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…as Copper Queens coach Mwape promises to select the squad on merit

By MICHAEL MIYOBA

COPPER Queen’s coach Bruce Mwape says the 2023 FIFA World Cup-bound final squad will be selected on merit.

Mwape said the Copper Queens have improved and were looking forward to bouncing back from the 3-2 defeat to Ireland in the last friendly match as they prepare for the World Cup.

He was speaking in a pre-match press conference ahead of today’s international friendly match against Switzerland at Tissot Arena in Biel,

Mwape said it hasn’t been challenging coming up with the final squad which is expected to be unveiled after the friendly against Switzerland because the players have all been given a chance to be considered for selection.

“It is not a big challenge as such but we just have to be fair to all the players we have to pick players on merit so it’s not a big challenge and we are almost there.  We are managing and I’m sure in the next two, three days we will be able to announce the final squad.

“Against Switzerland, the girls are ready because we have seen for the past two weeks the way they have trained and you can see the way they trained showed that they are almost getting ready for the World Cup and for the game against Switzerland, we expect them to do better than they did against Ireland,” Mwape said.

He said the team was injury free and everyone is ready for Switzerland.

Asked how the team plans to bounce back from its failure to overcome European teams, Mwape said; “We have struggled against non-African countries but what you should also realize is that some of these teams compete at a higher level. Even the clubs they are coming from are always competing at a higher level compared to us.”

“I’m sure you can bear with me if you happen to watch the local league, you can see that the competition is not that stiff but that shouldn’t be an excuse. When we organize friendly games sometimes it is not the result that matters what matters most is the way the team is shaping up,” Mwape said.

“If you look at where we are coming from and where we are I’m sure you are able to see that there is a big improvement, there is a big difference now.  We are almost getting to the level where people expect us to be,” he said.

Mwape is expected to make a few changes to the team that played Ireland following the arrival of defender Martha Tembo, midfielder Ireen Lungu, Hellen Chanda, and goalkeeper Catherine Musonda on Wednesday after concluding their club duties in Kazakhstan.

Meanwhile, Copper Queens captain Barbra Banda said the team was determined to beat Switzerland to bounce back from the defeat to Ireland.

After playing Switzerland, the Copper Queens will finalize their World Cup preps with a friendly against Germany on July 7.

At the World Cup kicking off on July 20 in Australia and New Zealand, Zambia will compete in Group C with Spain, Japan, and Costa Rica.

IT is in the public domain that Zambia is sitting on a gold mine which it has failed to exploit.

This is the production and export of cannabis for economic and medicinal purposes which the Government legalised in December 2019.

AN opinion poll carried out in the six African countries which travelled to Ukraine and Russia on a peace mission has revealed that a majority of the citizens in those countries feel the Russian invasion of Ukraine was against the principles of international law.

A study led by researchers at Sanford Burnham Prebys has found that in young women, certain genetic mutations are associated with treatment-resistant breast cancer. These mutations are not linked to treatment-resistant breast cancer in older women. The findings, published in the journal Science Advances, could help improve precision medicine and suggest a brand-new way of classifying breast cancer.

By MICHAEL MIYOBA

WITH exactly two weeks before the Under-16 Africa Basketball Championship kicks off in Tunisia, the Zambia Basketball Federation (ZBF) says it is struggling to raise funds to send the boy’s and girls’ teams to the games in North Africa.

ZBF president Maziko Phiri said the Basketball Federation is looking for K1.4 million to send the two teams to Tunisia where they will face the best teams in Africa.

Phiri said ZBF was focusing on youth basketball development to mold a team that will dominate basketball at the senior level in the future.

Team Zambia qualified for the games in North Africa after finishing second at the region’s five games which were recently held in Malawi.

Phiri said it was exciting to see Zambia beat teams such as South Africa and Malawi to finish second in the tournament which was dominated by Angola.

“Zambia for the first time qualified for the championship to be played in Tunisia from July 14. This is amazing for the country and it means we are doing the right thing and we need to continue but there is an obstacle. We are not able to send the team to Tunisia because of lack of funds,” Phiri said.

“We are here to speak to the corporate sector and the public to come in and support the boys and girls to travel to Tunisia. We have a budget of K1.4 million to meet in two weeks and there is no time,” he said.

Phiri said competing at the Africa Basketball championship will enable the development of the youth players who have the potential to play for the senior national teams in the future.

Asked what ZBF has done to supplement the government and the corporates’ efforts to raise the funds needed for the Africa Basketball championship, Phiri said; There is a lot we are doing in the background so that basketball can continue to exist. That’s the federation’s mandate.

What we have done as ZBF is to fully support the girl’s stay in Tunisia and now we are looking at the flights to get the teams to Tunisia and the boy’s upkeep.”

“We prioritized the girls and I’m happy that my team at the federation have worked hard to make sure that the girls are supported and now we are looking at the remaining balance to see how we can work,” he said.

Meanwhile, former national basketball team player Francis Makai says basketball cannot develop without support from the business sector.

Makai, who played for Ludic Looters said it is sad that the standards of basketball have gone down due to a lack of support from the corporate world that is key to developing the sport.

Genetic researchers at Nagoya University, Japan, have delved into the genetic underpinning of a rare skin condition affecting children that is unusually common in Japan.

LLM-based generative chat tools, such as ChatGPT or Google’s MedPaLM have great medical potential, but there are inherent risks associated with their unregulated use in health care. A new Nature Medicine paper by Prof. Stephen Gilbert and colleagues addresses one of the most pressing international issues of our time: How to regulate Large Language Models (LLMs) in general and specifically in health.

An apple a day not only keeps the doctor away, it also could save the United States at least $40 billion in medical bills, report Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy researchers in a new study published June 30 in the Journal of the American Heart Association. Their modeled implementation of a nationwide produce prescription program—which would provide free or discounted fruits and vegetables to eligible Americans living with diabetes —projected extensive reductions in national rates of cardiovascular disease and associated health care costs.

Neurologist Dr. Majid Fotuhi, MD, Ph.D. has developed a multi-disciplinary program for patients with Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD), post-concussion syndrome (PCS), or memory loss. His 12-week program, consisting of brain coaching and biofeedback twice weekly and specific lifestyle interventions, resulted in remarkable improvements in patients’ memory, attention, mood, alertness, and/or sleep.

The COVID-19 pandemic, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has resulted in more than 600 million confirmed cases and 6.5 million deaths worldwide. mRNA-based vaccines have emerged as a leading platform for COVID-19 protection and are extensively investigated in basic and clinical trials.