Mwakilishi News Bulletin - Midday Edition, Friday 06 November 2026

Midday Edition for Friday, 06 November 2026. Running time 8:21.

In this bulletin

Diaspora News

1. US Sanctions Cambodian Crime Network Trafficking Kenyans
2. Ethiopian-Born Melat Kiros Makes History in Congress
3. Kenya and Armenia Launch Joint Diaspora Framework

Immigration News

1. Ebola Travel Restrictions Cost Kenyan Economy Millions
2. Kenya Plans Third Passport Category
3. US Green Card Backlog Hits 1.5 Million
4. US Records 2.2 Million Immigration Enforcement Actions

Kenya News

1. Under-21 Alcohol Ban Proposed in Parliament
2. Death Penalty Sought for Paul Mackenzie
3. Chivayo's Kenyan Business Links Under Scrutiny
4. Four Acquitted Over Kenyan-American Couple's Murder
5. Six Bodies Recovered From Eastleigh Rubble (see also: Second Body Recovered From Eastleigh Rubble 12 Days After Nairobi Building Collapse)

Entertainment News

1. Tributes for Legendary DJ Paco Perez

Transcript

This is the news from Mwakilishi.com.

Good afternoon. It's midday on Friday, the sixth of November, and here is your midday edition.

Coming up.

US sanctions Cambodian crime network accused of trafficking hundreds of Kenyans into scam compounds.

Prosecutors demand death penalty for Shakahola preacher Paul Mackenzie as sentencing nears.

Six bodies now recovered from collapsed Eastleigh building as rescue operation enters day fourteen.

Those stories, and more, in the next few minutes.

Turning to diaspora news, the United States has sanctioned a Cambodian-based criminal network accused of trafficking hundreds of Kenyans into forced labour at online scam compounds across Southeast Asia. The Treasury action, announced on Thursday, targets four individuals and forty-one entities linked to the Prince Group. The US Embassy in Nairobi says hundreds of Kenyans were rescued from Southeast Asian scam centres in twenty twenty-six. State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said no criminal network is beyond reach.

Staying with the diaspora, Melat Kiros, a twenty-nine-year-old lawyer born in Ethiopia, has been elected to the United States House of Representatives for Colorado's first district, making her the first Gen Z woman ever elected to Congress, according to The Associated Press. Her family fled Tigray when she was eleven months old. She unseated Diana DeGette, a fifteen-term incumbent who held the seat before Kiros was born, after defeating her in July's primary.

Also from the diaspora, Kenya and Armenia have launched a joint framework to harness their overseas communities for national development. Foreign Affairs Principal Secretary Roseline Njogu met Armenia's High Commissioner for Diaspora Affairs, Zareh Sinanyan, in Yerevan for the first session of a Joint Implementation Committee. It works under a memorandum signed on June the eighteenth, twenty twenty-six. The talks covered knowledge exchange, youth initiatives, cultural cooperation and diaspora engagement, and precede the Global Armenian Summit opening this week.

Turning to immigration, recruitment agencies are warning that the Ebola-related halt on travel to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait is costing Kenya's wider economy millions of shillings. Aviation, public transport, health services and government licensing are all losing revenue. More than fifty thousand issued work visas risk expiring as Ramadan approaches. Former agencies chairman Mwalimu Mwanguzo warned some visas have only one or two weeks left. Agencies fear other Gulf states could follow suit.

Staying with immigration, the government will review diplomatic passport rules to align them with the twenty ten Constitution. Immigration Principal Secretary Belio Kipsang told a parliamentary committee the state is willing to amend the twenty twelve regulations, after the Commission on Administrative Justice petitioned over unequal treatment of constitutional office holders. He said a third category of passport is planned to address other travel needs, while protecting the diplomatic document's integrity.

Also on immigration, a Newsweek analysis says the United States green card backlog has climbed to one point five million applications, broken down state by state for the first time. Residence determines which field office handles the final interview. For Kenyan communities in Texas, California, New Jersey, Minnesota and Maryland, the map is a planning tool before any move or job offer. Federal law caps employment-based green cards at one hundred and forty thousand a year.

Still on immigration, US Citizenship and Immigration Services has reported two point two million enforcement actions since January twenty twenty-five. The tally, published by Homeland Security Today, runs from President Trump's inauguration to November this year, averaging about one hundred thousand actions a month. An enforcement action can mean an arrest, detention, a court notice or removal, and each is counted separately. The sustained pace shapes the environment Kenyan and other African immigrants navigate.

Turning to Kenya, Kenyans under twenty-one could be barred from buying alcohol under a Bill read for the first time in Parliament on Thursday. The proposed law also bans online sales, home deliveries, hawking and vending machines, and stops outlets within three hundred metres of learning institutions. Majority Leader Kimani Ichung'wah said raising the age from eighteen protects young people. A two-shilling per litre levy would fund a new national control committee.

Staying with Kenya, preacher Paul Mackenzie and twenty-eight co-convicts have appeared at the Mombasa Law Courts under heavy security ahead of sentencing. They were convicted on October the nineteenth on one hundred and ninety-one counts of murder, over the Shakahola Forest massacre in Kilifi County that killed one hundred and ninety children and one adult. The prosecution is pressing for the death penalty for Mackenzie and life imprisonment for the others. Defence lawyers pleaded for leniency.

Also in Kenya, the business empire of the late Zimbabwean tycoon Wicknell Chivayo is under fresh examination, with his commercial links in Kenya now under scrutiny as his family audits his fortune. The Daily Nation reports his ex-wife and sister have agreed to jointly manage his estate. Chivayo built his wealth on government tenders in Zimbabwe and was famous for flaunting luxury cars and gifting vehicles to musicians and church leaders.

Still in Kenya, a court in Kisii has acquitted four suspects charged with murdering a Kenyan-American couple at their home in Gesima, Nyamira County. The court found no sufficient evidence linking any of the accused to the killings. The couple, based in the United States, had travelled to Kenya on vacation when they were killed. The verdict leaves the double murder without a single conviction, after suspicion alone could not replace proof.

Back in Nairobi, rescuers have now recovered six bodies from the rubble of the Eastleigh building that collapsed on October the twenty-third. Thursday marked the fourteenth day of recovery work on Ninth Street. Nairobi North County Commissioner Simon Osumba said the dead are four women and two men, with four people rescued alive and five still unaccounted for. Institution of Engineers of Kenya President Harrison Keter urged enactment of an external building audit law, citing research that recorded eighty-seven collapses between nineteen ninety and twenty eighteen.

And finally in entertainment news, the legendary Nairobi soul DJ Paco Perez has died. Born Prudencio Hergueta Pérez, he spun soul, funk and disco at the city's top clubs through the nineteen eighties, turning ordinary weekend nights into occasions Kenyans still recall four decades on. When he returned to the decks in twenty sixteen after years away, the city turned out as if no time had passed. Tributes are pouring in from Kenyans at home and across the diaspora.

And that is your midday edition. The next bulletin is at 6 o'clock this evening. You can read every one of these stories in full, and much more besides, at Mwakilishi.com.

Have a good afternoon.

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