People of the South

SOUTH Africa says Zambia is one of its top trading partners with an estimated bilateral trade value of KR3 trillion ( about 25 billion rands) in 2012. The total investment by South Africa in Zambia is more than US$2.5 billion. South African High Commissioner to Zambia Piet Mathebe said his Government is committed to working with Zambia in bringing more investment into the country.

President Xi welcomes visiting Zambian president in Sanya

Chinese President Xi Jinping (L, front) holds a welcoming ceremony for visiting Zambian President Michael Chilufya Sata ahead of their talks in Sanya, south China’s Hainan Province, April 6, 2013. (Xinhua/Pang Xinglei)

(Source: english.cntv.cn)

The South African Department of Health estimates the country’s gold mining industry has the highest number of new TB cases annually in the world. (Gallo)

In August 2012, heads of state from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) agreed to sign the SADC Declaration on TB in the Mining Sector, following endorsements by their national ministers for health, labour and justice. 

According to Swaziland’s Minister of Health, Benedict Xaba, he and South African Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi, and Lesotho’s former Minister of Health, Mphu Ramatlapeng, began pushing for the declaration in 2010. Xaba, the son of a miner, admitted that he has lost members of his family to tubercolosis.

File:President Sata arrives for the funeral service in honour of accident victims in Ndola.

There has been a lot of talk about whereabouts of President Sata.Rumours are flying around that our President is ailing and perhaps on his death bed.There is unsubstantiated talk that Fred Mmembe is calling the shots behind the scenes. Both rumours are very disconcerting for Zambians.To make matters worse our leaders are not saying anything about it.But I guess even if they did say anything we would not believe them after the embarassing blunders they made last year in March and February this year when they tried to keep secret the Presidents trips to India and London for medical treatment.

The SADC Gender Ministers meeting registered one other significant gain - commitment to an addendum to the SADC Gender Protocol on Gender and Climate Change. The swirling floods in Mozambique that hit Mauritius at the time of the meeting leave little doubt that climate change is upon us. But there has been considerable bureaucratic inertia to reopening the SADC Gender Protocol now that two thirds of the signatories have ratified the instrument that is officially in force.

NGOs have again led the way, pressurising governments to acknowledge that no instrument on gender equality can ever be totally closed. Like Constitutions, regional protocols must constantly respond to the needs of the day. These reflect in our choice of words, and of emphasis. In the end, as I learned last week, no task is more important than continually pushing the boundaries of the gender discourse in our beloved region.

Zambia has lost its first game of 2013 today with 2-0 friendly defeat to Angola played at Dobsonville Stadium in Johannesburg.

Angola took the lead in the 30th minute through Gerard to see the Palanca Negras take a 1-0 halftime lead.

The Palancas Negras made sure of their fifth excessive unbeaten run in the buildup when 70th minute substitute Amaro sealed the victory in the 85th minute.

For Zambia it was their third successive buildup defeat defeats following a 1-0 loss to Tanzania on December 22 in Dar-es-Salaam and a 2-1 defeat in Dammam away to Saudi Arabia on December 5.

Zambia trace their last win to November 14 when they beat South Africa 1-0 in the Nelson Mandela Challenge at Soccer City.

Almost $9 billion was illicitly siphoned out of Zambia, Africa’s top copper producer over the last decade, according to a report by a US anti-graft watchdog, which highlights how resource wealth is often squandered in the developing world.

The amount is almost half the size of Zambia’s current gross domestic product and much of the money would have been channeled to offshore banks and tax havens, draining one of the world’s poorest countries of badly needed capital.

The Zambian government said the report was in line with its own findings and vowed to crack down on culprits.

The report by US-based anti-graft watchdog Global Financial Integrity (GFI) said the southern African nation lost $8.8 billion to capital flight between 2001 and 2010.

“Of that, $4.9 billion can be attributed to trade misinvoicing, which is a type of trade fraud used by commercial importers and exporters around the world,” GFI economist Sarah Freitas said.

Victoria Falls

Victoria Falls is said to be the largest waterfall in the world. It’s located between Zambia and Zimbabwe, and visitors from either side can easily purchase visas at the borders of the falls. It is said that the first European to lay eyes on the falls named it in honor of Queen Victoria. But before it was known as Victoria Falls, it was known quite aptly as ‘The Cloud that Thunders’ (Mosi-oa-Tunya) by the natives.

An Encyclopaedia of the Social and Political History of Southern Africa’s Languages (Publishers, Palgrave Macmillan, UK)is calling for entries for an edited volume, .

Brief Description of the Encyclopaedia

This volume is designed as an interdisciplinary collection of articles (entries) that would double as a handy and accessible reference on the subject of southern African languages within the broader context of the region’s pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial developments. The focus is on the social and political history of the covered languages, meaning their significance for ethnic, immigrant and social groups, as well as for various political projects, as they have unfolded during, roughly speaking, the last three centuries. In the Encyclopedia, the elements of linguistic description will be limited to a bare minimum necessary for positing the languages in a manner that is scholarly sound, but easily intelligible to the average reader. In this way, the stage is given to the social and political history of these languages.

Territories and States with Languages Covered

The Encyclopedia will cover over 220 languages in the following states and polities included in the concept of Southern Africa used in the Encyclopaedia: Angola (AO), Botswana (BW), Comores, Lesotho (LS), Madagascar (MG), Malawi (MW), Mauritius (MU), Mayotte (YT), Mozambique (MZ), Namibia (NA), South Africa (ZA), Swaziland (SW), Réunion (RE), Seychelles (SC), Zambia (ZM) and Zimbabwe (ZW).