Zambia

 Zambia and Burundi signed six bilateral agreements Thursday to boost cooperation in various fields, including agriculture and security. The agreements were signed at State House in Lusaka, Zambia’s capital, after the country’s President Hakainde Hichilema and Burundi’s President Evariste Ndayishimiye held official talks. The agreements are in the areas of enhancing commercial cooperation, social welfare and child development systems and agriculture and agriculture research. The two countries will also collaborate in the education sphere under an agreement between the University of Zambia and the University of Burundi, the extradition of fugitives and criminals under a security agreement, and in fisheries and livestock. In a preliminary session of the two leaders’ talks, Hichilema and Ndayishimiye reflected on the ties between their countries, calling for the exploration of more trade and investment opportunities with a spillover effect to the rest of the subregion. Hichilema said he wanted to see better utilization of the Tanganyika Corridor, a link between the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the Great Lakes region, to enhance trade and connectivity. Hichilema, who also chairs the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) Authority, a role he will hand over to Ndayishimiye in Bujumbura this October, also called for enhanced peace, security and stability as a harbinger for development and economic transformation. Ndayishimiye called for increased cooperation between the two countries targeting agriculture and mining, as both countries are rich in natural resources which can be mutually utilized to improve livelihoods. Ndayishimiye is in the southern African nation on a three-day visit at Hichilema’s invitation. He will address the Zambian National Assembly on Friday and grace the country’s 96th Agriculture and Commercial Show on Saturday.

The head of Zambia’s Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA), who had gone missing the day before, was discovered dead on Wednesday with two bullet wounds in the head and back. The government has ordered police to conduct a prompt investigation into the death of Guntila Muleya, for whom the family started searching on Tuesday after he failed to return to his home. “The government has asked the police to quickly and thoroughly investigate the circumstances surrounding this unfortunate death,” Thabo Kawana, the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Information and Media, told reporters in the capital Lusaka. Muleya’s family became concerned on Tuesday night, around 9:00 p.m. local time, when he did not return home, and they began looking for him, Kawana said. “His body was discovered later today (Wednesday) in the Njolwe area with two gunshot wounds,” he said. Separately, Zambia police spokesman Rae Hamoonga said at around 10:30 a.m. local time, police received a phone call from a concerned member of the public in the Njolwe area on Lusaka’s outskirts, who reported that during the night of Tuesday at around 20:00 hours, he saw a jeep with its doors open and then heard two gunshots. “This morning (Wednesday) at approximately 10:00 a.m., on his way to work, he (the caller) discovered the body of a deceased on the ground with two bullet wounds on the back and head. “A closer examination revealed a deep bullet wound in the forehead. Two bullet cartridges were recovered at the scene,” Hamoonga explained. He said a murder case has been registered, and that investigations are currently underway.

A Zambian court on Friday jailed 22 Chinese nationals over cybercrimes that included internet fraud and online scams.