African press review 25 September 2015

Teachers are making the front pages in both Kenya and South Africa. The suspect weapons found earlier this week on a vessel in the port of Mombasa turn out to belong to the United Nations. And Hamas accuses Egypt of working to flood the few remaining tunnels linking the Gaza Strip to the outside world.

Teachers are much in the news this morning . . .

In Kenya, the Daily Nation reports that teachers on strike will not get this month’s salary.

The Teachers Service Commission was yesterday processing salaries for only those teachers whose names appeared on a list submitted by county directors of education.

The Standard reports that the Kenyan government can pay the salary increase demanded by teachers and validated by the courts without overshooting Budget limits.

The Parliamentary Budget Office says in its latest report that the government could afford to increase wages and end perennial industrial strikes if it cut down on wasteful spending.

In South Africa, the opposition Democratic Alliance has filed a complaint with the South African Human Rights Commission against the Democratic Teachers Union, alleging that the organisation is "violating children’s right to education".

This follows the union’s decision to boycott the annual national assessments, which are scheduled to take place in December.

The tests, introduced in 2011, are standardised national numeracy and literacy assessments.

Several teacher unions, including the National Professional Teachers Organisation of South Africa, argue that, in their current form, the assessments are not beneficial to pupils.

The Daily Nation also reports that suspect weapons seized on a vessel in the Kenyan port of Mombasa last week were destined for the United Nations mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

There had been suspicions that the weapons were destined for Juba in South Sudan.

A statement from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s office said the weapons were legitimate and declared cargo.

Regional paper The East African reports that global rights organisation Human Rights Watch has accused the Rwandan authorities of arbitrary arrests and unlawfully holding vulnerable people in an “unofficial” detention centre in the capital, Kigali.

In the report released yesterday, the New York-based group says detainees include street vendors, sex workers, beggars, homeless people and suspected petty criminals. The rights group says prisoners are ill-treated and are held in “deplorable” conditions.

The Kigali government has dismissed the report and accuses Human Rights Watch of running a consistent campaign against the government through biased reports and denying the authorities the right of reply.

Ugandan police have warned of a possible attack on mosques by Somalia's al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab militants and cautioned the public to be vigilant.

Police said they had received intelligence reports indicating al Shabaab was planning an attack in Kampala during today's Eid al-Adha holiday.

Uganda has issued frequent warnings of planned al Shabaab attacks since 2010 when twin bombings killed 79 people.

Al Shabaab claimed responsibility for those attacks, saying they were in revenge for Uganda's deployment of troops in Somalia.

The main story in the Egypt Independent says Iran has accused Saudi Arabia of safety errors after at least 43 of its citizens died yesterday in the stampede that killed several hundred pilgrims during the annual hajj ceremonies.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry says Saudi's envoy to Tehran will be asked to explain how the tagedy occurred.

The head of Iran's hajj organisation said that, for "unknown reasons," two paths had been closed off near the pilgrimage site where the stampede occurred.

Saudi's civil defence service has said at least 717 people were killed and hundreds injured.

Also in the Egypt Independent is a report that Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement that runs the Gaza Strip, yesterday accused Egypt of further besieging Gaza by flooding the border area to the south of the Palestinian enclave, which is already under an Israeli blockade.

Egypt has been carrying out engineering work in the area for several weeks. Palestinians believe the idea is to flood the last remaining tunnels between Gaza and Sinai, where jihadist fighters have been battling Egyptian forces.

Palestinians fear that such moves will further isolate Gaza, where more than 100,000 people were left homeless in last summer's war with Israel.

Egyptian officials have declined to comment on the work criticised by Hamas.