Editor's Review

  • Raila met the ambassador to discuss various global issues. 
  • The meeting comes after an American company announced that its vaccine was more than 90% successful. 

ODM leader Raila Odinga on Tuesday held talks with China's ambassador to Kenya Zhou Pingjian over various issues. 

Notably, Raila briefed the Chinese official about the BBI report and how it will benefit the country.

The two leaders also talked about the coronavirus vaccine's search and the just concluded U.S presidential election. 

During the meeting, the Chinese ambassador reiterated his country's commitment to taking the lead in the search for a safe and effective vaccine and making it affordable and available to Africa.

"The world needs a speedy return to multilateralism and co-operation in managing global affairs, including COVID-19 and climate change," Raila said.

The meeting comes even as the U.S leading pharmaceutical company Pfizer revealed that its vaccine was more than 90% effective.

China is among countries that have been leading the way in coming up with a vaccine.

However, critics have termed the Chinese vaccine not safe for not undergoing all the necessary trials before approval. 

As the special envoy for AU under infrastructure, Raila welcomed China to scale up its support for infrastructure development in Kenya and Africa.

On the progress of implementing the BBI report, Raila noted that significant changes wouldn't be introduced to the report ahead of the planned referendum. 

This comes even as several groups have shown displeasure with the final copy of the report demanding changes before moving to the next stage. 

"The report is basically done and there is little likelihood that new ideas will be pushed into it. However, there are groups that feel their views were not captured in the manner they were presented during the collection of views and those are the corrections we are promising to make," Raila said.