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African press review 21 November 2014

Nigerian police teargas opposition MPs. Sata's widow joins the race for leader of Zambia's ruling party. Crocodiles claim their 30th victim in Uganda. SA's drink habit is bad news for its citzens' sex lives. And a 70-year-old Kenyan woman breaks stones to stay alive.

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We begin with a media buzz in Nigeria about a security siege at the National Assembly Thursday following an attempt to stop Speaker of the House of Representatives Aminu Tambuwal from presiding over a session to impeach President Goodluck Jonathan, on the basis of accusations that he is sabotaging the anti-Boko Haram war.

Punch reports that riot police teargassed opposition lawmakers and several tabloids publish pictures of boubou-dressed MPs scaling over the fence of the parliamentary complex in Abuja.

The Nigerian Tribune explains that there has been crisis in the House since Tambuwal defected from the PDP to the All Progressives Congress on 28 October. The ruling Peoples Democratic Party, it says, has since declared his new status incompatible with the House speaker’s position which must be held by an official of the ruling party, as stipulated in the constitution.

ThisDay reports that the Senate President David Mark has ordered the National Assembly to be shut down until next Tuesday in the wake of the pandemonium.

More than 120 lawmakers have reportedly signed the impeachment notice, according to the Nation which claims that many more rebels are expected to ink the motion when the House reconvenes in December.

Mail and Guardian reports that the battle for Zambia’s presidency has became a family affair after late leader Michael Sata’s widow Christine Kaseba joined two close relatives also running for the ruling Patriotic Front party’s top job. They are Sata’s stepson Mulenga the current Mayor of Lusaka and his nephew Miles Sampa, who is a deputy trade minister in the current cabinet. The country, currently under the transitional rule of Sub-Saharan Africa’s first white vice-president, is set to go to the polls on 20 January.

According to the Mail and Guardian, Christine Kaseba Sata has said that, while she is still mourning her husband who was buried last week, the pain of seeing her husband’s work uncompleted would be more excruciating.

The Sowetan expresses revulsion at news that a crocodile killed and ate a pregnant woman on the shores of a lake in north-eastern Uganda  on Thursday.

It quotes a senior wildlife official claiming that the young woman was collecting firewood on the shores of Lake Kyoga when the crocodile jumped out of the water and pulled her in, making her the 30th victim of such reptile attacks in the east African nation this year.

The Johannesburg Star deserves to be guillotined for breaking some news that its readers certainly won’t like: the findings of a new survey showing that South African men are kings of drink and droop.

The study carried out by Pharma Dynamics, a generics pharmaceutical firm specialising in men's sexual health, found that 44 per cent of the country's men could be at risk of erectile dysfunction because of excessive drinking. The findings come on the heels of a World Health Organisation report on alcohol and health, which classifies South Africa as the country with the highest alcohol consumption rate in Africa.

Kenya’s Standard digital newspaper profiles 70-year-old Philister Juma from Kisumu County who is crushing stones to earn a living. The paper reports that Juma started the business about a decade ago after her only son died, leaving her wallowing in grief a few years after losing her husband.

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