Business, markets, technology and politics — the Zambian economy, reported plainly.
A group of 25 former mayors and council chairpersons, led by Duncan Kaonga, has filed a lawsuit in the Lusaka High Court seeking more than K153 million in alleged unpaid salaries, allowances and benefits from their time in local government office.
Zambia Police Service says a 32-year-old Kitwe driver has been arrested after a Chinese national supervising an AVIC construction site was assaulted on the Mufulira–Mokambo Road on 28 June.
President Hakainde Hichilema has warned that illegal and unsafe mining risks fuelling armed militias in Zambia, as Zambia Army Special Forces are deployed to Kikonge Mine in Mufumbwe District in a crackdown on illegal mining.
A treatment trial has begun in the Democratic Republic of Congo's Ebola outbreak, where WHO figures reported by the BBC put confirmed cases at 1,406 and deaths at 438, with a further 301 cases suspected.
Government has released K1.4 billion for the Social Cash Transfer programme’s May–June 2026 payment cycle, Permanent Secretary Angela Kawandami says, describing it as the latest in a series of disbursements this year.
Zambia's Under-17 Women's National Team hosts Ethiopia at Levy Mwanawasa Stadium in Ndola on Saturday in the first leg of the final round of 2026 FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup qualifiers, with kick-off at 15h00.
The Ministry of Agriculture is preparing to roll out the Farmer Input Support Programme's E-Voucher system across all 116 districts for the 2026/2027 season, requiring agro-dealers to submit full documentation for vetting ahead of provincial training in July.
The Electoral Commission of Zambia says presidential ballot printing is on track at about 4.7 million of a targeted 9 million papers, and has dismissed allegations that extra, pre-marked ballots are being printed for selected constituencies ahead of the 13 August general election.
President Hakainde Hichilema urged Zambezi District residents to vote for the UPND in the 13 August election, saying the party's economic record — debt restructuring, a return to growth and a steadier kwacha — is reason to sustain it in government.
The Copper Queens will camp in Algeria and play two friendlies against the hosts on 19 and 22 July, the Football Association of Zambia said, sharpening Nora Häuptle's squad for a WAFCON 2026 run in Group C that carries a direct 2027 World Cup pathway.
President Hichilema has announced plans for a University Teaching Hospital and a public university in Solwezi, which would be North-Western Province's first tertiary teaching facility. No cost, bed capacity, timeline or funding partner has been disclosed.
Citi says global investors have regained appetite for Zambia after the country exited default, with fresh interest in copper, energy and agriculture and new buyers arriving from the Middle East.
The South African public broadcaster Channel Africa reported that two people were killed in separate campaign-period incidents in Zambia, drawing a condemnation from President Hakainde Hichilema and a police pledge to enforce the law without fear or favour.
President Hakainde Hichilema carried the UPND re-election campaign into Mwinilunga and Solwezi on 1 July 2026, pressing a jobs-and-roads record and warning supporters not to back independent candidates ahead of the 13 August general election.
The Japan-Zambia Investment Agreement will enter into force on 30 July 2026, extending treaty-level protection to Japanese investors in Zambia's copper and cobalt sectors and adding a de-risking layer as Lusaka races to triple copper output by 2031.
Morocco beat the Netherlands 3-2 on penalties in Monterrey to reach the 2026 World Cup last 16, coming from behind to keep African hopes alive in the tournament.
Zambia's Ministry of Education has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Kenyan organisation Food 4 Education to provide technical support and strengthen the national school feeding programme.
The Democratic Republic of Congo has banned mass gatherings in its capital to curb an Ebola outbreak, a move that raises the regional health alert and that the opposition says doubles as a way to block a protest.
Yango Zambia and the Zambia Road Safety Trust have expanded their Safer Journeys to School scheme, which now reaches 32,000 children in Lusaka with road-safety training and safer crossings.
Trading in Zambian government bonds stayed active in late June, with K479.3 million in nominal value changing hands on the secondary market on Friday alone, as yields held in the mid-teens.
Zambia has scored 81 out of 100 and earned a 'very good' rating in its third validation under the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, the global standard for openness in mining revenues.
The Ministry of Mines and Minerals Development has rejected as misplaced a claim by opposition figure Brian Mundubile that the government is deploying soldiers to intimidate miners.
The Electoral Commission of Zambia has begun printing ballot papers in Dubai for the 13 August 2026 general election, starting with presidential papers, and has taken stakeholders to verify the process.
South Africa, Egypt and Cape Verde lead Africa's surviving nations into the 2026 World Cup round of 32, with knockout fixtures now set across the United States, Canada and Mexico.
ATIDI marks 25 years and convenes its 2026 Annual General Meeting in Nairobi from 30 June to 3 July, drawing African leaders, investors and development financiers — a body whose risk cover touches Zambia's trade and energy plans.
Zambia is drafting an Innovators and Inventors Bill to protect inventions and intellectual property and support the growth of its artificial intelligence and technology sector, the Ministry of Technology and Science says.
Opposition presidential candidate Brian Mundubile has pledged to retain Zambia's free-education policy if he wins the 13 August 2026 general election, signalling continuity on a flagship UPND reform.
The High Court has set aside an Electoral Commission of Zambia decision barring the Candle symbol from 2026 ballots, resolving a dispute Kwacha News earlier reported when a court stayed the order.
President Hakainde Hichilema has launched his re-election campaign for the 13 August 2026 general election, standing as the UPND candidate with Vice-President Mutale Nalumango as running mate.
US President Donald Trump has vowed a 100% tariff on any European country that taxes American technology giants — a precedent African revenue authorities, including Zambia’s, will watch as they weigh their own digital-services taxes.
Tanzania’s government has suspended political rallies nationwide until further notice, citing security threats, three years after President Samia Suluhu Hassan lifted a six-year ban — a reversal opposition parties call unlawful, set against Zambia’s open campaign before its 13 August 2026 election.
A new Transition Minerals Tracker from the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre finds human-rights abuses linked to mining copper, cobalt and other transition minerals are rising sharply across Africa — a governance test for Zambia’s copper-led, responsible-supplier strategy.
Cape Verde, a nation of just over 500,000 people, has become the tiniest country ever to reach a World Cup knockout and is drawn to face holders Argentina in Miami on 3 July, while Egypt also advanced as the Round of 32 line-up was confirmed.
Vice-President Mutale Nalumango said the government has stabilised Zambia’s economy and is now shifting focus to growth and jobs, a message delivered seven weeks before the 13 August general election and set against first-quarter GDP growth of 7.7 percent, easing debt and cooling inflation.
Africa holds under 1% of global data-centre capacity. As artificial-intelligence compute spreads across the continent, Zambia must decide whether to host it or import it.
Finance Minister Situmbeko Musokotwane and opposition candidate Mundubile have clashed over the value of Zambia's forex reserves, with the economy now the campaign's battleground.
The Bank of Zambia has retired the cheque, with 26 June 2026 the final day for interbank clearing as the regulator pushes households and firms onto electronic payments.
Zambia's gross domestic product grew 7.7% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2026, the Zambia Statistics Agency said, up from 4.5% a year earlier.
Zambia's annual inflation slowed to 6.5% in June 2026 from 6.6% in May, the lowest since February 2018, the Zambia Statistics Agency said.
South Africa's Supreme Court of Appeal has set aside an order that would have let Zambia repatriate Edgar Lungu for a state funeral, ruling that the burial decision rests with his family. The government says it disagrees but will not appeal, ending a year-long dispute.
Anthropic has accused China's Alibaba of an illicit attempt to copy its Claude AI models, in a letter to US senators that calls it the largest known distillation attack on the company to date. Alibaba did not immediately respond.
Dubai-based Spiro has closed a $270m equity round, capped by a $55m investment from Chinese fund NewTrails Capital. The electric-motorcycle and battery-swap operator is heading for DR Congo and Malawi, bringing the wave to Zambia's doorstep and to its copper and cobalt.
Public debt has fallen to 94% of GDP from a 2021 peak near 129%, reserves have rebuilt to US$5.5bn and bond yields have eased, according to Ministry of Finance data. The recovery is real but unfinished.
Zambia coach Nora Häuptle has named a 28-player provisional squad for a home-based WAFCON 2026 training camp, recalling Saudi-based midfielder Hellen Chanda as the Copper Queens build towards Morocco and a 2027 Women's World Cup place.
Africa CDC has reinforced cross-border surveillance against Ebola after an imported Bundibugyo case in France, with DR Congo reporting 1,048 confirmed cases and 267 deaths. Zambia, which shares a long border with DR Congo, sits among the countries the agency lists as at risk.
The European Union will deploy more than 70 observers to scrutinise Zambia's 13 August general election, its sixth such mission and a marker of deepening EU interest in the Copperbelt.
South Africa beat South Korea 1-0 in Guadalupe on 24 June 2026 to reach the World Cup knockout rounds for the first time, setting up a round-of-32 tie with co-hosts Canada in Los Angeles on 28 June.
Zambia’s Road Transport and Safety Agency and the Ministry of Youth, Sport and Arts have signed a memorandum of understanding to license young motorcyclists, teach road safety and curb unregistered machines, against a road toll the WHO puts above 3,000 deaths a year.
Zambia’s Constitutional Court has ruled that a statutory residence-permit requirement is invalid where it narrows the constitutional definition of “ordinarily resident” under Article 266, reaffirming that an ordinary Act cannot amend the Constitution.
Ethiopia's National Election Board says Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's Prosperity Party won 438 of 501 House of Representatives seats in the 1 June 2026 election — a vote marred by insecurity that shut 143 polling stations and by the exclusion of Tigray.
Egypt beat New Zealand 3-1 in Vancouver on 21 June 2026 for the country’s first-ever World Cup win in 92 years, with Mohamed Salah scoring and assisting, while debutants Cape Verde fought back to draw 2-2 with Uruguay in Miami.
Zambia’s Ministry of Health has launched a national STEPS survey, gathering behavioural, physical and biochemical data from about 5,762 adults across all ten provinces to measure the risk factors behind noncommunicable diseases.
The Workers’ Compensation Fund Control Board has rebranded, with Vice-President Mutale Nalumango touting a fund that grew from K2.5 billion to K6.6 billion in three years and now eyes K10 billion on the back of roads, fertiliser and energy bets.
Fourteen presidential candidates have been validly nominated for Zambia's 13 August 2026 general election, run under the 50%-plus-one rule with a run-off if nobody clears the threshold. An explainer on the field, the law and the campaign period.
Zambia’s pension fund has defended its US$300 million stake in the Lusaka-Ndola Dual Carriageway as a commercial call backed by due diligence, not a government directive, as the US$650 million PPP road to the Copperbelt pushes past a third complete.
Northern Province has commended ZICTA for upgrading communication towers from 2G to 4G to widen rural internet access, as the regulator tours Universal Access and Service Fund projects across northern Zambia and presses a national rollout of solar-powered 4G towers.
SEC Zambia’s daily trade summaries show GRZ bond turnover easing from K830m to K592m between 17 and 18 June 2026, with yields spanning 8.6% to 20%, even as year-to-date secondary trading crossed K64bn across more than 3,900 trades.
MTN Zambia and Huawei have unveiled in Lusaka what they call the world’s first commercial deployment of a five-band LampSite indoor 5G unit, positioning Zambia as a global reference site for indoor connectivity.
Zambia’s Supreme Court has dismissed Lumwana Mining Company’s appeal, affirming that an employer must consult and negotiate with workers before a redundancy and upholding twelve months’ salary in damages for ten workers made redundant in 2019.
On 11 May 2026 Zambia’s Constitutional Court declared Sections 56 and 57 of the Local Government Act unconstitutional, ruling that the Minister of Local Government cannot suspend elected councils and install an unelected administrator in their place.
KoBold Metals broke ground on shaft construction at the Mingomba copper project in Chililabombwe on 29 April 2026, an investment exceeding US$2 billion billed as Zambia’s largest-ever private investment.
Zambia has launched a debt-for-energy conversion, using a US$600 million African Development Bank loan to buy back its US$1.36 billion 2053 Eurobond and channelling up to US$275 million into a national grid resilience programme.
Zambia vaccinated more than 3.8 million children under five against polio from 2 to 5 June 2026, in a second-round drive across six provinces that responded to vaccine-derived poliovirus found in Lusaka wastewater, with no paralysis cases recorded.
The Bank of Zambia cut its policy rate by 25 basis points to 13.25% on 13 May 2026, its third consecutive cut, citing a favourable maize harvest and a strong kwacha, with inflation inside the 6–8% target band.
Western Province’s Tapo-Lulambo feeder road in Mongu has reached about 9km of a 40km target, part of a 150km rural-roads push that officials say will improve access to markets and government services.
Water minister Collins Nzovu toured the WARMA-hosted regional water-quality laboratory under construction in Lusaka’s Ibex Hill on 6 May 2026, finding it about 50% complete and rebuking the contractor over materials and progress.
The Lusaka Water Supply and Sanitation Company is doubling the Chunga treatment plant and building a new 54-million-litre plant at Ngwerere under the US$300 million Lusaka Sanitation Programme, backed by German and European Investment Bank finance.
President Hakainde Hichilema has assured the nation that Zambia’s tradition of peaceful, fair and credible elections will hold for the 13 August 2026 general election, speaking at a Seventh-day Adventist Church fellowship in Lusaka.
South Africa’s intensifying crackdown on undocumented employment is dividing Johannesburg’s inner city, with proposed fines, thousands of new inspectors and vigilante raids falling hardest on informal trade and migrant workers, Al Jazeera reported.
Africa’s 2026 World Cup hopes narrowed at the weekend as Tunisia and Ivory Coast were eliminated in the group stage and South Africa lost their opener, while Egypt and Mohamed Salah fought to keep their campaign alive.
An Electoral Commission of Zambia advisory requiring presidential candidates to campaign by an official timetable has drawn a legal caution from the Law Association of Zambia and defiance from the Tonse Pamodzi Alliance, whose Chipata rally was blocked by police.
Washington warned Zambia it must grant American firms expanded minerals access or lose remaining US support for an HIV programme that underpins treatment for about 1.3 million people, with a reported 30 April 2026 deadline as services contracted.
Zambia logged 987 cumulative cholera cases and 16 deaths from 1 January to 10 May 2026, roughly double the 2025 burden, with Northern Province the epicentre and an oral cholera vaccine response under way.
On World Refugee Day, Zambia is home to more than 113,000 refugees — most from the DR Congo and the Great Lakes — and is trying to turn its settlements from camps into economic hubs by folding refugees into national services.
Washington is phasing out the roughly $400 million a year it gives South Africa for HIV through PEPFAR — a withdrawal modelling suggests could cause up to 295,000 extra infections, and a warning for other aid-reliant African countries including Zambia.
Hosts Mexico and the United States are the first teams through to the round of 32 as the expanded 48-nation World Cup builds toward its first knockout stage, with a record nine African teams chasing places.
UNHCR says 117.8 million people were forcibly displaced at the end of 2025 — a fall of nearly 5% and the first decline in a decade, driven by the largest wave of returns in its history, though many return to fragile conditions.
The African Union and Caribbean states have merged their reparations machinery and pressed former slave-trading powers for formal apologies, debt relief and compensation at a High-Level Consultative Conference in Accra.
A study of 112 prompts across four leading AI chatbots — ChatGPT, Claude, Grok and Copilot — found they gave men plans and futures while handing women emotions and caregiving, a bias the authors trace to training data.
Zambia has signed about $1.8 billion in power-related financing since April — a $1.5 billion CMEC deal for 900 megawatts and a €290 million Globeleq solar project — as it borrows again to fix the power shortage behind its load-shedding.
A copper rally has rebuilt Zambia’s reserves, steadied the kwacha and kept the government’s bond market trading — clear signs the country is pulling clear of the debt crisis, even as commercial-creditor talks and copper-price risk remain.
The Lusaka High Court has stayed an Electoral Commission of Zambia directive ordering five independent candidates to drop the ‘Candle’ symbol, granting them leave to seek judicial review and keep the mark until the case is heard.
Zambia’s Constitutional Court has dismissed a petition challenging President Hakainde Hichilema’s eligibility to contest the 13 August general election, ruling it lacked merit and keeping him on the ballot as the UPND’s candidate.
Zambia votes on 13 August 2026. An honest scorecard of Hakainde Hichilema’s first term: he pulled the country out of debt default and back to growth, but the cost of living and the lights tell a harder story.
The Zambia Revenue Authority and the High Commission in London held their first tax webinar for Zambians in the UK — covering registration, tax clearance and investment incentives, with a 30 June revenue-strategy deadline flagged.
South Africa drew 1-1 with Czechia in Atlanta to keep their World Cup knockout hopes alive — but a suspension for goalscorer Teboho Mokoena and a must-win finale against South Korea now stand in the way.
Tuberculosis killed 1.23 million people in 2024 and Zambia carries one of the world’s heaviest burdens — just as the foreign aid that props up TB and HIV care across southern Africa is being pulled back.
Cuba’s National Assembly has approved roughly 175 market reforms — admitting private banks, foreign property buyers and bigger private firms — its deepest break with the socialist model in decades, forced on by a US sanctions squeeze.
Mission 300, the World Bank–African Development Bank drive to end energy poverty, has connected more than 50 million people across 40 countries — with Zambia among the governments signed up to connect their own unlit households.
Apple chief executive Tim Cook says device price rises are unavoidable as the AI boom drives memory-chip costs to unsustainable levels — a squeeze that lands twice over on import-dependent markets like Zambia.
Zambia’s trade surplus widened to K3.5 billion in April 2026, up from K0.9 billion in March, the Zambia Statistics Agency said — but a 9.3 percent fall in imports, not an export boom, did most of the work.
A call to publish the per-MP voting record on Bill 7 gathered force after President Hichilema said four of his own MPs opposed a constitutional amendment the official tally recorded as passing without a single “No”.
The Bank of Zambia’s 2025 annual report shows external debt service fell $90.9m to $575.1m, driven by lower payments on restructured Eurobonds — but the debt stock kept rising.
Zambia’s Constitutional Court has cleared Socialist Party leader Fred M’membe and running mate Dolika Banda to contest the 13 August 2026 election, dismissing a petition over her school qualifications.
Airtel Networks Zambia became the fourth company to cross a $1 billion market value on the Lusaka Securities Exchange, a milestone tied to economic reform and $107m of network investment.
Lionel Messi scored a hat-trick as Argentina beat Algeria 3-0 in Kansas City, becoming the first player at six World Cups and the oldest hat-trick scorer in tournament history at age 38.
Seven Ebola patients have recovered in the DR Congo, but viral misinformation claiming the outbreak is a hoax is undermining the response as cases climb to 837 with 196 deaths.
Anti-migrant groups in South Africa have set 30 June 2026 as a deadline for undocumented foreign nationals to leave the country, driving thousands to flee as threats of xenophobic violence escalate across provinces and repatriation flights begin.
Former ambassador Emmanuel Mwamba says the 13 August general election is increasingly a direct contest between President Hakainde Hichilema and Tonse Pamodzi candidate Brian Mundubile, as polls show UPND leading and the opposition consolidating behind a single challenger.
A 15-year Grid Resilience Programme worth up to $275 million will channel sovereign debt savings into Zambia’s electricity distribution network, targeting the outages that have plagued homes and businesses.