The end of the world is nigh, well, almost …

The world, as we know it, is changing fast and it makes no sense.

Doomsayers predict artificial intelligence is as dangerous to humankind as the Cuban missile crisis back in 1962 when America and the Soviets were on the cusp of full-scale nuclear destruction..

For two weeks hands hovered over the red button until at the last moment  Kruschev yielded to JFK and the missiles, sited 150 kms from Florida, were removed.

Phew, that was a close one. I was in my early teens and was frightened.

Fast forward to the present. Dictatorships have sprung up everywhere. Hybrid AI drone wars, bombings and cyber attacks and terror by proxies are the new normal.

Donor funding for humanitarian aid is drying up. Hardships worsen. The US, the biggest donor for decades, thinks world rulers should step up to the plate by putting the money they steal into health services, education and public service delivery.

Tell that to the family of a young artist of great promise who was hit by a runaway minibus taxi in Harare. Police chasing the kombi taxi they didn’t catch took him to a government hospital where he bled to death.

The family couldn’t raise the US$ 200 demanded for a simple transfusion. Not far away a luxury townhouse complex is being built.  Mega cars (right) owned by the elite traverse the district where beggars and informal vendors lined the streets. Until, that is, earlier this month.

Authorities announced Operation Chenesa, make clean or purify, a 60-day blitz on vendors that includes the demolition of allegedly illegal stalls, shelters and homes.

One reason for the purge, they say, is to stop street trading in drugs. The dealers see how miserable people look and offer instant relief. Mutoriro, a powerful crystal meth derivative, is highly addictive. There’s a free sample at first and then it’s up to US$10 a gram once it takes hold. The jobless turn to crime to buy more.

A dealer in a  bar tells me his mutoriro will help cheer me up. I don’t think I looked that end-of-the-world forlorn.

As part of the current clean-up, legit property owners have been ordered to renovate aging buildings and store fronts or face legal action, the plan being to beautify the crumbling capital. They don’t want another chaotic African city  – a Lagos or a Nairobi – but it won’t work here.

President Mnangagwa has addressed the UN general assembly to empty chairs; there were empty chairs when Netanyahu and the Palestinian Authority took to the podium. Aides quickly went to his  defence. The president wasn’t only talking to the UN but rather to the world at large on his vision for the county’s trajectory towards growth and prosperity.

The displaced street people, those dying needlessly in public hospitals and the hungry have heard it all before.

Fed up at home? Try Khartoum, 40C+ temperatures, an endlessly brutal civil war, dead bodies all over, chemical weapons used, foreigners taking gold and rare earth minerals and millions of Sudanese killed or forced to flee their homeland where their world has certainly ended before time.

Unhappy at home? Try Europe, where the swing to the right is unparalleled since Hitler’s day. The  German right likes Putin.The British right likes Trump. The French right like anyone who agrees with them. But be careful, all of them hate immigrants. (Left: the new European street art.)

Click on the clip below.

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At the last count, there are more than 18,000 satellites whizzing around the globe, some armed and capable of a Star Wars catastrophe for earthlings. It is no wonder the cyber world is getting more and more unreliable.

The world has already ended for a friend who can’t get his favourite, delicious Ukrainian vodka.  The Russians have bombed the refinery in the town of Vinnystia, he says.