Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin accused Democratic candidate Barack Obama on Saturday of “palling around with terrorists,” marking a shift to a nastier tone in the White House race.

The remark was dismissed by Mr Obama as “gutter politics” but appeared to reflect an effort by Senator John McCain’s campaign to target Mr Obama’s judgment as the Illinois senator solidifies his national lead and gains an edge in vital battleground states a month before the November 4 election.

It came shortly after McCain’s campaign called Obama a liar and just days after both candidates urged Congress to set aside partisan politics to pass a $700 billion financial rescue package in a bid to revive credit markets.

“There is a time when it’s necessary to take the gloves off and that time is right now,” Palin told thousands of supporters at a rally in a sports arena in Carson, California.

Earlier at a fundraiser in Englewood, Colorado, she departed from her usual speech to question Obama’s character.

“Our opponent though is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect, imperfect enough that he is palling around with terrorists who would target their own country,” Palin said of Obama, also calling him an embarrassment.

Ms Palin cited a New York Times story on Saturday that examined Mr Obama’s relationship with Bill Ayers, a former member of the Vietnam War-era militant Weather Underground organization who is now a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

The Times concluded they were not close.

In Costa Mesa, California, after raising $2 million from donors, the Alaska governor said she and McCain would “start to tell Americans more and more aggressively, I guess, about the choices” in the election.

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Nation investigations show that nearly 20,000 Kenyans fall prey to human trafficking cartels yearly and are living in appalling conditions in North America, Europe and the Middle East.

The case of a 14-year-old girl rescued in the United Kingdom is a stark reminder of the growing trade in humans.

She had been moved to Liverpool by a man who locked her in a house and forced her to have sex with numerous people. Luckily she escaped and she is now under the care of a charity in the UK.

Her plight came to light on July 8, when UK Conservative Party MP Peter Bone of Wellingborough told Westminster Hall.

“(She) was a black girl from Kenya. She came in on a passport that did not have her name or photograph on it, but was allowed into the country.”

Apart from the revelation by Mr Bone, little information is available about the girl. The Kenyan High Commission was not forthcoming when this writer used a London contact to seek more information about the girl.

Yet what emerges from this case is that Kenya has become a key operation base for cartels that are turning 17,500 Kenyans (according to estimates by Randy Fleitman, until recently the US Labour Attache, in Nairobi) into bondage abroad — about one in 40 people trafficked worldwide.

The cartels have also been bringing into Kenya Ugandans, Tanzanians, Indians, Chinese, Pakistani, Bangladeshis and Congolese, who are forced to work in construction industry and the EPZ factories, and as prostitutes in brothels in Nairobi.

After rescuing two Kenyan children in Tanzania last year, police believe another 40 minors and six adults are living there as slaves.

Police sources say investigations have also moved to The Netherlands and Ireland where five children are believed to be living in similar circumstances.

Bought or stolen

And the African Network for the Prevention and Protection Against Child Abuse (Anppcan), Kenya Chapter, is pursuing investigations on reports that children bought or stolen in Kenya are held in Busia Town homes veiled as schools before they are ferried to Burundi, southern Africa and Europe.

It has emerged also that some of these children are being trafficked “for purposes such as removal of organs, religious rituals or witchcraft’’, according to Child Rights Advisory Documentation and Legal Centre (Cradle — The Children’s Foundation) in its 90-page report, “Grand Illusions, Shattered Dreams” published three months ago.

“Kenya is a source, transit and destination for trafficked children,” says Mr Ahmed Hussein, director of children’s services, Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Development.

In a report “Human Trafficking in East Africa: Research Assessment and Baseline Information in Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and Burundi”, published three months ago, the International Organisation of Migration (IOM) says Kenya and Tanzania are transit routes for Ethiopian women being trafficked to Europe and the Middle East and Somalis trafficked to South Africa.

Chinese women have been trafficked for sexual exploitation and Bangladeshis for forced labour through Kenya.

“In all of the countries (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Burundi) the majority of trafficked respondents indicated that traffickers used either promises of jobs and/or promises of jobs with a good salary to persuade them.”

Victims pay between Sh80,000 and Sh700,000 to the cartels for either right of passage abroad or jobs that hardly exist in Kenya, according to Cyrus Omooria, the officer in charge of investigations and prosecution, Immigration Department, Mombasa.

A total of 77 tanks and 15 jet fighters were secretly imported by Kenya last year alone, according to official documents.

Two rocket launchers and more than 40,000 automatic rifles and machine guns were also brought in, the United Nations says.

Yet the government has not reported its arms purchases to the United Nations, as required by international agreements, the Sunday Nation can reveal.

A special police unit is to be set up to cater for Parliament, the Parliamentary Service Commission decided on Saturday.

It will cater for MPs and the four buildings that form the Kenya National Assembly — Parliament Buildings, Continental House, County Hall and Harambee Plaza.

The proposal for the unit was adopted following a three-day PSC strategic meeting at Serena Beach Hotel, Mombasa.

The plan comes a month after Speaker Kenneth Marende announced that allowances for MPs’ police bodyguards had been increased because of their extra responsibilities. But he did not elaborate on how much more this would cost the tax-payer.

There have been three major security scares in the House.

One involved a break-in by a gang that stole several items, including computers, while in another, a stranger walked undetected into the debating chamber in the company of judges during the state opening by President Kibaki.

Yet another was when a man jumped over the security fence and tore a flag from a Cabinet minister’s car in broad daylight.

The unit is bound to be an extra burden to tax-payers who feel that the MPs’ pay is more than they deserve.

An MP enjoys a salary and allowances of over Sh800,000 a month, in addition to a Sh8 million mortgage facility and a Sh3 million car grant.

At the moment a police post at County Hall takes care of the MPs’ security needs, beefed up by the in-house parliamentary orderlies headed by the sergeant-at-arms.

The move comes hot on the heels of a decision by the Parliamentary Service Commission, chaired by the Speaker, to increase the daily allowances of regular police officers who provide security for the 222 MPs.

The unit will join others, that include the para-military General Service Unit as well as the anti-terrorism, maritime, airports, railways, anti-stock theft, tourist, anti-narcotics and special crime prevention units.

Earlier in the year, ODM MPs Melitus Mugabe Were (Embakasi) and Kimutai arap Too of Ainamoi were gunned down in Nairobi and Eldoret respectively.

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