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African press review 23 February 2015

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President Jacob Zuma’s office has dismissed as gossip a South African Sunday Times report that his wife Nompumelelo Ntuli-Zuma try to poison him.

The Sunday Times reports that three sources, which the newspaper does not name, confirmed that Zuma became ill and was hospitalised in June last year. During a trip to the US two months later he learnt he had been poisoned.

Zuma apparently had the diagnosis confirmed by Russian doctors.

The newspaper reports that Ntuli-Zuma moved out of the family home at Nkandla in January and is living in Durban North with her three children. She is still entitled to benefits from the presidency’s spousal office as she and Zuma are not divorced.

The president’s brother Michael confirmed that Ntuli-Zuma had moved out "not long ago".

The week in South Africa is going to be dominated by the announcement of the budget on Wednesday afternoon.

On Tuesday morning, the opposition Democratic Alliance will present their view of the state of the country’s finances and suggest solutions.

According to the South AfricanStar, the family of a Nigerian church collapse victim has told the government that they will conduct their own DNA tests on the body returned to them, even if they have to go to court.

In a letter to the director-general of health, Lwandle Mkhulisi appeals to government officials to grant the family permission to have tests conducted to verify whether the body given to them two weeks ago is that of his sister, Patricia.

Patricia Mkhulisi was one of the 84 South Africans who lost their lives during the collapse of a hostel attached to the Nigerian Synagogue Church of All Nations in Lagos last September.

The front page of the Egypt Independent says that new US Defense Secretary Ash Carter is gathering top American military commanders and diplomats for talks in Kuwait later today about the battle against Islamic State in both Iraq and Syria.

Today's meeting at a US Army camp in Kuwait comes against the backdrop of a fierce debate inside the United States about American strategy, which President Obama's Republican critics say is far too limited militarily to succeed.

The Daily Nation in Kenya reports that seven suspected terrorists have, on two occasions, attempted to enter the country, claiming that they had been invited for socio-religious activities in Eastleigh, Nairobi.

The Indonesian embassy in Kenya has advised the authorities to investigate the activities of the group that was supposed to host them.

The embassy warned Kenya that the seven were from "a country with a large number of radicalised fighters in Syria and Iraq".

In Nigeria, The Guardian reports that malaria may soon become untreatable, due to a rising number of drug-resistant strains of the disease.

A study published yesterday in the respected medical journal, The Lancet, indicates that there is growing resistance of the malaria parasite to the World Health Organisation - endorsed drug of choice, artemisinin.

According to sister paper Punch, 76 per cent of Nigeria's 69 million registered voters had collected their voter cards for elections due on 28 March and 11 April.

In the Lagos-basedDaily Trust, we read that Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has described as treasonable insinuation a report that he was planning to put in place an interim national government.

The President spoke yesterday in Abuja at the opening of the Assembly of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference where he said the concept of an interim government was alien to the constitution.

The main opposition party, the All Progressives Congress, and some senators have alleged that the president, fearing that he will not win re-election, is trying to delay the vote and establish an interim government.

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