The polarised lives of Zimbabwe's rich and poor

Sue Lloyd-Roberts visits Philip Chiyangwa, the millionaire businessman nephew of Robert Mugabe, at his opulent Zimbabwe home full of deluxe cars

By Sue Lloyd-Roberts BBC Newsnight, Zimbabwe

Thursday marks the first anniversary of Zimbabwe's so-called "inclusive government".

It has been a year since President Robert Mugabe swore in his former political rival, Morgan Tsvangirai, as Prime Minister and the two agreed to a series of conditions enshrined in the Global Political Agreement and to work on a new constitution which would pave the way to free and fair elections.

It is a year since Zimbabwe's former political rivals struck a deal

So what has been achieved?

"The inclusive government has bought peace and there is food in the shops," Julius, a 35-year-old teacher said. "Anytime you get a dollar, you can rest assured that you will find something to buy."

The problem is getting a dollar. Teachers like Julius will mark the anniversary by going on strike this week.

He said he welcomes the fact that the coalition government has restored peace to the country, but complained that he still cannot feed his family.

Julius takes homes $150 (£96) a month. Over $100 goes on renting two rooms in a house, which leaves him with a little more than a dollar a day to spend on food.

Reminder of past pain

We followed him to the supermarket where the shelves were stocked high. He bought one loaf of white bread - "our weekly treat" he explained - and then walked outside to a market stall to purchase his family's more regular fare - 1kg (2lb) of potatoes.

When she was born, we had no food at all. She went for hours without food. She is three years old but looks like a two-year-old. Julius, teacher talking about his daughter

He took us home to meet his wife and two daughters.

"Of course, things are better than they were," he said, pointing to his younger daughter. "When she was born, we had no food at all. She went for hours without food. She is three years old but looks like a two-year-old.

"I feel like crying every time I look at my daughter - it reminds me of the history I don't want to remember," he said.

He is right. Things were a lot worse.

I have travelled to Zimbabwe regularly over the last tumultuous decade and, if I were to write a report card at the end of this, the first year of the inclusive government, it would read: "A good start, could do better, but with a very uncertain future."

Mass rallies

The timetable for political reform has slipped badly.

Four thousand white commercial farmers have had farms seized

Only the former opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), have been holding outreach meetings with their supporters to discuss a new constitution, which is meant to pave the way for free and fair elections.

These meetings should have been concluded last November.

At a rowdy, dancing and singing MDC gathering two hours' drive east of Harare which I went to, people were celebrating that they are able to meet at all.

"It was horrible before," Susan, a local party organiser, said. "Zanu PF thugs would come and beat people. Now, we thank God that we can move freely and meet together."

The meeting was addressed by the MDC deputy Prime Minister, Thokozani Khupe.

To cheers, she told the crowds that her party wants to restore political power to the prime minister and to parliament.

Zanu PF are not holding mass, outreach meetings.

Asset control

Back in Harare I found Paul Mangwana, Zanu PF's constitutional expert, at his legal practice putting finishing touches to what his party believe should be the shape of the new constitution - to put the power firmly in the hands of the one executive authority because of Zimbabwe's wealth.

Mr Mugabe's nephew Philip Chiyangwa has fared well in Zimbabwe

"We have a rich inheritance - nickel, platinum, diamonds - every mineral known in the world," he said. "We need to concentrate power in one, strong individual to safeguard those resources and protect them from being taken by foreigners."

Indigenisation is the key to the Zanu PF political philosophy, a philosophy which would appear to exclude white Zimbabweans.

Four thousand white commercial farmers have now had their farms confiscated and given to supporters of Mr Mugabe.

A diamond mine has been taken from its white Zimbabwean owner and is being operated by a government-owned company, protected by soldiers.

From 1 March, any company operating in Zimbabwe must ensure that the majority of shareholders are indigenous Zimbabweans.

Luxury lifestyle

My "minder" at the Ministry of Information was very keen that I should meet someone he believes is a model of a successful businessman in Zimbabwe today.

Philip Chiyangwa, Mr Mugabe's nephew, bought several companies at a time when high inflation, price controls and shrinking demand made it difficult for them to operate in Zimbabwe.

Now a millionaire, he displays the full list in his "Native Investments" portfolio on full-length wall charts.

It encompasses everything from luxury hotels, foodstuffs to the window frame company he says he bought from Roland "Tiny" Rowlands.

It is a gift from God. It is a blessing from God. I know people are hungry and we are very grateful for what has been done for us. Elizabeth Chiyangwa Married to President Mugabe's nephew

He was optimistic about Zimbabwe's future: "It is in our hands to take the country wherever it needs to go. Look at me - I have never left Zim for any other country, I don't intend to leave this country, I am doing business here and I am successful here.

"If I want to buy a jet tomorrow, I will do it here. If I want to buy a Rolls Royce, I have one. If I want to drive a Bentley then I have one. If it's a beautiful mansion house, I bought one. I built it myself," he said.

Mr Chiyangwa invited me to visit the 35-room mansion where his wife, Elizabeth, showed me around the family car collection - her husband's Rolls Royce and Bentley, her Mercedes and their daughter's sports cars.

I asked her whether she feels comfortable with such wealth when people in her country are starving.

"It is a gift from God," she replied, "it is a blessing from God. I know people are hungry and we are very grateful for what has been done for us".

As Julius puts his children to bed that night, after another meal of potatoes, he could be forgiven for wondering whether it is not his turn, and the turn of millions like him in Zimbabwe, to receive such gifts and blessings.

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Commentary

The government should be ashamed of itself. Running lavish parties and petty squablles while it's people starve?

What a travesty, what an injustice.

May the people of Zimbabwe soon be blessed with leaders who care and worry about their affairs. For now they only have tyrants and greedy children bickering with one another.

Frankincense: Could it be a cure for cancer?

The gift given by the wise men to the baby Jesus probably came across the deserts from Oman. The BBC's Jeremy Howell visits the country to ask whether a commodity that was once worth its weight in gold could be reborn as a treatment for cancer.

Oman's Land of Frankincense is an 11-hour drive southwards from the capital, Muscat.

Most of the journey is through Arabia's Empty Quarter - hundreds of kilometres of flat, dun-coloured desert. Just when you are starting to think this is the only scenery you will ever see again, the Dhofar mountains appear in the distance.

On the other side are green valleys, with cows grazing in them. The Dhofar region catches the tail-end of India's summer monsoons, and they make this the most verdant place on the Arabian peninsula.

Warm winters and showery summers are the perfect conditions for the Boswellia sacra tree to produce the sap called frankincense. These trees grow wild in Dhofar. A tour guide, Mohammed Al-Shahri took me to Wadi Dawkah, a valley 20 km inland from the main city of Salalah, to see a forest of them.

"The records show that frankincense was produced here as far back as 7,000 BCE," he says. He produces an army knife. He used to be a member of the Sultan's Special Forces. With a practised flick, he cuts a strip of bark from the trunk of one of the Boswellia sacra trees. Pinpricks of milky-white sap appear on the wood and, very slowly, start to ooze out.

Boswellia sacra produces the highest-quality frankincense

"This is the first cut. But you don't gather this sap," he says. "It releases whatever impurities are in the wood. The farmers return after two or three weeks and make a second, and a third, cut. Then the sap comes out yellow, or bright green, or brown or even black. They take this."

Shortly afterwards, a frankincense farmer arrives in a pick-up truck. He is white-bearded, wearing a brown thobe and the traditional Omani, paisley-patterned turban.

He is 67-year-old Salem Mohammed from the Gidad family. Most of the Boswellia sacra trees grow on public land, but custom dictates that each forest is given to one of the local families to farm, and Wadi Dawkah is his turf.

Camel train

He has an old, black, iron chisel with which he gouges out clumps of dried frankincense.

"We learnt about frankincense from our forefathers and they learnt it from theirs" he says. "The practice has been passed down through the generations. We exported the frankincense, and that's how the families in Dhofar made their livings."

Salem Mohammed: Young people prefer careers in oil or government

And what an export trade it was. Frankincense was sent by camel train to Egypt, and from there to Europe. It was shipped from the ancient port of Sumharan to Persia, India and China. Religions adopted frankincense as a burnt offering.

That is why, according to Matthew's Gospel in the Bible, the Wise Men brought it as a gift to the infant Jesus. Gold: for a king. Frankincense: for God. Myrrh: to embalm Jesus' body after death.

The Roman Empire coveted the frankincense trade. In the first century BCE, Augustus Caesar sent 10,000 troops to invade what the Romans called Arabia Felix to find the source of frankincense and to control its production. The legions, marching from Yemen, were driven back by the heat and the aridity of the desert. They never found their Eldorado.

Oman's frankincense trade went into decline three centuries ago, when Portugal fought Oman for dominance of the sea routes in the Indian and the Pacific Oceans.

Salalah's Haffa souk: The place to buy Omani brands such as Royal Hougari

Nowadays, hardly any Omani frankincense is exported. Partly, this is because bulk buyers, such as the Roman Catholic Church, buy cheaper Somalian varieties. Partly, it is because Omanis now produce so little.

"Years ago, 20 families farmed frankincense in this area," says Salem Mohammed Gidad. "But the younger generation can get well-paid jobs in the government and the oil companies, with pensions. Now, only three people still produce frankincense around here. The trade is really, really tiny!"

Cancer hope

But immunologist Mahmoud Suhail is hoping to open a new chapter in the history of frankincense.

Scientists have observed that there is some agent within frankincense which stops cancer spreading, and which induces cancerous cells to close themselves down. He is trying to find out what this is.

The Catholic church mostly buys Somalian frankincense

"Cancer starts when the DNA code within the cell's nucleus becomes corrupted," he says. "It seems frankincense has a re-set function. It can tell the cell what the right DNA code should be.

"Frankincense separates the 'brain' of the cancerous cell - the nucleus - from the 'body' - the cytoplasm, and closes down the nucleus to stop it reproducing corrupted DNA codes."

Working with frankincense could revolutionise the treatment of cancer. Currently, with chemotherapy, doctors blast the area around a tumour to kill the cancer, but that also kills healthy cells, and weakens the patient. Treatment with frankincense could eradicate the cancerous cells alone and let the others live.

The task now is to isolate the agent within frankincense which, apparently, works this wonder. Some ingredients of frankincense are allergenic, so you cannot give a patient the whole thing.

FRANKINCENSE FACTS Boswellia sacra grows in Oman, Yemen and Somalia Other Boswellia species grow in Africa and India The tree may have been named after John Boswell, the uncle of Samuel Johnson's biographer In ancient Egypt frankincense was thought to be sweat of the gods Source: The Pharmaceutical Journal

Dr Suhail (who is originally from Iraq) has teamed up with medical scientists from the University of Oklahoma for the task.

In his laboratory in Salalah, he extracts the essential oil from locally produced frankincense. Then, he separates the oil into its constituent agents, such as Boswellic acid.

"There are 17 active agents in frankincense essential oil," says Dr Suhail. "We are using a process of elimination. We have cancer sufferers - for example, a horse in South Africa - and we are giving them tiny doses of each agent until we find the one which works."

"Some scientists think Boswellic acid is the key ingredient. But I think this is wrong. Many other essential oils - like oil from sandalwood - contain Boswellic acid, but they don't have this effect on cancer cells. So we are starting afresh."

The trials will take months to conduct and whatever results come out of them will take longer still to be verified. But this is a blink of the eye in the history of frankincense.

Nine thousand years ago, Omanis gathered it and burnt it for its curative and cleansing properties. It could be a key to the medical science of tomorrow.

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Sarah Palin crib notes mocked by White House aide

Robert Gibbs said he "wrote a few things down"

A White House aide has appeared at a briefing with the words "hope" and "change" written on his hand in a jibe at Republican Sarah Palin.

Mrs Palin, the former vice-presidential candidate, had been shown reading crib notes from her hand at a question and answers session on Saturday.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs also appeared to have his shopping list written on his palm.

"Hope" and "Change" were the key themes of President Obama's election campaign.

Eggs, milk, bread

Mr Gibbs was speaking at the White House shortly after the president had been stressing the need for a bipartisan approach to politics.

Showing his left palm, Mr Gibbs said: "I wrote a few things down."

Sarah Palin appears to read from notes written on her hand

The list read in vertical order - eggs, milk, bread [which had been crossed out].

"And then I wrote down 'hope and change', just in case I forgot," he said.

The jibe reportedly drew groans from reporters present.

At the weekend, Mrs Palin was delivering a speech and taking part in a question and answer session for the Tea Party movement, which draws together opponents of Mr Obama's healthcare reform, his economic stimulus package and other aspects of his agenda.

A photo taken during the Q&A session after the speech showed her left hand with the words "energy", "budget cuts", "tax" and "lift Americans' spirits". The word "budget" had been crossed out.

Video footage showed her seemingly reading from her hand when asked what top three things a conservative-led Congress should do.

In her speech, Mrs Palin received a standing ovation as she called for a "return to conservative principles".

She also spoke of a "charismatic guy with a teleprompter" - an apparent reference to President Obama.

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Commentary

This is simply funny. If an orator does not speak from their heart, they are worth nothing because it means they are insincere.

You must speak from your mind, your beliefs, your principles. Insincere politicians are a dime a dozen.

Quantum trick for pressure-sensitive mobile devices

These mace-shaped particles use quantum physics to control current

Hand-held devices could soon have pressure-sensitive touch-screens and keys, thanks to a UK firm's material that exploits a quantum physics trick.

The technology allows, for example, scrolling down a long list or webpage faster as more pressure is applied.

A division of Samsung that distributes mobile phone components to several handset manufacturers has now licensed the "Quantum Tunnelling Composite".

The approach could find use in devices from phones to games to GPS handsets.

In January, Japanese touch-screen maker Nissha also licensed the approach from Yorkshire-based Peratech, who make the composite material QTC.

However, as part of the licensing agreements, Peratech could not reveal the phone, gaming, and device makers that could soon be using the technology to bring pressure sensitivity to a raft of new devices.

Quantum mace

The composite works by using spiky conducting nanoparticles, similar to tiny medieval maces, dispersed evenly in a polymer.

None of these spiky balls actually touch, but the closer they get to each other, the more likely they are to undergo a quantum physics phenomenon known as tunnelling.

Tunnelling is one of several effects in quantum mechanics that defies explanation in terms of the "classical" physics that preceded it.

Simply put, quantum mechanics says that there is a tiny probability that a particle shot at a wall will pass through it in an effect known as tunnelling.

The pressure-sensitive key can already be found in an available handset

Similarly, the material that surrounds the spiky balls acts like a wall to electric current. But as the balls draw closer together, when squashed or deformed by a finger's pressure, the probability of a charge tunnelling through increases.

The net result is that pressing harder on the material leads to a smooth increase in the current through it.

There are a number of ways to make switches or screens pressure-sensitive, such as using mechanical switches.

However, the QTC approach is particularly suited to making thin devices. Pressure-sensitive QTC switches can be made 70 micrometers thick - about the thickness of a human hair.

QTC is better than switches based on so-called "conducting polymers", because they conduct no electricity until they are pressed, leading to better overall efficiency.

Samsung Electro-mechanics has now incorporated the QTC into the navigation switch familiar on smartphones - in addition to the up, down, left, right and centre button, the up and down functions are pressure-sensitive.

This is useful for scrolling more or less quickly through, for example, a long list of emails.

"That same model can be used in many other ways, like in games: to control how hard I want to jump or run for example," said Peratech's chief executive Philip Taysom.

"Electronics are being given the ability to sense something that we take for granted, which is how much we're touching and applying force," he told BBC News.

Further applications that Peratech is involved with include robotics. While much work has gone into giving robots sensitivity to pressure and touch in their fingers, Mr Taysom said there can now be a push to create robots whose whole surface - rather like humans themselves - is pressure-sensitive.

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Can battlefield robots take the place of soldiers?

By Chris Bowlby Robo Wars, BBC Radio 4

Can battlefield land-robots be made to obey the rules of war?

Can war be fought by lots of well-behaved machines, making it "safer for humans"? That is the seductive vision, and hope, of those manufacturing and researching the future of military robotics.

With 8,000 robots already in use, they believe they can bring about a military revolution.

Most of the robots currently deployed on land deal with non-combat tasks such as bomb disposal - unlike lethal aerial drones.

But Bob Quinn, who works for the US subsidiary of the British robot manufacturer QinetiQ, says the future promises more armed robots on the battlefield, including driverless vehicles.

"The closer you are to being shot, the more you understand the value of having a remote weapons capability," he says.

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAMME Robo Wars is on Radio 4 on Monday 8 February at 2000 GMT Or listen via the BBC iPlayer

Anyone who has seen the Terminator films may find this vision scary. Quinn admits that, even among senior military figures, "science fiction movies caused a great deal of angst".

He stresses the need to make sure "that the weaponised robots only operate under the control of the soldier and never independently".

But the speed of modern warfare can make direct human control difficult, says Peter Singer, author of Wired for War.

Take the automated counter-artillery system deployed in Afghanistan.

"The human reaction time when there's an incoming canon shell is basically we can get to mid-curse word… [This] system reacts and shoots it down in mid-air. We are in the loop. We can turn the system off, we can turn it on, but our power really isn't true decision-making power. It's veto power now," Singer says.

Vegetarian vehicles

But if automated systems are taking decisions, how can we be sure they are hitting the right targets and obeying the laws of war?

US academic Patrick Lin was recently commissioned by the US military to study robot ethics.

QinetiQ's Talon robots are used to counter improvised explosive devices

"When you talk about autonomous robots," he argues, "a natural response might be to programme them to be ethical. Isn't that what we do with our computers?"

A striking example of a robot in need of careful programming is a driverless vehicle developed by the Pentagon, called the EATR.

It can refuel itself on long journeys by scavenging for organic material - which raises the haunting spectre of a machine consuming corpses on the battlefield.

Its inventor, Dr Robert Finkelstein of Robotic Technology Inc, insists it will consume "organic material but mostly vegetarian."

"The robot can only do what it's programmed to do, it has a menu," he adds.

All this worries sceptics like Professor Noel Sharkey, co-founder of the International Committee for Robot Arms Control.

If there's an area of fighting that's so intense that you can assume that anyone there is a combatant, then unleash the robots Dr Patrick Lin, California Polytechnic

"You could train it all you want, give it all the ethical rules in the world. If the input to it isn't correct, it's no good whatsoever," he says. "Humans can be held accountable, machines can't."

If you cannot rely on a robot knowing what to target or distinguishing between enemy forces and innocent non-combatants, Patrick Lin suggests another solution.

"If there's an area of fighting that's so intense that you can assume that anyone there is a combatant," he argues, "then unleash the robots in that kind of scenario. Some people call that a kill box. Any target [in a kill box] is assumed to be a legitimate target."

No emotions

Other researchers suggest robots may avoid the faults of human soldiers.

"Robots that are programmed properly are less likely to make errors and kill non-combatants, innocent people, because they're not emotional, they won't be afraid, act irresponsibly in some situations," says Robert Finkelstein.

But Christopher Coker of the London School of Economics, an observer of wars past and present, disagrees.

Let's keep our guys safe, and kill the enemy Bob Quinn

"We should put our trust in the human factor," he says.

"Unfortunately the military in their reports often see the human factor as what they call the weakest link. I don't think it's the weakest link. I think it's the strongest link."

Computers will never be able to simulate the "warrior ethos", the mindset and ethical outlook of the professional soldier, he says.

The military revolution in robotics has already advanced rapidly in the air, where remotely piloted drone aircraft are now central to conflicts such as Afghanistan.

On the ground, use of robots has so far been more limited.

Yet given the political and popular concern about casualties among Nato forces, robot manufacturer Bob Quinn's sales pitch is likely to be persuasive.

"Let's keep our guys safe, and kill the enemy. Unfortunately, in warfare that's the situation you're in."

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