Food aid for famine-stricken Zambia will come to a halt by early October unless the country lifts its ban on donations of genetically modified (GM) maize, the United Nations' World Food Programme (WFP) announced this week.

Former Zambian President Frederick Chiluba plans to fight allegations he is plotting the removal of the current president in court, aides said Sunday. Chiluba was responding to a letter sent to him and other opposition leaders by President Levy Mwanawasa Saturday which accused them of trying to topple him by misleading the Supreme Court.

The office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Zambia expects to repatriate about 40,000 Angolan refugees next year. UNHCR Zambia spokesman Kelvin Shimo told IRIN that the voluntary repatriation was likely to begin when the rainy season ends.

There was good and bad news for Zambian opposition parties this week when they asked the Supreme Court to nullify last December's election, which President Levy Mwanawasa officially won by the narrowest of margins. The good news was that the Supreme Court was willing to listen to them. The bad news was that with no time limit, any decision by the judges was likely to take a very long time in coming.

Ordinary Zambians are battling to cope with the effects of a food security crisis exacerbated by an economic slowdown. Joyce Mwenya is an example of the daily struggle faced by 80 percent of Zambians who live on less than US $1 a day. With a baby strapped to her back, the 33-year-old mother of three sells vegetables at the market in Kanyama, one of Lusaka's poor shanty towns.