Zimbabwe's Mugabe "well, on holiday": officials

(Reuters) - Zimbabwean officials on Tuesday dismissed reports that President Robert Mugabe was seriously ill in Singapore, saying he was well and on holiday there with his family, and was expected to return home this week.

Mugabe is one of Africa's longest serving leaders and has ruled the former British colony in southern Africa since 1980. He is sharing power with political rival Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai in a fragile coalition formed three years ago.

The 88-year-old president has been the subject of several health scares in recent years, with some reports saying he has prostate cancer, but in February interviews with state media he laughed off suggestions that he was seriously ill.

Two senior officials from Mugabe's ZANU-PF party on Tuesday angrily denied reports by some international media that he was undergoing intensive treatment in a Singapore hospital and was fighting for his life.

The officials said he was on a private holiday to Singapore.

"The president is well and away on a private holiday to help his daughter prepare for post-graduate studies, but we are expecting him home this week," said one of the two officials, who declined to be named.

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Alec Baldwin Stalker, Genevieve Sabourin, Ordered To Stay Away

NEW YORK — A Canadian actress accused of stalking "30 Rock" star Alec Baldwin has been told to stay away from him.

Genevieve Sabourin was arraigned in a Manhattan court on Monday, a day after she was arrested on charges of stalking and aggravated harassment when Baldwin filed a complaint with police.

A judge released Sabourin, who has acted in television and film, on her own recognizance and issued a temporary order of protection for Baldwin, the Manhattan district attorney's office said.

Baldwin's publicist, Matthew Hiltzik, said, "As everyone knows, stalking is a serious issue, so we've turned this matter over to the New York Police Department."

Sabourin's attorney did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment after the arraignment.

On April 5, Sabourin showed up at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, where Baldwin was hosting a screening of "Last Tango in Paris," and she had to be removed by security, police said.

She also is believed to have turned up unannounced at his home on Long Island on March 31 and to have gone to his address in lower Manhattan's Greenwich Village neighborhood while he wasn't there, authorities say.

The two met a decade ago on the set of "The Adventures of Pluto Nash," in which he had a cameo and she was a publicist.

According to authorities, the 54-year-old Baldwin told police that the 40-year-old Sabourin had been sending him emails for several weeks and that the notes were disturbing. She professed her love for him, begging to have his children and telling him to leave his wife, he said, according to police.

Baldwin recently became engaged to his 28-year-old girlfriend, Hilaria Thomas, a yoga instructor. Baldwin previously was married to actress Kim Basinger, and they have a daughter named Ireland.

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The Rush Limbaugh and the Mike Huckabee Shows

At the end of the inaugural episode of his eponymous radio show today, Mike Huckabee asked, "Is there a part of the public that wants to hear both sides of the story and hear intelligent thoughtful discussion?"

Huckabee must be hoping so. The conservative commentator has added the job of daytime talk radio host to his resume, which already includes past gigs as Fox News host, presidential candidate and governor.

At a time when seemingly anyone can be on the radio, Huckabee is betting that conservatives will find his tempered approach to talk radio more appealing than the ambushing style of Rush Limbaugh.

Huckabee's show airs from noon to 3 p.m. daily, the same time slot that "El Rushbo" occupies daily.

OTUS listened to both AM programs today to see how Huck would differentiate himself. The difference was clear from the start.

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The problems of Being African

To be African is not easy
If you are not in a war situation you
die of famine,
if not Disease,
if not natural calamity
otherwise Murder
40 years and you are a Senior citizen
If you reach fifty years and you are African you will probably have all
your neighborhood friends dead.

Never the less like a fire that never burns out we shall never give up
till African is free.

Africa the Cradle of Human civilization shall rise and shine again.

Kony and the Invisible children … March 12, 2012

Over the past week I have been inundated with posts of videos about the LRA leader Joseph Kony and the campaign to make him "famous".

First of all I get ticked off when I watch the video that he got the location of Uganda wrong. Uganda is in East Africa and NOT Central Africa.  Secondly, I feel its a little too late. Ugandans and people in northern Uganda specifically have for the first time in 20 odd years an opportunity to live normal lives, the IDP camps have been disbanded and people are getting back to their homes and salvaging as much as they can.

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Ugandans in … love online!!

ust last year if you'd said to me there would be a website dedicated in Luganda to people who are "searching" for love, actually that us is not particularly true … these people are looking for someone to marry … I'd probably have laughed out loud.

But I was on the Bukedde website and there it was … a space dedicated to abanoonya … people searching marriage partners. And it in vernacular no less!

Now if you come from London and other first world countries, where there is speed dating and internet dating and programs like "the Bachelor" and "take me out" … this sounds quite archaic.


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Sarah Greenwood’s Sherlock Holmes Exhibition

BAFTA-winning and three-time Oscar-nominated production designer Sarah Greenwood invite to step inside blockbuster movies Sherlock Holmes 1 and 2 was a thrill for me, I am after all a Sherlock Holmes die hard.

I realised just how little i understood about the making of movies and it was quite an eye opening experience.

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