In this week's Africa Media Watch: a top astrologer in Tanzania complains about falling standards in stargazing; students in Rwanda and Zanzibar face linguistic and agricultural obstacles to their studies; Kenyan doctors campaign for abortion reform; and a leading preacher in Ghana calls for a crusade against decadent youth.

But first, in the Alfred Hitchcock centenary year, the people of Port Harcourt in Nigeria are taking no chances with feathered friends or foes Birdman baffles police Police intervened at St Cyprian's Primary School when a vulture responded to playground taunts from the children by turning into an old man.

Eyewitnesses said the children had thrown stones to drive away the vulture when it landed in their yard, but fled when it spread its wings, became Man, and hobbled off towards the school gates.

According to the Vanguard newspaper, an angry crowd pelted the avian shapeshifter with sticks, stones and bottles until a police patrol, alerted to the commotion, ushered the old man into detention at Moscow Road Police Headquarters.

Police Public Relations Officer Abuwari Bereprebofa was at a loss to explain the man's behaviour.

"We have interviewed him but he has refused to talk, but merely spread his palms to any question thrown to him, so how can we establish if he was previously a vulture?" The man remained in detention for his own protection, as the crowd had followed him to the police HQ.

Language angst irks Rwandan students Security forces dispersed a protest in Kigali by English-speaking of the National University of Rwanda, the Institute of Higher Education and the Kigali Institute of Public Health.

Some of the more than 200 students told RNA news agency that they were protesting at having to attend lectures in French.

"We have the right to education and are willing to learn, but we cannot work in French because it is a language that is difficult for us and we have not had sufficient time to learn it," a student spokesman told RNA.

The security forces intervened forcefully when the demonstration headed for the prime minister's office, and beat up some of the students.

The commander of the Kigali brigade said "Our forces intervened because the town's security was threatened and the students had not obtained the authorization from the prefect of Kigali to demonstrate." The prefect himself said he had received an application to protest from the students, but that he had not had time to reply.

French-speaking students did not have a great deal of sympathy with their English-speaking colleagues, who they said had not shown any willingness to learn French despite educational programme set up to prepare them linguistically.

Moreover, French-speaking students still have 80 per cent of their lectures in English, RNA said.

Cloves close Zanzibar schools The deputy chief minister of Zanzibar showed more flexibility on schooling issues when he told Radio Tanzania that he had closed schools on the island of Zanzibar to let pupils help gather in the clove harvest.

Omar Ramadhan Mapuri, who is also education minister, said there was nothing new in this, as schools have been closed at parental request before in times of bumper harvests in the clove fields of Pemba.

Such a harvest is also expected this year, he said.

Kenya doctors back legalizing abortion The Kenyan Medical Association has called on the government to legalize abortion.

Association Chairman Dr Khama Rogo called Kenya's abortion law a "colonial legacy that has become obsolete even in the UK" .

Dr Rogo said the association had a responsibility to advise the public on health matters, no matter how unpalatable it was to some.

"Doing less than this would be tantamount to moral and professional abdication of responsibility," he said.

According to the Sunday Nation, the association urged the government, civil society and religious groups to review all the laws on reproduction to bring them "into tune with reality" .

At the moment abortion is only allowed if the health of the mother is in danger.

Drink makes men zombies, wail Kikuyu women Women in the Kikuyu division of Kiambu had other reproductive problems in mind when protesting about home-brewed alcohol.

They blocked the busy Nairobi-Nakuru road for an hour to demand tougher laws against moonshine.

"Some of the placards said that the women were being denied their conjugal rights as their husbands and sons had been reduced to zombies by the brews," the Sunday Standard reported.

This was the third protest in a week against the illegal distilleries.

Mary Wanjiru, the protest leader, said their daughters were being forced into adultery as their husbands sunk deeper into the embrace of kairasi, the local firewater.

Be clean, be pure, behave, blasts minister The Right Reverend Dr Sam Prempeh, Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, has called on all Ghanaians to join him in a "crusade against moral decadence among the youth" .

According to the Daily Graphic, he said young people these days are revelling in hard drugs and armed robbery, and that the country's future would look bleak unless something was done about it soon.

Speaking at a fund-raiser in Asante-Akim Odumasi for the local Presbyterian Primary School to mark the centenary of the church in Ghana, Dr Prempeh said that young people were the future leaders of the country, and therefore should be given the right type of training to enable them to become responsible citizens.

He called on adults to set an example by not spending money on litigation and unnecessary disputes between chieftains, but rather to channel it into local development projects.

Praise the Lord and pass the cashbox A group of fun-lovin' criminals in Kenya nonetheless found a way of pursuing their favourite pastime while making a loud noise unto the Lord.

The Daily Nation reported that six hymn-singing robbers took over a bank for three hours, robbing customers as they arrived.

They made off with more that nine million shillings - about 75,000 pounds - plus watches and jewellery.

Before leaving they invited their victims to a party at a city hotel to celebrate their new-found wealth.

To prove it they gave back 3,000 shillings to one the guards at the Mashreq Bank in central Nairobi, saying "He's a poor man and cannot afford to be robbed ." "Bizarrely, as they robbed bank workers and customers alike, they entertained them by singing hymns as they waited for their next victims to arrive," the Daily Nation remarked.

Veteran stargazer slams "incompetent" tyros Finally, Sheikh Yahya Hussein, one of Tanzania's leading astrologers, bewailed the swamping of his noble profession with untrained opportunists in an interview with the Dar es Salaam Daily Mail.

"Some of them merely copy previous years' predictions written by renowned astrologers," he complained.

They mix up witchcraft with the science of astrology, pay no attention to the all-important time of day when people are born, and have undergone none of the rigorous study that has made the Sheikh a best-selling author in Kenya, Swaziland and Botswana.

He said predictions vary in newspapers because of this lack of competence, and urged readers to stick to one proven astrologer in planning their lives.