African press review 7 December 2016

Patients are dying as the doctors strike continues in Kenya. South Africa's Jacob Zuma is to have another meeting with the ruling party's integrity committee. The Pretoria government says the opposition effort to reverse the decision to withdraw from the International Criminal Court is premature.

The doctors strike in Kenya is entering its third day. Related stories dominate the front pages of the Nairobi dailies.

The main headline in the Daily Nation reads "Despair, pain as doctors strike continues".

Related stories in the Nation say talks between strikers and the government are deadlocked and that Kenya's hospitals are turning into "factories of death and pain".

The Nairobi-based paper says at least 19 patients have died while waiting for treatment because of the dispute.

The Standard says the government remains silent as the strike continues.

Doctors want payment of a 300 percent salary increment, as stipulated in a collective bargaining agreement signed in 2013.

The doctor-patient ratio in Kenya currently stands at 17 doctors for every 100,000 people, well below the World Health Organisation recommendation of 100 doctors for every 100,000 people.

Silence on ANC committee's first Zuma hearing

South African president Jacob Zuma is going to have to face another meeting with the ruling ANC's integrity committee.

The story is on the front page of the Johannesburg-based financial paper BusinessDay.

The president was called before the committee last Saturday but no details have emerged of what was discussed.

BusinessDay says that speculation before Saturday’s meeting was that Zuma faced tough questions in connection with former public protector Thuli Madonsela’s report suggesting there may have been some truth to allegations of interference in the running of the state by the controversial Gupta family thanks to their close links with Zuma.

The public protector's report called for the president to institute a judicial commission of inquiry, a move which he has so far resisted.

Government slams opposition move on ICC withdrawal

BusinessDay also reports the attempt by the opposition Democratic Alliance to get the High Court in Pretoria to declare unlawful the government’s decision to withdraw from the International Criminal Court.

Yesterday lawyers for the government said the opposition effort was premature and unsound, since the decision to leave will be debated in parliament and will not, in any case, become effective before October 2017.

South Africa sent the United Nations a formal declaration of its intention to withdraw from the Hague-based court in October.

LRA leader pleads not guilty

A trial at the International Criminal Court dominates the front page of regional paper the East African.

Yesterday Dominic Ongwen, a former commander of the Ugandan rebel group the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), pleaded not guilty to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Ongwen faces 70 counts related to atrocities committed by the LRA in northern and eastern Uganda.

The charges include murder, enslavement, inhuman acts, the cruel treatment of civilians, intentionally directing an attack against a civilian population, rape, pillaging, torture and sexual slavery.

Ongwen said he was himself a victim of LRA atrocities and denies personal responsibility. He claims that he was himself abducted by the LRA when he was 14-years-old.

The court rejected a claim by the defence team that Ongwen was psychologically incapable of understanding the charges against him.

South Sudan conflict fuelling spread of Aids

The United Nations says the conflict between pro-government forces and rebels is fuelling the spread of HIV/Aids in South Sudan.

A statement fron the world body yesterday said that the displacement of populations in parts of South Sudan adversely affected HIV/Aids treatment and response, while worsening the vulnerability of women and girls to infection.

Statistics indicate there are 179,000 HIV-positive people in South Sudan, with 19,500 receiving treatment.

The UN statement said the prevalence of HIV was highest in the greater Equatoria region, where fighting and insecurity have escalated since July 2016, displacing thousands of people.

Museveni and World Bank agree to cut the cost of juice

The main story in the Ugandan Daily Monitor reports that President Yoweri Museveni and a team from World Bank’s International Finance Corporation, have agreed to further discussions on the prospects of lowering the cost of power generated at the Bujagali dam.

The resolution was reached yesterday during a meeting at State House in Entebbe between the president and a team led by IFC’s regional director for east and southern Africa Cheikh Oumar. The International Finance Corporation is an arm of the World Bank Group that offers investment, advisory and asset management services to encourage the private sector in developing countries.

Egyptian prosecutor in Rome to review Regeni murder case

The top story in the Cairo-based Egypt Independent reports that the country's Public Prosecutor travelled yesterday to the Italian capital, Rome, to review the latest developments in the investigations into the murder of the Italian researcher Giulio Regeni in Cairo.

Regeni, a 28-year-old Italian PhD student at Cambridge University, disappeared in Cairo on 25 January 2016, the fifth anniversary of the 2011 uprising.

Ten days later, his body was found dumped on the Cairo-Alexandria Desert Road, bearing apparent signs of torture.

Egypt and Italy have been at loggerheads since the student's death. After months of disagreement over the conduct of investigations into his death, the Italian parliament voted to halt supplies of spare parts for F-16 fighter jets to Egypt, a move that Egypt said could harm bilateral cooperation in a number of military and security fields.