Since the Kyafukuma Rural Health Clinic (RHC) in northwestern Zambia closed its doors in 2000 after the old building collapsed, villagers have had to make do with a cramped inadequate clinic. Now, growing frustration over the lack of satisfactory medical care has led to a community-driven initiative that promises improved access to health care. After years of waiting for the reopening of the RHC, a joint project by the state-sponsored Zambia Social Investment Fund (Zamsif) and local people is expected to hasten completion of a new RHC, including the construction and rehabilitation of quarters for five staff members.

The Zambian government declared on Monday it would press ahead with the corruption trial of former president Frederick Chiluba despite the failure of police to arrest two key co-accused. State prosecutor Mutembo Nchito told Lusaka magistrate's court the government would carry on with the trial, even though former intelligence boss Xavier Chungu and ex-ambassador Atan Shansonga had skipped the country after being granted bail.

Once considered a status symbol and the preserve of the urban elite, mobile phones are now changing the lives of rural Zambians. In a country with low telephone connectivity, mobile phones penetrate remote areas that have yet to be connected by landlines.

The UPEACE Africa Programme and the Department of Gender and Peace Studies, in collaboration with the Dag Hammarskjöld Center for Peace, Good Governance, and Human Rights of the Mindolo Ecumenical Foundation (MEF) are organizing a Faculty and Staff Development Seminar on Gender and Peace Building, to be held in Kitwe, Zambia from the 26th to 30th of July 2004. Fahamu has been commissioned to produce a CDROM-based course on Gender, Violence and Conflict that is to be presented at the workshop. The CDROM focuses on masculinities and war.

A recent report by Amnesty International has said that at least one out of every three women in the world has been beaten, coerced into sex, or abused in her lifetime - while the University of Cape Town has reported that at least four South African women are killed every day by an intimate partner. Zambia's police, however, are taking a number of steps - including actively pressing for tougher sentences - to tackle the problem in that country.

A major resettlement operation of Angolan refugees in Zambia has started. By October this year, 40,000 refugees are to be repatriated in Angola only from Zambia. Another 50,000 Angolans residing in the region may also be returned this year. Returnees are to be brought to a reception centre at Cazombo, where they will stay for several days to attend sessions on mine and HIV/AIDS awareness and get medical assistance if required, the UN says.

Zambia is to continue with its "open door policy" towards refugees fleeing renewed fighting in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), a senior official said on Monday. "So far there are no confirmed reports that there has been an influx of Congolese [into Zambia] since the renewed violence, but it is still too soon. On average we receive around 20 refugees a week from the DRC because of the general instability in that country. But should we see larger numbers coming in, we will remain welcoming," the Zambian Ministry of Home Affairs Commissioner for Refugees, Jacob Mpepo, told IRIN.

More than half of Zambia’s children aged under five are stunted –one of the highest levels in Africa, according to UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF). "The levels of child malnutrition in Zambia had showed improvement throughout the 1990s, but since 1999 have deteriorated quite significantly," UNICEF’s nutrition and health officer, Claudia Hudspeth, told IRIN.

The University of Zambia Students Union (UNZASU) has warned management and lecturers to resolve their differences. UNZA management and lecturers were scheduled to meet and resolve their differences over improved conditions of service. UNZASU publicity and information secretary Brian Kashimu said that failure by the two parties to reach an agreement would lead to the institution being declared a no-go area for them.

"When I was little my mother didn't have a job, so my uncle took me in and sent me to school, but before my second grade he died. I was then passed on to my mother’s sister. But my auntie couldn't afford to send me and her own children to school so I stayed home and did the housework. Not long after I had moved in, auntie got very sick and died. It was too much for me to bear. My mom decided to have me live with her because no one else would. I didn’t know my father, but my mother told me he died a long time ago." Frida is an orphan living at the Anglican Children's Project, Lusaka, Zambia. This is her story.

Zambia was once one of the wealthiest countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Yet after the oil crisis and commodity price collapse of the early 1970s, it was forced to turn to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank for assistance. So began some thirty years of Bank and Fund intervention in the Zambian economy, a period of increasing debt, economic stagnation or collapse, and social crisis. From the early 1970s to the late 1980s, Zambia's total external debt rose from US$814 million to US$6,916 million. And yet, by 2003, Zambia had received only 5 per cent of the debt service reduction committed to it under HIPC. A forthcoming World Development Movement report on Zambia clearly demonstrates that the IMF and World Bank's involvement in Zambia has been unsuccessful, undemocratic and unfair. The evidence suggests that the past twenty years of IMF and World Bank intervention have exacerbated rather than ameliorated Zambia's debt crisis.

Zambia's anti-corruption task force has come under attack following the flight of two co-accused in the graft trial involving former president Frederick Chiluba. Chiluba has been charged with the theft of tens of millions of US dollars during his 10 years in office. The Task Force on Corruption was set up two years ago by Chiluba's successor, Levy Mwanawasa, to investigate the allegations against the former president. The task force comprises officers from the Drug Enforcement Commission, the state's intelligence service, the police, the Anti-Corruption Commission and state prosecutors.

A refugee who has been away from his motherland is usually preoccupied with survival and would not normally think of education. However, some refugees have realised that education is important regardless of one’s status. No doubt, education is a universal human right that should not be denied to anyone, for whatever reason. This is more so especially in a world where almost everything particularly things such as employment opportunities seem to hinge on educational qualifications. And for countries that have been at war, and are now coming out of it through the re-construction process, highly trained manpower is very much a necessity.

The Zambian government Monday expressed its worries about the slow progress made in the return of Rwandan refugees to their home country. "There is not much progress made in the repatriation program of Rwandan refugees. This lack of progress is mainly attributed to the unwillingness of the refugee population in Zambia to voluntary return to their country of origin," said Peter Mumba, permanent secretary in the Ministry of Home Affairs. The official attributed the Rwandan refugees' unwilling return home to "unfounded false messages" that there is still war in their country.

The Task Force on Corruption has disclosed that some local and international law and accounting firms were involved in the plunder of national resources through money laundering activities. Financial analyst Maulu Hamunjele said the trend created a number of difficulties in accessing information because these firms claimed that their clients enjoyed legal professional confidentiality and concealed critical evidence. He was speaking at a public discussion on Public Finance Management and Utilisation organised by Transparency International-Zambia (TI-Zambia) at the Holiday Inn Hotel in Lusaka.

Zambia was offering the first leases on government land to foreign and local farmers, including some from Libya and Zimbabwe, as it tried to diversify the economy, lands minister Judith Kapijimpanga said. An area of 100 000ha in central Zambia would be ready for occupation this year, once roads were constructed and power provided. The land is the first to be put up for lease under a government policy to establish farms in all nine provinces of Zambia, which has faced severe food shortages in the past.

A Zambian lawyer is seeking to abolish the death penalty in a country in which the president and human rights groups are united in their opposition to capital punishment. Kelvin Hang'andu is representing two men on death row at the country's maximum prison in Kabwe, about 150 km north of the capital, Lusaka. They were sentenced in 2000, and since then the Supreme Court has twice rejected his petition.

Government is concerned with the high rate of compensation it is having to pay to those brutality abused by police through torture and human rights abuses. Opening a three-day workshop on human rights and policing for police commanders, Copperbelt deputy minister Webby Chipili said police officers should take advantaged of acquiring new knowledge required to correct negative public perceptions. He said government was fully aware of trying conditions under which the police were operating and efforts were being made to redress the situation. However, Chipili cautioned police officers against taking advantage of its state of affairs to disregard human rights norms enshrined in the international instruments.

Former president Frederick Chiluba has asked German ambassador to Zambia Erich Kristof to leave him alone and stop talking about his corruption court case. Speaking through his deputy administrative secretary Emmanuel Mwamba, Chiluba said the Zambian government should censure Ambassador Kristof for commenting on his case including the disappearance of former intelligence chief Xavier Chungu and former Zambia's ambassador to the United States Attan Shansonga. He said he was worried by Ambassador Kristof's comments. "Their comments are undermining justice," Chiluba said. "That shows that they (diplomats) are controlling and determining both the pace and outcome of the trials."

On 26 April 2004, Lusaka High Court Judge Phillip Musonda quashed a deportation order issued by Home Affairs Minister Ronnie Shikapwasha against "The Post" newspaper columnist Roy Clarke, saying it was unlawful and violated freedom of expression. Clarke, a British national and permanent resident of Zambia, had appealed the order. In his ruling, Justice Musonda said the deportation order violated Section 26(2) of the Constitution in that there was procedural impropriety in the way the order was issued. He said that Clarke had shown that his constitutional rights, including freedom of expression and the right not to be discriminated against, were violated by the state.