Gaddafi, has defended the actions of Somalian pirates as an act of self-defence against "greedy" Western nations, the Kenyan newspaper Daily Nation reported Friday.

The paper, reporting on Gaddafi's courtesy call on AU headquarters in Addis Ababa, quoted him as saying: "It is not piracy, it is self defence. It is defending the Somalian children's food.

Nairobi/London - Britain's Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has called off a probe into a huge fraud involving contracts with the Kenyan government, saying Kenya had failed to provide evidence to allow it to prosecute those responsible.

The fraud, which took place between April 2002 and February 2004, involved contracts with the phoney Anglo Leasing Company worth almost 100 million dollars.

The SFO office was probing offshore accounts in Jersey and Guernsey as part of the fraud, which saw payments made for passport equipment and supplies for the Kenyan police that were never delivered.