Radicals don’t wake up one day and join Isis or Al Shabaab. Extremism fills a gap; preying on people who feel lost, confused and excluded from society. For some without hope, extremism can offer something different: a future of freedom, adventure and purpose. It also provides food, clothing and protection. [...] We must recognise the importance of soft power to address hard-hitting issues. 

Leading Chinese performing artists who included opera singers, acrobats, dancers and instrumentalists on Sunday entertained a mammoth crowd in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. [...] In his opening remarks, Liu said the music concert was part of a series of activities that have been lined up to promote Sino-Kenya cultural cooperation.

Sometime in March last year Kenya’s diplomatic corps, attending the 17th Biennial Ambassadors and High Commissioners’ conference in Mombasa, bemoaned negative press reports and said this was frustrating their diplomatic initiatives in missions. The envoys noted that the local media’s fascination with “negative” narratives of insecurity, crime and corruption painted a bad image of the country abroad. 

Kenya said Tuesday it will torch its vast stockpile of ivory at a star-studded summit to include Hollywood celebrities, presidents and business leaders against "poaching and illegal trade in ivory." […] "Kenya plans to use the occasion to torch as many as 120 tons of ivory [...] as proof of our commitment to zero tolerance for poaching and illegal ivory trade,
" presidential spokesman Manoah Esipisu told reporters.

Recent years have seen a growing academic interest in the migration of MFAs (foreign ministries) to social media. However, the majority of digital diplomacy studies tend to focus on the activities of Western and North American MFAs. This Euro- and American-centric approach fails to recognize the fact that digital diplomacy is now a global phenomenon. 

Nairobi — Pope Francis Thursday morning held an inter-faith dialogue with religious leaders where he advocated for peaceful co-existence among Kenyans and good governance to reduce radicalization among the youth.