March 27, 2014
From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Motshabi Hoaeane.
Making headlines:

Public Protector Thuli Madonsela stands her ground on the Nkandla report.

Guinea says it has contained an Ebola outbreak, but death toll rises.

And, leading Kenyan MP says homosexuality is 'as serious as terrorism'.

 

Public Protector Thuli Madonsela stood her ground regarding her handling of the Nkandla report, amid attacks by ANC chief whip Stone Sizani in Parliament on Wednesday. Sizani accused Madonsela of overstepping her mark at a media briefing in Parliament on Wednesday.

He said Madonsela was obliged to submit her report to Parliament and suggested that by waiting for a presidential response, she was flouting her accountability to the legislature.

However, Madonsela said she merely followed the law.

Public Protector spokesperson Oupa Segalwe said in a statement that the Speaker had not requested the Public Protector to submit the report in terms of the Public Protector Act and neither had the Chairperson of the National Council of Provinces (or NCOP). He added that the Public Protector would dispatch the report should it be requested by the speaker or the chairperson of the NCOP.
 

Authorities in Guinea said on Wednesday they stopped an outbreak of deadly Ebola fever from spreading beyond the country's remote south-east, although the number of deaths from suspected infections rose to at least 63.

UN agencies and medical charities such as Doctors Without Borders (or MSF) have scrambled to help Guinea – one of the world's poorest countries – cope with the virus, amid fears it might spill across borders into neighbouring West African nations.

Liberia, which shares a border with south-eastern Guinea, this week reported five deaths from suspected infections of people who had come across the frontier to seek treatment. Sierra Leone also uncovered two deaths in the border town of Boidu suspected to be linked to Ebola, one of the most lethal infectious diseases known to man.

An MSF spokesperson said the number of suspected infections had risen by just two from Tuesday to 88, according to government figures. Four more people died, however, bringing the death toll to 63.

 

Homosexuality in Kenya is as bad a problem as terrorism, the ruling party's Parliamentary leader said on Wednesday, falling short, however, of arguing that legal sanctions be stepped up on the grounds that existing laws were tough enough.

Aden Duale, the majority leader from President Uhuru Kenyatta's ruling Jubilee coalition, was responding to a group of MPs demanding tougher laws.

Duale, who speaks on behalf of the Kenyan government in the assembly, said the government needed to go on and address this issue with the same enthusiasm with which it addressed terrorism.

"It's as serious as terrorism. It's as serious as any other social evil," Duale said, referencing a spate of attacks by al Qaeda-linked Somali Islamist militants carried out in retaliation for Kenya's intervention in neighbouring Somalia.

However, he said the Kenyan Constitution and the penal code already had sufficient anti-gay provisions, denying the government was reluctant to tighten such laws for fear of losing international aid as had befallen Uganda

 

Also making headline:

Britain’s climate change chief urges South Africa to accelerate solar power-harnessing efforts.

Egypt's Abdel Fattah al-Sisi declares his candidacy for the presidential election and vows to tackle militancy.

And, Zimbabwe says it won’t slash its public sector wage bill to meet debt-reduction plans agreed with the International Monetary Fund because it will involve too many job cuts.
 

That's a roundup of news making headlines today.