Over 3000 refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have fled to northern Zambia due to a flare-up in fighting near the border, an official told AFP. Fighting broke out last week in the mining town of Kilwa, located about 400 kilometres northeast of Lubumbashi near Lake Mweru, about 50 kilometres from the border with Zambia.

Washington, DC: While thousands of trained Zambian teachers sit unemployed and classes overflow with students, Zambia will shell out a staggering $156 million more on debt repayments that it will spend on education this year. These new figures are released today, October 1, in a ground-breaking by the Global Campaign for Education (GCE). The new report reveals how Zambian children are paying the price for IMF policies. Ludicrously, while schools are in desperate need of another 9000 teachers, 8-9,000 qualified teachers sit unemployed. Why? A budget ceiling on government spending imposed by the IMF means that the government is not able to employ the teachers and health workers it desperately needs.

The GCE report, "Undervaluing teachers: IMF policies squeeze Zambian education system" is co-authored with International agencies VSO and Oxfam. It calls upon the IMF and rich countries at today's G7 finance ministers meeting to announce 100% cancellation of multilateral debt owed by the world's poorest countries, funded in part by a revaluation of IMF gold stocks. Report co-author Max Lawson from Oxfam, said: "The IMF's priority is to be repaid at all costs, even at the expense of educating Zambian children. Meanwhile the IMF is sitting on billions of dollars worth of gold they neither need nor use." Co-author Lucia Fry from VSO said "Zambia shows us the need for a radical change in the way the IMF does its business.

IMF commitments to the Millennium Goals are tested in exactly these challenging circumstances and the fund is failing on all counts." In Zambia, one of the poorest countries in the world, more than 70% of the population live in poverty and one in five adults are infected with HIV/AIDS. Education should be the golden path to ending poverty and helping stop the spread of HIV, yet in 2004, the Zambian government will be forced to pay $377 million in debt repayments, and spend just $221 million education. Repayments to the IMF alone will amount to a massive $247 million, more than entire annual education budget.

Silas Silewu, Head Master at Maano Basic School in Lusaka says: "We have only 3 teachers, including me, to teach 526 pupils. The average class size is 70 pupils and each teacher has to teach two classes. To work effectively we need at least 12 teachers." The Dutch Government has now stepped in with a short-term emergency package to allow some of these 9000 teachers to be taken on. However this does not solve the long-term problem of how to finance much needed future increases in teacher numbers.

GCE Report recommendations:

- The IMF and G7 should today announce 100% cancellation of multilateral debt owed by the world's poorest countries, funded in part by a revaluation of IMF gold stocks.

- Rich countries should pledge $50bn extra in development aid annually to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), including the additional US$5.6bn needed to achieve universal basic education. Developed countries should set clear timetables to reach the agreed target of 0.7% of GNP spending on overseas development assistance by 2010.

- A fully independent review of the impact of economic policy conditionality should be conducted, including inflation targets and payroll ceilings, as countries move into the second round of Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers. The report demands due diligence of the IMF in ensuring all macroeconomic frameworks are the product of national discussion of different scenarios, based on independent Poverty and Social Impact Analysis (PSIA) linked to MDG needs.

- The IMF must be explicit in its communiqués that adequate numbers of trained teachers and health workers are vital to achieving the MDGs and resources must be found to pay them a living wage.

- Funding for basic education and other poverty reduction strategies must be delinked from the IMF's lending program.

- Rich countries must expand their commitment to direct budget support, pooled sector funding and predictable long-term financing through mechanisms such as the EFA Fast Track Initiative and the proposed International Financing Facility.

- Developing country governments should make poverty reduction and the attainment of the MDGs an explicit objective of macroeconomic policy with transparent and measurable indicators in the annual budget, and maximize expenditure on poverty reduction, including education and health

Civil society "disappointed" with IMF's weak response to Global Campaign for Education report "Undervaluing Teachers: IMF policies squeeze Zambia's education system". The IMF's response asserts that they have placed no explicit limits placed on hiring of teachers or health workers. The Managing Director of the IMF, when asked by a journalist [Lucia Fry] on Saturday about the teacher shortage crisis in Zambia, admitted that he was not aware of the situation. But even a Zambian child could explain the problem. No teacher means no learning means no hope. Will they ever learn?

A new corruption case began on Monday in Lusaka, charging Zambia's former president Frederick Chiluba with siphoning off $488 000 (about R3-million) when he ruled the southern African country between 1991 and 2001. In the latest case, Chiluba and his two co-defendants are accused of spiriting away a total of one million dollars. The two businessmen face nine counts out of which six also involve Chiluba.

Zambia’s President Levy Mwanawasa, who was viewed as a puppet of his predecessor Frederick Chiluba after he retired in 2002, has launched the country's biggest crackdown on corruption and declared a rule of law. In trying to defy the ‘puppet’ perception that was created in the minds of many Zambians, Mwanawasa seven months after assuming office addressed a special session of Parliament in July 2002 highlighting a catalogue of corrupt allegations against Chiluba. He alleged that Chiluba had plundered national resources, a scenario that had retard national development during his 10 years of presidency. Among the allegations raised was that the Chiluba’s government failed to account for US about $41 million raised from the privatisation of Roan Antelope Mining Corporation. Mwanawasa also alleged that US $20.5 million earmarked for arms purchases, was diverted from the public coffers for the personal benefit of the former president, his family and associates. He further stated that several million dollars were paid to Chiluba's family and supporters from a special bank account maintained by the ZSIS in London. Afterwards, Mwanawasa constituted what he called the Task Force on corruption. The Task Force was appointed with a specific mandate of prosecuting the suspected plunderers and recovering the stolen national resources.

In a speech read on his behalf by education deputy minister Gunston Chola during the commemoration of Teachers Day under the theme "Quality Teachers for Quality Education Recruitment and Retention of Qualified Teachers" yesterday, Mulenga said recruitment and retention of qualified teachers was cardinal for the country to achieve quality education. Mulenga said government's failure to recruit more teachers was not intentional, but in order to attain a positive economic environment so that more teachers would be employed.

Zambia's President Levy Mwanawasa announced on Monday that he has sacked his vice president, Nevers Mumba, for insubordination. According to Mwanawasa, Mumba had breached an oath of allegiance when he failed to retract his recent allegations that the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was harbouring individuals who were working against the Zambian government. Mumba will be replaced by Northern Province Minister Lupando Mwape.

The African Forum and Network on Debt and Development (AFRODAD), in conjunction with other civil society organisations and concerned parties, is convening an indaba of experts in Lusaka, Zambia on 29 and 30 September, 2004, to deliberate on a campaign for the establishment of a Fair and Transparent Arbitration on African debt.

The World Bank has launched a four-year Country Assistance Strategy Assistance (CAS) in Eastern Province. Through the programme, the bank identifies development programmes it plans to assist with, and relays information to its shareholders for their diagnosis, financial and technical assistance. Within the new CAS programme, the Government is expected to discard the stop-gap economic policy reform process which resulted in structural and implementation hurdles experienced in the past.

Organisation Development and Community Management Trust (ODCMT), a grassroots non-governmental organisation has launched a local campaign on cotton trade in Zambia.

The campaign aims at petitioning the Zambian leadership and corporate companies to increase the price of cotton paid to small-scale producers.

It urges for the protection of the health of producers in the use of toxic pesticides and further calls for promotion of socially ethical and environmentally sound practices in investment ventures for sustainable development.

The ODCMT is building on its experience in its participation in a global trade campaign running up to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) ministerial meeting held in Cancun, Mexico.

Its campaign in Zambia resulted in the a massive mobilisation of over 750 000 people, in six months, who joined 4 million others around the globe to petition the world’s most powerful leaders to make trade work for the poor at the last WTO summit.

The Cotton Trade Campaign in Zambia will involve the mobilisation of one million people leading up to the Global Week of Action on trade falling next year between 10-16 April 2005. This global initiative is being spearheaded by the Trade Justice Movement worldwide to eliminate poverty.

The ODCMT’s Campaign and Advocacy programme is being supported by Hivos’ Southern Africa regional office based in Harare. Hivos is an international non-governmental organisation whose headquarters is based in the Netherlands.

On September 1 2004, Mazuba Mwiinga, a reporter working for the Catholic-owned community radio station Radio Chikuni, was detained by local police in what appears to be a case of settling personal scores. Mwiinga told the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Zambia Chapter that he was detained from approximately 15h30 hours on September 1, 2004, till 08h30 the following day on a fabricated charge of "telling falsehoods against the police". Such a charge does not exist in the Penal Code.

An Internet crime bill in Zambia, which includes provisions that could see convicted hackers facing sentences of up to 25 years in jail, has caused some controversy in the country's IT community but is expected to become law soon.

According to a Southern Africa Poverty Review Network (SAPRN) report on the poverty situation in Zambia, the government's monopolisation of the poverty reduction agenda was the biggest hindrance to success against poverty. The report stresses that Zambia needs to make poverty reduction a priority by conducting a full assessment of the situation and by restructuring the national budget accordingly.

Zambians could be forgiven for pleading "constitution fatigue". The constitution that was drawn up for their country at independence in 1964, has been replaced three times in the past 40 years. Now, yet another constitution is up for debate - something that has pitted government against civil society. Over the weekend, President Levy Mwanawasa announced that the latest constitution would only be adopted in 2008.

Voluntary testing or mandatory testing? That is the question AIDS activists and government officials are grappling with in Zambia, where about one million people have already died in the pandemic since the late 1980s. The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS puts adult HIV prevalence in Zambia at about 19 percent. The country has a population of about 10 million.

A Zambian pilot project aimed at reducing poverty as well as friction between refugees and their local host communities has begun to show dividends.The Zambia Initiative, launched two years ago, covers agriculture, health, education and infrastructure projects identified by the government and local communities. The cooperative venture, which is monitored and run at provincial, district and village levels, also involves the refugee population in its decision-making processes.

A Zambian court has dropped the charges against former President Frederick Chiluba, of corruption and the theft of more than $41-million of state funds during his tenure from 1991 to 2001. However, several hours later, he was recharged with the theft of one million dollars. According to a prosecution official, the charges were dropped as a strategy to make the trial move faster.

The Zambian government is hosting a delegation of former Rwandan refugees later this month to convince their compatriots to return home, a senior official told IRIN. "We have been battling to convince the Rwandans to go home," said Jacob Mphepo, Zambia's commissioner for refugees. There are currently 6,376 Rwandans in Zambia, of which 4,389 are in refugee camps. Frustrated by the reluctance of Rwandan refugees to repatriate, Mphepo said his office was considering ceasing to recognise Rwandan asylum seekers as refugees.

The Zambian government declared a five-year emergency over the AIDS pandemic to allow for cheap generic anti-retroviral drugs to be produced locally. The AIDS emergency will be in force from August 2004 to July 2009 and local drugs manufacturers will be allowed to produce cheap AIDS medication for local consumption.

Codes of conduct for ethical trade have been criticised for failing to consider gender issues or extend to temporary workers. In response, this paper from the Ethical Trade and Natural Resources Programme explores ways to develop codes that are effective and inclusive of all workers, including female and temporary workers. The research analyses how ethical trade can enhance the economic and social rights of women and men workers in African export horticulture and identifies best practice in implementing gender-sensitive ethical trade based on worker and stakeholder participation.