Since I was six months old, I was a fan of Michael Jackson. He was the best. I just can't describe how I felt when I heard the news of his death...............

We give flowers to others to make them feel special on important occassions. And yes, selling flowers is also a source of livelihood. But lets give plants instead; they stay alive longer, spread greenery and contribute (even if in a small way) to the healthy environment! Let us spread the culture of "Give a plant as a gift!"

Go to http://commit.tigweb.org/1101
and join the commitment. and Lets fill up the photo gallery with photos that reflect our vision for the greener world!

LUSAKA— The Netherlands and Sweden have frozen $33 million in aid for Zambia's fight against HIV/AIDS and other health programmes because of official corruption, ministers said on Thursday.

Finance Minister Situmbeko Musokotwane and Health Minister Kapembwa Simbao told a news conference the decision was made after it emerged that senior health ministry officials had stolen $2 million.

"The total sum of money withheld is $33 million out of a total donor support of $120 million for the whole of 2009. The government deeply regrets the suspension of money for a sector that assists the poorest of the poor," Musokotwane said. The freeze will mainly affect health programmes in rural areas.

Zambia has vowed to stamp out corruption, in a programme closely watched by donors. State media reported that 20 senior officials in the ministry of health had been suspended and barred from entering their offices to prevent them from tampering with evidence.

Zambian President Rupiah Banda's office said the funds were stolen through a syndicate of payments to companies that were registered to deliver goods and services to the ministry of health but failed to do so.

Civic groups and opposition leaders accuse Banda of taking a low-key approach to fighting corruption. His late predecessor Levy Mwanawasa earned praise from Western donors for his anti-corruption efforts.

Treasury statistics show that one in every five Zambians carries the HIV virus or has full blown AIDS in a country of 12 million people, and malaria kills thousands of people a year.

"With the delay in funding, we will have a shortfall of 24 billion kwacha each month and this will mostly affect rural districts, which receive 16 billion of this money. Most of this money goes to hospitals and you can see how difficult it will be for patients," Simbao said.

"Various programmes such as HIV/AIDS and malaria will be affected by this suspension in funding," he added.

Obama, along with his wife, Michelle, will visit Accra, Ghana, on July 10 and July 11, the White House said Saturday. It will follow Obama's trip to the G8 summit in L'Aquila, Italy, from July 8 to July 10.

Obama will address various bilateral and regional issues with Ghanaian President John Atta Mills, the White House said in a news statement.

"The President and Mrs. Obama look forward to strengthening the U.S. relationship with one of our most trusted partners in sub-Saharan Africa, and to highlighting the critical role that sound governance and civil society play in promoting lasting development," according to the statement.

Obama announced a week ago that he will visit Egypt on June 4 to deliver a speech on America's relationship with the Muslim world.

Egypt is "a country that in many ways represents the heart of the Arab world," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said at the time.

Gibbs deflected several questions at his daily briefing about whether Egypt is a wise choice given President Hosni Mubarak's resistance to making his government more democratic.

Obama originally promised to deliver the speech during his first 100 days, but senior administration officials say the date slipped in part because of security and logistical issues.

Obama has visited Africa before as a senator. In 2006, he received a hero's welcome in his father's native Kenya.

Before the G8 summit, the president is scheduled to travel to Moscow from July 6 to July 8 at the invitation of Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev.

The G8 is made up of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, England and the United States.

All the teenage members out here, how many of you would like to write for a new online literary e-zine? Please reply back. I have got a plan....................and even those who write for teenagers but are adults themselves , please reply.

Madonna's appeal of a court ruling denying her request to adopt a 3-year-old girl from Malawi will be heard next month, a court official said Monday.

The pop star is not required to be present for the appeal, which may last two weeks.

Joseph Chigona, Registrar of the High Court and the Supreme Court of Appeal, said the case will come before three judges from the Supreme Court of Appeal on May 4.

"As with all court cases involving infants, this one will be in chambers, not in an open court," Chigona said.

Madonna has said she still wants to adopt Chifundo "Mercy" James. The singer has already adopted a son, David, from Malawi, a poor country in southern Africa.

Malawi requires prospective parents to live in the country for 18 to 24 months while child welfare authorities assess their suitability - a rule that was not applied when Madonna was allowed to take David to London in 2006.

Madonna's Malawian lawyer, Alan Chinula, said he was hopeful the appeal would succeed.

"We believe the lower court judge erred by basing her judgment on an archaic law of over 50 years ago," he said.

The judge in the lower court said Madonna's previous adoption was the only case in which the residency requirement had been waived, and said she was concerned that doing so again could set a precedent that could jeopardize children.

The judge said she was not questioning Madonna's intentions, and praised the work the singer's charity has done to feed, educate and provide medical care for Malawi's orphans.

Madonna recently told a newspaper in Malawi that she wants to educate Mercy and empower her to help people in Malawi.

"I want to provide Mercy with a home, a loving family environment and the best education and health care possible," she said in an e-mailed response to questions from the Nation. "And it's my hope that she, like David, will one day return to Malawi and help the people of their country."

THE Government has said the International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s approval of financing amounting to more than US$250 million will help Zambia stabilise the Kwacha and enable businesses to plan ahead.

And the Economics Association of Zambia (EAZ) separately said the release of the money would help reduce speculation on the shortage of foreign exchange and build investor confidence in the Zambian economy as the world goes through a financial crisis.

Finance and National Planning Minister, Situmbeko Musokotwane, said the Government was happy that the IMF had already started disbursing the money.

“We are happy that the IMF has approved the $256 million and has since disbursed about $160 million. This is an indication of the partners’ commitment to seeing to it that the country’s economy improves,” he said.

Dr Musokotwane said in Lusaka yesterday that the financial assistance from the IMF would assist the country strengthen and stabilise the local currency, which had lately tumbled against the major currencies.

Dr Musokotwane said the money would also assist in the poverty reduction programmes and address other challenges the country was facing.

He explained that the fluctuation of the Kwacha was a result of the fall of copper prices on the international market and that the Government had no doubt that the situation would be reversed.

He said the Governments was ready to continue maintaining its prudent macro-economic policies and pursing structural reforms to sustain the country’s economic growth.

The minister assured that the Government would ensure that the approved funds were put to good use.

It is for this reason that the Government is moving away from dependence on copper and has identified other sectors to assist sustain the country’s economy.

Dr Musokotwane further called for participation of all Zambians and other stakeholders as the country works towards economic recovery.
He described the recently held IMF executive board meeting as a success.

He said it was during the same meeting with IMF deputy managing director and acting chair, Takatoshi Kato that it was noted that Zambia’s Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) Programme implementation and the recent economic performance had been adversely affected by a number of external shocks, hence the approval of the funds.

The executive board on Friday last week approved an increase by $256.4 million, to $329.7 million in financial support to Zambia under the PRGF.

The board also completed the first and second reviews of Zambia’s economic performance under the PRGF arrangement, allowing the immediate disbursement of $160.1 million and bringing total disbursements to $170.6 million.

Last year the IMF approved a three-year PRGF arrangement for Zambia in an amount equivalent to $79.2 million in support of the country’s economic policies aimed at alleviating poverty and sustaining growth.

The decision enabled Zambia to request the first disbursement of an amount equivalent to $11.3 million.

EAZ president, Mwilola Imakando, said in an interview that the release of the funding was good for business and showed that the IMF had confidence in the Zambian Government.

Zambia Association of Manufacturers president, Dev Babbar welcomed the IMF decision to approve and release the funds at a time when the global financial crisis had hit the country’s manufacturers negatively.

Here in the heart of Africa's copper belt, last year's high commodities prices meant regular chicken dinners for the family of Hurryton Mwanza.

But the 39-year-old miner lost his job when the town's foreign-owned copper mine shut down in January. Mr. Mwanza pulled his eight-year-old daughter out of private school, and is expecting an eviction notice from the landlord of his two-room apartment. He gets by selling cooking oil from a wooden market stall. These days, dinners for the family are only nshima, a cheap staple made of corn flour.

"We've got no other solution," he says. "No other source of income."

Over the past decade, as a commodities boom boosted growth across poverty-stricken sub-Saharan Africa, governments, donors and aid groups watched and hoped it meant the start of a more prosperous era. But now the commodities downturn is walloping big swaths of the continent, ending an unprecedented period of optimism in resource-rich countries across Africa.

In the good times, Zambia's Copperbelt province flourished. Rural towns blossomed and prospered, sustained by foreign-owned mining companies and the handsome salaries they provided.

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Since the January closing of the copper mine in Luanshya, Zambia, brick makers who had struggled to keep up with booming construction demand have lost most of their customers.
Sarah Childress / The Wall Street Journal

Since the January closing of the copper mine in Luanshya, Zambia, brick makers who had struggled to keep up with booming construction demand have lost most of their customers.
Since the January closing of the copper mine in Luanshya, Zambia, brick makers who had struggled to keep up with booming construction demand have lost most of their customers.
Since the January closing of the copper mine in Luanshya, Zambia, brick makers who had struggled to keep up with booming construction demand have lost most of their customers.

The Zambian government didn't take advantage of the boom to diversify its economy or save for a rainy day. It lost out on a large share of copper revenue by offering lucrative concessions to mining companies. When the mines began to pull out, Zambia's foreign-exchange flows dwindled, depreciating its currency, the kwacha. The International Monetary Fund is considering a $200 million loan to boost the country's foreign-exchange reserves, on top of a $79 million loan approved in June.

"The copper industry is dominant," says David Punabantu, a Lusaka-based economist. "So when the price of copper went down, the economy was literally dead."

Zambia is working to find new investors to take over the closed Luanshya mine. Maxwell Mwale, minister of mines and minerals development, says that several companies are interested and that he hopes to have the mine back in business by May.

The government also said it will boost its stake in mines across the country's copper-producing region so it will have more control over Zambia's economic mainstay in future crises.

"Mining cannot be left to commodities traders," Mr. Mwale says. "It's not for speculators, but for those who understand the mining business. That's the lesson the government has learned."

The carnage isn't uniform across sub-Saharan Africa. The price of gold, a plentiful commodity in many of Africa's mining-dependent economies, has soared as global investors rush to safety. And some of the continent's economies -- even those most exposed to commodities -- are better off than they were in the aftermath of an earlier boom in the 1980s because of measures they took during the good years.

HOW SWINE FLU OUTBREAK EMERGED

Flu viruses in different species
Flu viruses mutate over time causing small changes to proteins on their surface called antigens. If the immune system has met a particular strain of the virus before, it is likely to have some immunity; but if the antigens are new to the immune system, it will be weakened.

Flu virus mutation
The influenza A virus can mutate in two different ways; antigenic drift, in which existing antigens are subtly altered, and antigenic shift, in which two or more strains combine. Antigenic drift causes slight flu mutations year on year, from which humans have partial, but not complete, immunity. By contrast, the new strain of H1N1 appears to have originated via antigenic shift in Mexican pigs

Antigenic shift in pigs
The name "swine flu" is a slight misnomer as it is believed pigs acted as a mixing pot for several flu strains, containing genetic material from pigs, birds and humans. Most humans have never been exposed to some of the antigens involved in the new strain of flu, giving it the potential to cause a pandemic.

Virus transmission to humans
The new virus has made the jump from pigs to humans and has demonstrated it can also pass from human to human. This is why it is demanding so much attention from health authorities. The virus passes from human to human like other types of flu, either through coughing, sneezing, or by touching infected surfaces, although little is known about how the virus acts on humans.

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Cases of swine flu, which has killed people in Mexico, have been confirmed around the world. With experts scrambling to develop a vaccine, there is concern at the potential for a pandemic affecting millions of people.

What is swine flu?

Swine flu is a respiratory disease, caused by influenza type A which infects pigs.

There are many types, and the infection is constantly changing.

Until now it has not normally infected humans, but the latest form clearly does, and can be spread from person to person - probably through coughing and sneezing.

What is new about this type of swine flu?

The World Health Organization has confirmed that at least some of the human cases are a never-before-seen version of the H1N1 strain of influenza type A.


SWINE FLU - THE BASICS
Symptoms usually similar to seasonal flu - but deaths recorded in Mexico
It is a new version of the H1N1 strain which caused the 1918 flu pandemic
Too early to say whether it will lead to a pandemic
Current treatments do work, but there is no vaccine
Good personal hygiene, such as washing hands, covering nose when sneezing advised

H1N1 is the same strain which causes seasonal outbreaks of flu in humans on a regular basis.

But this latest version of H1N1 is different: it contains genetic material that is typically found in strains of the virus that affect humans, birds and swine.

Flu viruses have the ability to swap genetic components with each other, and it seems likely that the new version of H1N1 resulted from a mixing of different versions of the virus, which may usually affect different species, in the same animal host.

Pigs provide an excellent 'melting pot' for these viruses to mix and match with each other.

How dangerous is it?

Symptoms of swine flu in humans appear to be similar to those produced by standard, seasonal flu.

These include fever, cough, sore throat, body aches, chills and fatigue.

It is worth remembering that seasonal flu often poses a serious threat to public health: each year it kills 250,000 - 500,000 around the world.

So far, most cases of swine flu around the world appear to be mild, albeit with diarrhoea more common than it is with seasonal flu.

But lives have been lost in Mexico, and a single death - of a Mexican child - has been confirmed in the US.

How worried should people be?

When any new strain of flu emerges that acquires the ability to pass from person to person, it is monitored very closely in case it has the potential to spark a global epidemic, or pandemic.


FLU PANDEMICS
1918: The Spanish flu pandemic remains the most devastating outbreak of modern times. Caused by a form of the H1N1 strain of flu, it is estimated that up to 40% of the world's population were infected, and more than 50 million people died, with young adults particularly badly affected

1957: Asian flu killed two million people. Caused by a human form of the virus, H2N2, combining with a mutated strain found in wild ducks. The impact of the pandemic was minimised by rapid action by health authorities, who identified the virus, and made vaccine available speedily. The elderly were particularly vulnerable

1968: An outbreak first detected in Hong Kong, and caused by a strain known as H3N2, killed up to one million people globally, with those over 65 most likely to die

The World Health Organization has warned that swine flu could potentially trigger a global pandemic, and stresses that the situation is serious.

However, experts say it is still too early to accurately assess the situation fully.

Currently, they say the world is closer to a flu pandemic than at any point since 1968 - upgrading the threat from four to five on a six-point scale following a meeting on 29 April.

This means all governments have to mobilise their pandemic flu plans.

So far, more than 1,000 cases of the virus have been reported in 20 countries.

However, the UN says it has seen no evidence of a spread at community level in Europe and Asia - a development that would trigger the highest level of alert.

Nobody knows the full potential impact of a pandemic, but experts have warned that it could cost millions of lives worldwide. The Spanish flu pandemic, which began in 1918, and was also caused by an H1N1 strain, killed millions of people.

WHO chief Margaret Chan has said the present situation is different to that of 1918.

There is hope that, as humans are often exposed to forms of H1N1 through seasonal flu, our immune systems may have something of a head start in fighting infection.

However, the fact that many of the victims are young does point to something unusual. Normal, seasonal flu tends to affect the elderly disproportionately.

Is Mexico different?

The death toll in Mexico - where the virus at present seems to producing much more severe symptoms - suggests there may be unusual factors coming into play there.

Some experts have suggested the possibility that other, unrelated viruses may also be circulating in Mexico, making symptoms worse.

Money has taken an important part of my life. I would choose love if I lived in a 100 year-ago society. I am grateful for my mother's great love. It seems all mothers are great. But there are so many problems because of money. I believe you can imagine those.

I think that because it is a long time I have been here again. As I remember there are not many comments for each blogs but they gives the writers feel warm because there is at least someone listening their saying.
I have just made a visit around blogs. None of them has comments. It suprises me in a way.

I have thought for a long time for what I have believed. As what I believe about memory, memory is nothing if we give it up.
" Love is nothing if we compare with many things"
I will start with starvation. Have you ever thought why love is not as much as it used to? The morden life, busy cities, sorrows make people are colder with each other. Not all people will talk with me in the bus if I am a stranger to them. If there would be a bean, I know just family saved it for me.
A man can not think about love if a big wall were going to fall down in his head.
I believe there are many kinds of love in which personal happiness is so small.

Angola's flag carrier TAAG, already banned from flying to Europe, said Friday it had suspended a pilot and his co-pilot for landing at the wrong airport in Lusaka, the capital of Zambia. Skip related content

The pilot landed the Boeing 737 at Lusaka City Airport when he should have landed at Lusaka International Airport during a regular stopover from Harare to Luanda on April 17, TAAG said in a statement.

"Because this is a serious incident, Angola's Aviation Authority and TAAG have opened an investigation into the matter," it said.

"TAAG regrets the grief this has caused to passengers and reiterates its promise to deliver a service with the highest security standards."

The state carrier was banned from EU airspace in 2007, the same year one of its planes crashed, killing six people on board. The government fired TAAG's board last year and created a commission to investigate and improve safety.

Angola expects the airline to be allowed to fly to Europe later this year.

Religion as an Ideological Weapon in Africa:
A View From the Stage - Part III

Africanization of European churches is a scheme to further blindfold the black man because the focus of the preaching has not gone beyond "Blessed are they that go thirsty and hungry/ And endure tribulations in their hearts/ For they shall inherit the Kingdom of God"{61}. Kio and his wife, Helen, and Ndugire and his wife, Jezebel, are typical African religious stooges. They are far from being religious people as they are merely fronts used by the white man to achieve his economic purpose. Consider Helen's prayer before the meal in Kiguunda's house: "Show the wicked that everybody's share comes from Heaven,/ Be it poverty or riches./ Let us all be contented with our lot"{45}. Is this a sincere prayer from God's people? The final blow which religion has dealt the family of Kiguunda is the extortion of their one and a half acres of the land. Kio and company have informed the Kiguundas that they must convert to Christianity and the first step to take is to marry properly in the church. Though Kiguunda resisted at first, he yielded later. Church wedding involves expenses. To please Kio, his boss and employer, [p. 120] Kiguunda is forced to mortgage his only piece of land to a bank to get the means to finance their marriage in church as their African wedding is regarded by the Kios as sinful and therefore, not valid.

Zakes Mda is one of the major black South African playwrights who spent a greater part of his life in exile in Lesotho during the apartheid era. Most of his writings deal with politics, labour migrancy, urban prostitution, poverty, and unemployment. Religion is also a major and recurring theme in his plays. Mda, like Ngugi wa Thiong'o, censors the role of Christian religion and some of its ideologies in controlling the African mind. Religion, which is often regarded as the "essence of transcendental values," is in Mda's belief, like in Lenin's, "one of the aspects of spiritual oppression; that is, a tool by which people are suppressed or oppressed spiritually."(11) In line with Karl Marx's remarks, religion is critically viewed by Mda to be "the sob of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless word, and the spirit of conditions utterly unspiritual. It is the opium of the people. It is the sigh of the oppressed."(12) In The Hill (1990), a play which deals with the sordid plight of Basotho mine recruits in the South African mines, Mda portrays religion as a significant actor in destabilizing the hopes and aspirations of the frustrated mine workers. Since the late nineteenth century, many young men from Lesotho (Basotho migrants) have crossed into neighboring South Africa to render cheap labor to that country's gold/coal mines and agricultural farms. Labour migrancy to the South African mines is an entrenched way of life for many Basotho as the country is one of the poorest and largest foreign suppliers of cheap labor to South Africa. Often, the young Basotho pride themselves on being able to proceed to South Africa to work in the mines in order to acquire social status, comfort and material benefits. Their dreams are often shattered as they face bleak economic prospects because of South Africa's exploitative migrant labor system.

The Hill (13) opens with a silhouette of a Nun in full habit... a rosary dangling from her clasped hands and she is also holding a big flower, most likely a plastic rose. She is in meditation, reciting in monotone, "Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa"{71}. One of the [p. 121] characters, Man, demands that the Nun bless and cleanse him. Oblivious of him, the Nun ignores and turns her back against him. These are symbolic portrayals of the church's uncaring attitude towards the poor and desperate people; they signal the prevalence of hypocrisy within the ranks and files in the church. The silhouette (shadow) of the Nun and the plastic flower, both symbolize the synthetic and deceitful nature of today's church. The Nun attempts to turn the miners' poverty and frustrations upon the miners themselves as she repeatedly makes allusion to the miners' faults, their most grievous faults ("mea maxima culpa"). Mda uses an amphigory here because the fault of the miners could also be the church's which has abandoned its role as the people's shepherd. Encouragement of people by the church to lean on the wall of faith for success is debunked by Mda when Man declares, "I would like to survive on faith... but faith doesn't fill my empty stomach"{82}. To the Veteran (another character in the play), dependence on church's blessings is "chasing an illusion" {92}. Duggan posits:

Mda makes it very clear in the play that the church has been next to useless in the lives of migrant workers due to its irrelevance when approaching their problems or simply by going ahead with its own concerns, oblivious of the needs of its adherents.(14)

In the mines, a more horrifying picture of the church's role in ganging up with the oppressive system is laid bare before our very eyes. Mda presents the church as an accomplice to a system which strives to castrate the miners. Even the miners know that the so-called black pastors are mercenaries; they have been specially groomed by the whites to deceive the miners. They entreat the black miners not to fight for their rights, not to go on strike in demand for improved conditions of service; they entreat them to be grateful and to obey without questions, all the rules in the mine because "This mine is your father" {99}, and also because "the white man feeds you well" {99}. During the confession session in the mine church, it is revealed that these 'saints' are perpetrators of more evil than the devil itself as a female prostitute openly confesses, "I sinned, my good pastor. And my sin is well known to you for we did it together" {100}. [p. 122]Finally, Mda condemns black preachers, who, bought with cheap positions of the mabalanes, indunas and masisas (overseers) act like the Judases and betray their brothers to the mine capitalists.

In The Nun's Romantic Story, (15) Mda indicts the turbulent political atmosphere in Lesotho of the 1970s, which led to a state of emergency, abuse of democracy and eventual military coup in the nation. By the 1970s, there were three prominent political parties in Lesotho: the Basutoland Congress Party (BCP), The Basutoland National Party (BNP), and the Marematlou Freedom Party (BFP). The first democratic elections were conducted in 1965 and BNP emerged as the ruling party. In 1970, another election was conducted with BNP having the fullest belief that it would win. But the electorates who were not fully happy with the BNP voted against it and installed BCP in power. The then Prime Minister, Lebua Jonathan, refused to hand over power to BCP, but rather declared a state of emergency with many protesters being tortured and killed. He declared a five-year moratorium on politics, stating that the Westminster system of government in Lesotho was not in tune with the people's culture and therefore, adapted and modified it to meet Lesotho's special requirement. (16) The constitution was suspended and BCP sympathizers were ostracized.

The mutilated democracy in Lesotho of 1970 is publicly linked with the church and Mda reveals that the Roman Catholic Church in Lesotho supports the BNP against the opposition BCP to undermine Communism which the church feels is anti-Christ. The Reverend gentleman in the play, Father Villa, publicly admits: "We preached in our churches throughout this country against the opposition" {85}. Is this what is expected from the house of the Lord? As if these were not enough, the play to our greatest dismay reveals that the church, contrary to the teachings of Christ, sanctioned Sister Anne-Maria's plan for the murder of the military General in the Cathedral. The heinous election which changed Anne-Maria's life saw Father Hamel in the centre of the mess. The church is presented as an institution which does not hold forgiveness as a virtue; rather it promotes hatred and revenge. The ruling party is very much at home with the Catholic Church and the politicians pitch camp with it to benefit from their number at the polls because a vast majority of people in Lesotho are Roman Catholic members. [p. 123] The obnoxious entrenchment of politics in the church is further demonstrated by the playwright in a case involving a layman, Lawrence Pampiri and Reverend Father Hamel. Pampiri, a high school student and a Catholic was ordered to leave the church when the Holy Mass was in progress because he attended a Protestant high school known to have Communist's leanings. The anathema had a bitter consequence demonstrated in Pampiri's decision to throw away his faith and become an atheist. Here Father Hamel, instead of winning souls for the Lord, is losing them to Satan.

Ngugi and Mda are not painting this bleak picture of the church and religion simply because they dislike them. They acknowledge, when there is need to do so, the positive contributions of religion to the development of mankind and society in Africa. In South Africa, for example, Mda recognizes the outstanding contributions of the clergy such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Mkhatsha, Trevor Huddeston, and Sister Ncube, and the roles they have all played in the liberation struggle against apartheid. The two playwrights see nothing wrong in the church's participation in politics; they only express disgust, and are disillusioned with the church's negative involvement in national politics.