Thousands gathered at President’s Park in Kasama yesterday afternoon for the largest UPND rally in the region to date. UPND Presidential candidate Hakainde Hichilema addressed the crowds, along with his running mate in the upcoming election Geoffrey Bwalya Mwama, former Vice-President Guy Scott, UDF President Miles Sampa, former Vice-President Lupando Mwape, former Lusaka Province Minister Mulenga Sata and other senior party officials.

Speaking at the rally UPND President Hakainde Hichilema said he is determined to unite and develop Zambia, working together with every well meaning individual.

His running mate Geoffrey Bwalya Mwamba spoke about how the PF has caused untold misery for the people with rising food prices, job losses and economic chaos. He called on Zambians to vote for UPND to fix the country.

Former Acting President, Dr Guy Scott charged that President Lungu has caused Zambians to lose hope of a better tomorrow, but that this will be a thing of the past after UPND President Hakainde Hichilema is elected on 11 August 2016.

Meanwhile, UDF President Miles Sampa presented Kasama residents with a choice between poverty under PF or prosperity under UPND.

Several other speakers called for economic emancipation, charging that Mr. Hichilema is the only hope for the country’s economic resuscitation.

The rally follows a week of intensive campaigns in the region by Mr. Hichilema who is taking his 10 Point Plan for Zambia to every corner of the country and calling for Zambians to unite behind his team so that he can fix it.

Before attending the rally Mr. Hichilema attended a church service at the Kasama Central SDA Church, accompanied by party Vice-President Geoffrey Bwalya Mwamba. The team are scheduled to address more crowds today at Mpika’s Ground Opp Tefiki Restaurant.

THE Patriotic Front (PF) has clarified that the controversial skimpy and seductive outfits being worn by female party members is not the official attire.

PF secretary general Davies Chama said the official regalia were chitenge material and T-shirts for President Edgar Lungu.

Mr Chama said most of the party attires springing up were initiatives of party cadres and sympathisers and not necessarily made by the ruling party.

“You know, regalia are made by different people not necessarily by the party, maybe some of the regalia are being initiated by individuals and they just print ‘PF’ if they are supporters of our party.

“So, it’s difficult to comment unless I look at the regalia, otherwise our regalia are chitenge and T-shirts for the President, those are official party materials, but there are a lot of initiatives like you have seen a lot of caps around, that’s the initiative of party cadres and sympathisers,” he said.

PF has come under fire in some sections of the media for allegedly parading its female supporters clad in skimpy and seductive outfits branded with party messages to woo voters ahead of the August 11, 2016 general elections.

Meanwhile, Mr Chama said he would instruct the party national youth chairperson Stephen Kampyongo to ensure that the youths who had continued wearing military regalia were stopped from doing so.

Mr Chama reiterated that the PF had banned its members from wearing military regalia such as berets and that if it was true that some cadres had continued doing so then they were doing it without the party leadership’s knowledge.

Today’s Scripture

“…let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith…”
(Hebrews 12:1–2, NKJV)

Run Your Own Race

It’s easy to be tempted to go through life competing with everyone around us. When we see someone who’s more talented, better looking or has more gifts, instead of running our race and being comfortable with who we are, oftentimes, we feel inferior and think, “I’ve got to catch up to them.” The problem with this unhealthy competition is that it’s a never-ending cycle. There will always be someone ahead of us. But it’s very freeing when you realize, “I’m not competing with you. I don’t have to have as big a house as my neighbor to feel good about myself. I don’t have to keep up with my co-worker. I don’t have to be a certain size. No, I understand that I’m not in competition with my friend, my neighbor or my co-worker. Instead, I’m going to be the best me that I can possibly be.”

When you focus on being who God made you to be, that’s when you’ll rise up higher and position yourself for every spiritual blessing He has in store for you!

A Prayer for Today

“Father, I humbly come to You giving You all that I am. I choose to keep my eyes on You and allow You to work in my heart and mind. I declare that I am free from competition today in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

Outrage from animal conservation groups is mounting after leaked photos showed that thousands of Hippos are being slaughtered in the South Luangwa.

This was after Director of the Department of National Parks and Wildlife (DPNW), formerly ZAWA Paul Zyambo confirmed in an interview that there was an ongoing hippo culling programme in the South Luangwa.

Mr Zyambo said the hippo hunt contract was awarded last year as part of a culling programme aimed at managing the hippo population along the Luangwa River in the south.

Mr Zyambo has declined to comment on the legality of the programme, which he said was planned by ZAWA sometime last year, well before it was re-constituted and re-branded as the Department of National Parks and Wildlife (DPNW) early this year.

The leaked photos show that up to 2 000 hippos along the Luangwa River could be up for slaughter allegedly by a South African professional hunter known as Theo De Marillac of De Marillac Safaris standing over the body of a slain hippo which sells them for R181 300.

The images were downloaded from the Facebook page of Kamisa Malipita, an employee of the Zambian Department of National Parks and Wildlife (DPNW).
The employee took part in the killing programme on May 31, 2016.

The Zambian Department of National Parks and Wildlife awarded the South African hunter a five-year hippo cull/ trophy hunting licence.

However, animal activists have opposed the programme and described it as a trophy hunting exercise disguised as a population management plan.

The killing reported to be of up to 400 hippos every year for the next five years is officially to stop the spread of anthrax, an infection that can be fatal to humans.

But the UK-headquartered Born Free organisation suggests that the cull is more about “trophy hunting” and says it will turn this 250km stretch of the Luangwa River into “killing fields”.

Born Free claims on its Facebook page that Theo De Marillac Safaris is marketing the hunts.

On its website, Theo De Marillac Safaris urges potential clients to “experience the rare and exciting opportunity of participating in a controlled hippo hunt in Zambia’s Upper and Lower Lupandi”.

“This walk and stalk hunt over the flood plains means hippo are hunted on land, making this a very exciting, adrenalin-pumping safari,” says the company.

A five-day safari – which will see five hippo hunted – will cost R129 500 while a seven-day safari, hunting seven hippos, will cost R181 300.

Will Travers, Born Free founder, said in a statement: “At a time when wildlife populations of multiple species are under extreme pressure across much of Africa, many, including Born Free and our supporters around the world, fundamentally question the logic of killing thousands of hippo, and turning the flood plains of the Luangwa River Valley into ‘killing fields’.”
“There is an urgent situation arising in the South Luangwa region of Zambia. Hippo hunting license/s have been awarded to a foreign Professional Hunter (PH) with large bag limits of up to 2,000 over the next 5 years under the guise of animal management,” a source said.

“Presently, the (South African) professional hunter is busy selling hippo trophy hunts to other foreign nationals,” the source said.

“At least six hippos have been killed since the ongoing programme began on May 22, 2016. There are real questions as to the legality of the original issuance of the licenses. “There were questions raised by the new Director of DNPW that the licenses may not have been legal and were arranged under the now defunct wildlife authority last year. Despite this, DNPW have forged ahead with the contract and killing has commenced.”

The source said since May, the department of National Parks and Wildlife, had held meetings with six Community Resource Boards (CRB) where they informed people that whole herds of hippo – including pregnant and suckling females, as well as their calves – would be killed.

The source warned that indiscriminate killings would wipe out hippos from the river and represent a contravention of Zambia Wildlife Act because they involve foreign hunters.

“To the best of my knowledge no Environmental Impact Assessment has been prepared or submitted. Local professional hunters safari outfitters were up in arms. The foreign hunter will bag 400 hippos per year,” said the source adding that the duration of the hunting season is 4 months and that a significant proportion of the hippo population in the Luangwa Valley will be wiped out.
The Luangwa River is one the major tributaries of the Zambezi River and one of the four biggest rivers of Zambia.

The Ricer generally floods in the rainy season from December to March and then falls considerably in the dry season.

When the dry season is particularly bad, as it has been for several years, the pressure on hippo population is huge.

The Hippotamus is listed as Vulnerable on the International Union of Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Around the 1980s, the Black Rhino had the greatest concentration on the African continent in the Luangwa valley and the Zambian Government allowed its hunting until extinction.

The Government and hunting fraternity at the time was that the Rhino were plentiful species and the sale of its hunting licences went unchecked.
The further poaching for the illegal trade in Rhino horn saw the end of this species.

Today, the largest concentration of the Hippo is along the Luangwa River and conservation groups are warning that if the hunting of thousands of Hippos over the next five years is allowed, it will lead to the extinction of its species as it happened with the Rhino.

We have continued receiving disturbing reports of civil servants and public sector workers from quasi-government institutions being arbitrarily dismissed, transferred and intimidated purely on suspicion of sympathising with the opposition.

The main casualties are those in the security wings, such as police officers that try to be professional in the discharge of their duties.

This is a total violation of the resolutions of the recently held political parties Indaba organised by the church mother bodies that called for an end to such acts.

It is also a violation of the people’s civil liberties and counter to the principles of running a professional civil service.

As UPND, we want to reassure all those who have faced such illegal acts that we shall restore them to their positions and pay their salaries and allowances, hence they must just consider themselves as being on holiday for now.

We also fully commit ourselves to running a professional civil service that will be depoliticized, well remunerated, and paid on time once we are voted into office on 11 August 2016.

All this is necessary for the skilled, diligent and hardworking civil service we need if we are going to advance and implement our 10 Point Plan to fix Zambia.

PF Member of the Central Committee Chishimba Kambwili has laughed off assertions that the PF is struggling to organise rallies across the country.

In an interview in Lusaka, Mr Kambwili said the PF campaigns are underway adding that individual members standing as Members of Parliament have been encouraged to start campaigns in their respective areas.

“For example, in Roan, our team is on the ground and currently we are just compiling data on the number of registered voters in my constituency and then we will launch a door to door campaign before rallies could commences,” Mr Kambwili.

He said the perception that the PF campaigns are struggling to take off is merely a myth.

“There is this myth that we are not starting our campaigns, let me tell you that this is just a myth is no substance to it. Our campaigns will soon hit full swing but in house we are doing some issues but all the MPs have been told to go out and campaign,” he said.

Mr Kambwili who is also Information and Broadcasting Minister added that the PF campaigns are also centred on the developmental projects that it has initiated in the first five years of its administration.

Green Party presidential running mate Clement Tafeni says decriminalising Marijuana remains the sure way of tackling poverty in Zambia.

Mr Tafeni who is a lawyer by profession said Zambia has the potential to earn more than 36 billion US dollars in constructive application of Marijuana, which he said is more six times more than what the country earns from Copper production.

He said the current system does have solutions for millions of unemployed youths with no prospect of even going to college or technical school because of poverty.

“Because of hopelessness some resort to alcohol abuse and some to marijuana. The system imprisons the youths found in possession of marijuana and as a result their first contact with “college” is prison; we end up turning them into hard-core criminals,” Mr Tafeni says.

“Meanwhile, when we the Green Party say let’s decriminalize marijuana and focus our energies on how we can turn around the fortunes of this country from the billion-dollar industry some people think we are crazy,” he said.
Mr Tafeni said Zambia can economically benefit from this wonder crop if the country just opens its ears and discard the prejudices and fears around the crop.

“Our own law the Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances Act in Section 9 recognizes the medicinal value of marijuana and expressly says the cultivation of marijuana for medical purposes shall not be an offence in Zambia.”

He said the Zambian government has deliberately ignored its own law and gone on rampage by just focusing on what he called the ‘tom and jerry games’ between the Drug Enforcement Commission and marijuana farmers, traders and consumers.

“We have said that we shall earn this country in excess of $36,000 Billion in constructive application of marijuana which is 6 times more than what the copper industry contributes to the coffers of this country; and we mean it,” he said.

He added, “It’s now a week ago when President Mr Peter Chazya Sinkamba and I filed in our nominations as President and Vice-President candidates, respectively, in the coming 11 August 2016 Presidential and General elections. As I reflect on the task before us as the Green Party, the task of transforming the mind sets of many of our compatriots I am happy that we have made great headway.”

Mr Tafeni said a great majority of Zambians have come to the realization that Zambia is not a poor country but a rich poor country.

“The irony of the state we have found ourselves in economically is as a result of being confined in our thinking and thinking that the foreign investors are the ones with solutions to our economic stagnation and retrogression.”