Land administration policies in Zambia are heavily centralized. The 1995 Lands Act that regulates Zambia’s land policy stipulates that all land is to be held in trust by the president, and most of the poor people live on customary land as they cannot afford to obtain a leasehold tenure. There are organisations trying to rectify this, however. The Zambia Land Alliance (ZLA), a network of NGOs working for pro-poor land policies, has previously criticised both post-independence and present land legislation as being inadequate, of not listening to the poor that to a large degree tend the land, and of focusing too heavily on liberalising land markets.

Martha Zulu dropped out of school in 2006 when she was 17 and pregnant with her first child (she would later have three more). She then married the father, Antony Zulu, an already-married farmer from the Central Province of Zambia. Her parents had also been peasant farmers, so Zulu said it made sense that she continue doing what she had grown up knowing. Yet for Zulu maize farming is not easy, especially because her husband makes all the decisions even though she does much of the work. 'The most challenging thing in our farming life is the dependence on manual labour because we do not have animals and other machinery to help ease our work,' said Zulu, who is the de-facto machinery on her farm.

Miners work at the physical edges of our consumer society, writes Peter Bosshard from International Rivers, in this Huffington Post article. 'Like the canary in the mine shaft, they are sentinels for the triumph, toil and tragedy of the global economic system. Only days after the miraculous rescue of the Chilean miners, Chinese supervisors shot and wounded 11 workers in a coal mine in Zambia on 15 October. The labour conflict casts a dark shadow on the track record of Chinese overseas investors.'

The ruling party in Zambia, the Movement for Multi-Party Democracy (MMD) has suggested that certain government officials have been meeting opposition leader Michael Sata in a plea to recognise homosexuality, which according to activists is a conspiracy to disparage the opposition party. Amidst the recent tabling of the draft constitution currently siting before parliament, the Forum for Leadership Search revealed that it had information that some government officials have been meeting opposition leader Sata of the Patriotic Front (PF) to lobby for recognition of homosexuality in Zambia.

Zambian police have arrested two Chinese coal mine managers for attempted murder after they allegedly shot and injured 12 local workers. The miners staged a demonstration on Friday to protest against poor working conditions and wages at the Chinese-run Collum Coal mine, in the southern town of Sinazongwe. The Chinese managers allegedly opened fire at the protesters because they felt threatened.

Civil society organisations in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region have resolved to support the implementation of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) in Zambia. Countries implementing EITI committed themselves to publish all payments made by oil, gas and mining companies to the government.

State doctors in Zambia have returned to work a week after going on strike, but say the government has yet to resolve the problems facing the health sector, their union announced on Monday. 'We would like to inform the general public that the work stoppage by Resident Doctors Association of Zambia (RDAZ) has been suspended in the interest of our patients,' the union's acting president, Amon Ngongola, said at a news conference in the capital, Lusaka. The doctors went on strike last Monday after talks with the government broke down.

Zambia's communications authority on Wednesday reversed its decision to shut down five main Internet service providers, saying they would be allowed another chance to renew their licences. The firms were ordered on Tuesday to shut down by the end of the week, after regulators said they had not renewed their operating licences. But the order raised fears that Zambia could be cut off from the Internet.

Long regarded as the poorer cousin of its Zimbabwean neighbour, Zambia is fast gaining attention as a desirable destination for agricultural investors. International investors from Britain to South Africa have begun putting money into infrastructure development and transport, and about 200 exiled Zimbabwean farmers have taken leases from the Zambian government to develop farmland in the country.

The number of Congolese refugees repatriated from neighbouring Zambia by UNHCR since 2007 has topped the 40,000 mark. The milestone was passed last Sunday when a UNHCR-chartered boat carrying 555 people arrived at Moba in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's Katanga province after crossing LakeTanganyika from the north Zambian port of Mpulungu.

This briefing from the South African Institute of International Affairs describes some of the challenges facing the efforts of Zambian policymakers to secure sustainable benefits from the exploitation of the country’s mineral resources - which generate about two - thirds of the country’s foreign exchange, yet their contribution to national development remains contested for various reasons. It explores the investor - friendly financial terms set by the Zambian government when the mining sector was privatised, the entry into the sector of Chinese companies, and the strain their distinctive mode of operation has put on the regulatory regime.

From 14-16 February 2011 the Right to Know, Right to Education project will host a regional conference to address the issues of quality basic education for all.

Zambia’s new draft constitution, created by the National Constitution Conference, discriminates against members of the LGBT community, depriving them of their rights to live freely and equitably, writes Mwila Agatha Zaza. The inclusion of unspecified Christian values into the constitution, vaguely defined laws on family and a woman’s right to marital freedom, and a prohibition of abortion except under already defined circumstances means this new constitution does little to progress sexual equality in Zambia, Zaza argues.

With women having achieved little in terms of representation in decision-making positions in Zambia, a national women’s lobby group is hoping to change this in the 2011 general elections. While Zambia's electoral process may have built-in obstacles that hinder the meaningful participation of women as candidates, the Zambia National Women’s Lobby Group (ZNWL) wants to change this through a campaign dubbed "50 percent of women and men in leadership for equitable development."

International AIDS Conferences—like the one planned for next week in Vienna—can be strange affairs. On the one hand, there is a reason to celebrate: Scaled up treatment campaigns have prolonged millions of lives; HIV testing and education are reaching many more. Yet, on the other hand, there is the reality that more than 33 million people are living with HIV worldwide. Despite efforts to expand treatment, nearly three million more become infected each year. In Zambia alone, over one million people are living with HIV.

The Zambian National Constitution Conference (NCC) concluded its business recently with the adoption of a clause for the creation of a Gender Equality Commission. This is exciting news for gender activists who did not think the NCC would accept the clause. The women’s movement, alongside other civil society groups, had refused to participate in the NCC fearing civil society’s voice would not be heard.

Zambia has sold more than 262 state-owned enterprises in the past 18 years, with the latest being the beleaguered telecommunications company Zamtel. As the debate continues about whether privatisation is the best policy option for the country, the government has learned from experience and addressed labour concerns more adequately in the most recent deal.

Diana Banda* is quickly running out of excuses to give her six-year-old son about why he has to take a schedule of drugs every day. Her son David* is HIV-positive and has been on anti-retroviral treatment (ART) for two years. But he may not learn the truth about his HIV status anytime soon as his mother thinks up one excuse after another as to why he has to religiously take the drugs.

The difficult past of Zambia's ambiguous role in Namibia's and Angola's freedom fight is haunting current President, thus Foreign Minister, Rupiah Banda. The 1970s anti-communist Zambian regime is said to have killed Namibian freedom fighters in agreement with apartheid South Africa and Sam Nujoma. Historians confirm the allegations.

Minister of Information and Broadcasting Services Ronnie Shikapwasha has cautioned the Media Liaison Committee (MLC) to exercise sincerity when dealing with media issues. Reacting to comments from the MLC spokesperson Amos Chanda, that government had no role in the facilitation of study tours for the media to learn how media regulation was being implemented in the region, Shikapwasha said that his statement was deliberately misunderstood.