Zambia

The U.N. unveiled an “automated” fact-checking service to counter disinformation in a project with Big-Tech and Soros-funded organisations.

Hundreds of people turned out in Lusaka, Zambia, on Tuesday to attend the funeral of Lemekani Nyirenda, a 23-year-old engineering student recruited by Russia’s infamous Wagner Group of mercenaries and killed while fighting for Russia in Ukraine.

Zambia’s state-owned electricity company ZESCO said this week it had produced a surplus of energy for Zambia of about 1,156 MW, the online newspaper New Zimbabwe reported Friday.

The government of Malawi charged Lu Ke, a 26-year-old Chinese national, with human trafficking on Monday. Lu became globally infamous last month for producing and selling videos of African children unwittingly singing racist songs in Chinese.

Analysts from the China Africa Research Initiative (CARI), a Johns Hopkins University project to study China’s political and economic influence among African nations, said on Tuesday the African nation of Zambia owes $6.6 billion to China – more than double the amount claimed by former President Edgar Lungu. 

Chinese state media on Thursday called on the Western world to help African nations pay their enormous debts, many of which just happen to be owed to Chinese banks thanks to China’s debt-trap Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Chinese dictator Xi Jinping refused Zambian President Edgar Lungu’s direct request for “debt relief and cancellation” to save the African nation’s spiraling economy in a phone call last week, Kenyan newspaper the Daily Nation revealed on Sunday.

Around 50 percent of African children are not registered at birth and effectively stateless, often meaning they cannot access essential social services such as healthcare and education, according to recent figures obtained by the United Nations. 

Nigerian Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on Tuesday denounced a spate of attacks on Nigerians and other migrants living in South Africa as “unacceptable and unconscionable,” especially given the role Nigerians played in bringing down apartheid.

China’s technologies giant Huawei, the largest telecommunications company in the world, is enabling digital authoritarianism in Africa by helping dictators spy on their opposition, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported Thursday.

The government of Zambia held a groundbreaking ceremony on Monday for a memorial to the dozens of Chinese workers who died building the Tanzania-Zambia Railway (TAZARA) in the 1970s.

Skyrocketing Chinese debts have made multiple African nations – most notably Kenya, Angola, and Zambia – “most vulnerable” to forfeiting control of key assets and territory to China, the global ratings firm Moody’s announced in a report this week.

Contents: Zambia denies defaulting on infrastructure loans from China; Zambia faces long term corruption concerns

African media buzzed with reports this week that China plans to take over Zambia’s national power company, ZESCO, and has already taken control of national broadcaster ZNBC. In essence, Beijing is repossessing chunks of the Zambian state because it cannot repay the gigantic loans it took out from China.

The government of Zambia expelled Cuba’s ambassador in the country this week over attending an opposition presidential candidate’s rally and declaring his support for changing the government, a move Zambian officials declared “unbecoming of a diplomat.”

President Donald Trump’s administration is under fire for relaxing former President Barack Obama’s import ban on African big game trophies, but anyone who genuinely loves wild animals should support it.

Contents: Democratic Republic of Congo issues farcical call for elections in December 2018; Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe sacks the VP so that his wife can succeed him

Alleged espionage concerns have prompted the government of the African country of Zambia to issue a new order to enforce a standing measure that prohibits police officers from marrying foreigners, a police spokesperson has revealed.

Contents: Zambia prays for divine intervention in copper prices; Germany’s Angela Merkel begs for refugee help from Turkey

Contents: New York’s Obamacare Co-op collapses, the fourth so far this year; Copper’s crashing prices cause devastating economic ripples around the world; China’s ‘climate change’ promise may already be in trouble

Zambia’s president collapsed while making a speech and was diagnosed with malaria, officials said on Sunday.

(AFP) Zambia’s top prosecutor on Friday stunned a magistrate when he refused to prosecute himself on charges of abuse of office and declared himself a free man.