Lusaka  - The Zambian government has abolished an anti-corruption body formed by late president Levy Mwanawasa to prosecute his predecessor Frederick Chiluba and members of his graft-plagued administration, state media reported Friday.

Vice President George Kunda announced that the Task Force on Corruption would be fused into the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), the state-run Zambia Daily Mail reported.

Kunda explained the move by saying the Task Force has executed its mandate because most of the cases it had prosecuted had been through the courts.

Lusaka - The political opposition in the southern African country of Zambia has warned investors bidding for the country's telecommunications company it will re-nationalize the company if elected in 2011, local radio reported Friday.

The opposition Patriotic Front and United Party For National Development (UPND) opposes the privatization of the Zambia Telecommunications Company (Zamtel), saying the company should be recapitalized instead of sold.

Lusaka - Health authorities in the southern African country of Zambia have temporarily closed one school and quarantined children at another in the north-central Copperbelt region, following an outbreak of swine flu, an official said Wednesday.

Zambia has recorded 400 suspected cases of the A H1N1 virus, commonly known as swine flu at schools nationwide since the first case of infection was discovered in the country last month. So far, there have been no fatalities.

Lusaka - Zambia's president Rupiah Banda has fired the country's top anti-corruption official for pursuing the prosecution of former president Frederick Chiluba, a statement released by the cabinet office said Wednesday.

Maxwell Nkole, Chairman of the Task Force on Corruption, had last week instructed prosecution lawyers to appeal against the acquittal of former Zambian president Frederick Chiluba on theft charges relating to some 500 million dollars.

Chiluba was acquitted on August 17.

Lusaka - A Zambian court Monday aquitted former Zambian president Fredrick Chiluba on charges of corruption but his co- accused Faustin Kabwe and Aaron Chungu, directors of a Zambian firm Access Financial Services Limited (AFSL), were found guilty.

Chiluba was facing criminal charges of stealing 500,000 dollars from Zambian coffers.

High Court judge Jones Chinyama read out a 445-page ruling and in addition reviewed statements of 35 witnesses in dismissing the case.

He said the prosecution failed to prove suspicions that Chiluba stole government money which eventually ended up in an account managed by AFSL.

Washington  - In the coming decades, population growth in less-developed countries will continue to exceed growth in the developed world, a trend linked to the differing challenges and opportunities facing young women, a population expert said Wednesday.

Using Peru, Zambia and Mali as examples, James Gribble of the Population Reference Bureau, a Washington-based non-governmental research organization, highlighted the varied situations young women face in countries at different stages of development and their effect on populations.

Lusaka - The trial of a leading Zambian journalist charged with circulating obscene material after distributing photographs of a woman outside a hospital giving birth unaided whilst medical staff were on strike was due to get underway in Lusaka on Wednesday.

Chansa Kabwela, 29, a news editor at the private The Post newspapers, distributed the photos of the woman giving birth in the car park outside Lusaka's University Teaching Hospital in June. The baby did not survive the birth.

Kabwela has pleaded not guilty to the charges, which carry a minimum sentence of five years.

Lusaka  - A leading Zambian journalist was hauled before court Tuesday for circulating photographs of a woman giving birth in a hospital car park during a medical workers' strike.

Chansa Kabwela, news editor at the private The Post newspapers, was arrested Monday and charged with circulating obscene material for distributing the photographs of the woman giving birth outside Lusaka's University Teaching Hospital. Kabwela pleaded not guilty.

Lusaka - At least eight miners died in Zambia Thursday after being trapped in a rockfall at a mine in the Copperbelt region, less than a month after a fire killed scores of illegal miners in South Africa, state media reported Thursday.

The miners who died Thursday were also suspected to be working illegally.

The accident took place in a disused shaft belonging to Zambia's largest cobalt producer, Chambishi Metals. The miners were believed to be hunting for leftover cobalt and copper deposits.

Lusaka - Zambia's two main opposition political parties have merged in a bid to remove the ruling Movement for Multi Party Democracy (MMD) from power in 2011 presidential and parliamentary elections, private media reported Friday.

The copper-rich southern African country has been ruled by the centrist MMD of President Rupiah Banda for 17 years.

Lusaka  - Zambia's President Rupiah Banda has defended himself against accusations of being soft on corruption, following allegations that several members of his government had embezzled public funds, state media reported Friday.

Opposition parties and civil society groups have accused Banda of shielding high-profile figures mentioned in a report by the auditor general as having abused public funds.

The report did not name people but talked about senior officials in government departments.

Lusaka - The southern African country of Zambia is ready to start issuing licenses for uranium mining, Mines minister Maxwell Mwale announced on state radio Thursday.

The mineral-rich country, which is Africa's largest copper producer, has discovered huge deposits of uranium but mining was initially delayed due to weak legislation.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) nuclear watchdog sets out strict conditions on uranium mining, including legislation for extraction, storage and transportation of the mineral.

Lusaka - Zambia's opposition leader Michael Sata has declared that he will contest presidential and parliamentary elections in 2011, after he narrowly lost a presidential by-election to Rupiah Banda, private radio reported Tuesday.

Sata, 72, the populist leader of the Patriotic Front is a strong critic of mounting Chinese investment in Africa's largest copper producer.

Lusaka- Poachers in the eastern part of Zambia have surrendered about 1,700 illegal firearms and over 40,000 wire snares used to kill wild animals in game management areas, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) of Zambia was quoted Tuesday as saying. Appearing before a parliamentary committee, WCS-Zambia program director Dale Lewis said that even though a number of people in the area have shown interest in surrendering the firearms, poaching has not been reduced, the Times of Zambia reported.

Lusaka - Zambia's main opposition leader Michael Sata has strongly opposed a reported request by China to plant 2 million hectares of the jatropha plant in the southern African country for the production of biofuels.

During a discussion programme on local radio Thursday, Sata said such a move would disadvantage Zambians, who are scrambling for land to grow food.

Lusaka  - In a development attributed to improvements in prevention and treatment, Zambia's HIV prevalence rate has fallen by two percentage points over the past year, a study showed Thursday.

The proportion of the population infected with the deadly virus that causes AIDS fell from 16 per cent to 14 per cent, the latest Demographic Health Survey published by the central statistics office revealed.

Lusaka - Zambia's Supreme Court has rejected an application by opposition leader Michael Sata for a recount of votes from last year's October presidential by-election, which he lost, local radio reported Wednesday.

Sata, leader of the Patriotic Front, had sought a recount of the votes cast after narrowly losing to current president, Rupiah Banda, in the election for a successor to deceased leader Levy Mwanawasa.

Lusaka - A court in Zambia Tuesday sentenced former president Fredrick Chiluba's wife, Regina Chiluba, to three-and-a- half years in prison for receiving and obtaining stolen state property while Chiluba was leader.

The magistrates' court in Lusaka found her guilty on five of six counts of fraud relating to property and funds she received from Chiluba while he was president from 1991 to
2001, Emmanuel Mwamba, a spokesman for the ex-leader told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Chiluba, 75, who appeared as a witness in the case, had accompanied his wife to Lusaka prison after sentencing, Mwamba said.

Lusaka - The southern African country of Zambia is set to start updating its voter register after aborting the overdue task for lack of time and money before last year's presidential by-election.

Electoral commission head Florence Mumba was quoted by state media as saying Tuesday that the commission would begin a continuous registration process in all 150 constituencies in the copper-rich country in June.

Zambia's parliament last week approved spending of 5 billion kwacha (around 900,000 dollars) for the exercise, which is seen as key to building trust in the electoral process in a country, where the last two national elections have been marred by contestation.

Lusaka  - Zambia has selected a Singapore-based company, Nava Bharat (Singapore), from ten firms vying for a stake in the country's biggest coal mine, it was announced Wednesday.

The semi-state owned Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines-Investment Holdings (ZCCM-IH) - which owns the Maamba mine - said Nava Bharat, a wholly-owned subsidiary of India-based Nava Bharat Ventures, had been chosen from a total of ten local and foreign firms as its strategic equity and technical partner.

India's Vedanta Resources PLC and London-based energy company Aldwych International were among the unsuccessful bidders.

ZCCM-IH did not stipulate how big Nava Bharat's stake in the mine would be, nor put a value on it.