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Despite all his cunning, Mugabe knows that the game is up

Farai — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 12:16:41 +0000

Even Robert Mugabe’s fiercest critics concede that he is an astute and cunning politician. As such, he knows that the game is up. Yesterday he effectively admitted as much to the Zanu (PF) faithful.

Since the once all-powerful ruling party was forced into last year’s power-sharing agreement with the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), it has seen its remaining power and influence slowly ebb away.

It has no moral authority to govern. Everyone knows a few small but significant improvements, such as the first economic growth for 12 years and increased foreign aid, have come about as a result of an MDC hand on the finance ministry.

New HIV strain discovered in woman from Cameroon

Farai — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 12:15:18 +0000

A new strain of the virus that causes AIDS has been discovered in a woman from the African nation of Cameroon. It differs from the three known strains of human immunodeficiency virus and appears to be closely related to a form of simian virus recently discovered in wild gorillas, researchers report in Monday’s edition of the journal Nature Medicine.

The finding “highlights the continuing need to watch closely for the emergence for new HIV variants, particularly in western central Africa,” said the researchers, led by Jean-Christophe Plantier of the University of Rouen, France.

The three previously known HIV strains are related to the simian virus that occurs in chimpanzees.

Tsvangirai: Mugabe acrimony over

Farai — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 04:19:15 +0000

Zimbabwe Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has told the BBC the “acrimony is over” between him and President Robert Mugabe.

He made the remarks ahead of a tour of Europe and the US to garner support for his country’s four-month-old power-sharing government.

He is to meet UK PM Gordon Brown and US President Barack Obama, among others.

Man repeatedly rapes and kills a child in Mugabes home village

Farai — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 22:41:20 +0000

A post-mortem on the toddler showed that she sustained a fractured neck and bruises as a result of the alleged rape.

Where have all the farmers gone?

Farai — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 22:34:26 +0000

Following the worst wheat harvest since the independence war, bread has run out and sugar supplies are set to follow. USAid, the American government humanitarian agency, is warning that the country could run out of the maize, the staple food, by next month. Farming officials say the government’s stated aim of producing maize on 500,000 hectares this season is unattainable.

Out of Africa, Not Once But Twice

Farai — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 13:03:16 +0000

Modern humans are known to have left Africa in a wave of migration around 50,000 years ago, but another, smaller group — possibly a different subspecies — left the continent 50,000 years earlier, suggests a new study.

While all humans today are related to the second “out of Africa” group, it’s likely that some populations native to Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia retain genetic vestiges of the earlier migrants, according to the paper’s author, Michael Schillaci.

Schillaci, an assistant professor in the Department of Social Sciences at the University of Toronto, also found the earlier group of emigrants had some genetic similarity to Neanderthals, a hominid that left Africa much earlier, settling in Europe and parts of western and central Asia.