Skip to main content

African press review 26 August 2014

Liberia's politics and food reserves are suffering from the health crisis, Kenya opens an investigation into a police shooting and Uganda is worried about a mountain collapsing.

Advertising

Front Page Africa reports that the Liberian government is cracking under the strain of the Ebola virus.

Political leaders are leaving the country due to the health scare.

In reaction Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has issued a statement saying all members of government will be dismissed unless they return to the country within a week. It appears that the Iron Lady, as Sirleaf has come to be known, needs all her team around her to get through the crisis.

According to Front Page Africa though, many members of the administration are currently in the United States with little intention of returning until the Ebola outbreak has died down.

Front Page says a top official resigned last week and two more are poised to exit - this may be the beginning of a wave of resignations that would leave Sirleaf out in the cold.

Still in Liberia New Dawn reports that the Ebola outbreak has worsened the country's food crisis: Liberia usually imports food from nearby countries like Sierra Leone, Guinea and the Ivory Coast but these have all shut their borders because of the virus.

The paper is looking ahead to what a post-Ebola Liberia will look like and says developing national agriculture is the only solution. The daily says the president has called for all Liberians to go back to their fields. Sirleaf sees the current regional disconnect “as an example” for everybody to "make farms."

In Kenya Standard Digital reports on outrage near Mombasa, where a teenage girl was shot dead by police officers last week. The Standard says the girl was killed as the police raided her house - and she was immediately buried. The community was in shock with local human rights organisations also rallying to the 14-year-old's cause.

The Standard says police are still clinging to the theory that the girl was killed when she attacked the policemen with a machete.

Officers claimed they had killed her in self-defence, because she stopped them from arresting her uncle, who was a murder suspect. But relatives said the girl was shot in bed and that police fired multiple rounds. Authorities have opened an investigation into the event in response to the outcry.

In eastern Uganda authorities are concerned that a mountain may collapse. That's what the Daily Monitor is reporting - as people have noticed cracks running across Mount Elgon, an extinct volcano on the border with Kenya.

This comes two years after national environmental agencies discovered a 40-kilometre ravine that potentially threatens the lives of thousands of people.

Hundreds of people died in mudslides some years ago and many fear that with recent heavy rains this may happen again. The Monitor reports that the government is currently in the last stages of resettling all the residents of the mountain.

New Vision says Uganda has run into a little census trouble. The country is launching a national census starting this week. The population is estimated to have grown by 24 million since the last census 12 years ago.

The counting process starts on Thursday but many have expressed concern, according to New Vision, that the government would be counting people while they’re in their bed.

But the paper puts these fears to rest - although it's called a census night, no one will be actually counting the population after dark. Instead officials will be just in time for breakfast, to ask who slept in the home they are visiting the previous night.
 

Daily newsletterReceive essential international news every morning

Keep up to date with international news by downloading the RFI app

Share :
Page not found

The content you requested does not exist or is not available anymore.