Attorney General Amos Wako told journalists that he received the U.S. notification Wednesday. He said one of the reasons given for the ban was his alleged involvement “in corrupt actions which have adversely affected the national interests of the United States.”

Wako said, “In view of the reasons given, which are defamatory, it is my intention to seek legal advice with a view of instituting legal proceedings.”

He is Kenya’s longest-serving attorney general. In his 18-year tenure, Kenya has seen huge corruption scandals and repeated political violence, incidents that Wako has been accused by government inquiries of not aggressively prosecuting.

Last week, the top U.S. diplomat for Africa, Johnnie Carson, announced the visa ban but said the official, who was not named at the time, had not been informed because the paperwork hadn’t been completed. Carson said three other officials may face similar travel bans.

There’s no question that weapons sales around the region are soaring. They almost doubled in just five years, from $24 billion in 2003 to $47 billion last year, according to one report by Colombian analyst Javier Loaiza. Others put the 2008 total at $60 billion.

U.S. government officials are monitoring the deals with a level of concern but avoid the term ``arms race.’’ One said he preferred to call it a ``coincidental modernization of existing stocks’’ to reflect the absence so far of widespread tit-for-tat arms purchases.

``They’re buying big-ticket items but the data shows we’re not yet at an arms race,’’ said one top Obama administration official who monitors Latin America. Only four countries account for 80 percent of all the arms purchases — Brazil, Venezuela, Chile and Colombia — and 80-85 percent of the region’s military expenditures go to salaries and pensions, not weapons, added the official, who asked for anonymity to speak frankly on the issue.

It paves the way for a cure for infertility and could help those left sterile by cancer treatment to have children who are biologically their own.

But it raises a number of moral and ethical concerns. These include the possibility of children being born through entirely artificial means, and men and women being sidelined from the process of making babies.

Drugs too are sold here openly. Not speed or cocaine, but Viagra — or at least diamond-shaped, blue pills that resemble the real thing. After dark, one aging female vendor displays dingy Viagra boxes at her stall to attract customers.

When a man shows interest, she dispatches a teenage runner to retrieve the pills from a secret location nearby. The price: $6 per tablet, $4 cheaper than the average U.S. cost.

Despite five war councils in two weeks, President Barack Obama has so far failed to come up with a strategy for the conflict that may define his presidency. Fierce infighting continues between his own generals and advisers.

Obama has been handed three options by General Stanley McChrystal, commander of the US forces in Afghanistan. These range from 20,000 to 60,000 more troops, which would almost double the US military presence. McChrystal is said to favour an increase of 40,000 men, without which he warns the mission will fail.

The latest calamity brought the death toll to more than 450 from the Philippines’ worst flooding in 40 years after back-to-back storms started pounding the country’s north Sept. 26.

“Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future,” the committee said. “His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population.”

Obama’s name had been mentioned in speculation before the award but many Nobel watchers believed it was too early to award the president.

The committee said it attached special importance to Obama’s vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.