/OpEd/lastword/-/434754/434754/-/m5dudbz/-/index.html http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/OpEd/lastword/HIV+prevention+in+Africa++Zuma+has+a+shower/-/434754/1409456/-/12npor5z/-/index.html Zimbabwean rights organisations have reacted angrily to a suggestion by a senator that women must shun bathing, have bald heads and dress shabbily to curb the spread of HIV. Senator Morgan Femai of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party said the pandemic was being fuelled by men who were finding it difficult to resist attractive women. “What I propose is that the government should come up with a law that compels women to have their heads clean shaven like what the Apostolic sects do,” he told a parliamentary HIV awareness workshop recently. “They should also not bathe because that is what has caused all these problems [of the spread of HIV].” But women’s organisations and HIV and Aids activists accused Senator Femai of being “misguided and clueless.” 2012-05-19T16:23:52Z http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/OpEd/lastword/Sprinkle+with+olive+oil++lemon+juice+and+pepper+then+toss+babies/-/434754/1404620/-/yn9u0l/-/index.html In a bizarre ritual, Hindu priests in the south Indian state of Karnataka toss babies from the rooftop of a temple onto a cloth held by waiting men, believing that this will make them grow stronger. The UK Telegraph reports that large crowds of devotees gathered at the Marutheshwara temple near Mudhol town in Bagalkot district to observe the ritual, locally known as Okali. Eager parents presented their babies, who were between the ages of three months and two years, to priests at the temple who tossed them from the temple roof onto a cloth borne by a group of men standing below. Though the ritual often evokes criticism, it is defended by devotees and priests, who feel that their belief that the children will be stronger justifies the ritual which puts babies at such huge risk. 2012-05-12T13:35:52Z http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/OpEd/lastword/Bikers+tall+tales++The+motorcyclist+who+turned+into+a+satyr/-/434754/1400164/-/ux1ttlz/-/index.html WHAT HAS a motorcycle got to do with aphrodisiacs? Well, a San Francisco man has sued BMW because his motorcycle seat has left its driver with a two-year erection. 2012-05-05T14:10:31Z http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/OpEd/lastword/Let+me+drop+my+pants+Mr+Speaker/-/434754/1395576/-/ih9u2kz/-/index.html Kenyan Member of Parliament for Makadara, Gideon Mbuvi aka Sonko, is known for making mischief, but his recent request to Speaker Kenneth Marende went far beyond parliamentary etiquette. 2012-04-28T10:25:31Z http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/OpEd/lastword/-/434754/1390878/-/1eivp0z/-/index.html An Italian art museum is so angry about the budget cuts coming its way that it has begun burning art works in protest. 2012-04-21T09:25:44Z http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/OpEd/lastword/Want+a+wedding+of+your+dreams+plus+honeymoon+to+Aruba/-/434754/1386308/-/qkid8k/-/index.html A New York bride accused of faking terminal cancer so she could raise money from sympathetic well wishers to pay for a dream wedding has been arrested and charged with fraud. 2012-04-14T10:44:23Z http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/OpEd/lastword/Africans+are+so+poor+they+are+the+unhappiest+people/-/434754/1381792/-/kct6eg/-/index.html Africans are the world’s saddest people, according to the new UN World Happiness Report, which indicates that all but two of the 10 least happy countries in the world are in Africa. 2012-04-07T11:36:26Z http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/OpEd/lastword/No+sex+please+we+are+British/-/434754/1377166/-/we4o00z/-/index.html The average British adult is several years behind schedule with their “life plan,” a study has suggested. 2012-03-31T09:42:03Z http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/OpEd/lastword/my+name+is+Porsche+and+I+got+your+name+from+a+trusted+source/-/434754/1372582/-/ucumvdz/-/index.html Nigeria’s ultra rich are famous for being lavish spenders, and there’s no better way of showing off than buying a brand new European sports car. 2012-03-24T08:58:51Z http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/OpEd/lastword/Earth+prepare+to+receive+a+bull/-/434754/1368134/-/nb1fn5z/-/index.html A couple of years ago, a celebrated polygamist in Kenya died, leaving behind over 100 wives and nearly 300 children. 2012-03-17T09:22:17Z http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/OpEd/lastword/Take+your+nose+elsewhere+you+fake+lying+MP/-/434754/1363420/-/gkn6ik/-/index.html IT’S NOT every day that a politician gets forced out for cosmetic surgery. 2012-03-10T09:33:33Z http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/OpEd/lastword/In+Kenya+MPs+sleep+in+parliament+in+German+they+play+sudoku+/-/434754/1358408/-/7b7u58z/-/index.html Our MPs have been criticised for sleeping in Parliament, but apparently the tendency to get distracted during parliamentary debates is not unique to Africa. 2012-03-03T09:13:45Z http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/OpEd/lastword/Spiders+as+big+as+cats+Yes+indeed/-/434754/1334696/-/gpo1v8z/-/index.html When someone shrieks that they just saw a gigantic spider the size of a cat, they could be telling the truth, at least in their eyes. That’s according to a new study by scientists from Ohio State University, whose research into arachnophobes found that, the worse their condition, the larger they estimated the spiders’ size. Scientists say that the irrational fear of spiders is believed to affect as many as half of women and girls, and up to one in six males. Speaking to the UK Telegraph, psychologist Prof Michael Vasey said: “If one is afraid of spiders, and by virtue of being afraid of spiders one tends to perceive spiders as bigger than they really are.” 2012-02-25T08:41:36Z http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/OpEd/lastword/wants+to+toughen+up+fearful+British+schoolchildren/-/434754/1330004/-/1r5vv2/-/index.html British children will now take lessons in resilience amid claims they have gone “soft” and are unable to cope with failure, it has emerged. Teachers in London are being given specialist training, and schools are also set to hire personal coaches called “bounce-back” experts, who will help their pupils adequately manage personal setbacks and life pressures. The scheme was welcomed by head teachers who said teenagers had been overprotected and now struggled to deal with unprecedented life difficulties such as the recession and youth unemployment. “There is a danger that we wrap our children in cotton wool, we have become less tolerant of risk-taking,” resilience expert Dr Toni Noble told the London Evening Standard. Schools, she added, were banning the type of activities that increase pupils’ resilience, such as playing in the snow. She said: “If these silly rules persist, we will be bringing up a generation of fearful children.” 2012-02-18T10:13:29Z http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/OpEd/lastword/Whos+still+alive+and+living+in+a+cave/-/434754/1324628/-/8ojo43/-/index.html Superstars never really die, if sightings of Elvis Presley and Tupac Shakur are anything to go by. But this week, a South African man created a stir by claiming to be an award-winning Zulu folk musician back from the grave. The man said that he was the late maskandi musician Khulekani “Mqgumeni” Khumalo, claiming that he never really died, but that he had been kidnapped by a local witchdoctor and kept in a cave by zombies for two years, where he had been forced to sing and had to eat mud to stay alive. When asked why he did not sport dreadlocks like Khumalo did, he said that his captors had cut off his dreadlocks to insert a nail in his head – which would be the final phase of turning him into a tokoloshe, or zombie. But fingerprint evidence revealed that he was actually Sibusiso John Gcabashe, 28, and he was promptly arrested and charged with fraud by a South African court. 2012-02-11T11:29:24Z http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/OpEd/lastword/How+do+you+swot+for+a+palm+reading+test+Go+ask+the+Chinese/-/434754/1319984/-/a6xyfjz/-/index.html CHINA HAS banned kindergartens in a northern province from offering palm-reading tests that the schools had claimed could predict toddlers’ intelligence level and potential, state news agency Xinhua has reported. Although many parents in Taiyuan, capital of Shanxi province, eagerly brought their children to be tested, some later complained about the high cost and raised questions about the testing method, which test-givers said could reveal the children’s aptitude in music, mathematics and languages. Authorities were investigating whether the company that designed the tests, Shanxi Daomeng Culture Communication Co Ltd, had violated any laws, Xinhua said. Fortune-telling, including palm-reading, has deep roots in Chinese tradition, although China’s leaders have discouraged and punished devotees of the practice which they brand as superstitious. 2012-02-04T07:54:25Z http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/OpEd/lastword/Camerons+Big+Society+will+have+roomier+parking+spaces+/-/434754/1315958/-/r1fw47z/-/index.html Women are supposedly terrible at flush parking, but apparently the skill to reverse a car into a tight spot can elude even the British prime minister. 2012-01-29T12:15:40Z http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/OpEd/lastword/Spread+that+gossip+far+and+wide/-/434754/1311924/-/14df67i/-/index.html Dishing dirt behind someone’s back is a beneficial activity, say scientists. Spreading gossip — which the scientists defined as alerting others that a person has behaved badly 2012-01-22T12:20:50Z http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/OpEd/lastword/Skyscraper+economics+101/-/434754/1306122/-/fqur4ez/-/index.html As skyscrapers go up, economies come tumbling down. An “unhealthy correlation” exists between the construction of skyscrapers and financial crashes, according to a new report from Barclays Capital. 2012-01-15T15:44:27Z http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/OpEd/lastword/You+thought+racism+was+bad+well+it+just+got+outclassed/-/434754/1301888/-/medpboz/-/index.html A French nutritionist has suggested that France can tackle child obesity by giving extra exam marks for slimness. 2012-01-08T10:39:53Z http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/OpEd/lastword/Chavez+says+the+CIA+has+a+new+cancer+beam/-/434754/1298464/-/t3dcc2z/-/index.html Something else to blame on the CIA — cancer in Latin American presidents. 2012-01-01T10:41:27Z http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/OpEd/lastword/-/434754/1295030/-/1xic8bz/-/index.html A dog was sighted alive and well at the top of Mount Kilimanjaro in August, baffling experts on how it managed to scale the 19,000ft mountain, how it survived the sub-zero temperatures, and what it could possibly be eating in the icy, bleak terrain. 2011-12-24T10:56:27Z http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/OpEd/lastword/A+little+wine+is+all+Italians+need+to+read+better/-/434754/1291104/-/verr9yz/-/index.html Book-lovers everywhere lament that the reading culture is dying, so an Italian bookstore and a wine-making company decided to come together and do something about it. 2011-12-17T14:09:33Z http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/OpEd/lastword/Staff+Christmas+bash+++could+we+have+cash+instead/-/434754/1287114/-/u4al68z/-/index.html Tis the season to be jolly… and broke. Companies planning to splurge on Christmas parties shouldn’t bother — a new US poll shows that employees would rather have a cash bonus this year instead of a Christmas party. 2011-12-10T13:30:00Z http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/OpEd/lastword/She+came+in+the+night+The+mystifying+case+of+the+stolen+sperm+/-/434754/1283970/-/7hfwc3/-/index.html A man in Houston, Texas has launched a unique court battle, claiming his twin sons were born as a result of his sperm being stolen and taken to a fertility clinic without his knowledge. 2011-12-04T12:19:11Z