A convoy of trucks carrying 666 tonnes of food and vegetable oil to alleviate the humanitarian crisis resulting from post-election political violence The African Union and Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu are pushing for a settlement.

As violence continues amid attempts at a settlement following the bitterly disputed elections in Kenya, the number of people displaced has increased to some half million people, according to agencies and NGOs working in the country.

The head of the World Council of Churches has called on Kenya's two main political parties to "turn urgently from partisan postures and negotiate in good faith to reach a non-violent, political solution" to their electoral dispute.

The UK-based international development agency Christian Aid has voiced disappointment in the conduct of Kenya’s electoral commission following President Mwai Kibaki's disputed election victory - and has called for restraint.

More than 30 people have been burned to death in a church in western Kenya after they sought refuge from the mounting violence over last week's elections - which has claimed more than 250 victims, according to official estimates.

Christian, Muslim and Hindu groups in Kenya are to launch a campaign to urge political leaders to sign a peace charter and pledge to avoid violence ahead of presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for December 2007.

The Kenyan government has ordered a fresh investigation into the death of the Rev John Anthony Kaiser, the Roman Catholic US-born priest, who died in the East African country on 24 August 2000. The announcement came ahead of the seventh anniversary of the priest's death.

Church leaders in Kenya have urged President Mwai Kibaki to reject proposed legislation regarding the media, which the country's Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Wangari Maathai, has said would curtail press freedom.

Kenyan religious leaders are backing demands by civil society groups that those standing in parliamentary elections scheduled for 2007 should commit themselves to salary reductions, accountability and transparency.

African church leaders at the World Social Forum in Nairobi urged governments to use the surrender of the leader of the Union of Islamic Courts of Somalia, Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, as the basis for a peace initiative for the war torn country - writes Fredrick Nzwili for Ecumenical News Interational.