African press review 18 May 2018

South Africa's Parliament prepares to vote on motion downgrading Israeli mission from embassy to liaison office. Kenya loses 75 million euros in National Youth Service scam. And Sudanese teenage wife is sentenced to death for the murder of her rapist husband.

We begin in South Africa where Mail and Guardian reports the tabling on Thursday of a motion in the country's Parliament calling for South African embassy in Israel to be downgraded to a liaison office following the killing of at least 60 Palestinians in the past four days by Israeli soldiers at the Gaza border.

The newspaper quotes the leader of the National Freedom Party, Ahmed Shaik Emam who tabled the motion as saying that it was past time to dealing with what he called "the endless barbaric acts of terrorism perpetuated by the so-called "apartheid Israeli regime, against innocent Palestinians including women and children.

Mail and Guardian recalls that the ANC adopted a resolution to downgrade the South African embassy in Israel to a liaison at its 54th national conference in December 2017.

According to the publication, South Africa’s ambassador to Israel has already been recalled, with several non-governmental organizations, piling pressure on Pretoria to sever all diplomatic ties with Israel.

Kenya where Daily Nation leads with a still breaking scandal about the possible loss of up to Sh9 billion, (75.9 million euros), at the National Youth Service. The paper reports that investigations show that some of the firms most companies which walked away with more than Sh1 billion each from the government  neither submitted tenders for the provision of such services, neither had a list of its management nor websites.

According to the Nation, the scam may have been facilitated by a directive applying under President Uhuru Kenyatta administration, offering preferential treatment to companies owned by youth, women and people with disabilities to supply 30 per cent of government tenders.

Uganda's Daily Monitor spotlights on the ordeal of a Sudanese teenager sentenced to death last week for killing her husband, who allegedly raped her. The newspaper reports that the 19 year old Noura Hussein was forcibly married at the age of 16 stabbed her husband to death after he invited two of his brothers and a male cousin to help him rape her.

According to the Monitor the case of Noura Hussein, has triggered outrage around the world , focusing attention on issues facing women in Sudan where Islamic  laws allow children as young as 10 to be married and where women remain a target of tribal traditions which tolerate forced marriages and marital rape.

The Ugandan publication also reports that days after Noura Hussein's death sentence, another Sudanese woman was lashed 75 times at a police station in the Sudanese capital Khartoum after a court found her guilty of marrying without her father's approval.