Martin Mubanga’s parents have changed his school twice this year because he was forced to share ‘overcrowded” classrooms with 14 other learners. ‘What’s the point of sending your child to an expensive school if it’s going to be so crowded?” asks his annoyed mother, Elizabeth. Up to 15 learners in a class might not be […]
In Zambia, the battle for equality between men and women is being waged on many fronts — not least concerning the sentences handed down by courts. Men who kill their wives in this Southern African country are typically charged with manslaughter, rather than the more serious crime of murder.
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/ 29 December 2004
The festive season is traditionally a time of giving in Zambia, where the streets of the capital, Lusaka, are awash with people caught up in the buying frenzy that characterises the end of the year. Accordingly, the city’s street children are tracking the mood of consumers as carefully as any economist.
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/ 22 October 2004
The HIV pandemic has proved a divisive force in several African countries, not least Zambia. While the question of whether to make HIV tests mandatory has sparked fierce debate in the country, another controversy is also afoot about the wisdom of releasing prisoners in the advanced stages of Aids. Since late 2001, more than 300 sick inmates have been freed by President Levy Mwanawasa on compassionate grounds.
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/ 16 September 2004
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. As a draft national Aids policy is still under discussion, lawmakers have yet to finalise their position on the matter of testing.
This month marks the second anniversary of a corruption task force set up by Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa to investigate the alleged improprieties of his predecessor, Frederick Chiluba. However, chances of the former leader being convicted on any of the charges seem increasingly remote.
One step forward, three steps backwards: that’s how various Aids activists, parents and teachers in Zambia are describing government’s decision to ban the distribution of condoms in schools on the grounds that it promotes promiscuity.
Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa has had an uneasy relationship with civil society from the beginning of his term in office. However, matters worsened recently when he accused Aids activists of monopolising the funds provided by donors to fight the pandemic.
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/ 16 February 2004
Zambia’s labour movement has declared February 18 a day of national protest against the government’s decision to increase taxes and freeze salaries of the more than 120 000 public service workers. Just a week earlier, in a pre-Budget interview on television, the finance minister had assured he would not increase taxes.
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/ 13 February 2004
Low wages and unemployment, coupled with high taxes, have forced thousands of qualified Zambians to flee the country in search of greener pastures — but President Levy Mwanawasa is calling them "coward failures". "They failed to make the grade here and have gone to exhibit their inefficiencies outside," he said.