Nairobi

NAIROBI, Kenya -- Postelection chaos swirled like a hurricane over this African capital yesterday, with a strange eye of calm reigning over an abandoned downtown while a storm of tear gas, hurled rocks and arsonists' smoke swept across the city's ring of slums. Heavily armed police blocked tens of thousands of angry marchers from attending an opposition rally in a central park, while the two leaders locked in the bitterest presidential election in Kenyan history showed no intention of negotiating their way out of a deepening political crisis that has killed at least 300 people.

As I raced toward Nakuru, a town northwest of Nairobi, Kenya, at the end of February, I kept wondering how bad things could get. Taking advantage of a lull during the chaos that rocked my country, Kenya, I decided to visit my mother, who lives in the Rift Valley Province, the epicenter of the violence that left 1,200 dead in the weeks after the December presidential election. I last saw her a few days before the election, and we had planned to have New Year's together. That never happened.

One thing I can promise about "Heat of the Sun" on public television tonight: You won't confuse this five-part series with any other mystery on the small screen this season. It is absolutely the jewel in the crown of PBS' "Mystery!" franchise this year.Cunningly crafted and wonderfully cast, it feels as if it must be based on a classic English novel or set of novels. But it isn't. "Heat of the Sun" was written for television.In it, we leave the English drawing room behind and head straight for "the bush" -- an on-location enterprise in Africa that ran so disastrously over budget, say the producers, that we are never going to see any episodes beyond the five starting tonight.

NAIROBI, Kenya -- Mugabe Were, a freshman member of parliament, could have been one of the keys to unlocking Kenya's crisis, but he never got the chance. He was a moderate opposition politician, a self-made businessman who grew up in a slum, and he bridged the ethnic divide. His wife is from another ethnic group, and as Kenya slid into chaos this past month after a disputed election, he shuttled between different communities and tried to organize a peace march. Yesterday morning, as he pulled up to the gate of his home, Were was dragged out of his car and shot to death.

Mia Helene Sutphin: A Mass of Christian burial for Mia Sutphin will be offered at 10 a.m. tomorrow at St. Mark Roman Catholic Church, 27 Melvin Ave., Catonsville. Miss Sutphin, 27, an Ellicott City resident and former pediatric intensive care nurse, died May 19 while being treated for malaria at a hospital in Nairobi, Kenya.

NAIROBI, Kenya -- Every morning there are dozens of desperate people outside Arthur O. Obel's office in downtown Nairobi. They wait for hours in sad-eyed silence, hoping to get a bottle of the herbal potion that Obel claims will rid them of AIDS.In his horn-rim glasses and linen suit, Obel does not look much like a traditional healer, even if he is quick to say he comes from a long line of them in the Luyia tribe. Until a few months ago, he was a respected pharmacologist at the University of Nairobi medical school, and he is a former deputy director of the national research center.

Helen A. Cooper, a retired Baltimore teacher, died Saturday of heart failure in a hospital in Nairobi, Kenya. She was 79 and lived in the Hopkins House Apartments.Services for Mrs. Cooper were being held today at the Levinson funeral establishment, 6010 Reisterstown Road.She had been visiting a daughter in Nairobi for three months and had been a volunteer teacher in an adult-literacy course there.She retired 12 years ago as a reading specialist at Robert Poole Junior High School, after teaching there and at Garrison Junior High School for more than 15 years.

NAIROBI, Kenya -- An Egyptian terrorist group financed by a fugitive Saudi Arabian Islamic fundamentalist is now the leading suspect in the twin bombings that killed 257 people at the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, according to U.S. law enforcement and intelligence officials.According to U.S. officials who asked not to be identified, a Kenyan security guard at the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi picked an operative from the terrorist network of Saudi multimillionaire Osama bin Laden from photographs shown to him by FBI investigators in Nairobi.

NAIROBI, Kenya - During the past 32 years, the African Heritage center has withstood a weakening economy and runaway crime in downtown Nairobi to supply locals and tourists with ethnic art, fashion and artifacts. But this month, it will shut down, the latest victim of Kenya's weakened tourist trade. The final blow was a decision last month by British Airways to suspend flights to the Kenyan capital after intelligence reports predicted that a terror strike by al-Qaida operatives was imminent.

NAIROBI, Kenya -- A Kenya Airways jet with 114 people aboard crashed early yesterday in a dense forest in the western Africa nation of Cameroon, government officials said, but efforts to reach the wreckage were hampered by heavy rainfall. There was no information on survivors. Airline officials said they lost contact with the Nairobi-bound Boeing 737-800 only 11 minutes after its midnight takeoff from Douala, Cameroon. Kenya Airway's Flight 507, which originated in the Ivory Coast, was carrying 105 passengers from 23 countries, including one American, airport officials said.

NAIROBI, Kenya -- At the edge of a Nairobi neighborhood called the Ghetto, there is a bridge across a gray, stinking creek, on a street called Mother Teresa Road. The creek has become a frontier between two worlds, and the bridge the border crossing. Yesterday, under the protection of paramilitary police, people shuttled from one side to another, carrying furniture, bedding, bags and pots as they steadily divided themselves by tribe. On one side of the bridge, in the Ghetto, no Luos can live.

NAIROBI, Kenya -- Postelection chaos swirled like a hurricane over this African capital yesterday, with a strange eye of calm reigning over an abandoned downtown while a storm of tear gas, hurled rocks and arsonists' smoke swept across the city's ring of slums. Heavily armed police blocked tens of thousands of angry marchers from attending an opposition rally in a central park, while the two leaders locked in the bitterest presidential election in Kenyan history showed no intention of negotiating their way out of a deepening political crisis that has killed at least 300 people.

NAIROBI, Kenya -- Post-election riots in Kenya descended into savage tribal killings yesterday as a mob burned a church where families had taken shelter from the violence, killing at least 35 people, witnesses reported. Many of the victims were children. The burning of the church in Eldoret followed the killings overnight of 18 people in the town about 150 miles northwest of Nairobi. Some of the victims reportedly had their heads hacked off. A police officer also was killed. Witnesses reported revenge killings and pitched battles between mobs from rival tribes armed with machetes called pangas or with bows and arrows.

NAIROBI, Kenya -- A rush-hour explosion at a downtown restaurant killed one person and injured dozens of others yesterday, but Kenyan police said they did not believe the blast was an act of terrorism. The 8:15 a.m. explosion scattered glass and shrapnel across streets outside the Citygate restaurant. Many of the 37 people injured were standing at a bus-transfer station. The explosion evoked memories of the 1998 al-Qaida strike against the U.S. Embassy a few blocks from the site of the blast.

NAIROBI, Kenya -- A Kenya Airways jet with 114 people aboard crashed early yesterday in a dense forest in the western Africa nation of Cameroon, government officials said, but efforts to reach the wreckage were hampered by heavy rainfall. There was no information on survivors. Airline officials said they lost contact with the Nairobi-bound Boeing 737-800 only 11 minutes after its midnight takeoff from Douala, Cameroon. Kenya Airway's Flight 507, which originated in the Ivory Coast, was carrying 105 passengers from 23 countries, including one American, airport officials said.

NAIROBI, Kenya -- A fugitive Islamist leader praised recently by the U.S. government as a moderate who could bring much-needed public support to Somalia's transitional government has turned himself over to Kenyan authorities, U.S. officials said yesterday. Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, a former teacher who rose to become chairman of the executive council of Somalia's Islamic Courts Union, is being held for questioning at a posh Nairobi hotel, the officials said. Ahmed, who functioned as de facto president of the courts, surrendered to Kenyan police Sunday at the border city of Liboi, where thousands of Somalis have been waiting to enter refugee camps.

On August 4, 2005, DORRIS O. FLYNN (nee Shipley) of Delray, FL; beloved wife of the late Chester Joseph Flynn and devoted grandmother of Ralph Bergemann of Birmingham, MI; Jeff Bergemann of Maui, HI; Heidi Bergemann of Barcelona, Spain and Lori Bergemann of Nairobi, Kenya. Also survived by threegreat-gransons. A Graveside Service will be held in the Jessops Church Cemetery, Cockeysville, MD on Saturday, September 24 at 11 A.M. Memorial contributions may be made to the Jessops Cemetery Fund, C/O Anne Seitz, 15029 Priceville Road, Sparks, MD 21152.

NAIROBI, Kenya -- A fugitive Islamist leader praised recently by the U.S. government as a moderate who could bring much-needed public support to Somalia's transitional government has turned himself over to Kenyan authorities, U.S. officials said yesterday. Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, a former teacher who rose to become chairman of the executive council of Somalia's Islamic Courts Union, is being held for questioning at a posh Nairobi hotel, the officials said. Ahmed, who functioned as de facto president of the courts, surrendered to Kenyan police Sunday at the border city of Liboi, where thousands of Somalis have been waiting to enter refugee camps.

. BAIDOA, Somalia --Kenyan officials announced yesterday that they were closing their northern border because of the conflict in Somalia, but denied that they had turned back hundreds of refugees. For the past few days, Ethiopian-led forces have been hunting down the remnants of Somalia's once-powerful Islamic movement, pushing fighters steadily south toward the Kenyan border. Ethiopian officials have said that the Islamist fighters are headed to a remote jungle outpost called Ras Kamboni, which suspected terrorists have used before as a hide-out.

NAIROBI, Kenya -- If Sen. Barack Obama is ever thinking of running for president - or changing careers to rock star - he got excellent practice in Nairobi yesterday. Thousands of people lined the streets here, waiting hours in the intense sunshine just for a glimpse of him. Local newspapers overflowed with breathless coverage, including the headline, "Village beats the drums for returning son." Everywhere he went he had to part seas of shutter-snapping journalists and mobs of ecstatic fans.