Posts in category: Uncategorized

A regimen of pre-surgical immunotherapy and chemotherapy followed by post-surgical immunotherapy significantly improved event-free survival (EFS) and pathologic complete response (pCR) rates compared to chemotherapy alone for patients with operable non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according to Phase III trial results presented today by researchers from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2023.

The combination of an experimental mRNA vaccine with an immunotherapy reduced the likelihood of melanoma recurring or causing death by 44% when compared to immunotherapy alone, a new clinical trial shows.

By NATION REPORTER
ORUM for Democracy and Development (FDD) president, Edith Nawakwi who has recently been discharged from the University Teaching Hospital (UTH), says she is ready to face the police and be transported to Choma to answer charges on the abduction of the Hatembo family prior to the 2021 elections.
Ms Nawakwi said she is not intimidated by the continuous police harassment and plans to arrest her.

On two occasions, police officers stormed UTH where she was admitted in a bid to arrest her while she was being treated.
Ms Nawakwi in an interview said that the police wanted to transport her to Choma where they wanted her to answer to charges concerning the case involving the abduction of the Hatembo family.
She said that the police were working under strict orders to have her locked up under any circumstances.
Ms Nawakwi, who has since been discharged from the University Teaching Hospital (UTH), said police and other law enforcement agencies should follow procedure and shortcuts if there were any issues that they needed to investigate.
“I’m not understanding what is going on here but what I can say is that I am ready as long as the correct procedure is followed,” Ms Nawakwi said.
Ms Nawakwi said the President had wrong advisors who were misleading him and that this would be his downfall if he was not careful.
She said that she did not understand why police were so anxious to lock her up that they did not even want her to fully recover.
The water transport system in Zambia
By MUBANGA LUCHEMBE
AMBIA is endowed with large water bodies, accounting for about 40 percent of fresh inland water in Southern Africa.
Maritime and inland water transport is an important sub-sector for the country’s development, especially in areas where other modes of transport are not available.
In many of these areas, such as the Zambezi, Mweru and Bangweulu plains, people are highly dependent on waterways for transport to support their socio-economic activities.
Inland water transport also facilitates growth in trade, tourism and in the delivery of social services such as education and healthcare.
Yet, oddly, the country doesn’t have a coherent maritime strategy underpinned by a related national strategy to safeguard its inland maritime interests.
This omission was underscored again recently by the latest Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) calamity resulting into the capsizing of the super boat on Lake Bangweulu which left about 14 church members dead by drowning.
This is the second incident of deaths by drowning of SDA members in two successive years, leading people calling for independent investigations.
Last year in January, six SDA church members drowned in Lake Kariba in Siavonga.
With just a few days after the Bangweulu marine tragedy, whilst Vice President Mutale Nalumango was receiving a donation of K150, 000 from NATSAVE to assist families on Chilubi Island whose loved ones perished in the tragedy, she disclosed that a boat with fish-traders onboard capsized on the Luangwa River, seven persons lost their lives.
To avert marine-related accidents, the Vice President warned maritime transporters not to overload their vessels.
This got knowledgeable observers of the country’s maritime and inland water transport landscape thinking.
Perhaps Ms Nalumango, as the leader of government business in parliament, was so preoccupied with grappling with the deep-grief caused by the Bangweulu and Luangwa marine tragedies that before she received the donation from NATSAVE, she forgot to keep herself abreast with the 2020 parliamentary report’s findings, including the observations and recommendations duly-articulated by the then-parliamentary Committee on Transport, Works and Supply of the National Assembly on the current state of the subsector of the inland water transport system in Zambia.
A three-step process would put Zambia’s maritime safety house in order. The first would be to create a well-designed government-led process that includes a high-office body and core stakeholders. This would lead directly into the second step – the mapping of the country’s national maritime interests. The third step would be creation of an integrated national maritime strategy.
As a priority, Government needs to make sound efforts to build institutional capacity within the units and departments mandated by law to oversee the inland water transport subsector.
This can be achieved in the short-term by sourcing the human resources and expertise to manage the subsector. It is recommended that a multi-sectoral approach be adopted to ensure low adverse environmental impact whilst maximising on trade and commerce.
The Parliamentary Committee strongly recommended that the government, through the Ministry of Transport and Logistics, should ensure that insurance of boats was made compulsory in the revised legislation.
Additionally, all boats should be certified worthy-watercrafts fit for utilisation, and be tax compliant before they can be allowed to operate, similar to the requirement by the Road Transport and Safety Agency (RTSA) in the road transport subsector.
There is need to review the existing legislation to better reflect the current state of the subsector and also the government’s policies and objectives.
A dedicated statutory body housed within the RTSA headquarters in Road Safety House along Dedan Kimathi Road in Lusaka would be optimal with a clear mandate separate from that of the Zambia Police marine unit.
Such an approach is better suited for purposes of record-keeping, monitoring and evaluation. Whilst there has been considerable development of the road networks in Zambia, it was recommended that this be undertaken in tandem with other transportation modes to enhance linkages across the overall transport sector.
Due to the considerable cost of rehabilitating waterways and canals and upgrading the infrastructure of harbours and ports and procurement of patrol vessels, it was recommended that Government engaged the private sector in respect of the development of the inland water transport system.
Due to the high returns that the potential trade can yield, there is opportunity to engage in Public Private Partnerships in terms of types of water transport based on ownership and utilization as the private sector has played a very minimal role in the development of the inland water transport system.
That being said, growth in tourism has brought an increase in commercial vessels along ports and harbours that are in proximity with national parks and other major attractions.
These vessels are meant to transport or ferry tourists and not provide access to neighbouring harbours and ports for the local inhabitants. Tour operators and service providers contend that the tourism industry could benefit greatly from improved waterways and canals.
But for the visibly-neglected subsector, the question remains: what would the Government bring to the inland maritime table?
As a game-changing national strategy, it is imperative that transformation of the current Department of Maritime and Inland Waterways into a RTSA-lookalike ought to be done urgently.
Subsequently, the newly-transformed statutory body’s mandate would include: to effectively implement policy on marine transport, waterway management and waterway safety; to effectively and efficiently register marine vessels in line with the inland waterway act; to timely issue licenses and permits in accordance with the Inland Waterway Act.
Additional functions, among others, would include: to conduct effective waterway safety education; to coordinate waterway safety programmes effectively; to approve and monitor the effectiveness of waterway safety programmes done by anybody, person or institution; to effectively formulate and conduct programmes to promote waterway safety in conjunction with stakeholders; to make contributions towards the cost-of-programmes for promoting waterway safety undertaken by other authorities or bodies and approve safety activities undertaken by other authorities or bodies.
So then, as a concerned nation, are Zambians asking their Government for the impossible?

By NATION REPORTER

POLICE in Chililabombwe on Thursday failed to stop Citizens First (CF) President Harry Kalaba and his team from campaigning ahead of the local government by-elections.

Mr Kalaba was approached by the police after allegedly some UPND officials ordered them to stop his door-to-door campaign.

The police have rejected the notification by the Patriotic Front (PF) to conduct its campaigns in Chililabombwe and the former ruling party have since taken the matter to court.

And on Thursday, the Police tried to stop Mr Kalaba in Chitimukulu Ward, to drum up support for his candidate Yumbala Kawilila for next Thursday’s ward by-election on grounds that he was moving with a huge crowd.

But Mr Kalaba refused to abandon the door to door campaign, declaring that sending his members away was not attainable in any way during the activity.

He said that he was in the area to campaign for his candidate on the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) designated date and time for his party.

Mr Kalaba accused police of playing UPND politics by allowing it to be doing door to door campaigns while stopping other political parties from doing the same.

Last week, Bowman Lusambo, Chishimba Kambwili, Richard Musukwa, Richard Kazala and Nathan Chanda were stopped by the police and suspected UPND from campaigning in Chililabombwe.

The former ruling party have since written to the Electoral Commission of Zambia  complaining that the UPND and the police were violating the Electoral Code of Conduct and should therefore be banished from participating on the by-electionon  April 20, 2023. 

By NATION REPORTER
Former President Edgar Lungu’s routine morning exercises are not helping the former Head of State in assuming his proper role as an elderly Statesman and title of Father of the Nation that the Patriotic Front (PF) has been crying for, Ministry of Information and Media Director Spokesperson, Thabo Kawana says.
Mr Kawana said exercise was important for all, especially in curbing Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) as people grew older and President Lungu could even be a champion of this advocacy.

He said the former Head of State needed to work with organisations like the National Sports Council of Zambia or sport clubs and not members of the PF Central Committee because this made him a PF leader and not a national leader as a former President.
“Imagine the late RB doing things with only MMD or KK with only UNIP? Would they have gained national, regional and global recognition as they did?” he asked.
Mr. Kawana said PF should let go of President Lungu and the former Head of State should also detach himself from being a partisan leader to assume the status of elderly statesman.
“It is from such congregations that ideas of alebwelelapo are encouraged by zealots looking to have a second bite at the cherry. President Lungu must stop being partisan,” he said.
But a former diplomat Bangwe Naviley said everyone at NSCZ would be fired if they worked with Mr Lungu on allegations that they are PF.
Mr Lungu has since time immemorial consistently undertaken morning exercises to complement Government efforts in promoting a healthy nation.
Another former diplomat, Brian Hapunda wondered why a simple morning exercise would be an issue.
“You want him to stop exercising and stop mingling with people? Comrade President Lungu on record remains PF President till he hands over the party presidency at the upcoming PF Convention to the newly elected PF President then. President Lungu is a ‘sleeping Party President’ and Hon. Lubinda [PF Vice-President Given Lubinda] is the ‘active Vice President’ taking care of the party till the elective Conference,” he said.

Nurses in Britain are prepared to strike until Christmas if they cannot reach a deal with the government on pay, the leader of the country’s main nursing union said on Sunday.

 A maid of Mpika has allegedly defiled her boss’ 13-year-old son. Maria Zulu is believed to have followed the victim in the bathroom as he was taking a bath and asked him to have sex with her. It is alleged that the victim denied her advances, but she then undressed and forced herself on him. […]

A major UK study has discovered that the disturbed sleep patterns in patients hospitalized with COVID-19 was likely to be a driver of breathlessness.

 TWO men , among them a council police officer have drowned in the Kafue river in Kitwe, while trying to rescue a woman who attempted to commit suicide by throwing herself in the same river. The two men Chishala Chishala, a council police officer and James Mutembo were part of two other men who formed […]

 THE body of a headless still born baby has been found in a decomposed state along a drainage system in Ndola’s Mushili township. The still born was discovered by Timothy Jere who was alarmed by the sound of dogs barking uncontrollably around 06:00 hours in the morning. Alarmed by the barks, Mr Jere rushed outside […]