Zambia

Zambia's new opposition Forum for Democracy and Development (FDD) won a landslide by-election victory in a working class Lusaka suburb on Tuesday, dealing a blow to President Frederick Chiluba's party, news reports said.

Rampaging political gangs torched several vehicles and attacked voters in a crucial parliamentary by-election in Zambia's capital on Tuesday, heightening fears that widespread political violence will undermine general elections scheduled for the year-end.

The Angolan government on Thursday reaffirmed its commitment to the 1994 Lusaka peace accord concluded with UNITA rebels and declined any new mediation in the stalled peace process, AFP reported.

More than 10,000 mourners attended a funeral service on Monday for Zambian opposition leader Paul Tembo, who was murdered on Friday before he was about to testify in a government graft case.

The former campaign manager of Zambian President Frederick Chiluba has been murdered in front of his horrified wife in a pre-dawn attack, his lawyers and family say. Paul Tembo, 41, was due to give evidence on Friday at a tribunal investigating corruption and abuse of office by three cabinet ministers.

Pages