The Canadian High Commission in Nairobi says it is looking into an alleged murder plot against Kenyan-Canadian nurse Lucy Njeri.

Njeri, a former professional athlete based in Toronto, accuses her husband Nelson Ndereba of hiring hitmen and paying them Sh1.5 million to kill her when she arrived in Kenya in November last year, Nation reported.

The High Commission told Nation that they are in contact with Kenyan authorities to get more information on the matter and provide consular assistance to Njeri, who is set to fly back to Canada.

“On January 16, 2023, Nairobi became aware via local media that the subject was a victim of a murder attempt orchestrated by her husband, possibly in Canada. The husband would have paid a Kenyan hitman to kill the subject and dispose of her body in Kenya following her arrival in the country,” the High Commission said.

Njeri, who was an athlete for 15 years before studying nursing, said she is waiting for the outcome of an investigation into her claims.

 “I have been living in fear, but I am certain the government will give me protection…I want to go back to continue doing what I love, which is helping people. I have already obtained restraining orders against him,” she told Nation.

Ndereba has denied his wife’s claims, saying he only hired the two men to pick her up when she arrived at JKIA from Canada. He said the men duped Njeri on the murder plot to extort her.  

He further dismissed as doctored a WhatsApp conference call of him purportedly instructing a man identified as Swaleh on the killing and dumping of Njeri’s body.

He said the conversation was edited by Swaleh and is not a true account of their full conversation, including a third person.

 “I can create that robot and it will respond as a human. We are in 5G technology and artificial intelligence. Anyone’s voice can be manipulated,” he said.

“A criminal can’t use another crime to evade the law. He played against me and my family. He robbed my wife, that’s a fact. He tricked my wife, that’s a fact. He raped my wife, that’s a fact. No matter how sweet he pretends to be. He has no escape. We are on his heels.”

Njeri said she will not step foot in the house she lived with her estranged husband in Toronto once she travels back.

Nation reports that DCI detectives visited JKIA last week to review CCTV footage from the night Njeri landed and left the airport aboard a black Toyota car.

Njeri said the hitmen confessed that her husband paid them Sh1.5 million to kill her and dump her body in Karura forest, but she paid them Sh2 million to spare her life.

“The instructions were so clear that they knew I had copies of my properties’ documents with me, which they also asked for as instructed. I pleaded with them to spare my life and they agreed on condition that I pay them Sh2 million,” she said.

The rotation of Earth’s inner core may have paused and it could even go into reverse, new research suggests.

The Earth is formed of the crust, the mantle and the inner and outer cores. The solid inner core is situated about 3,200 miles below the Earth’s crust and is separated from the semi-solid mantle by the liquid outer core, which allows the inner core to rotate at a different speed from the rotation of the Earth itself.

With a radius of almost 2,200 miles, Earth’s core is about the size of Mars. It consists mostly of iron and nickel, and contains about about one-third of Earth’s mass.

In research published in the journal Nature Geoscience on Monday, Yi Yang, associate research scientist at Peking University, and Xiaodong Song, Peking University chair professor, studied seismic waves from earthquakes that have passed through the Earth’s inner core along similar paths since the 1960s to infer how fast the inner core is spinning.

The “LLR” laser has been installed on the summit of the Säntis (2500m) and was activated from June to September 2021. It was focused above a 124m high transmitter tower belonging to the operator Swisscom, equipped with a traditional lightning conductor. 

Car-size laser deflects lightning atop a mountain in Switzerland

What they found was unexpected, they said. Since 2009, seismic records, which previously changed over time, showed little difference. This, they said, suggested that the inner core rotation had paused.

“We show surprising observations that indicate the inner core has nearly ceased its rotation in the recent decade and may be experiencing a turning-back,” they wrote in the study.

“When you look at the decade between 1980 and 1990 you see clear change but when you see 2010 to 2020 you don’t see much change,” added Song.

The spin of the inner core is driven by the magnetic field generated in the outer core and balanced by the gravitational effects of the mantle. Knowing how the inner core rotates could shed light on how these layers interact and other processes deep in the Earth.

However, the speed of this rotation, and whether it varies, is debated, said Hrvoje Tkalcic, a geophysicist at the Australian National University, who was not involved in the study,

“The inner core doesn’t come to a full stop,” he said. The study’s finding, he said, “means that the inner core is now more in sync with the rest of the planet than a decade ago when it was spinning a bit faster.”

“Nothing cataclysmic is happening,” he added.

Based on new evidence from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, this illustration reflects the conclusion that the exoplanet LHS 475 b is rocky and almost precisely the same size as Earth. The planet whips around its star in just two days, far faster than any planet in the Solar System

Researchers will follow up this summer with additional observations with Webb, which they hope will allow them to definitively conclude if the planet has an atmosphere. LHS 475 b is relatively close, 41 light-years away, in the constellation Octans. [Image Description: Illustration of a planet and its star on a black background. The planet is large, in the foreground at the centre, and the star is smaller, in the background and also at the centre.

The planet is rocky. The top quarter of the planet (the side facing the star) is lit, while the rest is in shadow. The star is bright yellowish-white, with no clear features.]

James Webb Space Telescope discovers its first exoplanet

Song and Yang argue that, based on their calculations, a small imbalance in the electromagnetic and gravitational forces could slow and even reverse the inner core’s rotation. They believe this is part of a seven-decade cycle, and that the turning point prior to the one they detected in their data around 2009/2010 occurred in the early 1970s.

Tkalcic, who is the author of “The Earth’s Inner Core: Revealed by Observational Seismology,” said the study’s “data analysis is sound.” However, the study’s findings “should be taken cautiously” as “more data and innovative methods are needed to shed light on this interesting problem.”

Song and Yang agreed that more research was needed.

Studying the Earth’s core

Tkalcic, who dedicates an entire chapter of his book to the inner core rotation, suggested the inner core’s cycle is every 20 to 30 years, rather than the 70 proposed in the latest study. He explained why such variations occur and why it was so difficult to understand what happens in the innermost reaches of the planet.

“The objects of our studies are buried thousands of kilometers beneath our feet,” he said.

“We use geophysical inference methods to infer the Earth’s internal properties, and caution must be exercised until multi-disciplinary findings confirm our hypotheses and conceptual frameworks,” he explained

“You can think of seismologists like medical doctors who study the internal organs of patients’ bodies using imperfect or limited equipment. So, despite progress, our image of the inner Earth is still blurry, and we are still in the discovery stage.”

The government has evacuated a Kenyan woman who was admitted to a hospital in August last year after being brutally attacked in Albania. 

The State Department for Diaspora Affairs said the plane carrying Joyce Aoko, her mother and her medical team left Albania on Wednesday and would land at Wilson Airport in Nairobi at around 6:30 p.m.

The department said Aoko, 22, was brutally attacked by unknown people while at her place of work in Tirana in August, but the Kenya Mission in Rome only relayed the information about the incident on January 11th.

“She was hospitalized for treatment and has been in critical condition ever since. Unfortunately, she needed specialized neurological care which was not available in Albania,” read the statement.

“While we continued to urge the government of the Republic of Albania to conduct speedy and thorough investigations to bring the perpetrators to book, we found it in Ms. Aoko’s best interests, to bring her home to complete her journey of healing among her loved ones.”

Diaspora Affairs Principal Secretary Roseline Njogu was expected to receive Aoko at the airport and take her to Kenyatta University Teaching, Referral and Research Hospital for further treatment.

“The State Department will offer free counseling services to the family before and after her arrival,” added the statement.

A medical report from Spitali Universitar 1 Traumes, where she has been undergoing treatment since August, shows she suffered several injuries, including fractures, and internal bleeding.

Early this month, Joyce’s mother Ruth Aoko told Nation that her daughter moved to the European nation in February last year to work as a croupier in a casino.

Prior to the attack, Ruth said her daughter complained that she was being stalked by a man only identified as a casino driver and that she felt threatened and unsafe.

“She told me that a driver was following her and that he wanted to have a romantic relationship with her, but she didn’t want him,” she explained.

The Principal Secretary (PS)of interior Dr. Raymond Omollo has announced that President William Ruto in May this year will launch the MV Uhuru two at the Kisumu port, a key step towards boosting the blue economy in the region.

Omollo said the head of state will be accompanied by other regional Presidents.

He said the national government is committed to maximizing the potential of lake Victoria in the region and that commitments of modernizing piers in KenduBay Homabay and Mbita will be met.

According to Omollo, his department has also engaged the Kenya coast guard services to improve security in Kenya waters for smooth running of both transport and fishing activities.

MV UHURU II was built at the Kenya Shipyards Limited within the port of Kisumu by the Kenya shipyard limited, the 100-meter vessel with a capacity of carrying up to 22 wagons and an estimated capacity of 2 million litres of crude oil per trip is the first ship to be made in Kenya by Kenyans.

Ex-President Uhuru Kenyatta last year oversaw the floatation of the newly constructed MV Uhuru II vessel.