James Cogan Correspondent
The conduct of Donald Trump in Japan, the first country visited in his tour of Asia, strongly suggests that he is preparing to launch a war against North Korea. The US president flew into the Yokata Air Base near Tokyo. Instead of beginning his stay in Japan by meeting with the country’s political leaders, he elected first to speak to an assembly of American military personnel, part of the force being readied to make good his threat to “totally destroy” North Korea with “fire and fury.” Amid chants of “USA, USA”, he shed his suit jacket and put on an Air Force bomber jacket. He proceeded to deliver a nationalist rant. The United States, he blustered, deploys “the most fearsome fighting force in the history of the world.”

“America’s warriors,” he continued, “are prepared to defend our nation using the full range of our unmatched capabilities. No one — no dictator, no regime and no nation — should underestimate, ever, American resolve.” In the manner of a mafia don, Trump gloated: “Every once in a while, in the past, they underestimated us. It was not pleasant for them, was it?” In Japan, this comment was widely interpreted as a reference to the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the slaughter of tens of thousands of civilians.

With his statements and demeanour, Trump personifies the decay of American imperialism and the criminal calculation of its strategists that the destruction of yet another impoverished country will provide some respite from its mounting external and internal crises. In American strategic circles, war with North Korea is considered a way of pushing back against the growing influence of China in Asia and signalling that US capitalism will not give up its position as the dominant power in the region and internationally.

For over 25 years, since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, US foreign policy has consisted of continuous war, intrigue and conspiracy aimed at compelling the world to accept American dominance. Entire countries have been devastated and millions have been killed. This record leaves little doubt that the United States, having failed to date to reverse its waning fortunes, is prepared once again to use nuclear weapons.

War is also being discussed within the Trump White House as a way of diverting and containing the political warfare within the American ruling class itself, which threatens to unravel his presidency and tear the Republican Party apart. It is viewed as a means of projecting outward the immense class antagonisms within the United States and heading off an explosion of struggle against social inequality and the impossible conditions that face millions of American workers.

The sheer criminality and insanity of what is not only being contemplated, but actively planned and prepared, is demonstrated in a report requested by two US congressmen and sent on October 27 by Secretary of Defense James “Mad Dog” Mattis. The document, authored by Rear Admiral Mike Dumont, bluntly states: “The only way to locate and destroy — with complete certainty — all components of North Korea’s nuclear program is through a ground invasion.” Dumont asserts that any estimate of casualties is “challenging” because a war would involve a massive application of military violence by the US and its allies and the potential use of nuclear weapons by both sides.

Organisations independent of the Pentagon have nevertheless provided estimates. The Congressional Research Service puts the death toll in just the first several days of a war against North Korea at 300 000, providing nuclear weapons are not used. At least 25 million people on both sides of the border — that is, the entire population of the North and half the population of the South — would be “affected.”

As the World Socialist Web Site commented in September, any notion that such a monumental war crime would enhance the status of the United States is deranged. It will, the WSWS noted, “turn the US into a pariah state the world over, reviled for crimes without precedent since Hitler’s Germany . . . The political, economic and indeed moral fallout from such a war would unleash an internal crisis of unprecedented dimensions, calling into question the very existence of the United States.”

Various US allies are nevertheless facilitating the preparations for war and egging on Trump and the cabal of generals and billionaires in his administration. On Sunday, Shinzo Abe, the ultra-nationalist prime minister of Japan, called the fascistic demagogue who heads up the US administration his “marvellous friend” and hailed the Japan-US alliance as “unshakeable.” Japanese imperialism is exploiting the hysteria over North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs to reassert itself as a military power.

Australian imperialism has likewise given unconditional support, with its prime minister vowing the country will participate in any war and dispatching forces to join the US naval armada of three aircraft carrier battle groups assembling off the Korean coast. On Tuesday, it will be the turn of the South Korean ruling class to show its allegiance, allowing Trump to address its parliament and reiterate his threats to turn the peninsula into an inferno of death and destruction. If hostilities begin, the South Korean government of President Moon Jae-in will hand over to the Pentagon its 625,000-strong army and 3.1 million reserves for Washington’s planned invasion and occupation of the North.

In his speech to the US troops in Tokyo, Trump used the term “Indo-Pacific region,” saying Washington “will partner with friends and allies to pursue a free and open Indo-Pacific region.” The new designation for East Asia is intended to underline the recruitment of India into the US-led line-up against China, joining with Japan, South Korea and Australia.

While the Chinese and Russian regimes have largely acquiesced to the US war preparations to avoid an eruption of tensions with Washington, they have their own strategic interests on the Korean peninsula and in Asia more broadly. A US-led attack on North Korea could well result in an intervention by China, Russia or both, posing the danger of world nuclear war. Capitalism and the nation-state system threaten humanity with catastrophe. The International Committee of the Fourth International and its national sections are fighting for the development of a mass international anti-war movement based on the working class and the struggle for world socialism. As we have explained, the same insoluble crisis of the capitalist system that drives the ruling elites on the road to world war impels the international working class onto the road of socialist revolution. What is required is the building of the revolutionary leadership needed to impart to this movement a conscious program and strategy. It is time for WSWS readers and supporters to make the decision to join the ICFI and build that leadership.- wsws

Cosmas Bungu Correspondent
Nothing is more shocking and frustrating than seeing prices being hiked while you are about to buy something in that shop. This happened to me last month when I went to look for a water-pump for my farm. Prices were literally being changed while we were conversing on the right pump to buy. What is more disturbing about this whole situation is that nothing as far as our economy is concerned had changed. Retailers just woke up one morning and saw it fit to change commodity prices for whatever reason they thought was fit.

We as Zimbabweans are in the business of making one another suffer, instead of bettering our lives as a nation, we are busy pulling each other down. The best example is shown by the events ,which are happening. Prices are being increased for no apparent reason to an extent that President Mugabe was shocked by the chain of events concerning basic consumer goods and other things.

We, as Harare Municipal Workers Union, are concerned by the direction our country is going. If we can’t pull each other up as Zimbabweans then what are we doing as a country. Prices of goods should not just go up for no apparent reason. What’s the reason for such a change? It makes no logic that prices just go up, while no major company has raised their employees’ salaries. We applaud President Mugabe for his intervention concerning this drastic price hike. As a union in the Harare Municipal undertaking, things for our members are not as smooth as they seem. City Council workers are not being paid their salaries on time.

And, when prices go up they become frustrated and uncomfortable as this will compromise the wellbeing of our members and our country as a whole. Life is not easy when one is not getting his/her salary on time, it becomes even more difficult when basic consumer goods are no longer affordable. It means the families of our members will very soon go hungry. Fees, bills and other lifeline materials need money and it becomes difficult for one to priorities such things as the money will have been spent all on food and basic needs.

It is depressing to know that there are some people with money who are specialising in sabotaging our economy, making everyone’s life a living hell. With salaries not rising, it makes no sense for prices to rise. It is a shame that some manufactures, wholesalers and retailers are only looking after their interests not considering the rest of us. As time goes on, hunger will be the order of the day, as the money will not tally with the prices. It will be 2008 all over again, except things will be available, but the money to buy them will be scarce.

The well-being of our members depend on this. We urge the Government, the ministries of labour, and small business enterprises to put their heads together and come up with a plan that is best suitable for everyone. Employees will soon be reverting to usury once again.

This option is not sustainable. So we urge these ministries to create NECs for all small business enterprises, which will safeguard the interests of the workers, employers and our Government. A life of usury should not be lived by a worker. A life of stress and trying to balance things out with less money is not something that someone, who wakes up every day and goes to work needs. We do not wish that to happen, to our members and any Zimbabwean or foreigner.

The quality of service delivery will certainly decline as, for instance, if the City of Harare workers go without pay, are distressed and struggle to survive. This will affect them to an extent of not being able to concentrate on their work. Balancing the mathematics of life, buying groceries with rising prices, paying bills and school fees will greatly affect them. Stress related conditions will take a toll on them. Worker’s rights are clearly being violated and we urge our Government to do something about these price hikes as this issue will not only kill our economy, but us as a people. This cannot be allowed to continue because we are suffering.

Cosmas Bungu is the Harare Municipal Workers’ Union executive chairman. Anyone found guilty of hiking prices without any justification should be slapped with a 10–year jail sentence. These people should be disciplined as they don’t understand what the majority are going through. Our cooking oil should be manufactured using local products, instead of relying on unnecessarily costly imports, which has a negative effect on our country’s balance of payments. Cosmas Bungu, is the Harare Municipal Workers Union executive chairman.

“For the wicked boasteth of his heart’s desire, and blesseth the covetous, whom the LORD abhorreth.The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts. He sitteth in the lurking places of the villages: in the secret places doth he murder the innocent: his eyes are privily set against the poor.”(Psalms 10:3-4; 8).

It is always important for one to make sure that he dwells in the secret place of the Most High. If you look at the way the writer is describing the man in the scripture above, it is more than just a scripture, but a situation prevailing. The wicked does not have the hunger that you have to seek after the face of God. Look at how hungry and thirsty you are to have an encounter with God and with spiritual realities.

You love God to an extent that you think every person should love God the way you love Him and yet there are those that do not care or think about Him at all. The scripture is talking about wicked people who enter a place, which is called secret where they devise mischief. They come up with evil ideas and plans against the poor. These are not the poor in terms of finances, but it is a class of people that though they might have a lot of money but they are still poor. In terms of spiritual possessions they do not have anything.

There is a generation hiding in places, which are called secret where they are planning against you. They are there to complicate your day to day activities. We are living in an age where decisions are being made at a very high level. Things that we now see happening in the physical are determined by certain people that are sitting down in secret places where they control and manipulate situations from there. You are becoming a victim because you are not part of that group. If the wicked are doing that from a secret place you also have to dwell in the secret place of the Most High. “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.” (Psalms 91:1).

This is your time where you have to be recruited and have your name written in the realms of the spirit. You do not have to sleep or rest until and unless you are sure that your name has been registered in the spirit. When Goliath was intimidating the Israelites for forty days and they were not ready to face him, he knew something they did not know. How the battle got to forty days without the Israelites fighting back is because of the approach used by Goliath. He used to have several other battles he fought and he would sweat, but this time he changed the rules of engagement. He began to insult not just the physical people that were there but even God and the armies of heaven.

When he did that they could no longer fight him because he was coming from a very high level. It was converted into a spiritual battle, which the Israelites were no longer capable of fighting as physical people until a spiritual guy called David came. David realised that Goliath had been able to intimidate people for forty days because he had raised the standard and was fighting the Israelites from a spiritual level. It was only the spiritual who could get rid of him.

David also approached him from a spiritual level in the name of the Lord. It was no longer a physical battle, but a spiritual one, which only spiritual people could fight and the physical had to sit and watch as they fight. It is a shame that most people we have now seem to be developing just in the physical stature. Everything about you seems to be developing just in the physical side and the outward appearance but deep down inside no development at all. As for some people, their spiritual five senses are not as effective as their physical five senses and they are not effective. If anything is to go wrong physically they can pick it with their physical senses.

Every physical sense they have they managed to put it to proper use and developed it to an extent that they can feel anything and at any time physically, but if you look at them inside there is nothing. Your five senses of the spirit are they really that effective? Can you smell, feel and hear what is happening around you spiritually and what God is about to do? Most people can do any other thing physically, but when it comes to putting their five spiritual senses to work they are ineffective. That is why things can just happen without your knowledge.

Spiritual senses are supposed to be developed and there is a danger if you do not do that. Spiritual people are going to take over the running of affairs on this planet from both the good side and the evil side. There is a group of people who dwell in the secret place where there are villages and communities. These villages are not physical as you might think and you need to be spiritual to understand how they operate. There are communities, territories and locations in the spirit, geographical places where you find people staying. There is a group of people living in a village, which you cannot even visit right now and see, but they are there and they sit down and strategise.

They enter secret places and most people are not even aware of those places; that is why they are secret. There are secret people that most people do not even know anything about and they enter places, which are secret again where they utter secret words against the innocent. They come up with strategies; everything that we now see is coming from there. Things that used to be running well you see them collapsing and physical people cannot see why they are collapsing because there is no explanation.

There are permanent structures that you see coming down and you wonder how such a thing can just come down like that. You will wonder how such strong economies can just come down like that. It is happening everywhere, personalities, who are very powerful, you see them just coming down and you wonder. Please note that last week we erroneously published Part 2 of this article, instead of Part 1 reproduced above. We regret the oversight.

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Prophet Walter Magaya

Roselyne Sachiti Features Editor
A queue meanders towards the main entrance at the Prophetic Healing and Deliverance (PHD) headquarters in Waterfalls, Harare. There is hardly any parking space and we drop off at the busy Zindoga Shopping Centre. Zindoga gained its popularity from patrons that frequent braai spots, enjoy drinks and night life and other vices. Yet, when one turns around, they come face-to-face with PHD headquarters, a complete opposite of what goes on at Zindoga.

The day is Friday October 3, 2017 and the time is 7pm. Around this time, Zindoga usually roars and bursts with patrons wanting to shake off the week’s troubles. Yet today, thousands of people making their way to PHD headquarters, our news crew included have “swallowed” the seemingly busy Zindoga and literally taken over the place. Hundreds of thousands others have already made their way into the PHD premises and settled inside throughout the day.

In the queue, people from all walks of life hold blankets, trench coats, jerseys and any clothing item to keep them warm through the long night in the open. Others are being dropped off by cars, some by buses and commuter omnibuses, which are cashing in on the high demand for public transport. Fruit and food vendors are also making quick sales and stocks run out fast. The place is a hive of activity. Security details maintain order and escort those who want to skip the queue to the back.

To minimise accidents, security also ensures the main road is clear of human traffic so that no one is hit by passing vehicles, which are plenty in this part of Harare. Today’s event worsens the situation. When we finally make it inside, we see several ushers waiting to direct people to the correct zones and seats within the main arena.

Part of the crowd that attended the Night or Turnaround 6 ( Pictures by Shelton Muchena and Kudakwashe Hunda)

Some hold papers written: diplomats, sports, ministers, lawyers, etc and lead each group to the right place. Other delegates are accessing the venue through other set points around the church premises. Upon entering the main arena, a sea of people welcomes us. The people are everywhere and anywhere there is a chair to sit on. We find out chairs way over 280 000 had been prepared. As the clock ticks, the sea of people continues to swell, “bursting” and “overspilling” to as far as Glen Norah.

Zimpraise provided entertainment

In the crowd 69-year-old Mbuya Jessica Maredza of Mutare has her own story. She does not attend PHD but says the reason she has braved the night to attend the event is to be healed of the excruciating pain in her left leg. She arrived at 1 pm in the company of her two grand-daughters and a nephew. She says for months, she has felt things move up and down her swollen leg. She had tried everything, visited different orthopaedics, yet nothing has changed. The leg and foot still aches, is swollen and she walks with a limp. She believes there’s more to it as problems started when her US-based son Martin bought her a modest car. Each Sunday, a driver paid by Martin drives her to church. Today, she hopes when Prophet Magaya prays, even if he does not touch her head, her leg will be healed. She’s certain as her sister had her migraine headache, which had troubled her for years healed last year at Night of Turnaround 5.

“This is my last resort. I think my problem is more spiritual than medical. I want to go back home a different person. Whatever is making the leg swell will go today,” she says. As music is being played, different-sized flags also softly “dance” following the rhythm of the wind’s direction. It’s a big event, one that promotes religious tourism and countries represented included Angola, Australia, Botswana, Namibia, SA, Swaziland, US, UK, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe just to name a few.

Hundreds of people from those countries are in attendance. Earlier in the day, the Ministry of Tourism, Hospitality Industry and Environment endorsed the Prophetic Healing and Deliverance (PHD) Ministry Night of Turnaround 6 a significant contributor to the growth and success of the tourism sector and the economy at large through religious tourism. Tourism, Hospitality and Environment Minister Edgar Mbwembwe pledged his support and championed the initiative by PHD Ministry of packaging religious tourism with a business flavour.

Also in the crowd are people with various physical disabilities who hope their situation would have improved come Saturday morning. Two have eczema they claim failed to respond to modern treatment. Others seek prosperity, breakthroughs, want their marriages to flourish. Every one of the more than 280 000 people in the crowd has their unique reason of being there. As with other Nights of Turn Around held in the past, we learn that Prophet Magaya will pray for a turnaround in the lives of people and countries, deliver people from evil spirits and heal the sick. The event is not only about healing and miracles, we learn.

He will also speak to motivate women like Indiana Chirara of Harare, a young mother of three whose low self-esteem has kept her from many opportunities. Chirara wants the word to transform her way of thinking. Determined to get a good place to sit, Chirara arrives at the venue by 3pm. Being at the Night of Turnaround 6, she says, was a great privilege which turned around her life.

“I used to look down upon myself but now that is history. I now see things and handle myself in a different way for greater is He who is in me than the one who is in the world,” said Chirara.

There is singing and dancing in the crowd and on the huge stage. The music line-up caters for everyone as it ranges from gospel to sungura and dancehall. Mathias Mhere sings and nothing could have killed the vibe. Dancehall musician Killer T of the “Takangodaro” fame goes on stage, capturing the attention of the younger generation in the crowd. Zimpraise sings “Musandikanganwe” among many other songs and most people take to the dance floor, country flags high. When Andy Muridzo’s turn comes, he does not disappoint. The entertainment is good. Two men guarding a neighbouring building cannot resist the “temptation”. They turnaround and peep through a security wall for most of the night.

Time flies and those wishing to capture these moments take countless selfies, just to freeze the moments. Then the PHD choir entertains the masses ushering the arrival of Prophet Magaya a little after 10pm. It’s been a long wait for many, especially those who arrived in the morning yet they appear more enthusiastic. In fact, their night begins the moment their leader arrives. People cannot hide their excitement as they all go down on their knees to welcome the prophet who is clad in a gold and black shirt and black trousers. He too kneels and prays.

One of his first lines to the hundreds of thousands of people “. . . we expect a turnaround, Father we come to you . . .” sets the tone of the night. In the crowd, strangers become friends as they are told to hold hands, greet each other and then call out the neighbours name. I hold Elizabeth’s hand and this is just one of the many memorable moments of the night many are to follow. As the night progresses, Prophet Magaya asks for God’s intervention to rid the continent of HIV and Aids, Ebola and poverty.

He also prays and declares the continent will prosper urging people to think of others too. Prophet Magaya prays and declares all demons will go. Some people scream at the top of their lungs and more join them. Several people “paralysed” by manifesting spirits are helped to the front where they are prayed for and delivered.

Young women and men from PHD hold down people whose manifestations are too aggressive while they declare they won’t leave. Yet, when prophet Magaya lays his hands on such, the people calm and we hear celebratory cheers that the demons have “exited” the bodies of their victims. Those in crutches walk toward the prophet and after being prayed for lift and throw them away as a sign of victory. They return to their seats walking. A heap of crutches quickly forms — we lose count. This session is a melting pot of every miracle one could imagine.

On the other side of a bridge on the Mukuvisi River where a section of the huge crowd is seated, a cacophony of screaming people begging for deliverance can be heard.

Prophet Magaya and his team decide it’s time to cross over to the other side and also pray for these “tormented” souls. As he walks, a man breaks from the sea of people, rushes and throws himself in his way all in the hope of having him lay his hands on his head. He is successful in his attempt and goes back to his seat, a happy man. When Prophet Magaya reaches the other side of the bridge, the screams become louder.

More people are prayed for, demons cast out and people freed. Screams of relief are then heard. Everything happens fast, blinking and dozing will certainly result in missing out on the action. He also prays for more people ensuring he captures every section of the crowd. Then he prays for everyone in the crowd, asking them to touch where they need healing. People comply and there is more prayer and celebratory songs by the PHD choir on standby on the stage. Those who had been previously healed give testimonies and their pictures and videos of their before and after are beamed on the many huge television screens surrounding the area.

A woman testifies she almost had her leg amputated (and still has it today) because of the healing she received from the prophet. There are deafening cheers from the crowd. As morning falls, at 4 am , I decide I have seen enough and head home. My first ever Night of Turnaround had ended here. I was not expecting a miracle but wanted to see others experience theirs. From the energy in the crowd, it seemed as if they, too, had experienced their Night of Turnaround 6 in their in special way.

Hillary Clinton

Binoy Kampmark Correspondent
It took some time of muzzling and concealment before the horror, but various Democrats have finally come clean about the Hillary Clinton machine: things were, it seems, rigged, stacked, and doctored. This was the language of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump from opposite sides of the political spectrum, the code of anti-establishment anger, the message for disruptive change.

Such anti-establishment creatures were ultimately reviled by orthodox party priests as futile hopes, misguided and bound to lose. In the great tradition of US presidential politics, they had to be neutralised. As each less credible than the last figure fell before the Trump juggernaut, Clinton felt she could hold her own on the Democratic wing, keeping Sanders at bay and ultimately convincing a broken Democratic party machine that her famed outfit would steady the ship for an effortless docking in the White House.

Donna Brazile’s revelations, to that end, can hardly be deemed “explosive”, as Politico puts it. (Damp squib, more like.) The Podesta emails available on the WikiLeaks site already showed a picture of concern and application against the Sanders threat, a nursed fear that his message was biting. Tactics are discussed, dirt suggested as to how best to stall and eliminate the Bernie momentum.

In her book “Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns that Put Donald Trump in the White House”, the former Democratic National Committee chairwoman reveals collusion and bad smell complicity. She insists, however, that there was nothing “criminal” in it, though it “compromised the party’s integrity”. “If the fight had been fair, one campaign would not have control of the party before the voters had decided which one they wanted to lead.”

Brazile is, as ever, careful with the water: she is always ready to wash her hands vigorously in the anticipation that she might be accused of bad faith and shape changing. She claims to have “promised Bernie when I took the helm of the Democratic National Committee after the convention that I would get to the bottom of whether Hillary Clinton’s team had rigged the nomination process, as a cache of emails stolen by Russian hackers and posted online had suggested”. The more Brazile goes into the story, the more the story seems old and known. What matters is that she has woken up to it, to Clinton as ruthless and omnivorous.

“Right around the time of the convention, the leaked emails revealed Hillary’s campaign was grabbing money from the state parties for its own purposes, leaving the states with very little to support down-ballot races.” Brazile’s revelations stimulated interest among certain Democratic politicians, notably Elizabeth Warren who decided to recapitulate the rigging theme in three of five national television interviews. “We recognise the process was rigged,” explained Warren to Judy Woodruff of PBS, “and now it is up to Democrats to build a new process, a process that really works, and works for everyone.” Unfortunately for Warren, much of this is fuming after the horse has bolted, the wringing of hands at milk long spilt. She might well have picked another option, glaringly obvious and daring, but decided to fall into line with the DNC machinery when her protest would have counted most.

Warren ultimately joined forces to give Clinton ballast on the campaign trail. The ignorance card is only bound to take you so far.

A former Sanders campaign strategist sees the play by Warren for what it is. “There is a Bernie donor base that’s very important if you want to be in national political office. This is a play for that.” To that end, “Repairing that relationship is more important than poisoning the well with the Clintonites.” That may well do much to continue undermining the reform agenda, which the Democrats have yet to embrace. While Clinton attempts to monetise her abysmal failure to defeat Trump through speeches, publications and interviews, Brazile is now reconsidering her slant.

Did she ever actually say, let alone suggest, that the process had been tampered with, sewn up and manipulated in favour of Clinton? No. On Twitter, she fretted: “Today’s lesson: Being quoted by Donald Trump means being MIS-quoted by Donald Trump. Stop trolling me.” In another statement, Brazile seemed to have undergone a remarkable transformation, suggesting that the author of “Hacks” had been abducted and substituted. The problem, as ever, was who was capitalising on her sudden insight. “Trump looks for a daily excuse to distract from his job. No, the primary system wasn’t rigged! States control primary ballots.”

Perhaps this is hardly surprising, when one considers the Russian mania that suffuses her Twitter postings, the usual bellyaching blame game that keeps company with Clinton. “Russia,” she writes in a re-Tweet of a link from The Guardian, “funded Facebook and Twitter investments through Kushner associate”. On November 4, she chirps in smug satisfaction how, “Report shows the complex way Russian hackers went after Hillary Clinton and the Democrats.”

Another re-Tweet features a piece by Joy-Anne Reid in The Daily Beast as another attempt to throw critics off the scent, hoping that attention will not be paid to the atrocious conduct of the Clinton machine: “Donna Brazile’s Bombshell Isn’t that Hillary Clinton rigged the race, but that the Democratic Party Blew it.” All that is true, but the ugly, grizzled picture of Democratic decline and fabled suicide was epitomised by its poor choice of candidate, the party establishment’s inadvertent admission that ossification had set in. The Warrens fell silent, and Sanders retreated, leaving his supporters to grieve and observe the unfolding calamity. Trump duly scooped up the remains. WikiLeaks was, after the dust had settled, discomfortingly right. – Counterpunch

Children and their parents form part of a binary mentor-learner pair. – File photo

David Mungoshi Shelling the Nuts
When you are young, frivolous and inexperienced, you tend to think the world of yourself. You somehow get to think that you are the sun and everyone else is a planet revolving around you. Those are your days of your insufferable self-centredness. Like the Americans you suffer from what I call “superlativitis” — an affliction in which no one else, but you is at the apex of anything. So you end up having the most wonderful family in the world, the most gifted children in the world, the most beautiful wife in the world, the handsomest husband on earth and so on and so forth. So I if start saying that I have the smartest grandson on earth people must indulge me.

In today’s article I want to explore the possibilities of binary interaction between mentor and learner in whatever setting, formal or informal. My grandson and I are part of a binary mentor-learner pair. According to Merriam-Webster (online) the story of Noah and the ark in the Bible is a story of binaries because: The animals went in two by two, the elephant and the kangaroo . . . It was a binary parade of sorts that went into Noah’s ark. In addition “binary” can be traced to the Latin word “bini” which means “two by two”. In general, the word can stand for anything with two parts. The binary idea is also explained through synonyms that include double, double-barrelled, dual, double-edged, twin and so on.

In the field of mathematics, most people operate on base 10 only. However, the binary system uses the numeral 2 rather than 10 as a base. There seems to be a binary base for the saying, “Two is company, and three is a crowd” (in certain circumstances). Shona-speaking people say the third person is the one who spreads gossip and malice. Pastors and prophets can, no doubt, quote instances in the holy book when the number two is extolled. But what else does the word binary mean? That is interesting, especially when we consider that English words and utterances are often self-contradictory, and that is why, for example, sanction can mean to “forbid” and at the same time mean to “allow” or give the go-ahead for something. Accordingly, in the area of relationships and social commerce the word “binary” can denote other things such as tension or contradiction. This, however, does not mean or imply a state of permanent disequilibrium. People can, and do go asunder (go their separate ways) or they can have long seasons of togetherness and cooperation until the next contradiction comes.

In the field of education there are cases in which important educational models have come out of situations in which the researcher studies a child or children in a family circle. Out of the interaction a theory is eventually proposed and recommendations made. Society now derives lasting benefits from the pioneering work of some of these researchers who in the end gave the world material that has in many ways become basic to teaching and learning. Jean Piaget the Swiss psychologist is a case in point. He enunciated his theory of cognitive development after studying his child and his nephew. Piaget’s theory suggests that children move through four different stages of mental development and is focused on understanding how children acquire knowledge as well as on understanding the nature of intelligence itself.

According to Piaget, children are expected to take an active role in the learning process. There is supposed to be a simulation in which children become little scientists doing experiments, make observations and thereby learn about the world. Furthermore, Piaget held that as children interact with the world around them, they add new knowledge to existing knowledge and when they do so they, in fact, build upon existing knowledge in a fine-tuning process reflected in the adaptation of ideas already in their repertoire. This is a way of bringing on board new pieces of information. In such cases, progress is more or less negotiated by the two sides. Details regarding Piaget’s four stages of cognitive development need a separate time slot, but for now it is enough to state that Piaget’s stages are hierarchical. Children start with elementary sensorimotor operations and in time peak with formal operations.

Lev Vygotsky’s work was not initially applauded in the West. With time, however, Vygotsky’s work (especially in the last few decades) has seen a re-appraisal that has spawned a new school of neo-Vygotskian researchers. In my view, Vygotsky’s work was good news for anyone likely to be called a slow-paced learner. His major contribution was the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), according to which, with proper and well-executed assistance/ scaffolding anyone can learn anything at their own pace. In recent times I have found myself thinking about these two cognitive psychologists and begun to engage in a kind of informal action research mostly with one of my grandchildren. This is in keeping with my strong belief in teacher-learner partnerships in which learning, even when unintended, takes place, nevertheless. This is generally the case when the teacher learns something from the pupil. A solid understanding of this partnership is of particular relevance, especially these days when Zimbabwe is negotiating and enacting a new curriculum across the board. How then does all this relate to my personal experiences, and those of my grandson?

My precocious two-year old grandson, mothered by one of my daughters, is a fascinating case of sharp memory, prestigious competence in language and quick intelligence. Everything about him has been different, starting with the pace at which his mouth filled up with teeth (lower and upper jaw). That development has meant that he has hardly ever spoken like a baby. He hears a word once or a name and it stays in his mind. His vocabulary and utterances are amazing in their complexity. And like the proverbial elephant he remembers most things long past their actual occurrence. To crown it all, the boy recites and boasts openly about his totem.

The other day my grandson said to me, “Sekuru, paivapo . . .” (Grandpa, once upon a time . . .) and I realised that he was proposing to tell me a story in the tradition of the Shona sarungano (storyteller) so I let him do so. At this point in time, his story-telling appears to be summative with incidents related only as core material. His story went something like this:

There was Hare and Baboon. They said, let’s cook each other. Baboon went into the pot first. Hare was next. He sat in the water until it was very hot. Then he came out. Baboon went in again. The water boiled and he cried. He said, Hare, Hare, let me out. Hare shut the pot and said, boil on, boil on, my nice animal. Baboon cried some more. Hare cooked him and ate him up. Then he made a whistle from one of the bones from Baboon (my translation).

My wife, the boy’s grandmother, a veritable storyteller, urges the boy on and gives him cues and prompts whenever he appears to be hesitant or temporarily distracted. Since Piaget and Vygotsky, technology has made tremendous advances. The mobile phone is no longer just a fantasy anymore. In these changed circumstances, my grandson’s favourite toy is his mother’s mobile phone. At only two years of age, the boy can navigate his way around a mobile phone. When he locates his favourite videos he beams pleasantly and sings along. Soul Jah Love’s “Pamamonya ipapo” enthrals him. He chants, “Chibaba-baba, Mwana waSithembeni” in a lively rendition of “Pamamonya ipapo”.

My grandson’s sense of melody and rhythm is absolutely amazing for a two-year old. During several intermittent sessions in his waking moments, he applies his palms to anything that to him is a good representation of a drum, something whose sound can approximate that of a drum. He prances around the room, occasionally stopping to pound on his make-shift drums as he sings the chorus of a popular Anglican Church hymn. “Yera, yera”, he bubbles. Every so often my grandson abandons his drumming and plays shakers (hosho) instead. He is also a very adept dancer!

I have taught the boy some action rhymes including one from my childhood which goes something like this:

Po chigochanyuchi/Paul the bee- griller

Auya nemandere/Has brought us chafer beetles

When my grandson does this rhyme he does it with aplomb. Above all else, he has begun to name the things around him, and understandably, the questions are pouring in. He asks what this or that is and, importantly, touches each object as he says the word that names it. Sometimes he asks for reasons why things are done. When sent on an errand, he remembers the instruction and delivers on it. The way I see it, there is something here to learn in terms of interactive learning, programming and innovation.

 David Mungoshi is a retired teacher and former lecturer at a teachers’ college.

Muammar Gaddafi

Dan Glazebrook Correspondent
The whole point of the America-led war on terror in Africa is to keep the continent in a state of permanent war. For not only does it force African countries, finally freeing themselves from Western dependence, into dependence on AFRICOM; it also undermines China’s blossoming relationship with Africa. Exactly six years ago, on October 20th, 2011, Muammar Gaddafi was murdered, joining a long list of African revolutionaries martyred by the West for daring to dream of continental independence.

Earlier that day, Gaddafi’s hometown of Sirte had been occupied by Western-backed militias, following a month-long battle during which NATO and its ‘rebel’ allies pounded the city’s hospitals and homes with artillery, cut off its water and electricity, and publicly proclaimed their desire to “starve (the city) into submission”. The last defenders of the city, including Gaddafi, fled Sirte that morning, but their convoy was tracked and strafed by NATO jets, killing 95 people. Gaddafi escaped the wreckage, but was captured shortly afterwards. I will spare you the gruesome details, which the Western media gloatingly broadcast across the world as a triumphant snuff movie. Suffice to say that he was tortured and eventually shot dead.

We now know, if testimony from NATO’s key Libyan ally Mahmoud Jibril is to be believed, it was a foreign agent, likely French, who delivered the fatal bullet. His death was the culmination of not only seven months of NATO aggression, but of a campaign against Gaddafi and his movement the West had been waging for over three decades. Yet it was also the opening salvo in a new war — a war for the military recolonisation of Africa.

The year 2009, two years before Gaddafi’s murder, was a pivotal one for US-African relations. First, because China overtook the US as the continent’s largest trading partner; and second because Gaddafi was elected president of the African Union. The significance of both for the decline of US influence on the continent could not be clearer. While Gaddafi was spearheading attempts to unite Africa politically, committing serious amounts of Libyan oil wealth to make this dream a reality, China was quietly smashing the West’s monopoly over export markets and investment finance.

Africa no longer had to go cap-in-hand to the IMF for loans, agreeing to whatever self-defeating terms were on offer, but could turn to China — or indeed Libya — for investment. And if the US threatened to cut them off from their markets, China would happily buy up whatever was on offer. Western economic domination of Africa was under threat as never before. The response from the West, of course, was a military one. Economic dependence on the West — rapidly being shattered by Libya and China — would be replaced by a new military dependence. If African countries would no longer come begging for Western loans, export markets, and investment finance, they would have to be put in a position where they would come begging for Western military aid.

To this end, AFRICOM — the US army’s new ‘African command’ — had been launched the previous year, but humiliatingly for George W. Bush, not a single African country would agree to host its HQ; instead, it was forced to open shop in Stuttgart, Germany. Gaddafi had led African opposition to AFRICOM, as exasperated US diplomatic memos later revealed by WikiLeaks made clear. And US pleas to African leaders to embrace AFRICOM in the “fight against terrorism” fell on deaf ears.

After all, as Mutassim Gaddafi, head of Libyan security, had explained to Hillary Clinton in 2009, North Africa already had an effective security system in place, through the African Union’s ‘standby forces,’ on the one hand, and CEN-SAD on the other. CEN-SAD was a regional security organisation of Sahel and Saharan states, with a well-functioning security system, with Libya as the lynchpin. The sophisticated Libyan-led counter-terror structure meant there was simply no need for a US military presence. The job of Western planners, then, was to create such a need.

NATO’s destruction of Libya simultaneously achieved three strategic goals for the West’s plans for military expansion in Africa.

Most obviously, it removed the biggest obstacle and opponent of such expansion, Gaddafi himself. With Gaddafi gone, and with a quiescent pro-NATO puppet government in charge of Libya, there was no longer any chance that Libya would act as a powerful force against Western militarism. Quite the contrary — Libya’s new government was utterly dependent on such militarism and knew it. Secondly, NATO’s aggression served to bring about a total collapse of the delicate but effective North African security system, which had been underpinned by Libya. And finally, NATO’s annihilation of the Libyan state effectively turned the country over to the region’s death squads and terror groups. These groups were then able to loot Libya’s military arsenals and set up training camps at their leisure, using these to expand operations right across the region.

It is no coincidence that almost all of the recent terror attacks in North Africa — not to mention Manchester — have been either prepared in Libya or perpetrated by fighters trained in Libya. Boko Haram, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, ISIS, Mali’s Ansar Dine, and literally dozens of others, have all greatly benefited from the destruction of Libya. By ensuring the spread of terror groups across the region, the Western powers had magically created a demand for their military assistance which hitherto did not exist. They had literally created a protection racket for Africa. In an excellent piece of research published last year, Nick Turse wrote how the increase in AFRICOM operations across the continent has correlated precisely with the rise in terror threats. Its growth, he said, has been accompanied by “increasing numbers of lethal terror attacks across the continent including those in Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Tunisia.

In fact, data from the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism at the University of Maryland shows that attacks have spiked over the last decade, roughly coinciding with AFRICOM’s establishment. In 2007, just before it became an independent command, there were fewer than 400 such incidents annually in sub-Saharan Africa. Last year, the number reached nearly 2 000. By AFRICOM’s own official standards, of course, this is a demonstration of a massive failure. Viewed from the perspective of the protection racket, however, it is a resounding success, with US military power smoothly reproducing the conditions for its own expansion.

This is the Africa policy Trump has now inherited. But because this policy has rarely been understood as the protection racket it really is, many commentators have, as with so many of Trump’s policies, mistakenly believed he is somehow “ignoring” or “reversing” the approach of his predecessors. In fact, far from abandoning this approach, Trump is escalating it with relish.

What the Trump administration is doing, as it is doing in pretty much every policy area, is stripping the previous policy of its “soft power” niceties to reveal and extend the iron fist which has in fact been in the driving seat all along. Trump, with his open disdain for Africa, has effectively ended US development aid for Africa — slashing overall African aid levels by one third, and transferring responsibility for much of the rest from the Agency for International Development to the Pentagon — while openly tying aid to the advancement of “US national security objectives.”

In other words, the US has made a strategic decision to drop the carrot in favor of the stick. Given the overwhelming superiority of Chinese development assistance, this is unsurprising. The US has decided to stop trying to compete in this area, and instead to ruthlessly and unambiguously pursue the military approach which the Bush and Obama administrations had already mapped out. To this end, Trump has stepped up drone attacks, removing the (limited) restrictions that had been in place during the Obama era. The result has been a ramping up of civilian casualties, and consequently of the resentment and hatred which fuels militant recruitment. It is unlikely to be a coincidence, for example, that the al Shabaab truck bombing that killed over 300 people in Mogadishu last weekend was carried out by a man from a town which had suffered a major drone attack on civilians, including women and children, in August.

Indeed, a detailed study by the United Nations recently concluded that in “a majority of cases, state action appears to be the primary factor finally pushing individuals into violent extremism in Africa.” Of more than 500 former members of militant organisations interviewed for the report, 71 percent pointed to “government action,” including “killing of a family member or friend” or “arrest of a family member or friend” as the incident that prompted them to join a group. And so the cycle continues: drone attacks breed recruitment, which produces further terror attacks, which leaves the states involved more dependent on US military support. Thus does the West create the demand for its own “products”. — Pambazuka News.

It does so in another way as well. Alexander Cockburn, in his book “Kill Chain”, explains how the policy of “targeted killings” — another Obama policy ramped up under Trump — also increases the militancy of insurgent groups. Cockburn, reporting on a discussion with US soldiers about the efficacy of targeted killings, wrote that: “When the topic of conversation came round to ways of defeating the (roadside) bombs, everyone was in agreement. They would have charts up on the wall showing the insurgent cells they were facing, often with the names and pictures of the guys running them,” Rivolo remembers.

“When we asked about going after the high-value individuals and what effect it was having, they’d say, ‘Oh yeah, we killed that guy last month, and we’re getting more IEDs than ever’. They all said the same thing, point blank: ‘(O)nce you knock them off, a day later you have a new guy who’s smarter, younger, more aggressive and is out for revenge.”’

Alex de Waal has written how this is certainly true in Somalia, where, he says, “each dead leader is followed by a more radical deputy. After a failed attempt in January 2007, the US killed Al Shabaab’s commander, Aden Hashi Farah Ayro, in a May 2008 air strike. Ayro’s successor, Ahmed Abdi Godane (alias Mukhtar Abu Zubair), was worse, affiliating the organisation with Al-Qaeda. The US succeeded in assassinating Godane in September 2014. In turn, Godane was succeeded by an even more determined extremist, Ahmad Omar (Abu Ubaidah). It was presumably Omar who ordered the recent attack in Mogadishu, the worst in the country’s recent history. If targeted killing remains a central strategy of the War on Terror”, De Waal wrote, “it is set to be an endless war.”

But endless war is the whole point. For not only does it force African countries, finally freeing themselves from dependence on the IMF, into dependence on AFRICOM; it also undermines China’s blossoming relationship with Africa. Chinese trade and investment in Africa continues to grow apace. According to the China-Africa Research Initiative at John Hopkins University, Chinese FDI stocks in Africa had risen from just two percent of the value of US stocks in 2003 to 55 percent in 2015, when they totalled $35 billion. This proportion is likely to rapidly increase, given that “Between 2009 and 2012, China’s direct investment in Africa grew at an annual rate of 20.5 percent, while levels of US FDI flows to Africa declined by $8 billion in the wake of the global financial crisis”. Chinese-African trade, meanwhile, topped $200 billion in 2015.

China’s signature ‘One Belt One Road’ policy — to which President Xi Jinping has pledged $124 billion to create global trade routes designed to facilitate $2 trillion worth of annual trade — will also help to improve African links with China. Trump’s policy toward the project was summarised by Steve Bannon, his ideological mentor, and former chief strategist in just eight words: “Let’s go screw up One Belt One Road.” The West’s deeply destabilising Africa policy — of simultaneously creating the conditions for armed groups to thrive while offering protection against them — goes some way toward realising this ambitious goal. Removing Gaddafi was just the first step. — Pambazuka News.

IT has become customary that, ahead of every national election, innocent Zimbabweans are subjected to a wave of unwarranted price hikes. The timing of the hikes shows that they will be designed to compel people, particularly urbanites, to vote for the opposition MDC-T at the expense of Zanu-PF. This practice should awaken all the doubting Thomases to the manipulation we have been subjected to since the stand-off with Britain began in November 1997.

The Western countries led by Britain and the United States mooted the idea of an opposition to topple Zanu-PF and President Mugabe from power for daring to go beyond the façade of flag independence to holistic empowerment. This is the whole discourse of regime change. They, however, realised that in Zanu-PF and the Government, they faced insurmountable odds on account of the great strides Government made in improving livelihoods since 1980. To this end, they decided to systematically undo those gains in a bid to separate the majority from the leadership by laying the blame for the erosion on the Government while presenting the MDC as a viable alternative.

This strategy was exposed by former US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Chester Crocker who, in a testimony to the US Senate in 2001, said ‘‘to separate the Zimbabwean people from Zanu-PF we are going to have to make their economy scream’’. This set the stage for the imposition of illegal economic sanctions that cut our lines of credit from all multilateral lending institutions that have dealings with the US. The situation was not helped by the fact that the economy was, and still is dominated by over 400 British companies that were only eager to toe London’s line.

These companies either deliberately cut down on production and channelled the few products they made to the illegal parallel market where they were sold at extortionate prices, or simply hiked the prices of goods and services to unrealistic levels, all in a bid to abet the sanctions and force people to vote against the Government. This is why every major election has been preceded by a wave of price hikes. We saw this ahead of Election 2000, we saw it in the 2002 presidential election, we saw it in the general election of 2013.

The Western hounds smell blood. This is why the past few weeks have been characterised by price increases. Thus, if some among us continue giving the Westerners hope by voting for the MDC, they will only be too eager to keep ratcheting the pressure in the hope that one day we will capitulate. However, if we send a clear message to them that we have seen past their ruse by shunning Tsvangirai and overwhelmingly endorsing President Mugabe, they will be compelled to leave us alone. Let’s all go and register to vote so that we can collectively send a message, that never again.

Stephen Gowans Correspondent
Washington is hiding its leadership of the war on Yemen behind the Saudis In October, 2016, two Reuters’ reporters published an exclusive, under the headline: “As Saudis bombed Yemen, US worried about legal blowback.” The reporters, Warren Strobel and Jonathan Landay, revealed that legal experts at the US State Department had warned the White House that the United States could be charged with war crimes in connection with the Saudi Air Force bombing campaign in Yemen.

So far, the bombing campaign has left tens of thousands dead and many more wounded, as well as over 10 percent of Yemen’s population homeless. Accompanied by naval and aerial blockades, the aggression has created near famine conditions for somewhere between 25 to 40 percent of the population and has contributed to a cholera outbreak affecting hundreds of thousands.

According to Strobel and Landay, “State Department officials . . . were privately sceptical of the Saudi military’s ability to target Houthi militants without killing civilians and destroying ‘critical infrastructure’”. The officials acknowledged that the airstrikes were indiscriminate (a war crime), but said that the indiscriminate nature of the bombing was due to the inexperience of Saudi pilots and the difficulty of distinguishing enemy militants not wearing uniforms from the civilian population.

All the same, inasmuch as the bombing is indiscriminate, irrespective of why, it constitutes a war crime. The second point the State Department lawyers made is that the United States is a co-belligerent in the war.

The Reuters article didn’t reveal the true extent to which the United States is involved, but it did acknowledge that Washington supplies the bombs which Saudi pilots drop on Yemen and that the United States Air Force refuels Saudi bombers in flight. In other words, the United States plays a role in facilitating the campaign of indiscriminate bombing.

This was of great concern to the State Department legal staff. The lawyers pointed out that while the indiscriminate bombing is the work of Saudi pilots, blame for the war crime could also be pinned on the United States through a legal instrument Washington had helped to create; hence, the fear of legal blowback.

The legal instrument was created by the UN-established Special Court on Sierra Leone, which the United States backed, if not instigated. The court had ruled that Liberia’s president Charles Taylor was guilty of war crimes committed in the civil war in Sierra Leone, even though Taylor wasn’t in Sierra Leone when the crimes were committed. What’s more, Taylor, himself, had no direct connection to the crimes. This, everyone acknowledged.

But that, said the court, didn’t matter. What mattered was that Taylor had provided “practical assistance, moral support and encouragement” to people in Sierra Leone who had committed war crimes.

Therefore, the court ruled, Taylor was guilty of war crimes, as well. The United States used the same legal instrument to indict Al-Qaeda detainees at Guantanamo Bay for the crime of 9/11, even though the detainees in question had no direct involvement in the 9/11 attacks. It was sufficient that they had provided moral support and encouragement to those who had.

This instrument, which had served Washington well in locking up people it didn’t like, now proved problematic, and the reason why is that the United States provides practical assistance, moral support and encouragement to the Saudis in a campaign of indiscriminate (hence, war criminal) bombing. US military personnel and state officials are therefore open to war crimes charges under a legal principle Washington helped to establish.

Worse, Washington offers the Saudis far more than just encouragement and moral support. It also furnishes its Arabian ally with diplomatic support, as well as the bombs that are dropped on Yemenis, and the war planes that drop the bombs. Additionally, it trains the pilots who fly the warplanes who drop the bombs.

And that’s not all. The United States also flies its own drones and reconnaissance aircraft over Yemen to gather intelligence to select targets for the Saudi pilots to drop bombs on. It also provides warships to enforce a naval blockade. And significantly, it runs an operations centre to coordinate the bombing campaign among the US satellites who are participating in it, including Egypt, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and Jordan — the kingdoms, emirates, sultanates and military dictatorships which make up the United States’ Arab allies, all anti-democratic.

In other words, not only is the United States providing encouragement and moral support to the Saudis — it’s actually running the war on Yemen. In the language of the military, the United States has command and control. The only thing it doesn’t do is provide the pilots to drop the bombs.

Here’s what the Wall Street Journal reported: A Pentagon spokesman said the United States has special operations forces on the ground and provides airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, operational planning [my emphasis], maritime interdiction, security, medical support and aerial refuelling.

According to the newspaper, Pentagon war planners run a joint operations centre where targets are selected for Saudi pilots to drop bombs on. When you run the operations centre, you run the war. So, two important aspects of the war: First, the bombing is indiscriminate and therefore a war crime — and Washington knows this. Second, the United States is involved in the war to a degree that is infrequently, if ever, recognised and acknowledged.

In fact, the war on Yemen is almost universally described as a Saudi-led war. This is a mischaracterisation. It is a US-led war. The war is consistent with the immediate aim of the United States in the Arab and Muslim worlds — to eliminate any organised, militant opposition to US domination of the Middle East.

It is an aim that accounts for Washington’s opposition to entities as diverse as the Syrian government of Bashar al Assad, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas, and Al-Qaeda. While these states and organisations have differing agendas, their agendas overlap in one respect: all of them oppose US domination of the Arab and Muslim worlds.

There are two organisations in Yemen that militantly oppose US domination of Yemen specifically and the Muslim world broadly: Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and the Houthis. Both are Islamist organisations. Both are implacably opposed to US and Israeli interference in the Muslim world. And both are committed to freeing Yemen from US domination. But they have different approaches.

Al-Qaeda directs its attacks at what it calls its distant and near enemies. The distant enemy is the United States, the centre of an empire which Zbigniew Brzezinski, a principal figure in the US foreign policy establishment, had called a hegemony of a new type with unprecedented global reach and scale — in other words, the largest empire in human history.

The near enemy, by contrast, according to Al-Qaeda ideology, comprises the component parts of the US Empire — the local governments which are subordinate to the United States and do Washington’s bidding (Yemen under the previous government, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, and so on.) Al Qaeda carries out campaigns against both its distant and near enemies — which is to say, against Western targets on Western soil, and against local governments which collaborate with, and act as agents of, the United States. — https://gowans.wordpress.com

The Houthis, in contrast, model themselves on Hezbollah and Hamas. They focus on what Al Qaeda calls the near enemy, that is, local governments which are extensions of US global power. Hezbollah focuses on Western interference in Lebanon, Hamas on the Israeli occupation of Palestine, and the Houthis on Western lieutenants in Yemen, but do not seek to strike Western targets on Western soil as Al Qaeda does.

Before the Houthis took control of the government, Washington was waging a war in Yemen against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Washington had deployed Special Operations Forces and the CIA to deal with an Al Qaeda branch in Yemen that had organized the 2015 Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris and an attempted 2009 Christmas bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner.

But these Al Qaeda attacks were only a symptom of what the United States is waging a war on. The United States says it’s waging a war on terrorism but what it’s actually waging a war on are the forces that oppose US domination of the Muslim world. That some of those forces happen to use terrorist methods at times, and that they engage in violent politics, is less important to Washington than the fact that they’re against US domination and influence.

The United States was prepared to wage a war against Al Qaeda in Yemen unilaterally, without the cooperation of the former Yemeni government. Rear Adm. John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesman, said “Certainly a willing partner in Yemen…makes missions much more effective. But we have also proven the ability to go after terrorists in various places unilaterally. We … retain that right.”

This was really quite an extraordinary statement, for Kirby was acknowledging in words what was already evident in actions: that the United States does not recognize the sovereignty of any country. It retains the right to intervene anywhere, militarily or otherwise, whether that country’s government assents to the intervention, or not.

The most conspicuous current example of Washington arrogating onto itself the right to intervene unilaterally in any country in pursuit of its foreign policy goals is the US invasion of Syria, carried out over the objection of the Syrian government, and without the slightest regard for the rule of law, which prohibits such affronts against the principle of national sovereignty. Shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, the CIA persuaded Yemen’s president at the time, Ali Abdullah Saleh, to allow the U.S. military to conduct operations in Yemen against Al Qaeda targets.

Saleh was reluctant to cede Yemen’s sovereignty, but believed that if he refused the US request, Washington would invade (as it reserved the right to do.) Hence, under duress, Saleh agreed to allow the CIA to fly Predator drones armed with Hellfire missiles over his country and agreed to the entry of US Army Special Forces into Yemen. [9] He agreed, in other words, to the US occupation of his country.

In early 2011, as the US war against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was in progress, a massive revolt against the Saleh government broke out, part of the so-called Arab Spring. It involved tens of thousands of Yemenis participating in weeks-long sit-ins.

Washington supported Saleh throughout this distemper, while at the same time demanding that Syrian president Bashar al Assad step down, charging (falsely) that he, Assad, had lost the support of his people.

In contrast, Saleh, despite having no popular support (or very little) enjoyed US backing—and he did so because, unlike Assad, he was willing to cede his country’s sovereignty to the United States. After months of unrest in Yemen, Washington came to the conclusion that Saleh’s continued rule was no longer viable. He had become far too unpopular and chances were that he would be toppled by the popular revolt. Whoever took his place might not be as compliant.

So, meetings were arranged with leaders of the opposition, to make the case for continuing US operations. Eventually, a plan was agreed to in which Saleh would step down in favour of his vice-president Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi. Hadi proved to be no more popular than Saleh, although he proved to be just as popular with Washington as his predecessor was. Top US officials supported Hadi because he allowed the Pentagon a free hand in Yemen.

Yemenis, in contrast, didn’t like Hadi—and they didn’t like him for a number of reasons, not least of which was that he was perceived correctly as a puppet of the United States. In September, 2014, the Houthis, who had launched an insurgency 10 years earlier, seized the capital, demanding a greater share of power. By February 2015, they had taken control of the government. Soon after, Hadi fled to Saudi Arabia.

What did the Houthis want?

The Houthis self-stated aim – their political project – is to cleanse the country of corrupt leaders beholden to foreign powers. They’re against the interference of the United States and Israel in Yemen’s affairs. A Houthi spokesman said, we’re “simply against the interference of those governments.”

In 2015, Newsweek reported that “In essence what the Houthis call for are things that all Yemenis crave: government accountability, the end to corruption, regular utilities, fair fuel prices, job opportunities for ordinary Yemenis and the end of Western influence.” Newsweek also reported that “Many Yemenis believe the Houthis are right in pushing out Western influence and decision making.” [14]

So, what was the situation, then, for the United States in February 2015, with the unpopular Hadi government ousted and the Houthis, committed to Yemen’s independence, taking control of the government? The situation was now much worse than it had been when Washington began its war in Yemen on Al Qaeda. Rather than one group militantly opposing US domination of Yemen, there were now two and control of the government had slipped from the hands of Washington’s marionette. In an effort to reverse a deteriorating situation, Washington instigated a war on the Houthis, overlaying a new war upon its existing war on Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

But the US administration had no legal authorization to wage a war on a group whose remit was internal to Yemen and wasn’t implicated in the 9/11 attacks. The US Congress had provided the US president with an open-ended authorization to “use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons.” That included Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. But it didn’t include the Houthis.

If the United States was to lead a war against the Houthis legally, it would have to seek out and obtain Congress’s authorization. And the chances of the White House obtaining Congress’s consent for a war on the Houthis was next to zero. So Washington prepared a deception. It put the Saudis out front and said the war on the Houthis was Saudi-led.

To give the deception a semblance of credibility, the Saudis were said to view the Houthis as a threat. The Houthis were alleged to be a proxy of Iran, a country the Saudis regard as their principal rival in the Middle East. But this was nonsense. In April, 2015, the US National Security Council declared that, “It remains our assessment that Iran does not exert command and control over the Houthis in Yemen,” adding “It is wrong to think of the Houthis as a proxy force for Iran.”

The United States instigated the war on the Houthis for two reasons: First, because the Houthis are an organized, militant force against US interference in Yemen. And second, because the Houthis had ousted a government whose subordination to the United States had been useful for Washington in pursuing a campaign to eliminate another organized, militant force against US interference in the Muslim world, namely Al Qaeda.

The aim of the war is to drive the resistant sovereigntist Houthis out and bring the malleable puppet Hadi back in. So, the United States organized a war using Saudi pilots as the tip of its spear, in exactly the same way it is pursuing a war against ISIS in Iraq and Syria using Kurds as the tip of its spear. In both cases the United States provides command and control, while in Syria and Iraq the Kurds provide the boots on the ground and in Yemen the Saudis provide the pilots in the air. But the war on the Houthis is no more a Saudi-led war than the US war on ISIS is a Kurd-led war.

US leaders don’t put US boots on the ground or US pilots in the air if they can get someone else to do the fighting for them. As long ago as 1949, the US journalist Marguerite Higgins remarked on how “an intelligent and intensive investment of combat-hardened American men and officers could be used to train local forces to do the shooting for you.”

More recently, in 2015, The Wall Street Journal reported that “America’s special-operations forces, have landed in 81 countries, most of them training local commandos to fight so American troops don’t have to.”

There are a number of advantages for the United States of using local forces to do the fighting so that it doesn’t have to. First, cost savings. It cost the US Treasury less to have Saudi pilots drop bombs on the Houthis than to have US pilots do the same.

Second, control of public opinion. Consent for yet another US war doesn’t have to be obtained. Third, certain legal obligations are avoided, such as the need to obtain a legal authorization for war. From the perspective of the US state, to run a war from behind the scenes, and let local forces assume the burden of being the tip of the spear, is simpler, more cost effective, less troublesome legally, and easier to manage issues of public consent.

Another reason we should believe the war on Yemen is a US- and not a Saudi-led war is that US national security strategy insists on US leadership. It is inconceivable that the United States would cede leadership of a military campaign in which it is involved to a satellite country. Statements of US leadership abound in the utterances of US politicians, US military leaders, and US commentators.

“We lead the world,” declared former US ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power. The question is never whether America should lead, but how we lead,” asserted Obama’s National Security Strategy. Barbara Stephenson, president of the American Foreign Service Association, describes the United States as having a “global leadership role.”

In his second inaugural address, Bill Clinton described the United States as imbued with a special mission to lead the world. John McCain recently said that the United States has “an obligation” to lead.

Would a country with such a fixation on leadership willingly assume a back-seat support role in a military campaign in a country in which it had already initiated a war and spent years fighting it? If the answer isn’t obvious, the reality that US war planners provide operation planning of the war should lay to rest any doubts about who’s really in the driver’s seat.

This is a US-led war for empire, against an organized, militant force, which insists on Yemeni sovereignty; which insists on self-determination; and which therefore repudiates US leadership (a euphemism for US despotism and US dictatorship.)

If we’re committed to democracy, we ought to support those who fight against the despotism of empires; we ought to support those who insist on the equality of all peoples to self-determination; we ought to support those who find repugnant the notion that the United States claims a right to intervene in the affairs of any country, regardless of whether the people of that country agree to the intervention or not.

The fight of Yemenis to organize their own affairs, in their own way, in their own interests, by their own efforts, free from the interference of empires and their local proxies, is a fight in which all of us have a stake.

The struggle to end the war on Yemen, and the larger struggle to end the empire-building, the despotism, the dictatorship, of the United States, is not only a struggle for peace, but a struggle for democracy—and a struggle for the Enlightenment values of freedom (from despotism) and equality (of all peoples to determine their own affairs.)

Source – https://gowans.wordpress.com/

Sharon Hofisi Legal Letters
In our folklore, a story is often told on how some young men hatched an evil plan to annihilate all elderly men in their village, known in some indigenous systems as hohonwa. One young man purposed in his heart that he would save his father. He hid him in a cave that was close to the village.

Thunder clouds of a tragedy hit the village. All the elderly men were killed in a manner that disregarded the sanctity of human life. With time as the greatest equaliser, the young men also grew older. As the departed elders had used to say in their wisdom that life was an echo, a ravening python visited the seemingly peaceful village. It was about to devour a child, the only child of a hopeless family.

The village women cried their hearts out and threatened to leave the kingdom if the child’s life was not saved. The saviour son rushed to his father to seek some wise counsel. “Father, there is tragedy in the village, a dangerous reptile is about to destroy the village fabric. What should we do?” Embracing his son, the father quickly retorted: “Take a frog and tie it to a long rope. Place it before the reptile and it sees its meal. Hurry up, my beloved son!”

There was wild jubilation in the village. The child’s life was miraculously saved. “How did he do it?” His unnerved contemporaries were amazed. ”This is the work of those elders we neglected and killed,” the saviour son boldly remarked. In some frenzied celebrations, his old and frail father was welcomed and was immediately installed as the substantive chief of the village.

Read from another world, Miller (2010) has an article which begins with some age quotes from Anais Nin which includes that “we are mature in one realm; childish in another . . . we are made up of layers, cells, constellations”. She starts by raising the challenges that are faced by the elderly such as transportation, employment and social inclusion.

She then raised an important question from the World Health Organisation (WHO) that elderly is more than just a function of chronological age. The question encompasses a number of factors such as functional capacity, social involvement and physical and mental health. Further, she showed that elderly is only seen as a generalisation that draws together people of vastly different characteristics. She argued that people age differently, with some going through life with few health issues, while others may suffer from multiple conditions.

Constitutionally speaking, the Constitution of Zimbabwe 2013 protects the rights of the elderly. The elderly are defined in Section 82 of the Constitution as people who are over the age of 70 years. The inclusion of elderly rights in the Constitution means that they are now justiciable. They can be enforced and the holders can approach a court of law in the event of their violation.

Further, Zimbabwe has an Act on Older Persons which has a long title which shows the purpose of the statute is to: provide for the well-being of older persons; appointment of a director for old persons affairs; establishment of an old persons board; establishment of an old persons fund; and to provide for matters connected with or incidental thereto.

Such an Act is important from a justiciability perspective because it adds to the content of the rights under review. For instance, elderly rights are framed in such a way that they have three broad rights which include: to receive reasonable care and assistance from their families and the State; to receive health care and medical assistance from the State; and to receive financial support by way of social security and welfare.

The rights are interpreted using the content of the Older Persons Act. Further, using the arguments from Miller (ibid), the three pillars of rights in our Constitution fit into functional capacity, social involvement and mental health. This is because reasonable care and assistance may be a result of some physical or mental incapacitation. Health care and medical assistance also shows the need for mental health and other forms of health. The need for financial support based on social security and welfare shows the need for both functional capacitation and social inclusion.

This is notwithstanding the fact that the rights of the elderly are by nature progressive. Put differently, they are not instantly realised. They develop based on the commitment of the State and key stakeholders to uphold the duties that are enshrined in the Constitution. The State is given some margin of appreciation on matters such as availability of resources.

This is why Section 82 of the Constitution also enjoins the State to take reasonable legislative and other measures, within the limits of the resources available to it, to achieve the progressive realisation of this right. The importance of including the rights in the Constitution is constitutionally pitched. Firstly, it must be noted that the rights under review are part of the Bill of Rights or Chapter 4 rights in our Constitution. Using rights particularism model as a choice of argument in this article, the rights are part of the elaborated rights in Part 3 of Chapter 4 of the Constitution.

For starters, Part 1 of Chapter 4 of the Constitution deals with the application and interpretation of the Bill of Rights. Although there is no international treaty that specifically deals with the rights of the elderly, this part empowers Zimbabwean courts to deal with test case litigation on the maintenance of the elderly.

Test litigation can be done in a way that is similar to claims for spousal or child maintenance. In terms of the Constitution, the families or the State are supposed to provide reasonable care and assistance to the elderly. If this is so, it therefore follows that those who fail to maintain the elderly can be obliged to do so at law.

The courts can use Section 46 of the Constitution to support such test case litigation. They can give full effect to the Bill of Rights by interpreting the content of the rights under review. They can use foreign law from countries such as Britain, Bangladesh or the Philippines which have dealt with issues such as elderly abuse, social security and welfare of the elderly.

The interpretation section also empowers our courts to use international law. Although there is no treaty law that specifically deals with the rights of the elderly, there are several sources of international law such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) 1948, and the International Plan of Action on Ageing (1982). Article 25 (91) of the UDHR speaks to issues that involve the elderly such as food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services. Other issues include the right to security in the event of old age.

At a constitutional level again, Part 4 of Chapter 4 of the Constitution deals with the enforcement of fundamental human rights and freedoms. The elderly have legal standing or the ability to assert their rights. If they are not able to do that, they can be represented by oversight institutions or some other groups that can act in terms of the interests of the public as is defined in Section 85 of the Constitution.

A further three points may be made in this article. The Constitution allows the elderly to seek relief that is based on constitutional breaches. First, this enables them to affirm their rights in the event of some breaches by either their families or the State.

Second, this affirms that the Constitution acknowledges their right as a fundamental human right which must be protected, promoted, respected and fulfilled just like any other fundamental right. Third, the argument is this: test litigation can enable the elderly to benefit from the constitutional remedies such compensation or declaration of their rights.

This is because it has been argued that human rights tend to structure the space, both at the national and international levels, within which human beings attempt to construct a moral order of universal and global scope (Walters, 1995). The consumer population which includes academia, community based organisations and civil society can promote rights of the elderly through constitutional literacy.

It has been observed that education is to be directed to the “full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights among all nations, racial or religious groups” (ibid). Further, “education should make the individual aware of his or her own rights; it should at the same time instill respect for the rights of others” (UNESCO, 1978, cited in Walters, ibid).

At an African level, constitutional literacy can be shaped by the human factor content approach that is steeped in the concept of ubuntu. Parents use their children as their insurance policies in times of old age. Further, our elders are treated as golden ladies and gentlemen.

By placing a duty on families, the content is pitched in a manner that speaks to different family set-ups in Zimbabwe. These include the extended family and the nuclear families. Other issues that are attached to family involvement include the need to curb problems such as elder abuse. In countries such as Great Britain, elder abuse has been understood to include granny battering. In some researches that have been done with specific focus on sub-Saharan Africa, elder abuse is associated with patrilineal and matrilineal inheritance and land rights. Added to this is the erosion of the close bonds between generations of a family caused by rural to urban migration.

Put into perspective, the urban city is some “Mazivandadzoka” or place of mysteries. Elderly involvement in the dispute resolution process is waning. The modern world has eroded the traditional, ritual and family roles of elderly people. People can simply decide to divorce or involve courts of law than use the mediating role of the “council of the elders”.

Apart from the families, the State is also a primary duty holder. It has four duties that are stated in Section 44 of the Constitution. These include the duty to protect, promote, respect and fulfil fundamental rights and freedoms. Zimbabwe has old people’s homes and is also fast embracing the need for hospice palliative care. This is comforting and must be celebrated. Further, a statutory instrument on older persons was recently adopted and this is good news for effective protection of the rights of the elderly.

On promotion, respect and fulfilment of such rights, a statistical representation of the elderly population in Africa is used in this article to illustrate the urgent need for responses in this regard. Barikordar et al (2016) cite the World Population Ageing Report (2013) which shows that statistics on the elderly population on ages such as 60, 65 and 80. Africa has those who are 60 and above amounting to about 60 033; those 65 and above, 38 513; and those 80 and above, 5 248.

African countries may have to take a leaf from some Asian countries when it comes to the care of the elderly. Some countries have come up with models of dealing with care and assistance. Barikodar et al (ibid) state that Bangladesh has no social welfare system, but has adopted the Age-friendly Primary Health Care that is run under the auspices of the World Health Group.

Carlos (1999) states that there were 200 million persons with 60 years of age and above in 1950; 350 million in 1975; 590 million in 2000; and a projected 1,1 billion in 2025. We are some seven years from the projected population. She used the Philippines model on rights of the elderly which is also supported in this article.

The Philippines government did not merely adapt their constitutional provisions to international standards. They actually adopted the spirit of some of the important soft sources of international law such as the General Comment 6 of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR). Article 12 of CESCR speaks to the need to take into account recommendations of the International Plan of Action on Ageing (1982). It also shows a threshold test on availability, accessibility, acceptability and quality of health care on the elderly. The Philippines Plan of Action 1999-2004 looked into some of the key aspects on the needs of the elderly which include pension (social security, government service insurance system, Philippine Veteran Affairs) and welfare services under the Department of Welfare and Development.

The importance of a country-specific approach enables the courts to determine the minimum core content. Zimbabwe has made huge strides in affirming the spirit of this plan by constitutionalising the right. The normative framework under the Constitution must provide useful insights in this regard.

• Sharon Hofisi is a lawyer and writes in his personal capacity.

Danai Chirawu
Unless one is a registered legal practitioner, the courtroom seldom becomes a common place even to settle scores. It is no small feat to institute legal action or to stand before the court being the one answering to a claim. Once a matter has been finalised, there is a misperception that the matter is simply laid to rest and no further action should be taken.

Many people perceive the law to be self enforcing and sometimes neglect to take further action once the court has ruled in their favour. There is a statement at law which speaks to the effect that the law serves the vigilant. That means that one has a better chance at being adequately served by the law when they report early and ensure that they follow through on whatever outcome the court realises.

Once a judgment is passed, it determines each party’s rights and obligations. If money is owed the judgment will state who when and how the money should be paid, if property should be returned the law will provide the same information; who, when and how. Some, after the judgment is passed; and often to their detriment simply acknowledge that a judgment is present and assume that everything has been resolved in court.

Needless to say that the judges themselves cannot physically be present to help one retrieve property or assume custody of the child after the judgment has been given.

Some people have been unfortunate enough to assume that nothing further is required of them once a ruling has been passed. Take the case of Nyarai who in 2000 filed for divorce and other ancillary relief. In 2001 she was awarded 40 percentof the matrimonial home which during the subsistence of the marriage was registered in her husband Totonga’s name. After her divorce, she continued to live in their matrimonial home.

In 2012, Totonga decided to get a loan from Barclays Bank using that same house as security. It is 2017 and Totonga’s failure to pay off the loan has resulted in the bank seizing the house and selling it off to another couple to recover the debt. Nyarai wakes up to a letter from the lawyers representing the bank that she has to move out of the house within 7 days.

This situation is not peculiar to Nyarai alone. Many people have found themselves in the same shoes oftentimes with little to no options. Had Nyarai been vigilant and more aware, she would have done things differently over 16 years ago.

In a divorce order where there is a house to be shared among other things; the court usually gives the parties to the divorce options. They may have the option for one to buy the other out so where one is awarded 40 percent, they can buy the rest of the 60 percent share from their ex-spouse. They may have the option to sell the house and share the proceeds according to the shares that the court would have awarded. They may even have the option to be jointly registered in a property though divorced couples rarely choose this option.

It is not the court that has the duty to sell the house; it is the parties to the divorce who have the duty to ensure that whatever is reflected in the judgment is also apparent in real life. They are expected to look for the evaluators which the High Court can enlist, they are expected to find buyers either by themselves or through an agent and they are expected to get whatever share of the house is owed to them once the house is sold.

The mere fact that a judgment exists is not enough. At the deeds registry, the divorce order does not automatically reflect in the file for the house in question therefore there is no way the Registrar of deeds will know of the changes to the title within that property unless this change is registered with his office. While both entities fall under the State, they are not an extension of the other; they are merely complimentary.

It is the same as getting a prescription from the doctor. It requires one to go to the pharmacy and to get the prescribed medication. This is followed by the expectation that one is taking the medication as stipulated by the pharmacist.

The relevance of enforcing a judgment is not limited or peculiar to divorce matters alone, it is important for all other judgments such as maintenance, custody, protection order among others. Once a person has been awarded maintenance, they have to wait until the end of the regulated month when the money should have been deposited into their account. If at the end of that period the money has not been deposited, the law states that they should obtain a warrant of arrest from the clerk of the Maintenance Court’s office which will be authorised by the police. This will include an application for the money owing.

Where the person is formally employed and gets a salary, they have the option to make an application for a garnishee order which means that the maintenance money will be deducted directly from their salary by the company/institution/firm/organisation with whom they are employed. If they are not formally employed they will still be expected to pay the maintenance money owing. Being informally employed does not eliminate a parent’s obligation to take care of their minor child.

If the person who is expected to pay maintenance neglects to do so, it is unwise to wait for months on end before approaching the court. This is because maybe by the time one makes the report, the amount would have been so high that the person cannot pay it off easily.

If there is a garnishee order in place and the person is no longer employed by that company or becomes a pensioner, it is necessary to go back to the Maintenance court to remove the garnishee order and maybe with the latter claim for a lumpsum maintenance. Once a person is no longer employed by the company, the company will simply stop depositing money.

Many women have been known to wait until the situation is dire and sometimes beyond reproof to report especially in issues of domestic violence. If a person obtains a protection order against another person there are certain things that the person reported against is expected to do and/or refrain from doing. Should this person disregard the conditions given in the protection order, the person who made the application should make a report to the police.

For example, if the protection order prohibits a person from physically and verbally assaulting another and the person proceeds to beat and threaten the person in whose favour the protection order is recorded, the latter should make a report to the nearest police station. The mere fact that a protection order exists may not be enough.

It is necessary to make a police report when violated. The protection order has the force of law to be the basis of an arrest but it will only work if an actual report is made with the police. There are countless examples of neglect to enforce an order that we can speak of. Sometimes when a person is awarded custody of a child, they may wait for months before collecting the child only to discover that the child has been relocated to the United Kingdom.

Such a move is not easily reversible regardless of a standing custody order. Where one is awarded custody of the child(ren), they must ensure that they collect the child(ren) with immediate effect and if they face any resistance should collect the children with assistance from the police.

It is the same where a person has been awarded property such as furniture by the court and waits for months or years to collect it. They will be at risk of finding that property damaged or destroyed and will have to go through another mammoth and costly court procedure of claiming the monetary equivalent of the same property. Surely a court order cannot be expected to physically preserve the property while one remains complacent and at ease.

One of the areas where it has been noted that people rarely enforce judgments is in deceased estates. A surviving spouse may be awarded a house which belonged to the deceased.

They choose to continue living in the property or where they are not living on the property continue to keep the property in the deceased’s name. It is important to note that there has to be transfer of the estate from the deceased to being registered in the surviving spouse’s name. Only then can the surving spouse lay claim to that property.

If the property is registered by way of cession the surviving spouse has to register the transfer with the municipality. If there are title deeds, the surviving spouse has to approach a conveyancer who will transfer ownership. What is evident here is that the surviving spouse has to act in accordance and fulfilment of the order given by the Master of the High Court.

A judgment by the Honourable Justice Mafusire comes to mind. A debtor was served with numerous papers asking that they pay back the debt. In the end an order was obtained in their absence because there was proof that they had knowledge of the existence of the court proceedings. When their property was now being removed, this debtor finally decided to act. The Judge in this matter simply stated that having been at peace all this while, they must forever hold their peace.

The same principle applies. If one is complacent enough to keep a written judgment neatly tucked away with the rest of their documents, they must not cry wolf when their position has been compromised due to their complacency. In short, after having chosen not to enforce the judgment; they must remain at peace!

• For feedback questions and comments please feel free to email zwla@zwla.co.zw to phone our hotline number on +263782 900 900/+263776 673 873 or our toll free on 08080131 and landline(s) +2634 70491/+2634 706676

Cde Chipanga

Kudzanai Chipanga Correspondent
ZANU-PF Youth League position on the disturbances at the 9th leg of the Presidential Youth Interface Rally on the 4th of November 2017, White City Stadium, Bulawayo The trendsetting and pioneering Presidential Youth Interface Rallies were set in response to a clarion call by the youth of Zimbabwe as concerned stakeholders seeking the ear of the venerable leader of Zimbabwe, President Robert Gabriel Mugabe, the Head of State and Government and Commander in Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces.

There has been a magnificent response by the youths and it has awakened the youths’ interest in nation building and participation in the national discourse. The aim of the Interfaces is to offer the youths of every province a chance of hearing the President of the party address their concerns and they would in turn raise their issues and receive appropriate responses as a way of placing the hands of the youths on the national pulse.

However, events of last Saturday in Bulawayo have exposed a group of malcontents, reckless, uncouth and spineless minority seeking relevance and a platform for their rent-seeking nature. These narrow-minded rebels with myopic interests have sought to hijack and disturb these interfaces that are central to the national agenda.

As the youths, we will not sit idly and let these rebels hijack such a vital national project which is the lifeblood of national debate and prevent our concerns from being heard and addressed just to please the narrow and shallow agenda of an increasingly irrelevant, criminally unethical and morally decadent minority.

We, the youth of Zimbabwe wish to apologise unconditionally to the Head of State and Government, President of the Republic of Zimbabwe and Commander in Chief of the Defence Forces and First Secretary of Zanu-PF, His Excellency President Robert Gabriel Mugabe and the mother of the nation, Secretary of zanu-pf Women’s League, First Lady, Amai Dr Grace Mugabe for the disruptions during the Youth Interface Rally in Bulawayo.

We wish to distance ourselves from such conduct and condemn it in the strongest terms. While this conduct was perpetrated by a tiny minority bussed by enemies of our struggle to disrupt and distract us from the main agenda, we wish to sincerely and humbly apologise as this was done at our event as the Youth League. Disruption of our Mother, The First Lady at the Bulawayo Interface Rally over the weekend therefore, merits the strongest censure and condemnation from the Zimbabwean youths.

While this is a free country where this cabal of irrelevant, filthy and bird-brained sorry lot can have the temerity of exposing their emptiness and crass stupidity, we the youths will no longer sit back while out agenda is hijacked and the tenets that underpin our Revolutionary party are being torn to shreds. The Interfaces are the product and property of the Youth League and we will guard them jealously. Zanu-PF as a revolutionary party and Zimbabwe as a democratic country, are built on principles of mutual respect, common national interest and respect for protocol. It is therefore not in the DNA of the party or the nation to disrespect our leadership or to launder dirty linen in the public eye.

Unfortunately, it is the malice and selfish nature of those behind the bussing of disruptive thugs that have motivated this response. We as the youths are not blind to the identity of the parties behind this unpalatable behaviour and we are alive to their machinations and devices. We are therefore, sending a message to these people and their handlers that this country was built on the ultimate sacrifice of our people whose blood watered the revolution.

The person of the Head of State and Government is sacred and more so the integrity and reputation of the First Lady is untouchable. As the President clearly spelt out on Saturday, these clowns masquerading as genuine party members, while promoting the hostile agenda of the party’s (then) co-VP Cde E.D Mnangagwa are free to take their circus to the political zoo by forming their own party.

For the avoidance, the Youth League is fully behind the secretary for Women’s Affairs in calling for the urgent removal of Cde Mnangagwa from the position of Vice President both in Government and the party. That position is a straitjacket and must be handed back to the Women’s League. The Women’s League will guide us on the way forward regarding their preferred candidate.

However, keeping in mind that the woman Vice President shall be Vice President for the whole nation, Youth League included, it has ignited us to take interest and position on the selection of the woman candidate. It has to be one acceptable and loyal to the party and its Principal, the President, one without ambition to work against the President. The only person possessing such qualities is the leader of the Women’s League, none other than Her Excellency, Amai Dr Grace Mugabe.

I thank you.

Pasi neLacoste!

• Kudzanai Chipanga is the zanu-pf National Secretary for Youth Affairs. This statement by the Youth League was released in the wake of disturbances at the Ninth Youth Interface Rally at White City Stadium in Bulawayo.

Leila Pakkala

If Africa is to keep pace with an unprecedented demographic transition – Africa’s under-18 population will reach 750 million by 2030 – scaled up investment in health, education and women’s protection and empowerment will be needed or the continent will face a “bleak” future, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says.

“Investing in health, protection, and education must become an absolute priority for Africa between now and 2030,” said Leila Pakkala, UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa.

According to UNICEF’s report Generation 2030 Africa 2.0, some 11 million education and health personnel will be needed to keep pace with the projected unprecedented population growth of children in Africa – an increase of 170 million children between now and 2030.

“We are at the most critical juncture for Africa’s children,” Ms Pakkala underscored. “Get it right, and we set the foundation for a demographic dividend, which could lift hundreds of millions out of extreme poverty, and contribute to enhanced prosperity, stability, and peace.”

The report identifies three key issues for investment: health care, education and the protection and empowerment of women and girls. Concretely, to meet minimum international standards in health care and best practice targets in education, Africa will have to add 5,6 million new health workers and 5,8 million new teachers by 2030. According to the report, almost half of the continent’s population is under 18 years old – and the majority of the population in around one-third of the 55 African Union member states is children. Current projections foresee the number of Africa’s children topping one billion by 2055.

“Imagine the potential of one billion children”

“Imagine the potential of one billion children,” said Marie-Pierre Poirier, UNICEF’s Regional Director for West and Central Africa. “If Africa steps up its investments in children and youth now, transforms its education systems and empowers women and girls to participate fully in community, workplace and political life, it will be able to reap faster, deeper and longer dividends from its demographic transition.”

Conversely, if investments do not occur in Africa’s youth and children, the once-in-a-generation opportunity of a demographic dividend may be replaced by a demographic disaster, characterised by unemployment and instability.

UNICEF recommends three policy actions to create the socio-economic conditions for Africa’s coming generations. The first is to improve health, social welfare, and protection services to meet international standards; or beyond, in countries close to attaining them. Secondly, it recommends Africa’s educational skills and vocational learning system be adapted through curricula reform and access to technology to meet the needs of a 21st century labour market.

The report also prescribes that Africa secures and ensures the right to protection from violence, exploitation, child marriage and abuse; removes barriers preventing women and girls from participating fully in community, workplace and political life; and enhances access to reproductive health services. – Unicef

First Lady Dr Amai Grace Mugabe waves as she arrives to address an indigenous apostolic churches’ interface dubbed “Super Sunday” at Rufaro Stadium

Dr Sekai Nzenza on Wednesday
It’s Sunday afternoon at Rufaro Stadium. I am not fully dressed for a church service because almost everyone I see is wearing a white gown. Just as well I had a white scarf in my handbag. I quickly cover my head with it so that I can at least look the part. It’s 11am and Rufaro Stadium is almost three quarters full of people dressed in the uniform of their church. I still need to belong to a church. At my father’s memorial last month, the Anglicans claimed me as their own because my parents were Anglicans.

But today, I am celebrating the diversity of worship at Rufaro Stadium. Despite the different churches that we attend, we are able to gather together and sing the same song. We tested this at my father’s memorial in September. First we gathered on Saturday and held a traditional nyota yababa, my father’s thirst, and killed a whole beast. There was plenty of home brewed beer to drink as we remembered my father.

The following day, we put all the remaining beer away and prepared for the church service. We asked people to come wearing their own denomination’s church uniform. This was the first time that an event like this had happened around our area. We waited to see if people would come wearing their uniforms and worship together.

On September 19 this year, if you had arrived in our village courtyard, you would have seen more than 500 people all dressed up in their own church uniforms. The African Zionist Church came with their West African type drum. The two drums quickly drowned the soft Catholic songs. Dancing and singing started immediately. Men, women and children sang with much joy singing the same songs, dancing to three different drums.

Now I am at Rufaro Stadium and ready to witness a national gathering at the Big Sunday for apostolic indigenous churches. Her Excellency, the First Lady, Dr Amai Grace Mugabe is the guest of honour. She is expected to arrive at any time.

Earlier on, I had parked my car at the flats next to Rufaro Stadium, where I normally leave it when I come shopping at Mbare Market. I have relatives who live in the old two-roomed houses built in the colonial era. There are communal toilets and showers there. But closer to the stadium are the new flats where my niece, daughter of my first cousin, Mai Bee and her husband Baba Bee live. Their flat is on the second floor and you can see the northern part of the stadium from their lounge room window. You can also hear everything from the loud speaker.

My cousin Piri did not have a VIP ticket like me so she said she would not risk being fried in the sun. Instead, she was going to watch the live proceedings on television while sharing beers at home with Baba Bee. I found a place in the VIP area not too far away from the podium where selected Bishops and other big people were to sit high up, behind Her Excellency Dr Amai Grace Mugabe. On my left, were two men from the Bethsaida Apostolic Church. On my right was an older lady dressed in a white dress and veil. Next to her was a tall man wearing the Mai Chaza’s Guta raJehovah brown uniform.

The lady on my right soon introduced herself to me as Sister Ethel Makoni from Rusape. She had left Gandanzara in Rusape at 3am arriving in Harare at 7am and by 8am she was in her seat. I arrived at 10am and she had already been there for two hours. I bought her some ice cream and we started talking and commenting on the ceremony. I learn that Sister Ethel is in her early 70s and she belongs to the Johanne Masowe Apostolic faith church. She lives in a commune and has never married.

Piri sends a WhatsApp message asking about the people in the stadium. I tell her that there were some big people in the higher VIP area, but I am not seating that close to them. Piri wants to know their names, as if that makes any difference to her. I ignore her. The Jekenisheni Group comes into the stadium with synchronised dancing, drumming and singing. The crowds cheer and some dance from where they are standing.

Her Excellency Dr Amai Grace Mugabe arrives and there is loud waving and applause. A number bishops and leaders are given time to greet the people and offer solidarity messages. The Minister of Sport and Culture, Honourable Makhosini Hlongwane introduces Dr Amai Grace Mugabe and again there is loud applause and whistles. Amai Grace Mugabe rises to the podium. She begins by acknowledging the thousands of people present and singles out each denomination by name.

Sometimes, it is difficult to hear every word from the First Lady because some people behind us are talking rather loudly. But I do catch some of the messages quite clearly. She talks about equality between the people and makes reference to Ephesians 2 verse 10. This verse in King James Version says. “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”

Her Excellency Dr Amai Grace Mugabe goes on to say that everyone in this country is important regardless of their physical stature. We are created in the image of God and are equal. During her speech she acknowledges the church’s role in the development of the country and requests the people to pray for wisdom and for the leadership of His Excellency President Robert Mugabe. She also encourages the apostolic groups to be united and to organise themselves so that they are not represented as small minority groups. This way, it would be easier for Government to help them.

Calling upon the entrepreneurship spirit of the people, she says Zimbabweans are people who work tirelessly. You often you see them trading and crossing borders. She says, “Zimbabwe is full of natural resources and the number one natural resource in this country are its people.” People clap and applaud.

Then she further addresses the people in Shona saying, “Hatidi kuti vanhu vatitarisire pasi. Imi vanhu vechipositori, muri vanhu vatinokudza, Tinoda kuti muitewo zvikoro zvenyu, vana vaende kuchikoro. Knowledge is power. Kana wava nefundo, hapana anogona kukuitisa zvausingade, nekuti unenge wava nefundo.”

During an interval we receive small packages of a bun, piece of chicken and a samoosa. Piri sends a text asking me to come back to the flat urgently. I quickly walk across to the flats thinking there is an emergency. I find Piri and Baba Bee relaxed and merry. There are empty cans of beer on the floor. Mai Bee is cooking meat in the kitchen and several kids are playing on the balcony.

“What is the matter?” I ask. “Beer is the matter. We have run out,” Piri says. Baba Bee nods. I am used to these demands for beer from Piri. It gets worse when she has company. But I do not have time to waste. I give her five dollars. Before I leave, she grabs my phone to look at the photos and videos that I have just taken at the stadium. Baba Bee looks at the photos and says he can recognise a number of big people in Government, church and the private sector.

“Iii, pakaipa!” says Piri, sitting down and taking a sip from her last can of beer. “Sisi, go back and try and shake hands with the First Lady Dr Amai Mugabe. When you have done that, do not greet anyone, come back and shake hands with me first,” Piri says. Somehow, Piri thinks shaking hands with the First Lady will bring good luck to her because Her Excellency Dr Amai Grace Mugabe is a powerful, fearless woman.

I return to the stadium and find many people dancing in front of the First Lady. I am not able to get anyway close to shake Her Excellency Dr Amai Grace Mugabe’s hand. I know Piri will be disappointed, so am I. But I decide to mingle with the crowd and dance. I am reminded of the time when Rufaro Stadium was full of people celebrating Zimbabwean independence. That was on 18th April 1980, when Zimbabwe got its independence in a historic and dramatic ceremony here at Rufaro Stadium.

The Zimbabwean flag was hoisted and there was a 21-gun salute in front of more than 40 000 invited guests. His Excellency President Robert Mugabe gave a speech and encouraged unity. He then lit the flame of independence. This flame was later taken by fast runners from Rufaro Stadium to the Kopje where it continues to burn today as a symbol of our freedom from British colonial rule.

Thirty-seven years later, we are back here at Rufaro Stadium and Her Excellency Dr Amai Grace Mugabe, the President’s wife, is the guest of honour. Many people in this stadium were born after independence. But we are here together, the old and the young, united in celebrating our spiritual diversity and who we are as Zimbabweans. Tinonamata Mwari mumwe chete.

• Dr Sekai Nzenza is a writer and cultural critic.

Public health is constantly fighting to gain attention and resources

Dr David Okello Special Correspondent
I feel deeply honoured to be invited to give a keynote address at this prestigious Zimbabwe Annual Medical Research Day. I am told that this event also doubles as the Dr Steven Chandiwana Memorial Lecture. From the onset, I should mention that I have two confessions to make:

My first confession is that – having spent the last five years in this country, this event will also mark the beginning of the end of my public engagements in the country. I appreciate the hospitality and friendship found abundant during my tenure of office here in this beautiful country. I am at a loss for words to explain my profound gratitude.

My second confession is that: Mr Christopher Samkange, Director, Institute of Continuing Health Education, asked me to focus my speech on: i). How research can be used to strengthen health systems in a generic manner; ii) Observed causes of “fragility” in the Zimbabwe health delivery system and how they can be mitigated; iii) The resilience of the Zimbabwe health delivery system and how this can be used to enhance performance of the system in the critical times ahead; and iv) Opportunities that exist to improve and optimise the performance of the Zimbabwe health delivery system in the short to medium term.

I may not be able to cover all this massive assignment within the time allocated. Suffice to mention, however, that the central theme of my speech is “Challenges in the Healthcare Sector Present Opportunities for Innovations”.

As we all know, Zimbabwe hosted the 67th Session of the WHO Regional Committee for Africa at Victoria Falls from 28th August to 1st September 2017. It was an uplifting experience to see all health leaders from Government and partners united here. The leaders placed health of the people at the centre of development endeavours not just in words, but showed that they care.

For example, His Excellency, the President of Zimbabwe, Cde R.G. Mugabe, stated: “Let us therefore push health to take its deserved prominence on our agendas in our sub-regional groups, at the African Union level and indeed on the global stage.” President Mugabe also noted that Africa is disproportionately represented on the global disease burden for communicable and non-communicable diseases. “We must ask ourselves why this is so and more importantly, what can we do to arrest and reverse these trends.”

This brings me to talk about the immediate encounters we face here in Zimbabwe. Public health is constantly fighting to gain attention and resources. Many of the mechanisms and infrastructures that safeguard public health on a daily basis go unnoticed until something dramatic goes wrong.

The need to invest in health may come into view only when the food or water supply is contaminated, or when the stocks of essential medicines procured through support from partners suddenly run out, and/or when surveillance misses the start of a major outbreak. Although the consequences of such failures are costly and disruptive, public health still struggles to persuade Government to invest in basic infrastructures and services – before something catastrophic happens.

At the same time, we know that in this part of the world, lifestyle changes join demographic trends to cause a dramatic rise in non-communicable diseases (NCDs). The new burden of NCDs comes at a time when the country is still struggling to bring infectious diseases under control. Fortunately, NCDs are largely caused by a small number of shared risk factors, including: improper diet, inadequate physical activity, tobacco use, and excessive alcohol consumption.

Here, I would like to appeal to the researchers to find feasible ways of confronting the risk factors to NCDs. We must pressurise industries to stop marketing dangerous products to our children. In addition, action is needed to protect the population against harmful practices such as drug abuse and other unhealthy life styles; and to provide them with reliable, trustworthy information and advice.

Furthermore, may I make mention of another matter of grave concern. What can we realistically do in response to the carnage we are facing on the roads? Road traffic accidents have reached totally unacceptable levels. We know that these accidents are largely preventable if different relevant initiatives are implemented conscientiously. The risk factors are mainly behavioural – including non-compliance with road traffic regulations and harmful use of alcohol, among others.

It is also about time we paid attention and got better understanding on who actually is injured on the roads; and what is the impact of the injuries on families and communities. This remains an area of much needed research, to examine the full knock on consequences of road injuries. We should not limit our concerns just on medical treatment and rehabilitation of victims of RTAs.

There is a need to consider how the health system can withstand and be resilient in the face of an economic slowdown, while still striving to expand access to services and ensuring readiness to respond to public health threats. By resilient, I mean health actors, institutions and populations being able to absorb shocks and maintain core functions and good health when a crisis hits, and draw from the lessons learnt during the crisis, to reorganise and remain viable.

Resilience also implies an ability to draw on personal resources to face adverse circumstances, ensure effective prioritisation and protect core functions. In my opinion, we should pay particular attention to building resilience at the district health systems level. As we all know, previous efforts on strengthening district health systems are yet to provide convincing and sustainable results. More work and evidence is therefore needed on what works best at that level.

Another crucial issue here in Zimbabwe is the role of the private sector in provision of healthcare services; and how we should fully exploit their potential in moving towards UHC. In a resilient health system, private health care provision will coexist with public health services. But private health care services must be regulated to also provide training, monitoring, supervision and technical support; and should perhaps enable public sector workers earn a living through a structured part-time arrangement. Of course, they should be well regulated either by professional associations or by Government.

The important role of research cannot be over-emphasised. We are all aware that the African region has a high burden of both communicable and non-communicable diseases. These are further complicated by demographic, economic, social, security and environmental changes that directly or indirectly impact on the health of the population.

Strong national health systems are needed to deliver health care interventions to achieve UHC and the SDGs. Health research is critical to help find practical solutions to these challenges in the healthcare setting. Despite its importance though, priority is not given to health research and data, which results in low investment.

We also realise that most of the research efforts in our country are externally driven, and may not always be tailored to provide answers to local needs. Consequently, several structures for local health research systems are either non-existent or weak. In my view, research must be locally driven, relevant and appropriate for our circumstances. But funding for such efforts remains a major bottleneck.

During my stay in this country I met great people with vast talent across all professional disciplines. While it is true that the health sector still faces major challenges, there have been good efforts in Zimbabwe to resolve some of the challenges, and we are making progress.

• Dr David Okello is the outgoing WHO Representative to Zimbabwe

Hardly a month after street vendors were swept off sidewalks and pirate taxis were driven off the Central Business District, the Harare City Council and the police are back where they started. The lesson: You can’t keep doing the same thing and expect different results!

While illegal vending and pirate taxis are a critical pillar of the informal economy – more so during the prevailing trying times – the need to have order on the roads, adequate sidewalk space and clean environs outweigh the needs of a few. In any case, families who rely on such illegal operations are not being denied a decent living. The issue is about formalising their operations so that they can be relocated to more suitable areas.

This is why we find the incompetence of the City Fathers and the police appalling. Solving a problem of the 21st century requires a solution from the 21st century.

The challenge with the city and the police is that they treat every problem as a nail which needs a hammer. This is an archaic method of public administration which is probably more relevant in the ancient city of Athens than it is in metropolitan Harare.

The city and the police must swap the baton for the computer. An integrated system that includes the city, police, Zimbabwe National Roads Administration, Vehicle Inspection Department and Central Vehicle Registry is the long-term solution to the pirate taxi as well as the menace of registered public transport operators who use illegal pick-up points.

The logic is that all vehicles on the country’s roads are registered. They can engage in illegal activities but they are registered, and renew this registration quarterly. That is the starting point. Once registration is cancelled or denied, a vehicle can no longer move on the country’s roads. So instead of using road spikes, the police only need pen and paper to take note of registration plates.

The same applies to drivers, as they too are registered. It makes sense that kombi and taxi drivers who put the lives of many in danger should have their licences revoked. What could be more deterrent to a public transport driver than losing the one document which matters most?

Street vendors, on the other hand, need convenience. So give them what they need – convenient spaces. Vending booths, for example, are not only hygienic but are appealing to the eye. Registered vendors can rent booths from private companies or from council at convenient spaces. Who wouldn’t want to buy fresh fruit juice or salad from a neat booth at Africa Unity Square? Burgers, hotdogs, candy and ice-cream, food on the go.

The vending booths are working even in the most developed of countries. Locally, the EcoCash vending booths are a good example of this eco-friendly solution.

There are many other solutions to the challenges facing the city and the Sunshine City status can be restored. Stakeholders need to convene and learn from those who are already doing it. There is no need to re-invent the wheel.

This cat and mouse or Tom and Jerry business must come to an end. It’s the 21st century for goodness sake!

NEW DEHLI. - Sahana Subramanyam is a final year student at Azim Premji University in Bengaluru. She is majoring in economics and minoring in data science. She says she chose to focus also on data science because it bridges the demands of economics and her love for computer programming.

The university has a compulsory course for all students in quantitative reasoning, under which she chose to learn the Python programming language. In the data science course, among other things, she has learnt R, a programming language that enables you to manage and analyse massive data bases. Sahana is already using Python to build a model for a research project on identifying how graded inequalities, such as caste, emerge in societies. Python enables you to build predictive models significantly faster than traditional methods.

“Programming languages allow you to use the power of the computer,” Sahana says. It’s a power that has touched extraordinary levels today.

Sahana’s course combination allows her to do work that a traditional economics focused student would never be able to do. Her programming strengths also give her the ability to look way beyond economics, considering technology has become core to every field and industry. Her university actively encourages these combinations. There are students majoring in physics and taking education as a minor, combining economics with sustainability, biology with economics, physics with sociology, economics, and the history of India.

“Take renewable energy, you cannot understand it without understanding economics, engineering, physics, politics. Real world is like that,” says Anurag Behar, vice chancellor of Azim Premji University.

He is critical of the way India has fragmented education. He agrees it’s absolutely important to learn a discipline deeply, be it sociology or electrical engineering.

“But it is in real life that you apply these disciplines,” he says. So you need to understand other aspects of life.

Many countries around the world do not have this siloed approach to higher education. Today, as the world gets transformed by technology and other trends, a growing number of educationists and employers believe it’s time for India to move to a cross-disciplinary education system.

Sabina Dewan is co-founder & president of JustJobs Network, a think-tank based in Washington and New Delhi focused on finding solutions to create more and better employment. She previously worked with the International Labour Organisation in Switzerland, and the European Commission in Belgium.

Dewan says the world is at a crossroads, with a confluence of mega trends – technology, urbanisation, trade, migration, and climate change – drastically reshaping the global employment landscape.

“The scale and pace of this is unprecedented and we are not equipped to understand how these will change jobs of the future,” she says.

So it is necessary to equip young people in a way that they are flexible enough to respond quickly to a new context. Sagar Paul, head of client services at technology consultancy.

ThoughtWorks, notes that businesses are already going through massive contextual changes. Earlier, a steelmaker may at best move into adjacencies like building automobile or white goods plates. Today, a Google moves from a search engine to autonomous cars, and an Apple from PCs to phones to watches.

“So it requires employees to be able to shift context quickly. We need change makers in the organisation. We are not hiring for skills anymore, but a certain aptitude,” he says.

Paul also notes that all enterprises have become consumerised, with the adoption of technology and services used by individuals in the workplace. So his employees also need to relate to people much more.

“My interview checks for empathy, solidarity. Customers are human beings, and we need to be able to have huge empathy for them. Empathy is much higher among those from the liberal arts, the performing arts.

So we need artists who are technologists, technologists who are artists, people who can also come up with independent thoughts and make it a movement,” he says, adding that India needs to introduce liberal arts into all curriculum.

“With our current education, we are solving 20th century problems, not 21st century ones,” he says.

Shraddhanjali Rao, head of human resource for India at enterprise software company SAP, brings in the imagery of a jungle gym and spider web to describe the kind of employee she values. A career, she says, is no more a ladder for you to grow in the same function one step at a time, but is a web of experiences across various functions and roles.

“You need a much broader perspective, not just depth of knowledge or expertise in one specific area,” she says.

And if a person has two interests, say journalism and psychology or UX (user experience) design and social media, Rao says she can also work with the person in a multiple-engagement model.

“If work in one comes down, then you can do more of the other,” she says.

Paul Dupuis, CEO of Randstad India, which services the HR requirements of a number of large companies, says more and more Indian CEOs are discussing the need for multi-skilled employees. “Companies are looking for people who are agile, have a wide perspective. They want soft skills that might be acquired from a liberal arts background,” he says.

Dewan of JustJobs believes changes must start at the school level itself and argues that six-month or one-year training programmes cannot make up for years of poor quality education provided to especially those in the lower economic strata. She’s pushing for introduction of employability skills at the secondary school level – skills in new technology areas, basic financial management skills, soft skills.

Prof Jagadeesh Kumar, dean of academic courses at IIT Madras, the institution wants its students to understand that as engineers, they cannot say they will deal with only engineering problems.

“Eleven percent of the total coursework of a student involves working with other disciplines including ethics, life skills, environment, political science and others,” he says.

IIT Madras even offers engineering economics as a subject.

“The idea is to learn what kind of engineering will survive in the commercial world,” Kumar says.

Balakrishnan Shankar, associate dean of the school of engineering at Amritapuri in Kerala, says students are looking to merge big data with biology and social science.

“Theories that you learn in big data or engineering can be applied to population of birds, movement of sand dunes or census data,” he says.

Rao of SAP says the ability to interpret and analyse data will soon become a base level expectation in all industries.

This is the reason why all undergraduate programmes in Azim Premji University have quantitative reasoning as a compulsory course. The university also has two other compulsory courses for all: one on public reasoning, which trains students on the art of public discussion with respect for pluralism, and the other on India, its history, sociology, so that students can relate their core courses with the world outside.

Behar says the success of the approach can be seen in the fact that the university’s undergraduate students are writing for peer-reviewed academic journals like the Economic & Political Weekly (EPW). It can also be seen in the confidence with which an undergraduate student in economics speaks about programming.

Asked why she likes R over data analysis software like Stata, Sahana says, “I like R because it’s open source, it allows you way more control over what you do, and allows more ways of thinking about a problem.” - TimesofIndia

Dr Sacrifice Chirisa Mental Health Matters
While the majority of domestic violence victims are women, abuse of men is quite common. Typically, men are physically stronger than women but that does not necessarily make it easier to escape the violence in the relationship. An abused man faces scepticism from police, and major legal obstacles, especially when it comes to gaining custody of his children from an abusive mother.

If you are a man in an abusive relationship, it is important to know that you are not alone. It happens to men from all cultures and all walks of life. Studies suggest that as many as one in three victims of domestic violence are male. However, men are often reluctant to report abuse by women because:

• They feel embarrassed
• They fear they will not be believed
• Police will assume that since they are male they are the perpetrator of the violence

An abusive wife or partner may:

• Hit,
• Kick
• Bite,
• Punch,
• Spit,
• Throw things
• Destroy your possessions.

To make up for any difference in strength, she may attack you while you are asleep or otherwise catch you by surprise. She may also use a weapon, such as a gun or knife, or strike you with an object, abuse or harm your pets.

Domestic abuse is not limited to violence. It may include verbally abuse you:

• Belittle you, or humiliate you in front of friends, colleagues, or family, or on social media sites.
• Be possessive, act jealous, or harass you with accusations of being unfaithful.
• Take away your car keys try to control where you go and who you see.
• Make false allegations about you to your friends, employer, or the police, or find other ways to manipulate and isolate you.
• Threaten to leave you and prevent you from seeing your kids if you report the abuse.

Why men do not leave

• You may feel that you have to stay in the relationship because:
• You want to protect your children. You worry that if you leave your spouse will harm your children or prevent you from having access to them.
• You feel ashamed. Many men feel great shame that they’ve been beaten down by a woman or failed in their role as protector and provider for the family.
• Your religious beliefs dictate that you stay or your self-worth is so low that you feel this relationship is all you deserve.
• You are in denial. Denying that there is a problem. Believing that you can help your abuser or she may have promised to change.

This subject of male abuse is linked to increased risk of mental and psychological problems. These range from depression to alcohol and substance abuse.

This is a delicate situation and needs professional marital and family therapy. In some cases the partner might need treatment like anger management or even medication that decrease the likelihood of violence. Worst case scenario, a separation might be the answer. However, every relationship deserves to be given a change with professionals.

• Dr S. M. Chirisa is a passionate mental health specialist who holds an undergraduate medical degree and postgraduate master’s degree in psychiatry, both from the University of Zimbabwe. He is currently working as a Senior Registrar in the Department of Psychiatry at Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals and is also the current national treasurer of the Zimbabwe Medical Association (ZiMA). He can be reached at drsmchirisa@yahoo.com

Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma Correspondent
Education, land, job creation and the role of women must be considered in efforts to build an inclusive developmental state. Any discussion about building a South Africa that belongs to all, and therefore about transforming the country’s economy, must acknowledge that we are one of the most unequal societies in the world. The Gini coefficient measures income inequality in a range from 0 to 1, where a totally unequal society will score a 1. Ours ranges from 0,66 to 0,69.

In the world’s most equal societies, the top 10 percent earn about six times as much as the bottom 10 percent. In South Africa, the top 10 percent earn 110 times more than the bottom 10 percent. South Africa operates in a global economy where 75 percent of cities across the world have become more unequal over the past two decades, according to the UN Habitat World Cities Report 2016. Increased inequality is therefore not a uniquely South African phenomenon.

However, there are some uniquely South African causal factors, including the legacy of the well-oiled exclusion machinery of apartheid, consisting of the tight framework of laws and spatial planning that permeated and stifled every aspect of the lives of blacks. The most adverse effects were on African women. This fact made the erstwhile colonial project a “colonialism of a special type”.

The dawn of democracy made it possible for the ANC government to repeal apartheid laws and to introduce measures to progressively address many of the social consequences of apartheid. Sadly, the overall structure of the economy that had been put in place under apartheid has remained largely untransformed. Consequently, while the introduction of a social wage (housing, education and healthcare, water and sanitation, social grants) has helped improve the lives of many, the lack of economic transformation and redistribution means the continuation of deep-seated and structural inequalities based on race, gender and geography.

This lack of transformation is reflected in the structure of the South African economy, in a world where production value chains have become global, where Africa is working to claw out its own space, and where some are moving towards the fourth industrial revolution.

Fundamental change

South Africa must take concerted measures to tackle the deeply ingrained domestic fault lines, the increasing chasm between the rich and poor, and define its space within the African and global economy. The divide between rich and poor, if left unattended, will be to the detriment of all of society, as the poor and marginalised cannot continue to occupy the fort of patience.

Consequently, the radical economic transformation agenda is to the benefit of all South Africans. It is an agenda directed at the large army of the unemployed and poor, to build an economy and society that include everyone, as a precondition for stability.

This is why the ANC has made a concerted effort to focus on radical economic transformation. This will provide a fundamental change in the structure, systems, institutions and patterns of ownership, management and control of the economy in favour of all South Africans, especially the poor — the majority of whom are young, African and female. Such a path will secure a developmental state which places people at its centre without leaving anyone behind. Inclusivity is at the centre of our approach.

This focus is fundamental to building the society envisaged in our Constitution.

It must include:

1. A targeted intervention in our education and training system to ensure that every school has the basic norms and standards to enable learning. There must be investments in teacher and curriculum development. Science, technology, engineering and mathematics must be strengthened, and there must be free and quality education.

This must be accompanied by a skills revolution which gives school leavers and the young unemployed the ability to contribute to society.

All of this should be underpinned by patriotic pupils who know their history and have a Pan-African and global perspective.

2. Resolving the historical injustice of land dispossession, so that all South Africans have access to land for housing, businesses and other social infrastructure and can help grow agriculture and agro-processing. South Africa and other countries in the region should aim to become a player in the continental and global food markets. They must help play a significant role in reducing the over $70bn bill (about R999.1bn) we spend on importing processed food into the African continent.

3. Placing growth, job creation and industrialisation at the centre of our macroeconomic policies, along with the mandate of the developmental state, state-owned entities, and the partnership between government, business and labour.

4. Having a green (environmentally sensitive) approach, with a strong emphasis on unlocking the blue economy, as a part of our job creation strategy. Our continental shelf as a source of food, tourism and marine manufacturing is badly underdeveloped and holds huge potential for growth, especially job creation.

5. For trade to succeed, the whole value chain has to be integrated seamlessly. It starts with raw materials and includes production, processing, transportation, storage and sales. Our government, other African governments and the private sector have to cooperate to improve infrastructure on our continent.

The current situation, where it is more expensive to transport goods from South Africa to Zambia than to the UK cannot be allowed to continue.

6. The role of women in the professions and management and easing their access into mainstream industries should be prioritised. Our society is still sexist and patriarchal and women quickly hit a glass ceiling in most industries. We must empower women.

Our focus on growth with redistribution means a review of current models of black economic empowerment. We must ensure that it not only empowers individuals, but also communities and employees. There must be a determination on the “once empowered, always empowered” principle to bring it in line with our goal of fundamentally changing ownership patterns.

For South Africa to truly belong to all — black and white, women and men, young and old — we must make it possible for everyone to be part of the economy and to benefit equitably on a level playing field. The developmental state in South Africa should make use of all its available resources to do so.

To unite South Africa around this mission requires a united and vibrant ANC. It must have the integrity, capacity, determination and capabilities to lead society. The ANC, as the movement which is most trusted by the people of South Africa, has a historic and current obligation to ensure that on this journey of transforming our economy, no one is left behind.

• Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma is an ANC MP, former chairperson of the African Union Commission and former Cabinet minister

Beneficiaries of the Lafarge programme sing at their fundraising dinner

Tatenda Charamba Features Writer
Bucy Shorai, a 22 –year-old young woman, had lost all hope about her future. Without financial support to do a vocational training course in catering, her world had carved in. She became restless and hopeless. Deep down inside, she knew that education and a vocational course was the only way to empowerment and hope.

Shorai, too, knew that education and empowerment was the only way to escape the burden of poverty. And, when she heard about the Shine: Simuka Upenye Empowerment Programme, run by the cement maker Lafarge Cement Zimbabwe, she was elated. For her, the programme, she thought, could be a springboard to better life.

“The Simuka Upenye programme has helped restore my hope for the future in an amazing way. Despite the fact that both my parents are dead and I am HIV positive, I still believe I can achieve a lot in my life. I’ve enjoyed support from my mentors. Now, I have gained confidence in myself and have dreams of opening a restaurant of my own in a few years to come once I complete my course,” Shorai said.

Shorai is one of 100 girls from Tafara and Mabvuku high density suburbs that have benefited immensely from the Shine: Simuka Upenye Empowerment Programme, which is supporting young girls to go to school and also equipping young women with life skills. Many of the beneficiaries attest that the programme has transformed their lives.

“My life was full of hope and big dreams but this came to an end when my mother died in 2011 when I was about to write my O-Level exams,” said Charity Kamucha who is now doing a construction course at Msasa Industrial Training College (MITC).

“My hopes of continuing with school were shattered yet I was an intelligent student. I managed to pass my O-Levels and someone with a good heart got me through A-Level where I attained 7 points, something that did not please me. Life became harder after I was done with my high school because the responsibility of taking care of my siblings was on me. This forced me to become a house maid.”

When Charity got support from Lafarge programme, she became optimistic.

“This programme enabled me to enrol for a construction course at Msasa,” she said.“The support I got from Lafarge has restored hope in me. I never imagined that I would do a course in construction, something which I’m passionate about. I dream about owning a construction company one day.”

During her spare time, she sells airtime to help take of her siblings. For some the programme has rescued them from social vices such as prostitution and early marriage. Most girls in Tafara and Mabvuku have dropped out of school and are doing commercial sex work owing to poverty.

This has largely prevented them from excelling in life and choosing their career paths. Many too, are exposed to sexually transmitted diseases as they are trapped in poverty. Industry and Commerce Minister, Mike Bimha hailed Lafarge for its corporate social responsibility programme.

“This Shine programme today is a big example of empowerment and employment,” he said at fundraising dinner recently for the Shine: Simuka Upenye programme.

He said it was important for all large multinational firms which are exploiting the country’s abundant natural resources to undertake CSR programmes that empower locals and create jobs.

“Aid as we have grown to know it, is more of giving beneficiaries fish and not teaching them how to fish or giving them shares in the pond. I am glad to say the trajectory is changing, albeit slowly, to a more sustainable fishing, teaching beneficiaries to fish and sharing the pond,” Minister Bimha said.

“The Lafarge Shine: Simuka Upenye programme is structured in a sustainable manner where instead of the usual hand-outs which run out after a short time, a 100 young women are being equipped with lifelong skills that are a strong foundation for the development of educated and confident young women.”

Speaking at the same event, Lafarge Cement Zimbabwe chief executive officer, Mrs Amal Tantawi said public support was critical for the success of the programme.

“The Shine programme falls within the community empowerment pillar of our corporate social responsibility initiatives and it has been impactful in a way we never anticipated. We are now confronted with the challenge to sustain this programme beyond what we have done so far. We would like to support these girls to set up businesses after the program or to go into formal employment. We would also like to enrol more girls in 2018 and we cannot do this alone. We have therefore decided to bring all our partners to work with us on this journey,” she said.

The programme was launched early this year to help empower young girls and women staying in Tafara and Mabvuku where cases of unplanned pregnancies, unsafe abortions and baby dumping are rampant.

Mabvuku Social Services helped in identifying girls in the community that were in need of the Shine: Simuka Upenye programme. Various partners were working together to develop sustainable interventions to address of the problems facing young girls and women in the Tafara and Mabvuku community. The Shine: Simuka Upenye programme focuses on vocational training, mentorship programme which has provided role models to inspire success, entrepreneurship training and business incubation.

The girls are put through vocational training at MITC and at Harare Poly Technic for courses such as brick and block laying, catering and clothing construction. Partners that Lafarge Cement Zimbabwe is working with include the Women’s University in Africa, Mabvuku Social Services, UNFPA, Zichire, MITC, Harare Polytechnic and Steward Bank.

Girls are vulnerable and need education to prevent teenage pregnancies, violence, child marriages, peer pressure, drug abuse and prostitution. According to the UN, there are nearly 600 million girls aged 10 to 19 in the world today, each with limitless individual potential. However, the global agency says, they are disappearing from public awareness and the international development agenda.

Experts say between inequities in secondary education to protection issues, adolescent girls are uniquely impacted and should benefit from targeted investments and programmes that address their distinct needs. They further say that investing in adolescent girls can have a huge ripple effect to create a better world by 2030.