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(FLOWERBUDNEWS)  Zimbabwean civil servants have on Wednesday, accepted a 76 per cent salary adjustment offered by the government with effect from Aug. 1.

The state media reported that negotiations for higher wages are still on.

The Herald newspaper reported that the least-paid worker will now earn 1,023 Zimbabwean dollars (about 102 U.S. dollars or 37,000 naira) per month, up from 582 Zimbabwean dollars per month.

The decision to accept the government offer followed a meeting between the civil servants’ umbrella representative body, the Apex Council, and government representatives.

The civil servants umbrella body was led by the Secretary for Public Service, Labor and Social Welfare Simon Masanga at a National Joint Negotiating Council meeting on Tuesday.

Apex Council chairperson Cecilia Alexander said that a cost of living adjustment of the total package would be implemented from beginning of August.

Alexander said they had provisionally agreed to the offer while they continued with negotiations.

“It must be reiterated that this is a provisional agreement meant first and foremost to allow the government to cushion its impoverished civil servants.

“Our substantive demand of 4,750 dollars, which is benchmarked against the interbank rate, still stands and negotiations still continue towards that end,” she said.

The government had offered the 76 per cent cost of living adjustment which the Apex Council neither rejected nor accepted.

The council, however, went back to consult with its members and on Tuesday gave the feedback that sealed the deal.

However, teachers on Monday rejected the offer, insisting that the employer paid them nothing more than 4,600 Zimbabwe dollars per month, which the government said it could not afford. (Xinhua/NAN)

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s main challenger in September’s election has said he is ready to abandon his bid for power for the sake of peace.

This had rising more questions about prospects for an election the Taliban have vowed to block.

The twice-delayed presidential election comes as the U.S. and the Taliban are trying to seal an agreement under which U.S. forces will withdraw in exchange for a Taliban security guarantee and a promise of power-sharing talks with Ghani’s government.

The Taliban have denounced the election as a sham and vowed to attack rallies. Ghani is insisting an election he looks set to win should go ahead.

Ghani’s main challenger, Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, told a campaign rally on Wednesday he would drop out of the race if that could help secure peace.

“My team is ready to quit elections for the sake of peace,” Abdullah said, according to his office.

The Taliban want the election canceled as a condition for so-called intra-Afghan dialogue – talks after the agreement with the U.S. is struck on how power can be shared and the country organised – and a ceasefire.

Abdullah, a former foreign minister, was Ghani’s main challenger in the last election, in 2014.
That vote was marred by extensive fraud and Ghani became president after U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry, brokered a deal creating the post of chief executive for Abdullah.

Ghani has rejected a suggestion put forward by Western allies to postpone the election and form an interim government, perhaps with Taliban representative, after the militants strike their deal with the U.S.

Ghani has said the people must be allowed to choose their leader and peace can only be secured under a democratic system.

But the departure of his main challenger could undermine the legitimacy of the election.

This month, another main contender, Hanif Atmar, a former interior minister, who also served as Ghani’s national security adviser, suspended his campaign, citing the level of violence in the country.

The campaign opened in July with an insurgent attack on the Kabul office of Ghani’s running mate, Amrullah Saleh. At least 20 people were killed and 50 wounded.

“With Atmar out of the race and Abdullah now giving preference to the peace deal instead of elections, it is quite clear that Ghani will have to realign his stance,” said a Western diplomat in Kabul.

Opposition party sources said many of the 17 candidates in the race were considering a boycott because they believed Ghani was using state apparatus to help him win.

With both the Taliban and U.S. negotiators reporting progress in their talks in recent weeks, and raising the prospect of an end to the 18-year war, the election has yet to capture much attention from the public.

The U.S. special representative for peace in Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, who has been leading the talks with the Taliban since 2018, is scheduled to travel from Doha to Kabul this week for a meeting with Ghani.

Two sources with knowledge of the talks, said the U.S. will press Ghani to agree to postpone the election.

U.S. researchers have developed a fast-acting skin patch that could deliver medications to fight cancer, according to a study released recently.

The study showed that the new skin patch could efficiently deliver medication in one minute to attack cells of melanoma, a deadly form of skin cancer.

Using chicken ovalbumin as a model antigen, the researchers vaccinated mice with their pain-free microneedle patches, and compared the results with intramuscular and subcutaneous injections.

The microneedle treatment produced nine times the antibody level compared to intramuscular injections and 160 times the antibody level compared to subcutaneous injections, the study said.

The researchers also saw efficient immune activation in surgical samples of human skin, it said.

The device is an advance toward developing a vaccine to treat melanoma and has widespread applications for other vaccines, it said.

The study was presented at the American Chemical Society Fall 2019 National Meeting and Exposition by researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

“Our patch has a unique chemical coating and mode of action that allows it to be applied and removed from the skin in just a minute while still delivering a therapeutic dose of drugs,’’ Yanpu He, an MIT PhD student, who helped develop the device, said.

“Our patches elicit a robust antibody response in living mice and show promise in eliciting a strong immune response in human skin,” he said.

“Our patch technology could be used to deliver vaccines to combat different infectious diseases,” Paula Hammond, head of MIT’s Department of Chemical Engineering and leader of the research team, said.

“We are excited by the possibility that the patch is another tool in the oncologists’ arsenal against cancer, specifically melanoma,” she said.

Hammond said the technology will be tested on mice and primates before going to clinic trails. The device is expected to be approved and get on the market in three to five years