TB is a leading cause of death among people living with HIV in Zambia, according to Justin O'Brien, policy, advocacy and communications manager for The Zambia AIDS Related Tuberculosis Project, ZAMBART, a nongovernmental organisation that aims to improve the quality of life of people with HIV and TB. About 70 per cent of Zambian TB patients have HIV, according to the World Health Organisation. Dr. Peter Chungulo of ZAMBART says that poverty and malnutrition, or undernutrition, also contribute to TB infections, whether it's new cases or relapses.

Readers of a Zambian Watchdog article are divided over the controversy surrounding the K5-billion that the government has released for the funeral of Fredrick Chiluba. The majority of comments to the article feel that the amount is too much and that a break down should be provided of how the money is spent, but some comments defend the expenditure. 'Why do you have to complain about the money spent? I think it’s for a good cause he was our president he deserves a decent sent off. Some of you, you don’t even pay tax why complain? You are overseas remember!!!(sic),' wrote Mthunzi Chopamba. But others are more cynicial: 'Even in death Chiluba continues to steal from us,' wrote Brainee.

Mining corporations' tax avoidance schemes cost African nations billions of dollars each year, says Khadija Sharife.

Chinese analysts have dismissed a statement by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that warned Africa to be wary of 'new colonialism' as China expands its ties in the continent, saying that trade and economic cooperation between China and African countries are conducted on the basis of mutual benefit. Clinton said that 'we don’t want to see a new colonialism in Africa', when asked about China’s growing influence in the continent during a television interview in Lusaka, Zambia.

Despite the apparent ‘success’ of the privatisation of the Zambian copper industry, the true picture is one of systemic multinational exploitation, national assets sold ‘for a song’ and persistent tax dodging, writes Khadija Sharife.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has set September as the deadline for the over 25,000 Angolan refugees to voluntarily leave Zambia for their homeland, failure to which they lose their refugee status at the end of this year. UNHCR representative in Zambia Joyce Mends-Cole, announced in Lusaka that Angolan refugees wishing to repatriate with the assistance of UNHCR had only until the end of September 2011 to do so, following the recommencement of organised Angolan repatriation.

An absence of boarding facilities for high school pupils in Zambia's northern province of Luapula is forcing children to share lodgings with their peers - unsupervised by adults - leading to teenage pregnancies and HIV/AIDS infections. Many children live a long way from school and prefer to rent accommodation nearby. Wamunyima Chingumbe, a Health Ministry director in Mansa District, said the absence of boarding facilities at day schools had led to teenage pregnancies and made pupils vulnerable to contracting sexually transmitted infections (STIs). After malaria, STIs were the most common ailments recorded at makeshift boarding high schools.

President Rupiah Banda had no role in the alleged illegal $100 million arms procurement deal and does not owe people an explanation on the transaction, says Zambia's Defence minister. An ex-minister of defence in the Banda Cabinet, Mr George Mpombo, a fortnight ago claimed he quit his position in 2009 after he resisted pressure from the head of state to approve an arms deal with a South African firm, in which President Banda's son was the middleman. Mpombo, now aligned to main opposition leader Michael Sata and a fierce critic of President Banda, insisted the head of state constantly phoned him at the time to influence the signing of the deal and when he refused, he was scorned in Cabinet meetings, hence his resignation.

Zambia has enjoyed economic growth of around six per cent per year over the past decade, says Patrick Mucheleka, but the government is failing to translate this into social and economic development for the majority of citizens. The upcoming conference on least developed countries in Turkey offers an opportunity to recalibrate the country's approach to development. Mucheleka, who heads Civil Society for Poverty Reduction, a network of more than 140 pro-poor development organisations in Zambia, says the economic growth figures have to be discounted against the growth in the country's population. Further, the sectors that have driven growth are capital-intensive, creating relatively few new jobs.

Some people in rural Zambia are more interested in the education of their children than talk about the failed constitution-making process. 56-year-old John Siamwinde, from Chakanda Village, east of the capital Lusaka, says he has heard almost nothing about the constitution. 'I have heard about the elections coming up later in the year, but I don't know anything about the failed constitution. What we need here are schools and health facilities for our children and ourselves. Look at this school, surely our children deserve better!' he says as he points at a grass thatched shelter which is used as a school for children.

Zambia has frozen LAP Green Network’s 75 per cent shares in Zamtel in conformity with the international community’s decision to freeze all assets belonging to Libya following the unrest in the Arab country, Zamtel managing director Hans Paulsen said in Lusaka on 15 April. The international community has been freezing some Libyan assets dotted across the globe. Mr Paulsen said Zamtel will not be affected by the new development and there is no need for customers to worry.

Gender-based violence and the quality of health care and schooling were among the top concerns raised by refugee women in the latest round of UNHCR consultations that ended over the weekend in Zambia. The UN refugee agency's Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, Erika Feller, joined donors and other stakeholders in reaffirming their commitment to support and empower refugee women, at the Fifth Regional Dialogue with Refugee Women and Girls held in the Zambian capital, Lusaka.

The Zambian government has dropped charges against two Chinese managers accused of attempted murder after firing on miners during a pay dispute. Xiao Li Shan and Wu Jiu Hua said the workers' behaviour, at the Collum coal mine in October, had been threatening. The shooting left at least 11 injured. China has invested more than $400m in the copper-rich country.

Zambians head to the polls sometime before October and civil society groups are working hard to ensure their voices are heard. Groups which were excluded during the 2005 elections and the National Constitutional Conference that began in 2007 are mobilising to ensure they are not excluded. Four years ago, Clotilda Mwale was among those who besieged the Zambian parliament, arguing the National Constitutional Conference would not represent of the interests of all Zambians. Along with church groups and some opposition parties, gender activists were frozen out of the process; with general elections coming up in 2011, they are determined not to let this happen again.

Zambia's opposition alliance split Friday (18 March) after the minority United Party for National Development (UPND) pulled out due to leadership squabbles with country's main opposition Patriotic Front. The two parties have feuded over whether PF leader Michael Sata or UPND chief Hakainde Hichilema should challenge President Rupiah Banda in elections due later this year.

President Rupiah Banda has cautioned Zambians to refrain from conducting parallel vote tabulation (PVT) in elections due later this year. Zambia’s main opposition party – the Patriotic Front (PF), other opposition parties, and influential civil society groups are planning to conduct PVT to counter-check the results. The Banda-administration reacted angrily and threatened to file a complaint against US Ambassador to Zambia Mark Storella after the envoy endorsed the PVT system.

When the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria suspended funding to Zambia in late 2010 it made international headlines and rocked donor confidence, but the stock-outs and drug rationing in the wake of the scandal have received little attention. In March 2009 a whistle blower's allegations of corruption in the Zambian Ministry of Health (MoH) triggered an investigation by the auditor general, and a web of corruption in the health sector began to unravel. The audit found that the largely donor-funded ministry could not account for more than US$7.2 million, about five per cent of which was estimated to have come from Global Fund coffers.

There is a ray of hope for millions of poor Zambians - thanks to the unwavering anti-corruption efforts of many organisations like Transparency International Zambia (TIZ) and the Medicines Transparency Alliance (MeTA). Supported by the UK’s development agency DFiD, since 2008, the international initiatives have been spearheading a project aimed at helping to increase access to essential medicines by low income and disadvantaged people in Zambia. MeTA and TIZ want to improve transparency and accountability in the selection, procurement, sale and distribution of essential medicines in Zambia. And it involves the key sectors in government, the pharmaceutical industry, civil society and the donor community.

After months of lobbying and campaigning by Zambian activists, the government has announced that it will provide free third-line antiretroviral (ARV) drugs to people living with HIV. This week the government invited bids for supplying the drugs, which they at first had said were too expensive, and the number of people needing them still too small. It is expected that the drugs will be available by mid-2011. More than 300,000 people receive ARV treatment at over 1,400 counselling and testing sites across Zambia.

Zambia’s education minister Dora Siliya who is also ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) spokesperson, has in the last few months used Facebook to make important government policy announcements as well as party matters, reports Global Voices. A few days ago, Siliya announced changes in the educational system on Facebook and, as usual, attracted a lot of comments, both positive and negative from some of her 4,950 online 'friends'.