Gone are the days of money changing and diamonds at Marange and in comes business of semen. After exhausting all means of making an honest living some lazy women have turned to raping and stealing men’s semen. Recently there were reports of women moving around the country in fancy cars soliciting sex from men and then raping them at gunpoint and taking their semen. Some men often find it difficult to come out openly and report cases of rape, so some women have taken advantage of this to go on a raping spree and hijacking semen to sell. It is no longer a secret that men are also being sexually abused by women and its high time that men speak out against the abuse. The most scary and painful part to the rape victims (men) is the fact of getting raped and then having your semen stolen from you and not having a clue about where and what it is going to be used for.

The idea of getting rich quick has influenced some parts of the young generation to go that extra mile of earning a living without breaking a sweat. Just like in the North African movies where “muti” or black magic is potrayed as a way of getting rich quick, these ideas, and an element of laziness have engulfed and brain washed the young generation in Zimbabwe to the extent that crime is now being committed in pursuit of money and a good life. Recently police in Gweru arrested a group of female rape suspects with a consignment of used condoms filled with semen. People who were interviewed narrated how these young women were enjoying fancy lifestyles. These women were being admired but people didn’t know they were into the semen business.

So to all men who have been victims of rape please speak out – be a man about it!

I never liked Apple products up to the time when I bought my first iPod player and then later when I was introduced to iTunes. Due to the high costs of Apple products many people with a passion for technology in Zimbabwe have been restricted to HP and Dell products, but that changed when Apple started to launch its wide range of products including the iPod, iPhone, iPad and the iMac thanks to the work of Steve Jobs. Born in 1955 Steve Jobs co-founded Apple Inc, a company which has made computers accessible to non technical people and reinventing the cellphone and music industry with the iPhone and iTunes.  Steve Jobs inspired so many young people through entrepreneurial skills and ideas which have revolutionarised the way we see technology and how to make it work for us. The world was made better because of Steve Jobs.

Reacting to Steve Jobs’s death the American President, Barack Obama he said,

“Steve was among the greatest of American innovators – brave enough to think differently, bold enough to believe he could change the world, and talented enough to do it. By building one of the planet’s most successful companies from his garage, he exemplified the spirit of American ingenuity. By making computers personal and putting the internet in our pockets, he made the information revolution not only accessible, but also intuitive and fun. And by turning his talents to storytelling, he has brought joy to millions of children and grownups alike. Steve was fond of saying that he lived every day like it was his last. Because he did, he transformed our lives, redefined entire industries, and achieved one of the rarest feats in human history: he changed the way each of us sees the world.”

After his death Steve Jobs shall be remembered many generations to come for his immense contributions to the information technology revolution and for the inspiration he gave to others – even his rivals.

It has now become the norm of the day that if you want a service or a product and you don’t know exactly where to get it from, someone quickly chips in and tell you that he/she can help you – for a fee of course. The fee can be high especially if the service or product you are looking for is scarce. One can earn a living in Zimbabwe by charging people just to show them where to get a service or a product fast without enduring long queues. I came across some of these people at Beitbridge border post recently when I wanted to clear some stuff.  I met these well dressed young men whom you can mistakenly think are the real Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (ZIMRA) officers because of the way they entice you with the knowledge they have of clearing goods at the border post.

These people have so many names. The most popular ones are “clearing agent”, “runner” “go-between” or “middlemen”. So many names for this unofficialised profession hey! From my own under understanding the service, which was being sold, was to speed up the paper work involved in clearing goods. After telling me about their jobs, and in order to convince me, I was even taken to the help desk where to my surprise the officer commanding the desk actually recognised the guys. After rejecting the offer for the service I was told to be prepared for long waits, delays and high import duty charges, which made me wonder how possible was it for me to get low import duty charges from ordinary guys like these.  The fact that these people operate in the vicinity of the ZIMRA officials’ makes one wonder whether the services being offered by these unscrupulous people is now official.

Teachers Unions and the Minister of Education are now at loggerheads over the scrapping of incentives for teachers in Zimbabwe. Back in the Zim dollar era when the economy took a nosedive and a massive exodus of qualified teachers was recorded, most parents were comfortable to chip in and help resolve the brain drain crisis in the teaching fraternity in Zimbabwe. This system of giving incentives was a noble idea meant to cushion teachers from the hyper-inflationary environment the country was facing during that time thus trying to avoid strikes, which would affect children’s learning.

Even though the government introduced a multi-currency system and inflation rate is now in single digits, parents continue to pay incentives to teachers because their salaries are still way below the poverty datum line. The issue of poor salaries is not only affecting teachers but also the rest of civil servants and even those in the private sector not to mention the self employed.  Some parents with school going children are even earning salaries, which are below those earned by teachers. Yet they still, while trying to make ends meet, continue to pay the incentives. The School Development Associations are at the forefront of forcing and ensuring that parents pay the incentives. It boils down to choosing to pay the incentives or risk having your child denied the right to education.

When the government recently announced that they want to do away with incentives there was an up-roar from the teachers union. Just like any other civil servants, teachers should be demanding better salaries from the government rather than continuing to squeeze money from parents from the little that they have. It’s now difficult to remove the incentives because if one compares the incentives to the salaries one would end up thinking that the incentives should be the salaries.

The teacher incentives have affected so many children because only those from well-up families can afford to access education, denying the same opportunity for children from poor families. Teachers’ representatives last week threatened industrial action if the Minister of Education went ahead with plans to scrap “teachers incentives”. The timing of the industrial action coincides with the writing of Grade Seven, Ordinary Level, and Advanced level end of year exams.

Education is a fundamental human right and essential for the exercise of all other human rights yet it’s now a privilege for the few and a bargaining tool for salary negotiations. It is high time the government and teachers stop criminalising the education system and stop this “incentive scam” which is simply extortion.

Its not because they cant drive or they don’t have driver’s licenses because some women even possess international drivers licenses acquired internationally when they once lived abroad. Unlike fellow women in most parts of the world who can go behind the wheel at anytime, women in Saudi Arabia still cant enjoy the same rights to drive cars in public after a religious fatwa (an Islamic religious ruling) imposed by conservative Muslim clerics to enforce the motoring ban on women. Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world that bans women from driving. The ban is one of the restrictions women in Saudi Arabia face each and everyday. One of the strict measures is that women are not allowed to leave home without a male guardian or even practice their right to vote. In June 2011 women in the Saudi kingdom staged a small protest against the ban by getting behind the wheel but most of them got arrested.

One of those who got arrested includes Manal al Sharif, an IT specialist who launched the “Women2Drive” campaign which encourages women to drive. She made a video of herself driving and posted it on Facebook but the page was pulled down and other women who participated in the campaign were threatened.

At the unveiling of its flag Mthwakazi Liberation Front Vice President Edgar Gumede told the NewsDay that:

“It is time we face reality. The naked truth is that we are under black colonial rule, masterminded by the Mugabe-led regime. It is not true that we in MLF hate Shonas. No, no, no, we don’t! We hate the colonial system of government that they imposed in Mthwakazi.”

This is a South Africa based party, which was launched to protect and safeguard the interests of Mthwakazi State.  But one wonders who are the Mthwakazi and who are they fighting against and who colonized them in the first place? If my memory serves me right MLF supporters clashed with MDC supporters during the SADC summit held in South Africa a clear sign that the party is serious in its fight against any political party and tribe Zimbabwe, especially the Shonas. During the skirmishes MLF supporters went on to burn the Zimbabwean flag and recently the same party made news headlines when they said they wanted to unveil Mthwakazi flag and currency.

In my own view even if a new government comes to power MFL will continue with its struggle for independence. Whether MLF is a genuine party or not is a question that many people would ask since this party is only heard in the newspapers and operates mainly from South Africa.