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SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. — Thousands of homes and buildings were threatened Sunday by an out-of-control wildfire burning in the foothills of a national forest east of Los Angeles, amid a days-long heat wave that pushed temperatures into the triple digits across the region. State firefighters said 8,733 structures were threatened, including single and multi-family homes and commercial buildings. The so-called Line Fire was burning along the edge of the San Bernardino National Forest, about 105 kilometers east of LA. As of Sunday morning, the blaze had charred about 70 square kilometers of grass and chaparral, leaving a thick cloud of dark smoke blanketing the area. County officials declared an emergency Saturday evening. “Extreme temperatures, wind and lightning strikes have allowed the fire to grow rapidly,” the county said in a statement. More firefighters were expected to arrive Sunday. State officials said vegetation is critically dry in the area and temperatures reached more than 38 degrees Celsius on Saturday with relative humidity dipping to provide ideal conditions for fire growth. The fire began Thursday evening, and the cause is under investigation.  About 500 firefighters were battling the blaze, supported by water-dropping helicopters that hovered over homes and hillsides, along with aircraft. The fire produced coiling clouds of dense smoke, and flames could be seen cresting hillside ridges. No injuries were reported, and no homes or other structures had been damaged or destroyed. The National Weather Service said downtown Los Angeles hit a high of 44 degrees Celsius Friday, which marked the third time since 1877 that a temperature that high has been reached there.

MANILA — A Filipino preacher accused of sexual abuse and human trafficking in the Philippines and similar charges in the United States has been captured, officials said Sunday.  Interior Secretary Benhur Abalos announced the arrest of Apollo Quiboloy in a brief statement on his Facebook account but did not provide other details. Philippine police chief Gen. Rommel Francisco Marbil confirmed Quiboloy’s arrest without elaborating.  Quiboloy went into hiding after a Philippine court ordered his arrest and several others on suspicion of child and sexual abuse. The Philippine Senate has separately ordered Quiboloy’s arrest for refusing to appear in committee hearings that were looking into criminal allegations against him.  President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has urged Quiboloy to surrender and assured him of fair treatment by authorities.  The preacher and his lawyer have denied the allegations against him, saying they were fabricated by critics and former members who were removed from the religious group.  In 2021, United States federal prosecutors announced the indictment of Quiboloy for allegedly having sex with women and underage girls who faced threats of abuse and  “eternal damnation” unless they catered to the self-proclaimed “son of God.”  Quiboloy and two of his top administrators were among nine people named in a superseding indictment returned by a federal grand jury and unsealed in November 2021. It contained a raft of charges, including conspiracy, sex trafficking of children, sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion, marriage fraud, money laundering, cash smuggling and visa fraud.  The U.S. Embassy in Manila referred requests for comments to Philippine authorities.  In August, about 2,000 police backed by riot squads raided a vast religious compound of Quiboloy’s group, called the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, in southern Davao city. The police brought equipment that could detect people hiding in underground tunnels but did not find him in the 30-hectare (75-acre) compound that includes a cathedral, a stadium, a school, a residential area, a hangar and a taxiway leading to Davao International Airport.  In 2019, Quiboloy claimed he stopped a major earthquake from hitting the southern Philippines.  He was also a close supporter and spiritual adviser of former President Rodrigo Duterte, who is being investigated by the International Criminal Court in connection with the extrajudicial killings by police of thousands of drug suspects. 

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

MIP Africa — an event that matches African film and TV creatives to the people and countries that produce their work, wrapped up last week [Sept. 4] with several signed deals. Industry members and legislators from film meccas worldwide attended the event, part of the larger Fame Week Africa conference for creative professionals. Reporter Vicky Stark has the story from Cape Town, South Africa.

FRANKFURT, Germany — Volkswagen is considering closing some factories in its home country for the first time in the German automaker's 87-year history, saying it otherwise won't meet the cost-cutting goals it needs to remain competitive. CEO Oliver Blume also told employees Wednesday that the company must end a three-decade-old job protection pledge that would have prohibited layoffs through 2029. The statements have stirred outrage among worker representatives and concern among German politicians. Here are some things to know about the difficulties at one of the world’s best-known auto brands: What is Volkswagen proposing and why? Management says the company’s core brand that carries the company’s name needs to achieve 10 billion euros in cost savings by 2026. It recently became clear the Volkswagen Passenger Car division was not on track to do that after relying on retirements and voluntary buyouts to reduce the workforce in Germany. With Europe’s car market smaller than before the coronavirus pandemic, Volkswagen says it now has more factory capacity than it needs — and carrying underused assembly lines is expensive. Chief Financial Officer Arno Antlitz explained it like this to 25,000 workers who gathered at the company’s Wolfsburg home base: Europeans are buying around 2 million cars per year fewer than they did before the pandemic in 2019, when sales reached 15.7 million. Since Volkswagen has roughly a quarter of the European market, that means “we are short of 500,000 cars, the equivalent of around two plants,” Antlitz told the workers. “And that has nothing to do with our products or poor sales performance. The market simply is no longer there,” he said. Does Volkswagen make money? The Volkswagen Group, whose 10 brands include SEAT, Skoda, CUPRA and commercial vehicles, turned an operating profit of 10.1 billion euros ($11.2 billion) in the first half of this year, down 11% from last year’s first-half figure. Higher costs outweighed a modest 1.6% increase in sales, which reached 158.8 billion euros but were held down by sluggish demand. Blume called it “a solid performance” in a “demanding environment.” Volkswagen’s luxury brands, which include Porsche, Audi and Lamborghini, are selling better than VW models. So why is Volkswagen struggling? The discussion about reducing costs focuses on the core brand and its workers in Germany. Volkswagen's passenger car division recorded a 68% earnings drop in the second quarter, and its profit margin was a bare 0.9%, down from 4% in the first quarter. One reason is the division took the bulk of the 1 billion euros that went to job buyouts and other restructuring costs. But growing costs, including for higher wages, and sluggish sales of the company’s line of electric vehicles are a deeper problem. On top of that, new, competitively priced competitors from China are increasing their share of the European market. Volkswagen must sell more electric cars to meet ever-lower European Union emission limits that take effect starting next year. Yet the company is seeing lower profit margins from those vehicles due to high battery costs and weaker demand for EVs in Europe due to the withdrawal of consumer subsidies and the slow rollout of public charging stations. Meanwhile, VW's electric vehicles also face stiff competition in China from models made by local companies. The world’s automakers are in a battle for the future, spending billions to pivot to lower-emission electric cars in a race to come up with vehicles that are competitive on price and have enough range to persuade buyers to switch. China has dozens of carmakers making electric cars more cheaply than their European equivalents. Increasingly, those cars are being sold in Europe. Profits have also declined at Germany’s BMW and Mercedes-Benz thanks to the same pressures. Why are VW's proposed factory and job cuts a big deal in Germany? Volkswagen has 10 assembly and parts plants in Germany, where 120,000 of its 684,000 workers worldwide are based. As Europe’s largest carmaker, the company is a symbol of the country’s consumer prosperity and economic growth after World War II. It has never closed a German factory before. VW last closed a plant in 1988 in Westmoreland, Pennsylvania; its Audi division is in discussions about closing an underutilized plant in Belgium. Far-right parties fueled by popular disenchantment with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s quarreling, three-party coalition government scored major gains in Sept. 1 elections in Thueringia and Saxony states, located in the former communist East Germany. Nationwide polls show the government's approval rating at a low point. Plant closings are the last thing the Scholz government needs. The chancellor spoke with VW management and workers after the possible plant closings became known but was careful to stress that the decision is a matter for the company and its workers. Why hasn't Volkswagen already made the cost cuts management wants? Employee representatives have a lot of clout at Volkswagen. They hold half the seats on the board of directors. The state government, which is a part-owner of the company, also has two board seats — together with the employee representatives a majority — and 20% of the voting rights at the company. Lower Saxony Gov. Stephan Weil has said the company needs to address its costs but should avoid plant closings. That means management will have to negotiate — a process that will take months. What does the employee side say? Managers at the employee assembly faced several minutes of boos, whistles and tooting horns before they could start their presentation on the potential explanation. “We are Volkswagen, you are not,” workers chanted. Daniela Cavallo, who chairs the company works council representing employees, said the council “won't go along with plant closings.” Reducing labor costs won't turn around Volkswagen's financial situation, she argued. “Volkswagen’s problem is upper management isn’t doing its job,” Cavallo said. “There are many other areas where the company is responsible... We have to have competitive products; we don't have the entry-level models in electric cars.”

Kyiv, Ukraine — A Russian drone violated Romania's airspace during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, the NATO member reported Sunday, urging Moscow to stop what it described as an escalation. The incident occurred as Russia carried out attacks on “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube River in Ukraine, Romania's Ministry of National Defense said. Romania deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace, and NATO allies were kept informed, the ministry said. Romanian emergency authorities also issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions. Preliminary data indicates there may be an “impact zone” in an uninhabited area near the Romanian village of Periprava, the ministry said. It added that an investigation is underway. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Romania has confirmed drone fragments on its territory on several occasions and as recently as July this year. The Romanian Defense Ministry strongly condemned the Russian attacks on Ukraine, calling them “unjustified and in serious contradiction with the norms of international law.” Mircea Geoana, NATO's outgoing deputy secretary-general and Romania's former top diplomat, said the military alliance also condemned Russia’s violation of Romanian airspace. “While we have no information indicating an intentional attack by Russia against Allies, these acts are irresponsible and potentially dangerous,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter. Civilians reported killed in Ukraine In Ukraine, two civilians died and four more suffered wounds in a nighttime Russian airstrike on the northern city of Sumy, the regional military administration reported. Two children were among those wounded, the administration said. In the Kharkiv region in the east, overnight shelling killed two elderly women, according to local Governor Oleh Syniehubov. During the night, Ukrainian air defenses shot down one of four cruise missiles and 15 of 23 Iranian-made Shahed drones launched by Russia, Ukraine's air force reported. It added that none of the cruise missiles had hit targets. Later Sunday, three women were killed after Russian forces shelled a village in the eastern Donetsk region, Governor Vadym Filashkin reported on the Telegram messaging app. Elsewhere in the province, rescue teams pulled the bodies of two men from the rubble of a hotel that was destroyed Saturday evening in a Russian airstrike, according to Ukraine’s state emergency service. That same day, the death toll rose to 58 from the massive Russian missile strike that blasted a military academy Tuesday and a nearby hospital in the eastern city of Poltava, regional Governor Filip Pronin reported. More than 320 others were wounded. Since it launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, the Russian military has repeatedly used missiles to smash civilian targets, sometimes killing scores of people in a single attack. Poltava is about 350 kilometers (200 miles) southeast of Kyiv, on the main highway and rail route between Kyiv and Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, which is close to the Russian border. The attack happened as Ukrainian forces sought to carve out their holdings in Russia’s Kursk border region after a surprise incursion that began Aug. 6, as the Russian army hacks its way deeper into eastern Ukraine. Russian forces continued their monthslong grinding push toward the city of Pokrovsk, and ramped up attacks near the town of Kurakhove farther south, Ukraine's General Staff reported. Russia's Defense Ministry said Sunday its troops had taken Novohrodivka, a small town some 19 kilometers (11 miles) southeast of Pokrovsk. An update published Saturday evening by DeepState, a Ukrainian battlefield analysis site, said Russian forces had “advanced” in Novohrodivka and captured Nevelske, a village in the southeast of the Pokrovsk district. Pokrovsk, which had a prewar population of about 60,000, is one of Ukraine’s main defensive strongholds and a key logistics hub in the Donetsk region. Its capture would compromise Ukraine’s defense and supply routes and would bring Russia closer to its stated aim of capturing the entire Donetsk region. 

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

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Paris — French far-right leader Marine Le Pen on Sunday urged President Emmanuel Macron to hold a referendum on key issues such as immigration, suggesting that giving the French a direct vote might help break the political deadlock. Last week Macron appointed the center-right Michel Barnier, a 73-year-old former foreign minister who acted as the European Union's Brexit negotiator, as prime minister, seeking to move forward after June-July snap elections that resulted in a hung parliament. But analysts say the country is set for a period of instability, with Barnier's hold on power seen as fragile and dependent on support from Le Pen's eurosceptic, anti-immigration National Rally (RN) party, which is the largest party in the new National Assembly. A left-wing coalition, which emerged as France's largest political bloc after the elections, although short of an overall majority, is also piling pressure on Barnier. More than 100,000 left-wing demonstrators rallied across France on Saturday to protest against his nomination and denounce Macron's "power grab." Le Pen, who leads RN lawmakers in parliament, has said her party would not be part of the new cabinet. 'Power to decide directly' On Sunday, she urged Macron to conduct a referendum on key issues such as immigration, health care and security to give the people a direct vote. The RN "will unreservedly support any approach aimed at giving people the power to decide directly", Le Pen said, speaking in the northern town of Henin-Beaumont, the far-right's traditional stronghold. "Emmanuel Macron himself, in the chaos he has created, has levers to keep our democracy live," she added. To prevent the RN from having an absolute majority and forming a government, around 200 candidates stood down ahead of the final round of the snap legislative polls in July, sparking the far-right's outrage. Le Pen also indicated she would watch Barnier's every move. "If, in the coming weeks, the French are once again forgotten or mistreated, we will not hesitate to censure the government," she added. Speaking to reporters, Le Pen, 56, also said she expected France to hold new legislative elections "within a year." "This is good because I think that France needs a clear majority," she said. The left-wing coalition has also vowed to topple Barnier with a no-confidence motion. The alliance wanted Lucie Castets, a 37-year-old economist, to become prime minister, but Macron quashed that idea, arguing that she would not survive a confidence vote in the hung parliament. Competent and likeable According to a poll released on Sunday, the French are largely satisfied with the appointment of Barnier as prime minister, but believe he will not last long in his new post. Fifty two percent of people polled said they were satisfied with the appointment of Barnier, according to the Ifop poll for the Journal du Dimanche. By comparison, 53% of respondents approved the nomination of Barnier's predecessor, Gabriel Attal, when he was appointed prime minister in early January, becoming France's youngest-ever premier at 34. According to the poll, a majority of respondents see Barnier, the oldest prime minister in the history of modern France, as competent (62%), open to dialogue (61%) and likeable (60%). However, 74% of respondents polled believe he would not last long in the post. Ifop polled 950 adults online on September 5-6. The margin of error was up to 3.1 points.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Port Sudan, Sudan — Sudan has rejected a call by U.N. experts for the deployment of an "independent and impartial force" to protect millions of civilians driven from their homes by more than a year of war. The conflict since April last year, pitting the army against paramilitary forces, has killed tens of thousands of people and triggered one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. The independent U.N. experts said Friday their fact-finding mission had uncovered "harrowing" violations by both sides, "which may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity." They called for "an independent and impartial force with a mandate to safeguard civilians" to be deployed "without delay." The Sudanese foreign ministry, which is loyal to the army under General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, said in a statement late Saturday that "the Sudanese government rejects in their entirety the recommendations of the UN mission." It called the UN Human Rights Council, which created the fact-finding mission last year, "a political and illegal body", and the panel's recommendations "a flagrant violation of their mandate." The UN experts said eight million civilians have been displaced and another two million people have fled to neighboring countries. More than 25 million people upwards of half the country's population — face acute food shortages. World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, on a visit to Sudan on Sunday, said: "The scale of the emergency is shocking, as is the insufficient action being taken to curtail the conflict and respond to the suffering it is causing." In Port Sudan, where government offices and the United Nations have relocated to due to the intense fighting in the capital Khartoum, Tedros called on the "world to wake up and help Sudan out of the nightmare it is living through". The Sudanese foreign ministry statement accused the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, led by Burhan's former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, of "systematically targeting civilians and civilian institutions". "The protection of civilians remains an absolute priority for the Sudanese government," it said. The statement added that the UN Human Rights Council's role should be "to support the national process, rather than seek to impose a different exterior mechanism". It also rejected the experts' call for an arms embargo.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Beirut — At a shop nestled in a busy, crowded Beirut district, Hasan El-Makary is weighing out containers of warm, fragrant mufataka, a traditional sweet in the Lebanese capital that is rarely found in stores.   "I've been in this shop for 50 years, but we started specializing in mufataka 30 years ago," Makary said from the humble shop with its aging decor and low ceiling.   A kind of rice pudding made with turmeric, tahini sesame paste, sugar and pine nuts, mufataka is traditional in Beirut but less known even outside the city.   Makary, 73, said he used to sell other sweets but as demand grew for mufataka, he abandoned the rest and now he and his cousin – who is also his business partner – just make the yellow pudding.   "At the beginning you add turmeric, that's the main thing, then tahini, sugar and rice ... we cook it slowly on fire," he said.   The rice must be soaked overnight, and Makary said he comes to the shop at 5:00 a.m. to make the dish, which takes around four hours and requires regular stirring.   He said his father started making mufataka despite initially believing people would not pay money for a dish that is normally prepared at home.   Plastic containers of the pudding, which is eaten with a spoon, dotted trays and tables across the shop, waiting for customers who peered through a window to place their order from the busy street outside.   Customer Iman Chehab, 55, was picking up mufataka for her mother, who used to make it herself.   "She is elderly now and she can't stir ... it takes a lot of work," said Chehab, who works in human resources management.   The dish is "something traditional for us who are from Beirut," she told AFP.  Places like Makary's shop "are the old face of Beirut that we love and always want to remember," she added.   'Heritage'  A few bustling neighborhoods away, Samir Makari, 35, is carrying on the family tradition.   At a gleaming shop also selling Arabic sweets like baklava, Makari attends to a huge copper pot of mufataka behind the counter, stirring it with a long, wooden-handled implement.   He weighs out and mixes the sugar, tahini paste and pine nuts in a second pot, later combining it all.   Mufataka used to be made just once a year on the last Wednesday in April, with families gathering by the sea at Beirut's public beach, father and son said.   The occasion was "Job's Wednesday," a reference to the biblical figure also mentioned in the Koran and who is renowned for his patience, the younger Makari said, noting the virtue is also required for making mufataka.   On the wall of his shop, which he runs with his brother, were photos of his father and his grandfather at work.   He said he sometimes makes mufataka twice a day depending on demand, with some customers taking it outside Beirut to introduce it to those who do not know the dish.   At the original store, the elder Makary said he was happy his children had kept up the tradition.   Mufataka is part of "my heritage," he said, and the family has "taken it from generation to generation."

Paris — Tens of thousands of pupils in France are going through a slightly different return to school this autumn, deprived of their mobile phones. At 180 "colleges," the middle schools French children attend between the ages of 11 and 15, a scheme is being trialed to ban the use of mobile phones during the entire school day. The trial of the "pause numerique" ("digital pause"), which encompasses more than 50,000 pupils, is being implemented ahead of a possible plan to enforce it nationwide from 2025. Right now, pupils in French middle schools must turn off their phones. The experiment takes things further, requiring children to hand in their phones on arrival. It is part of a move by President Emmanuel Macron for children to spend less time in front of screens, which the government fears is arresting their development. The use of "a mobile phone or any other electronic communications terminal equipment" has been banned in nurseries, elementary schools and middle schools in France since 2018. In high schools, which French children attend between the ages of 15 and 18, internal regulations may prohibit the use of a cell phone by pupils in "all or part of the premises." Bruno Bobkiewicz, general secretary of SNPDEN-Unsa, France's top union of school principals, said the 2018 law had been enforced "pretty well overall." "The use of mobile phones in middle schools is very low today", he said, adding that in case of a problem "we have the means to act."   Improving 'school climate' The experiment comes after Macron said in January he wanted to "regulate the use of screens among young children." According to a report submitted to Macron, children under 11 should not be allowed to use phones, while access to social networks should be limited for pupils under 15. With an increasing amount of research showing the risks of excessive screen time for children, the concern has become a Europe-wide issue.   Sweden's Public Health Agency said this week children under the age of two should be kept away from digital media and television completely and it should be limited for more senior ages. One of Britain's biggest mobile network operators, EE, has warned parents they should not give smartphones to children under the age of 11. The French education ministry hopes that the cellphone-free environment would improve "school climate" and reduce instances of violence including online harassment and dissemination of violent images. The ministry also wants to improve student performance because the use of telephones harms "the ability to concentrate" and "the acquisition of knowledge." The experiment also aims to "raise pupils' awareness of the rational use of digital tools." Jerome Fournier, national secretary of the SE-UNSA teachers' union, said the experiment will seek "to respond to the difficulties of schools for which the current rule is not sufficient," even if "in the vast majority of schools it works." 'Complicated to implement' According to the education ministry, "it is up to each establishment to determine practical arrangements," with the possibility of setting up a locker system. Pupils will have to hand in their phones on arrival, putting them in boxes or lockers. They will collect them at the end of classes. The ban also extends to extracurricular activities and school trips. But the enforcement of the measure across all schools in France from January 2025 could be expensive. According to local authorities, the measure could cost "nearly 130 million euros" for the 6,980 middle schools in France. If a phone goes missing from a locker, this would also cause an added financial problem. Education Minister Nicole Belloubet said on Tuesday that the ban would be "put in place gradually." "The financial costs seem quite modest to me," she added. Many are sceptical. For the leading middle and high school teachers' union Snes-FSU, the ban raises too many questions. "How will things work on arrival?" wondered the head of the union, Sophie Venetitay. "How will things work during the day," she said, adding that some students have two mobile phones.   The SE-UNSA teachers' union also expressed reservations. "We're going to need staff to manage arrivals, drops-off and departures, and the collection of mobile phones," said Fournier.  "Sometimes pupils just have time to put their things away when classes end, and run to the bus so as not to miss it," he added. Bobkiewicz of SNPDEN-Unsa, France's top union of school principals, agreed. He said he did not want to rummage through pupils' bags to look for their phones. "It's going to be complicated to implement." 

KAJIADO, Kenya — The blood, milk and meat of cattle have long been staple foods for Maasai pastoralists in Kenya, perhaps the country's most recognizable community. But climate change is forcing the Maasai to contemplate a very different dish: fish. A recent yearslong drought in Kenya killed millions of livestock. While Maasai elders hope the troubles are temporary and they will be able to resume traditional lives as herders, some are adjusting to a kind of food they had never learned to enjoy. Fish were long viewed as part of the snake family due to their shape, and thus inedible. Their smell had been unpleasant and odd to the Maasai, who call semi-arid areas home. “We never used to live near lakes and oceans, so fish was very foreign for us," said Maasai Council of Elders chair Kelena ole Nchoi. “We grew up seeing our elders eat cows and goats.” Among the Maasai and other pastoralists in Kenya and wider East Africa — like the Samburu, Somali and Borana — cattle are also a status symbol, a source of wealth and part of key cultural events like marriages as part of dowries. But the prolonged drought in much of East Africa left carcasses of emaciated cattle strewn across vast dry lands. In early 2023, the Kenya National Drought Management Authority said 2.6 million livestock had died, with an estimated value of 226 billion Kenya shillings ($1.75 billion). Meanwhile, increasing urbanization and a growing population have reduced available grazing land, forcing pastoralists to adopt new ways to survive. In Kajiado county near Kenya's capital, Nairobi, the local government is supporting fish farming projects for pastoralists — and encouraging them to eat fish, too. Like many other Maasai women, Charity Oltinki previously engaged in beadwork, and her husband was in charge of the family's herd. But the drought killed almost 100 of their cows, and only 50 sheep of their 300-strong flock survived. “The lands were left bare, with nothing for the cows to graze on," Oltinki said. “So, I decided to set aside a piece of land to rear fish and monitor how they would perform.” The county government supplied her with pond liners, tilapia fish fingerlings and some feed. Using her savings from membership in a cooperative society, Oltinki secured a loan and had a well dug to ease the challenge of water scarcity. After six months, the first batch of hundreds of fish was harvested, with the largest selling for up to 300 Kenyan shillings each ($2.30). Another member of the Maasai community in Kajiado, Philipa Leiyan, started farming fish in addition to keeping livestock. “When the county government introduced us to this fish farming project, we gladly received it because we considered it as an alternative source of livelihood," Leiyan said. The Kajiado government’s initiative started in 2014 and currently works with 600 pastoralists to help diversify their incomes and provide a buffer against the effects of climate change. There was initial reluctance, but the number of participants has grown from about 250 before the drought began in 2022. “The program has seen some importance,” said Benson Siangot, director of fisheries in Kajiado county, adding that it also addresses issues of food insecurity and malnutrition. The Maasai share their love for cattle with the Samburu, an ethnic group that lives in arid and semi-arid areas of northern Kenya and speaks a dialect of the Maa language that the Maasai speak. The recent drought has forced the Samburu to look beyond cattle, too — to camels. In Lekiji village, Abdulahi Mohamud now looks after 20 camels. The 65-year-old father of 15 lost his 30 cattle during the drought and decided to try an animal more suited to long dry spells. “Camels are easier to rear as they primarily feed on shrubs and can survive in harsher conditions," he said. “When the pasture dries out, all the cattle die.” According to Mohamud, a small camel can be bought for 80,000 to 100,000 Kenyan shillings ($600 to $770) while the price of a cow ranges from 20,000 to 40,000 ($154 to $300). He saw the camel's resilience as worth the investment. In a vast grazing area near Mohamud, 26-year-old Musalia Piti looked after his father’s 60 camels. The family lost 50 cattle during the drought and decided to invest in camels that they can sell whenever they need cattle for traditional ceremonies. Cows among the Samburu are used for dowries. “You have to do whatever it takes to find cattle for wedding ceremonies, even though our herds may be smaller nowadays," said Lesian Ole Sempere, a 59-year-old Samburu elder. Offering a cow as a gift to a prospective bride's parents encourages them to declare their daughter as “your official wife,” he said.