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Nairobi/Kinshasa - The Congolese government has said that it does not want Indian peacekeepers to be among the 3,000 troops the United Nations has agreed to send to help stop fighting in the east of the sprawling Central African nation.

"There are already enough Indian troops in Congo, and the UN reinforcements should come from other countries," government spokesman Lambert Mende told the BBC on Wednesday evening.

Around a quarter of the 17,000 peacekeeping troops in the Democratic Republic of Congo are Indian.

Nairobi - Some 90 per cent of Kenyans want their MPs to pay taxes on their allowances, a poll published in the Daily Nation revealed Wednesday a day after lawmakers threw out an amendment to a bill that would force them to do just that.

Kenyan MPs pay tax on their basic monthly salary of around 2,500 dollars, but they enjoy tax-free allowances of almost three times that figure.

MPs argue that their allowances, which cover healthcare, entertainment and interest-free home and car loans, should not be taxed as constituents often expect the MPs to help them out financially.

Nairobi - The European Union is committed to increasing aid to developing countries despite the negative effects of the global financial crisis, an official from the European Commission's development department said Monday.

"The financial crisis can't be used as a pretext for cutting development support," Maciej Popowski, director for EU development policy horizontal issues, told journalists in a video conference. "We can't force anyone to meet their targets... but the EU is serious about its commitments."

Nairobi, Nov. 22 : Kenya’s Foreign Minister Moses Wetangula has clamed that Somali pirates have collected over 150 million dollars in ransoms over the past year, and appealed to ship owners not to pay when their vessels are hijacked.

According to Fox News, Somali pirates have seized eight vessels including a huge Saudi supertanker loaded with 100 million dollars worth of crude oil in the past fortnight.

"We are advised that in the last 12 months, ransom to the excess of 150 million dollars has been paid to these criminals and that is why they are becoming more and more audacious in their activities," Wetangula said.

Riyadh/Nairobi - The owners of a Saudi Arabian oil tanker captured by pirates off the coast of Somalia are negotiating a possible ransom, Saudi Arabia's foreign minister said on Wednesday, according to the Duabai-based al-Arabiya channel.

The Sirius Star, a supertanker owned by the Saudi Arabian firm Vela International that was carrying some 100 million-dollars-worth of crude oil was hijacked Saturday 830 kilometres south-east of the Kenyan coastal city of Mombasa.