Top news items in major Zambian media outlets

The following are news highlights in Zambia's major media outlets on Thursday.

-- The Zambian government has appealed to traditional leaders to consider allocating more than 100 hectares of land to each cooperative in their respective areas in order to boost agricultural production.

Ministry of Gender Permanent Secretary Edwidge Mutale said the government has embarked on a program to empower cooperatives with agricultural equipment hence the need for the chiefs to provide land. (Times of Zambia)

-- The Zambian government said it was facing challenges in monitoring investments coming into the country despite the positives that have come with foreign direct investment.

Minister of Commerce, Trade and Industry Margaret Mwanakatwe said it was for this reason that the government has embarked on a program of setting up an inter-ministerial council on investment to facilitate and coordinate investment inflows into the country.

-- Zambia's two biggest trade unions have resolved to merge and form one trade union mother body.

The Zambia Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), a mother body of various unions and the Federation of Free Trade Unions of Zambia (FFTUZ) have agreed to merge and form one mother body to be called Trade Union Confederation- Zambia in a bid to strengthen workers' bargaining power. (Daily Nation)

-- Zambia's leading opposition leader, who has been arrested and charged with treason for not giving way to President Edgar Lungu's motorcade, is unwell, his lawyers have said.

Jack Mwimbu, one of the lawyers representing Hakainde Hichilema, said his client was not well and it is believed that he was poisoned by state security agents who went to arrest him at his residence on Monday night. (The Mast) Endit