Cooking
Mariam Nabatanzi’s son carries a meal at their family home in Kasawo village, Mukono district, east of Kampala, Uganda March 7, 2019. REUTERS/James Akena
April 25, 2019
By Elias Biryabarema
KASAWO, Uganda (Reuters) – Mariam Nabatanzi gave birth to twins a year after she was married off at the age of 12. Five more sets of twins followed – along with four sets of triplets and five sets of quadruplets.
Three years ago, however, the 39-year-old Ugandan was abandoned by her husband, leaving her to support their surviving 38 children alone.
It was just the latest setback in a life marred by tragedy for Nabatanzi, who lives with her children in four cramped houses made of cement blocks and topped with corrugated iron in a village surrounded by coffee fields 50 km (31 miles) north of Kampala.
After her first sets of twins were born, Nabatanzi went to a doctor who told her she had unusually large ovaries. He advised her that birth control like pills might cause health problems.
So the children kept coming.
Family sizes are at their largest in Africa. In Uganda, the fertility rate averages out at 5.6 children per woman, one of the continent’s highest, and more than double the global average of 2.4 children, according to the World Bank.
But even in Uganda, the size of Nabatanzi’s family makes her an extreme outlier.
Her last pregnancy, two and a half years ago, had complications. It was her sixth set of twins and one of them died in childbirth, her sixth child to die.
Then her husband – often absent for long stretches – abandoned her. His name is now a family curse. Nabatanzi refers to him using an expletive.
“I have grown up in tears, my man has passed me through a lot of suffering,” she said during an interview at her home, hands clasped as her eyes welled up. “All my time has been spent looking after my children and working to earn some money.”
Desperate for cash, Nabatanzi turns a hand to everything: hairdressing, event decorating, collecting and selling scrap metal, brewing local gin and selling herbal medicine. The money is swallowed up by food, medical care, clothing and school fees.
On a grimy wall in one room of her home hang proud portraits of some of her children graduating from school, gold tinsel around their necks.
“Mum is overwhelmed, the work is crushing her, we help where we can, like in cooking and washing, but she still carries the whole burden for the family. I feel for her,” said her eldest child Ivan Kibuka, 23, who had to drop out of secondary school when the money ran out.
TRAGIC STORY
Nabatanzi’s desire for a large family has its roots in tragedy.
Three days after she was born, Nabatanzi’s mother abandoned the family: her father, the newborn girl and her five siblings.
“She just left us,” said Nabatanzi sombrely, as some of her ragged children played on the dirt floor while others did chores.
After her father remarried, her stepmother poisoned the five older children with crushed glass mixed in their food. They all died. Nabatanzi escaped because she was visiting a relative, she says.
“I was seven years old then, too young to even understand what death actually meant. I was told by relatives what had happened,” she said.
She grew up wanting to have six children to rebuild her shattered family.
Providing a home for 38 children is a constant challenge.
Twelve of the children sleep on metal bunk beds with thin mattresses in one small room with grime-caked walls. In the other rooms, lucky children pile onto shared mattresses while the others sleep on the dirt floor.
Older children help look after the young ones and everyone helps with chores like cooking. A single day can require 25 kilograms of maize flour, Nabatanzi says. Fish or meat are rare treats.
A roster on a small wooden board nailed to a wall spells out washing or cooking duties.
“On Saturday we all work together,” it reads.
Having endured such a hard childhood herself, Nabatanzi’s greatest wish now is for her children to be happy.
“I started taking on adult responsibilities at an early stage,” she said. “I have not had joy, I think, since I was born.”
(Reporting by Elias Biryabarema; Editing by Maggie Fick/Katharine Houreld/Susan Fenton)
Source: OANN
A girl carries a stack of bread on her head as she walks near rubble of damaged buildings in Aleppo’s Kalasa district, Syria April 12, 2019. REUTERS/Omar Sanadiki
April 25, 2019
By Angus McDowall
ALEPPO, Syria (Reuters) – The bodies of three-year-old Malak Kasas and two neighbors still lie under a pile of rubble in Aleppo’s Kalasa district more than two years after the Syrian government recaptured the area.
Malak’s grandfather, Omar, and uncle, Mahmoud, live in the building opposite. When they stand on the balcony, they see the collapsed building that is her tomb. Whenever Omar says her name he bursts into silent, convulsive, sobs.
The state’s failure to pull bodies from the rubble of east Aleppo points to the grim prospects for an area that, like many others in Syria, was held by rebel forces for much of the country’s eight-year-old conflict. The western part of the city has remained in government hands throughout the fighting.
The opposition has accused President Bashar al-Assad of withholding services from districts where the rebellion against him flared to punish residents, and in Kalasa there was little evidence of a big government effort to improve conditions.
The government blames the slow recovery, shortages and hardship on the war and Western sanctions. It has denied treating recaptured areas differently to ones that remained under its control throughout the war and has said it is working to restore normal services to all areas.
The conflict that has killed half a million people and displaced half of Syria’s pre-war population of 22 million continues, and Reuters could hear bombardments over several nights in Aleppo from a nearby frontline during a recent visit.
In Kalasa, recaptured in late 2016, there is no systematic reconstruction of residential areas. State services are minimal. Work to renovate war-damaged buildings is almost entirely done and paid for by local people, residents say.
Kalasa has no state electricity supply, charities dole out boxes of food aid to crowds waiting behind chains. As elsewhere in Syria, fuel shortages cause long lines at petrol stations and people rely on firewood for heat.
Some damaged buildings in Kalasa have recently collapsed, falling debris killed a man last year and the many large heaps of rubble in areas where children play in the street are covered in stinking rubbish, dead rats and swarming flies.
Kalasa’s situation is not unusual for east Aleppo – other districts toured by Reuters showed equally bad or worse conditions. The western part of the city has suffered less damage because the rebels had no air power.
In other cities, there also are no reports of widespread rebuilding or data to suggest it has started.
Ayad Batash, 35, a former soldier and builder who was optimistic about life in Kalasa when Reuters met him two years ago, said things had become much worse for his family with a fuel shortage and a lack of work.
“This year’s not like before. This year is worse. The economic situation is worse than before,” he said.
Two years ago, he had regular work and thought the electricity supply would soon resume. He expected to move back into his own apartment and thought his neighbors would return from life as refugees.
“If the situation continues like this, people won’t come back,” he said.
RUBBLE
Reuters journalists spent several days reporting in a small neighborhood of Kalasa that they also visited in 2017 after the government retook the area, interviewing dozens of residents including several they had met previously.
A government official accompanied Reuters at all times in Kalasa. Local people criticized the rebels that held the area from 2012 until 2016 but not Assad or his government.
The recapture of Aleppo, Syria’s second city, was a turning point in the war. In just one city center square, Reuters counted 18 posters of Assad.
Some things have improved since Reuters last visited this district two years ago. There is now piped water and some rubble, and debris blocking streets and alleys has been cleared.
More schools have opened, though they are crowded, and more government-subsidized bakeries operate in the area, though queues for bread are long.
Those considerations are scant comfort to the people of Kalasa. Omar Kasas no longer leaves his flat. He remembers the bombardment in September 2016 that killed his daughter Iman and her daughters Ayah, Mayas and Malak in the building opposite.
People dug out the bodies of Iman, Ayah and Mayas, and nine dead neighbors, but could not reach Malak or two other women. Since the government took the area, there has been no effort to shift the rubble or find the bodies, residents said.
FUEL SHORTAGES
For Ayad Batash, a government supporter with two brothers in the army, the fuel shortages have aggravated other problems. During a cold winter, his four children, aged between two and 10, had no way to keep warm but with blankets.
A neighbor, retired school worker Ahmad Zarka, 73, kept a stove going to keep warm. The black smoke that pours out of it has turned his white songbirds in a cage on the wall a sooty grey. Rationed gas supplies were not adequate, he said.
The Western districts of Aleppo receive state power supplies for several hours a day. In Kalasa the only source of power is private generators that run on rationed diesel fuel.
Snack bar owner Rabiah al-Najar said the cost of electricity for selling sandwich wraps ate up nearly half his weekly profits.
Batash blames the lack of electricity for the lack of work. Using diesel-powered generators during a fuel shortage can double the cost of a job renovating a damaged apartment, he said. “So the customer just delays the work,” he said.
Opposite a petrol station near Kalaseh, where 80 cars were lined two-deep along the road waiting for rationed fuel, men sat on the curb, their tools lying on upturned concrete blocks to advertise their services as laborers.
“We wait from 7.30 a.m. until about 1 p.m. Then we go home and there’s nothing to do until the next day,” said Mohammed Ahmedi, 53, one of three sitting together, smoking as they waited for a job. They had not worked in 10 days, he said.
FOOD QUEUES
Batash has also had little work over the winter, he said. He considered moving but believes things are little better elsewhere.
Every few weeks his family joins the crowd waiting behind a chain strung across a nearby alleyway to receive food aid from the World Food Program and a local charity.
Men and women queue separately, each clutching their green ration card, waiting for their number to be called to collect a cardboard box with salt, chickpeas, lentils, bulgur wheat, sugar, rice and cooking oil.
There are queues even for bread. At a Kalasa bakery, people had to wait more than half an hour to receive their flat loaves.
There is no official rationing for bread but the baker, Hamid Atiq, said he limited what he sold each person because he did not have enough flour or fuel to power his oven long enough to supply all that the neighborhood wanted.
His bakery is wedged between the rubble of several bomb sites, and a dead rat lay on the ground nearby as a crowd gathered round the service window jostling to be served.
On the other side of the main road is an area of ramshackle older houses of two or three storeys. Mohammed Ramadan Daha, 61, is frightened to sleep in his house there.
The house behind his collapsed recently. The one next door has a large crack running up the side. He fears his will collapse too.
“It’s terrifying,” Daha said.
(Editing by Timothy Heritage)
Source: OANN
A recent power grid failure in New York caused panic and even stoked the fear of an alien invasion. With so many dependent on the electrical power grid, it is important to be prepared for the worst.
Even president Donald Trump has taken it upon himself to sign an executive order declaring an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) could be “debilitating” to the United States’ power grid. Far too many Americans won’t know what to do when the inevitable finally happens. And things will get dire should we have to live without power for more than one week.
“It is the policy of the United States to prepare for the effects of EMPs through targeted approaches that coordinate whole-of-government activities and encourage private-sector engagement,” said the executive order released by the White House.
A congressional report warned that an EMP attack on the East Coast would kill 90 percent of those in the area over the course of ONE year due to the lack of food, money, fuel, electricity, and medical care.
The infrastructure is crumbling, and while the government claims they intend to secure the power grid, most of us know much better. The best the rest of us can do is make sure we are armed with knowledge and the survivalist mentality.
Americans, largely, have put their survival in the hands of the government, but if you’re reading this, you probably want to become more self-sufficient. And beginning by preparing for a lengthy power grid failure (regardless of whether it was an EMP attack or an infrastructure failure) is a great start and an excellent first step when fueling your “prepper’s mindset.”
Start by storing extra water. If you have a well, you are already a giant leap ahead of those who do not, however, you will need to figure out a way to retrieve water without power. If you don’t have a well, you should begin by making sure you have enough water for at least 6 weeks. Each person will need about 7 ½ gallons of water per day! That seems daunting, but it includes drinking, cooking, washing clothing, and personal hygiene.
Next, store some food. Find a safe place you can hide away bulk non-perishable food items. If the grid fails, grocery stores will cease being stocked with food and will eventually run out completely. Can vegetables to store or buy extra canned goods when you go to the grocery store.
The last step for now, is to find a cool dark place to HIDE your food and water. Yes, it should be hidden. Consider keeping your stock of supplies a secret too; the fewer who know, the fewer who pose a threat to your supplies if a grid failure stretches past the week mark. People get desperate when they are hungry, and you may need to defend your food or water if too many others know what you’ve got and where you store it.
Keep a survivalist mentality and rely on yourself. Prepping for a grid failure is one of the best ways to ensure the health and safety of your family in a worst-case scenario.
Alex Jones opens the phone lines to currently practicing and former members of the Muslim faith and challenges listeners to change his mind about Islam.
Source: InfoWars
Pedestrians walk in front of a banner of the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi before the upcoming referendum on constitutional amendments in Cairo, Egypt April 16, 2019. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany
April 22, 2019
CAIRO (Reuters) – Opponents of constitutional amendments that could see Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi stay in power until 2030 urged people to vote “no” on Monday, the third and final day of a referendum on the proposal.
The amendments would also bolster the role of the military and expand the president’s power over judicial appointments. The constitutional changes were approved by parliament last week.
While the amendments are expected to be passed in the referendum, observers say the turnout will be a test of Sisi’s popularity, which has been dented by austerity measures since 2016. He was re-elected last year with 97 percent of votes cast.
Sisi’s supporters say he has stabilized Egypt and needs more time to reform and develop the economy. Critics fear changing the constitution will shrink any remaining space for political competition and debate, paving the way for a long period of one-man rule.
Ahmed al-Tantawi, one of a small number of opposition members of parliament, said the referendum was being held against a backdrop of intimidation and “vote buying”.
The electoral commission said on Monday afternoon it had not received any formal complaints so far about any irregularities.
“We can say that the first two days of voting were held under the slogan, the ‘ticket and the cardboard box’,” Tantawi said, referring to reports that grocery boxes were being handed out to people in exchange for casting a vote.
“But there is a chance on the third day of voting for Egyptians, particularly the youth, to return things to their natural course,” he said.
Activists have posted photos on social media that appeared to show white cardboard boxes packed with groceries being handed out to people after they voted.
A Reuters reporter saw some voters receiving vouchers for groceries after leaving a central Cairo polling station, which they then exchanged for packages of cooking oil, pasta, sugar and tea at a nearby charity.
It was not immediately possible to verify who was distributing the food.
When asked about the boxes, Mahmoud el-Sherif, spokesman for Egypt’s election commission, said it was monitoring for any violations. But he added: “The commission has received no notifications or complaints of this kind so far.”
The commission says it has strict measures to ensure a fair and free vote, posting judges at each polling station and using special ink to prevent multiple voting.
If approved, the amendments would extend Sisi’s current term to six years from four and allow him to run again for a third six-year term in 2024.
They would also grant the president control over appointing head judges and the public prosecutor from a pool of candidates, and give Egypt’s powerful military the role of protecting “the constitution and democracy”.
Cairo’s streets have been adorned with banners encouraging people to vote, some of them backing a “yes” vote.
Ahmed Maher, a founder of the April 6 Movement, one of the youth groups behind the 2011 uprising that toppled President Hosni Mubarak, said Egyptians still had a chance to make their voice heard.
“Try to change the result, even by a small ratio,” he wrote in a message posted on social media. “Tell your relatives, friends and acquaintance to go down and say ‘No’.”
Some 61 million of Egypt’s nearly 100 million population are eligible to vote. The result is expected within five days.
(Reporting by Cairo bureau; Writing by Sami Aboudi; Editing by Aidan Lewis and Edmund Blair)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: The logo of a McDonald’s Corp restaurant is seen in Los Angeles, California, U.S. October 24, 2017. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson
April 18, 2019
(Reuters) – McDonald’s Corp said it would remove costlier, premium burgers from its menus in favor of its more popular Quarter Pounders, shifting its focus to simpler and quickly-served burgers.
The burger chain added the Signature Crafted burgers to its menu two years ago to keep up with competition from Wendy’s and Shake Shack, which serve more premium burgers using fresh ingredients.
But putting together the burgers took time, slowing down service lines at drive-thrus and at stores.
These premium beef, grilled or crispy chicken burgers came with condiments like pico guacamole, sweet BBQ bacon or maple bacon dijon, compared with the Quarter Pounders, which are beef patties served with ketchup, pickles and onions.
The company said its new deluxe and bacon Quarter Pounders received good feedback and it would continue to focus on such items.
“It (the removal) probably has more to do about the process of cooking the burger in McDonald’s than it does what the consumer is saying about the food,” said Howard Penney, a managing director at Hedgeye Risk Management.
Big franchisees also did not buy into the idea of McDonald’s pricier burgers initially, mindful of the cooking time required for these made-to-order burgers.
“It makes it easier for the people running the stores and operating the stores … simple is good,” Penney said.
The move is seen as a positive, coming at a time when quick service restaurants are moving away from customization and focusing more on transparency in the ingredients used.
This is the second time McDonald’s has tweaked its menu this month, after trimming down its late-night menu to keep only eights items.
Shares of the Dow component have risen nearly 18 percent in the past year, outperforming the Dow Jones Industrial Index’s 6.7 percent rise.
(Reporting by Nivedita Balu in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)
Source: OANN
Venezuelan migrants wait while the rubbish truck unload at the garbage dump in the border city of Pacaraima, Brazil April 13, 2019. Picture taken April 13, 2019. REUTERS/Pilar Olivares
April 16, 2019
By Anthony Boadle
PACARAIMA, Brazil (Reuters) – Surrounded by vultures perched on trees awaiting their turn, Venezuelan migrants scrape out a living scavenging for metal, plastic, cardboard and food in a Brazilian border town’s rubbish dump.
Trapped in a wasteland limbo, they barely make enough to feed their families and cannot afford a bus ticket to get away and find regular work in Brazilian cities to the south.
They blame leftist President Nicolas Maduro for mismanaging their oil-producing nation’s economy and causing the deep crisis that has driven several million Venezuelans to emigrate across Latin America.
“I left because I was dying of hunger. We are trying to get ahead looking through this rubbish. Every night I pray to God to take me out of here,” said Rosemary Tovar, a 23-year-old mother from Caracas.
Tens of thousands of Venezuelans have fled the political and economic upheaval in their country through Pacaraima, the only road crossing to Brazil, overloading social services and causing tension in the northern border state of Roraima. More than 40,000 Venezuelans have swollen the population of state capital Boa Vista by 11 percent, Mayor Tereza Surita told Reuters.
The influx has also been a headache for Brazil’s new, far-right government of President Jair Bolsonaro, who has so far resisted U.S. pressure to take a more forceful attitude against Maduro. About 3.7 million people have left Venezuela in recent years, mostly via its western neighbor Colombia, according to the World Bank.
A dozen Venezuelans scramble to grab bags of rubbish that tumble from the Pacaraima trash truck twice a day. They then sift through the piles as fetid plumes of smoke rise from the smoldering landfill. Sometimes they scavenge at night using headlamps.
“We are looking for copper and cans, and hopefully something valuable, even food,” said Astrid Prado, who is eight months pregnant. “My goal is to get out of here. Nobody wants to spend their life going through garbage.”
Charly Sanchez, 42, arrived in Brazil a year ago and has not been able to get to Boa Vista to get his work papers so that he can find employment.
“We live off this. We make enough to buy rice, maybe some sausage, but not enough to buy a ticket to Boa Vista,” he said.
Copper pays best, 13 reais ($3.30) a kilo, but it takes Sanchez a whole week to gather that much “wire by wire.”
On a lucky day he said he had found a discarded cellphone, but not today. Some spaghetti, a small jar of sugar and a bit of cooking oil was Sanchez’s pickings for the day.
Samuel Esteban, using a breathing mask for the smoke, stuffed cardboard into a large sack. For 50 kilos he will earn five reais, one third of the minimum monthly wage in Venezuela but just enough to buy a liter of milk in Brazil and some bread.
Tovar criticized Maduro for denying that Venezuela is facing a humanitarian crisis.
“He is so wrong. Look at us here in this dump,” she said. “If Maduro does not leave Venezuela, I will never return there.”
(Reporting and writing by Anthony Boadle; Additional reporting by Leonardo Benassatto; Editing by Tom Brown)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: A man buys bread from a street vendor in Mbare township, Harare, Zimbabwe, January 24, 2019. REUTERS/Philimon Bulawayo
April 16, 2019
HARARE (Reuters) – The price of bread nearly doubled in Zimbabwe on Tuesday, another burden for citizens already struggling with a weakening currency and rising prices for basic goods.
Bread now costs 3.50 RTGS dollars a loaf, up from 1.80 on Monday, according to prices displayed by most shops visited by Reuters in the capital, Harare.
“Bread has now become a luxury. How many people can afford it at this rate?” said Sarah Chisvo, a mother of three who was picking up groceries in a supermarket in central Harare. “The government needs to do something before this gets out of hand.”
Zimbabwe ditched its own currency for the U.S. dollar and other currencies in 2009, after hyperinflation reached 500 billion percent the previous year.
In February, faced with acute shortages of U.S. dollars, Zimbabwe introduced a new currency, called the Real Time Gross Settlement dollar. The RTGS has been losing value ever since, forcing companies to increase prices .
Year-on-year inflation raced to 66.8 percent in March, up from 59.39 the previous month, according to statistics agency Zimstats.
On Tuesday, the RTGS dollar was trading at 3.19 to the dollar on the interbank market and 5 on the black market. That means a loaf of bread costs about 70 U.S. cents a loaf, in a country where the average income is around $4 a day.
Bread is the most consumed staple after maize meal, and the increase follows that of other products like cooking oil, sugar and milk. In January, a fuel price increase led to protests that left several people dead following a military crackdown.
While prices of basic goods continue to spike, salaries have largely remained unchanged, increasing public anger against President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government.
Zimbabwe is suffering from the twin effects of drought and a cyclone that wrecked the eastern parts of the country. That means the country needs to import food using scarce dollars, which will put further pressure on the exchange rate and prices, analysts say.
(Reporting by MacDonald Dzirutwe)
Source: OANN
A flower tribute is seen outside Al Noor mosque where more than 40 people were killed by a suspected white supremacist during Friday prayers on March 15, in Christchurch, New Zealand March 27, 2019. REUTERS/Edgar Su
April 8, 2019
By Edgar Su and Charlotte Greenfield
CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand (Reuters) – On a small farm on the outskirts of Christchurch in New Zealand, Omar Nabi digs a small hole and sharpens a knife as he prepares to slaughter a sheep as a blessing to his father – a victim of the mass killings at the Al Noor mosque.
Hunched between his father’s collection of rusted cars, Nabi softly said a prayer and slit the animal’s neck, facing it towards Mecca. He removed the pelt and prepared the meat for cooking. Blood was pooled in a hole where he plans to plant a tree. No part of the animal was wasted, he said.
Nabi first slaughtered a sheep when he was 11, each step supervised by his father. Nabi is now 43.
“My father was my whole life… I give thanks for my father, he’s done a lot,” he said. His father, Haji Daoud Nabi, had hoped to build a small mosque on the property, a plan his son intends to complete. “This means a lot to me, Dad put a piece of heaven in Christchurch.”
Several weeks after an attack on Muslim worshippers that killed fifty people and left dozens wounded, the lives of survivors and the families of victims have changed irrevocably. Some survivors feel emboldened, others are haunted by memories of the attack and haven’t been able to return to the mosque.
Burying loved ones brought relief to many families, but reminders of their losses are never far away, from an empty seat at a dinner table to the prospect of Ramadan celebrations in a few weeks.
The shootings on March 15 shook New Zealand and prompted the government to tighten gun laws and launch a powerful national inquiry into the country’s worst peacetime massacre. An Australian man, a suspected white supremacist, has been charged with 50 murders and 39 attempted murders.
(For a photo essay of survivors of the attack and victim’s families, please click this link: https://reut.rs/2WSIG1M)
IN LIMBO
Survivor Mark Rangi, 59, feels his future is in limbo following wounds to both legs. The New Zealander, who lives in Sydney, had never been to Al Noor Mosque before the attack.
After visiting relatives in a nearby town, he had attended the mosque before his return flight to Sydney so he could seek spiritual guidance on the direction of his life.
Instead, he ended up running for his life, bleeding heavily from shrapnel wounds in his legs. After surgery, he is able to walk slowly but Rangi is doubtful he can return to work as a baggage handler in Sydney.
“I wouldn’t have a clue (what to do now). I want to be independent,” he said from a youth hostel where he is staying, overlooking piles of flowers placed in a makeshift memorial. “I’m very lucky that I didn’t get injured worse, so I’m grateful for that.”
SOMETHING’S MISSING
In a one-storey house a short drive from Al Noor mosque, Zahra Fathy turned pages in a photo album compiled by her husband Hussein Moustafa, who died in the massacre. As part of the customary four-month and 10 day-mourning period, she wears simple, unadorned clothing and spends most of her time at home.
“It’s hard to stay thinking about what happened, so I have to escape this and think about what’s next,” she said.
Her husband had spent time at the mosque on most days, organizing its library of religious texts and tending to a vegetable garden, which provided the community with pumpkins, rocket and broccoli.
She is now considering visiting her extended family in Alexandria, Egypt, where she and her husband both grew up, for Ramadan.
“Being all on your own during Ramadan is tough,” said her son, Mohammed, who flew home from a new job in Saudi Arabia on learning of his father’s death.
After some trepidation, Mohammed worshipped last Friday at the Al Noor mosque for the first time since his father’s death.
“I’m praying in the same area, the same corner that my dad used to pray. I wanted to do that,” he said. “It was a bit emotional at first, I got a few tears, it was quite tough. I kept imagining him next to me, I kept looking around, looking for the bullet holes.”
Before Ramadan, Zahra and her family plan to mark the graduation of her youngest son, Zeyad, 22, who also returned to Christchurch from a new job, in Canberra. “He was very, very proud of you,” Zahra told her son.
The family had an active WhatsApp messaging group to stay in touch. Zeyad had shared a recent trip to Europe, where his father had also traveled as a young man, and to Egypt. His father had provided long history lessons on the places Zeyad visited and was overjoyed his son was meeting his Egyptian relatives. Now, the WhatsApp group is not so active.
“It feels like something’s missing… It’s hard to explain, I think it just feels weird if we use it,” Zeyad said.
SENSE OF MISSION
In a sleepy Christchurch suburb where he owns a homeopathy business, Farid Ahmed has worked to bring his community and his country together. Farid, a wheelchair user, survived the shooting but his wife Husna was killed.
He spent one recent Sunday going door-to-door to thank his neighbors for their support.
When his neighbors heard of his wife’s death, “they came running… they were in tears,” he said. “That was wonderful support and expression of love.”
His message of forgiveness and peace to avoid “a heart that is boiling like a volcano” has made headlines around the world and was broadcast in a heartfelt speech at a national memorial service.
“I admire him. I couldn’t do that,” said a neighbor, a Christian who lives four doors down. “We’ve learnt a lot about Islam over the last few days… (it’s) crazy how similar our two faiths are.”
COPING
Across the city, survivor Sardar Faisal has thrown himself with vigor into helping co-ordinate dozens of volunteers who prepare meals and run errands for the widows of victims of the attack. As a result, he realized he was not spending much time with his own wife and young children.
“Maybe it’s survivor’s guilt, maybe it’s empathy because whenever I visit the affected families, the only thing I think about is that when I was in that area, they were being shot, the bullets that I heard,” he said over tea at a friend’s house.
On the day of the shootings, Faisal was late to the mosque, an uncharacteristic trait that possibly spared his life. When the gunman burst in and started shooting worshippers at prayer, Faisal was in the bathroom, just about to wash in preparation for prayer and so was able to hide from the gunman.
What he saw and heard that day haunts him, he said. He struggles to focus at work and suffers nightmares as deadly scenarios, almost like a video game, run on repeat through his sleep.
REBORN
Alongside sorrow and pain, others feel the close call has reinvigorated their lives.
“It gave me courage,” said Hazem Mohammed, originally from Baghdad, who played dead in Al Noor mosque as the gunman stood over him, wounded and surrounded by the bodies of fellow worshippers.
“I cry for two reasons. The first half because I lost friends, they are gone,” he said. “And the other tears… these tears are for joy, because I was reborn again on Friday the 15th of March 2019.”
(Reporting by Charlotte Greenfield and Edgar Su in Christchurch; additional reporting by Jill Gralow, Natasha Howitt and Tom Westbrook; Editing by Neil Fullick)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube gestures during a media briefing in Harare, Zimbabwe, October 5, 2018. REUTERS/Philimon Bulawayo/File Photo
April 3, 2019
HARARE (Reuters) – Zimbabwe’s finance minister on Wednesday accused local businesses of profiteering for linking price increases of basic goods to exchange rate movements of a new transitional currency.
Since the RTGS dollar was introduced in February, prices of staples including sugar, cooking oil and rice have risen as much as 60 percent, squeezing already hard-pressed consumers and fuelling resentment against President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government.
The RTGS launched at 2.5 to the U.S. dollar on Feb 22 and now trades at around 4.3 on the black market.
Price changes should be determined by inflation trends, minister Mthuli Ncube said, adding that month-on-month inflation was slowing.
“It is actually bad economics to link price increases to the exchange rate. That’s not how you do it, it is profiteering,” Mthuli told reporters.
The southern African nation dumped its hyperinflation-hit local currency in 2009 and replaced it with the U.S. dollar, which has been in short supply since 2016. That has in turn driven shortages of fuel, medicines and other goods, hobbling the economy.
In February Zimbabwe scrapped a 1:1 peg between the dollar and the bond notes and electronic dollars it introduced to compensate for the hard currency shortage, merging the surrogate currencies into the RTGS dollar.
On the official market, the RTGS weakened to 3.03 per U.S. dollar on Wednesday, according to central bank data.
But some retailers in major cities have pegged their prices using the higher black market exchange rate, as well as offering discounts on U.S. dollar purchases.
Ncube, who was announcing a $400 million wage deal for public sector workers, said the treasury was monitoring price hikes but would not be drawn on whether it would impose controls.
Although trade in the RTGS is restricted, economists expect the currency to come under more pressure when Zimbabwe starts importing grain as a consequence of a devastating drought this year, likely triggering more inflation.
The year-on-year inflation rate climbed to 59.39 percent in February. Ncube has previously said annual inflation will fall to below 10 percent by year-end.
(Reporting by MacDonald Dzirutwe; editing by John Stonestreet)
Source: OANN
Impossible Foods Chief Executive Pat Brown poses in front of a flame broiler cooking its plant-based patties at a facility in Redwood City, California, U.S. March 26, 2019. REUTERS/Jane Lanhee Lee
April 1, 2019
By Jane Lanhee Lee
(Reuters) – Vegetarian burgers may finally be getting the recognition they need to go main stream. On Monday Burger King and Silicon Valley startup Impossible Foods announced the roll-out of the Impossible Whopper in 59 stores in and around St. Louis, Missouri.
To mark the launch on April Fool’s day, the burger giant released a hidden-camera-style promo video showing the serving of plant-based Whoppers instead of meat to customers who marvel that they cannot tell the difference.
“We wanted to make sure we had something that lived up to the expectations of the Whopper,” said Burger King’s North America president, Christopher Finazzo. “We’ve done sort of a blind taste test with our franchisees, with people in the office, with my partners on the executive team, and virtually nobody can tell the difference.”
The Impossible Whopper comes at an extra cost – about a dollar more than the beef patty Whopper. But Finazzo said research shows consumers are willing to pay more for the plant-based burger.
Plant-based meat has been gaining popularity as more attention is focused on the environmental hazards of industrial ranching. Finazzo said his research shows customers mainly like it for the health benefits. The Impossible Burger patty has zero cholesterol.
Impossible Foods, based in Redwood City, California, launched its first faux meat patty over two years ago. A genetically modified yeast creates the key ingredient, called heme, which makes the patties appear to bleed and taste like real meat.
Burger King is not the first to serve up a no-meat burger. Los Angeles-based Beyond Meat in early January announced it was rolling out its plant-based burger at fast-food chain Carl’s Jr. Beyond Meat counts actor Leonardo Di Caprio and Microsoft founder Bill Gates as investors.
Finazzo said Burger King also researched Beyond Meat, but decided that Impossible Food’s offering was a better fit. “Around the taste, around the brand recognition, around the price, all those things were important factors in choosing Impossible,” he said
Impossible Foods, which also counts Gates as an investor, tailored a patty specifically for the Whopper, according to Chief Executive Pat Brown.
“We’re now in well over 6,000 restaurants. If the Burger King launch is as successful as I expect it to be, and we go nationwide, that will add more than 7,000 restaurants that serve the Impossible Burger,” Brown said.
(Reporting by Jane Lanhee Lee; Editing by Leslie Adler)
Source: OANN
MAGA One Radio