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March is National Nutrition Month, which makes this a good time to learn about your nutritional needs during pregnancy and while breastfeeding.

Northwestern Medicine scientists have developed a new tool to help physicians predict the risk of venous thromboembolism in patients with adult-type diffuse gliomas, results published in the journal Blood.

By OLIVER SAMBOKO

REPORTS that the Auditor General’s office has threatened to abandon auditing the Ministry of Agriculture following refusal by the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry to avail audit documents is not only illegal but also unfortunate, Mutotwe Kafwaya has said.

Mr Kafwya, the Lunte Patriotic Front   Member of Parliament said this in parliament yesterday when he raised a matter urgent of public importance directed at the leader of government business in the house on the refusal by the Ministry of Agriculture Permanent Secretary.

He said Emeritus Archbishop Telesphore Mpundu has been apt in stating that the arrest of Dr Dick Sichembe, the Auditor General was meant to intimidate and blackmail him so that he could fail to expose the economic transgressions of the UPND government against Zambians.

He stated that Bloomberg had also reported on the arrest of Dr Sichembe and had linked the arraignment to the ongoing conversations around Zambias external debt restructuring.

“As a country, this is time to put a full stop to the nonsense and we should start doing sense. We must realise that both internal and external stakeholders have opened their eyes and ears wide on this salient matter and many others. I will remind you that Dr. Dick Sichembe is being blackmailed over PAC allowances for which the executive has arrested him and others. And some beneficiaries of these allowances are being protected by the same executive.”

“Now we have become aware that the executive has been refusing to give the Auditor General information on fertiliser procurement so that he could conclude his audit in line with his constitutional mandate. This is catastrophic for our nation,” Mr Kafwaya said.

He said it was the first time in the history of the country that a Permanent Secretary had refused to avail documents for audit by the Auditor General’s office.

Mr Kafwaya said it was sad that the Secretary to Cabinet and the Secretary to the Treasury ware aware about the refusal by Ministry of Agriculture Permanent Secretary Green Mbozi to avail documents for audits but that two had done nothing about it.

He said the action by Mr Mbozi would lead to Zambians to start wondering if the AG’s office would be able to produce a credible audit report in the period the UPND had been in government.

He said many people have raised concerns about the alleged corruption in the procurement of fertilizers by the new dawn administration and that an audit by the Auditor General was the only way Zambians could be given assurance that indeed there was no corruption.

Mr Kafwaya said the refusal to tender audit documents to the Office of the Auditor General was tantamount to denying the people of Zambia information on how their resources were being utilized by those in authority.

“It is unfortunate that under the new dawn government, it is now normal for a Permanent Secretary to deny the Auditor General information without consequence,” Mr Kafwaya said.

Mr Kafwaya said article 241(9) (1) of the constitution under which the Auditor General’s office draw its existence, and the public Audit Act specifies the conduct of the Auditor General.

He also said section 73 of the Public financial Management Act, of 2018, determines the power of the Auditor General in terms of access to systems documents and any information that the Auditor General may require in order to produce an audit reports.

Mr Kafwaya said the Auditor General was required to report his finding to the Republican President and the National Assembly on the same day but wondered how Dr Dick Sichembe was going to achieve that goal when some officers in government were undermining his authority.

He said it was utterly confounding that a Permanent Secretary could refuse to give the Auditor General information in blatant contravention of the law.

“Is it true that Joice Sundano the former Controller of Internal will be appointed Auditor General after the removal of Dr Dick Sichembe? If so then and even if not so, the executive may consider the legality of her PAC allowances, remember this is the same reason you want Dick out and jailed. Is it true that an entry level Auditor by the name of Theo Miyoba will be promoted to the position of Deputy Auditor General or Performance Director? If it is true, then consider the morale aspect of the office of the AG. Is the AG going to produce a credible audit report with PS’s refusing to give him documents which he needs for the audit exercise? Mr Kafwaya wondered.

Misinformation about antidepressants is rife and is probably fueling their rise in use. Chief among these false ideas are:

President Joe Biden’s 2024 proposed budget includes plans to shore up the finances of Medicare, the federal health insurance program that covers Americans who are 65 and up and some younger people with disabilities.

Medicaid beneficiaries face barriers in accessing medical care—and that includes contraceptive care. A new study finds that despite birth control being an essential health service, all primary care physicians that see them may not be offering Medicaid patients some of the most effective, longer-acting birth control methods. While nearly half (48%) of primary care physicians who treat Medicaid patients provided prescription contraception like the birth control pill, only 10% provided longer-acting methods like IUDs and implants, according to a new study published in JAMA Health Forum.

You may have heard the buzz about ChatGPT, a type of chatbot that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to write essays, turn computer novices into programmers and help people communicate.

Is a dog more similar to a chicken or an eagle? Is a penguin noisy? Is a whale friendly?

Increasingly dense cell clusters in growing tumors convert blood vessels into fiber-filled channels. This makes immune cells less effective, as findings by researchers from ETH Zurich and the University of Strasbourg suggest. Their research is published in Matrix Biology.

By NATION REPORTER

PRESIDENT Hakainde Hichilema should be sincere and stop maligning his predecessor by claiming that he refused to hand over power when President Rupiah Banda proved that former President Edgar Lungu never resisted to accept defeat, Economic Front president Wynter Kabimba has said.

Mr Kabimba said when issues of refusing to hand over power came out he spoke to former president Lungu, who said he had no intention of refusing to hand over power and his statement was collaborated with President Banda before he passed on.

He said President Hakainde Hichilema had a tendency and propensity of prejudicing his predecessor and building a groundswell of hate against Mr. Lungu in the eyes of the people.

“I spoke to Edgar and he gave me his version of the story of what transpired in that meeting and I met the late president Banda before he died and his version of the story confirmed that there was no resistance to hand over power.”

“President Hichilema lies through his teeth on the public podium.  The only person I never spoke to who was in that meeting was the former President of Tanzania Jakaya Kikwete but the rest confirmed that the issue of resistance was neither here nor there,” Mr Kabimba said.

Mr Kabimba said if Mr Lungu did anything wrong, President Hichilema should let the due process of the law take its course than vilifying the former head of State at every for a.

“Am not a defender of Lungu but a defender of justice. I hate the injustice being inflicted on former President Lungu,” he said.

He said Mr Lungu has no intention of coming back to lead this country and Mr Hichilema should not feel intimidated about him making public appearances.

Mr Kabimba said Mr Lungu had every right to live in this country and enjoy all the privileges like any other citizen and those rights were not conferred on him by the UPND government but by the constitution of Zambia.

He said Mr Lungu had a right to go and worship wherever he wanted and the congregations where he went to worship reserved the right to ask him to say something as a citizen and that should not intimidate the UPND.

Mr Kabimba said President Hichilema was trying to divert attention of the people from the failure of the UPND by bringing in Mr Lungu.