African press review 22 September 2016

Botswana President Ian Khama thinks Robert Mugabe should have handed over power in Zimbabwe a long time ago. Is South Sudan's president guilty of war crimes? What does Nigeria need to do to boost economic growth? And what can the world do to fight the scourge of antibiotic-resistant infections?

Zimbabwe’s 92-year-old President Robert Mugabe should step aside without delay and allow new leadership of a country whose political and economic implosion since 2000 is dragging down the whole of southern Africa. That's the opinion of Botswana President Ian Khama, speaking in an interview published in today's South African BusinessDay.

The Johannesburg-based paper says Khama’s remarks are certain to raise hackles in Harare, where factions of Mugabe’s ruling ZANU-PF party are locked in a bitter struggle to succeed the only leader Zimbabwe has known.

Khama says Mugabe should have handed over the reins of power years ago.

Botswana, the world’s largest producer of diamonds, shares 800 km of border with Zimbabwe and has felt the effects of its neighbour’s economic collapse under the weight of political violence and hyperinflation.

Is Salva Kiir a war criminal?

The United States has hinted at the possibility of recalling its ambassador to South Sudan over the ongoing “documented” atrocities committed by the South Sudanese leadership. This is reported in the Sudan Tribune.

In a special hearing on the South Sudan crisis by the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in Washington, the committee chairman asked whether or not the South Sudanese president, Salva Kiir, should be declared a “war criminal” because of the atrocities.

One senator alleged that President Kiir had consolidated control after yet another contrived military action against his former deputy, Riek Machar. Kiir’s recent replacement of Machar with a poorly-supported opposition alternative invalidates the unity government and the August 2015 peace agreement, according to the same speaker.

The senators also blamed the United Nations peace keepers in the country for not doing enough to protect civilians from government forces.

Nigeria needs a change of economic policy to boost growth

In Nigeria, Punch newspaper quotes the former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria and Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, as saying that the country needs policies that will boost economic growth.

The emir, who was recently in Rome for Pope Francis’ meeting with religious leaders and refugees on the occasion of the Assisi Peace Day, also stated that most of the religious crises being experienced in the country and the world at large had their roots in poor economic policies and bad governance.

Global war against antibiotic-resistant infections

The Kenyan Daily Nation gives pride of place to a story headlined "UN mobilises to stop super-bugs resistant to antibiotics".

The report says the United Nations yesterday launched a global effort to fight so-called super-bugs that resist antibiotics, warning of a mounting death toll without more research.

Government leaders at the meeting signed an agreement that called for more research and controls on antibiotics, improved public awareness and more consideration of alternative treatments.

The statement also called on each country to come up with its own national action plan on super-bugs within the next year.

Super-bugs -- or bacteria that cannot be treated by the current crop of antibiotics and other drugs -- could kill up to 10 million people around the world by 2050, as many as cancer, according to a recent British study.

Already some 230,000 newborns die each year from infections that cannot be treated with antibiotics, according to UN estimates.

Presidential interview mix-up in Egypt

The Cairo-based Egypt Independent reports that the head of the national television and radio news service has been sacked for mistakenly broadcasting an old interview with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi instead of a new interview recorded this week.

The organisation apologized for its mistake in airing an interview with Sisi made last year with the US-based PBS correspondent Margaret Warner, which was recorded 12 months ago on the occasion of the 70th United Nations General Assembly.

The new interview, recorded by PBS on Monday, should have been broadcast instead, on the occasion of the 71st UN General Assembly, which Sisi is attending in New York.