in chesham and amersham, taking a parliamentary seat that has always been conservative. sarah greene won the buckinghamshire seat, overturning a majority of more than 16,000. the seat was held by former welsh secretary cheryl gillan, who died in april. the us supreme court has rejected the latest republican—led challenge to the law known as 0bamacare. it's the third time the affordable care act law has survived a vote. barack 0bama said it showed that his signature policy "was here to stay". the united nations is warning of an imminent famine in ethiopia's tigray region, unless drastic measures are taken fast. it's close to eight months since war broke out and there continue to be reports of abuses. there have been repeated international calls for hostilities to end.

now on bbc news, kenneth kaunda, zambia's founding president, has died at the age of 97. in 2014, my colleague zeinab badawi travelled to the zambian capital on the 50th anniversary of the country's independence. hardtalk asked him what 50 years of freedom had brought the people of zambia. welcome to hardtalk. with me, they know badawi. with me, —— zeinab badawi. i am here in the zambian capital, lusaka. today i'll speak to kenneth kaunda, leader of the struggle for independence. he was sentenced to hard labour in prison by the british before he went on to become zambia's first president of the post—colonial era. it is a landmark year for zambia — the 50th anniversary of its independence — and kenneth kaunda himself turns 90. what has 50 years of freedom brought the people of zambia and elsewhere on the continent?

kenneth kaunda, welcome to hardtalk. for those of us who don't remember, just give us an idea of what it was really like to live under colonial rule in africa. hmm. it was a terrible experience. young lady. because we are living under apartheid. separate schools, separate hospitals, separate everything.

in these schools, only a handful of whites and browns. those schools had very few children but the white children had very many schools, very many hospitals, while the black majority had little. how did it make you feel? and... did you feel humiliated? when you went to the shop to go and buy something, and it was given to you through a pigeonhole, and you got it

knowing that you are angry about this, you don't like what's taking place and yet, you are quiet about it. so, it was real hard time. for us all. one day i remember i went to buy a bicycle. and.. i paid some money through a pigeonhole and then this man said, come round now and get your bicycle. isaid, young man, i paid for this bicycle through this pigeonhole. please get me this bicycle out of that place through this pigeonhole. chuckles.

and he said, "what do you mean?" isaid , i mean what i am saying — i paid through the pigeonhole. get me the bicycle outside the shop through this pigeonhole. we quarrelled for some time. so, we quarrelled and quarrelled and in the end, he — i got back my money. idid not i did not get the bicycle. you became very active in politics. eventually, there was the united national independence party created, known as unip. you became one of the foremost fighters for independence in what was to become zambia. you paid a price for your agitation against the british colonial presence — you were imprisoned, sentenced at one time to hard labour in prison. yes. did that stiffen your resolve? several times, i went to prison. and when i went to prison, i

came out, continued several. fighting calibre. fighting racism in every corner. sometimes... you say fighting racism. you think the british colonial system was based on racism? of course it is! what is the meaning of buying shops — buying things through pigeonholes? you think the british at the time were racist? not all of them were. well, everything they were doing was racist. so what was it like, then, that moment, the official ceremony, when your country became zambia, independent, and you became the first president? it was a time worth noting. it was the first time for zambia. when the british flag came down and ours went up, it was quite a time.

the queen sent a representative, of course, to the independent ceremony went north rhodesia became zambia. you have spoken about your great love and respect for the queen. how do you reconcile that sentiment with the fact that she presided over a government which was presiding over your people in the manner in which you say you had to fight them? how do you reconcile those two sentiments? admiring the queen on one hand and opposing the government that acted in her name? she has been a great person from the beginning of my time. i have no bad feelings about her. i think. even when margaret thatcher was prime minister and we quarrelled and quarrelled, i still have a lot

of respect for her. for queen elizabeth. do you see the queen as being above politics? no doubt about it. that's how we saw her. that's exactly how we saw her. when margaret thatcher said that we were going to go to lusaka, she said to the queen "don't go to lusaka. that man is hopeless. you will not have a good time there." how do you know she said that? the queen said, "look, i am head of the commonwealth. i am going to lusaka." how do you know about this? i was told about it. by who? by by sensible people! by sensible people.

but me tell you. the queen said "i am going to lusaka and i am going to head the commonwealth summit there." the queen came. but i was told about what margaret thatcher had done. so what did i do? my colleagues and i organised an evening — a dancing evening. and, because she tried to stop that conference being held in lusaka, we thought we should do that and show her that we were not against her, even though she tried to destroy the commonwealth summit happening in lusaka. so by not avoiding the queen. so, when the music was played, i got up, my then wife got up, i went to pick her up

and dancing nicely. my my wife went there dancing, husband, and others followed us. so, a good beginning! so you were dancing with margaret thatcher and betty, your late wife, was dancing with denis thatcher? that must have been quite a sight! we mentioned your role supporting the freedom movement in southern africa. but you are the last of that generation which was caught up in what was described as the winds of change, where africa was decolonised in that very intense period in the 1950s and the 1960s. hmm. you knew all the characters then. what was it like to be part of that period in history? the founding fathers

of independent african states? it was a wonderful time. i must say. we were planning the future of africa. and we helped each other. do you think that those africans, who led their countries into independence, that somehow that great hope was lost? that the people did not enjoy the benefits of decolonisation? where is ghana today? where is angola today? where is mozambique today? all right? there are some difficulties in south africa. but how far have some of them gone with that struggle?

where is south africa today? why did you make zambia a one—party state in 1972? why did you decide that multi—party democracy wasn't right? chuckles. look at this thing in the right way. when we're going towards the elections, i went to see my leader of in the african national congress. isaid, "look, old man, let's come together and form a government of the people of zambia together". in the end, he agreed. so we went for the elections, we won, i made him minister of education, i made

him minister of lands. we came together. not because we wanted to destroy multi—party politics but we knew that if we didn't do that, south africa would destroy us. i knew south africans were very keen to destroy zambia. so, they were keen to isolate me from other leaders in zambia. because of that, i went ahead and spoke to personal —— political leaders in zambia. "don't do that, don't listen to that, this

is a destroyed country". you didn't want them to exploit different parties in zambia and use them to undermine you? that was your justification? precisely. for having one party than on the ballot? why were you then always the only candidate on the list to become president? well... chuckles. why didn't you have a choice? i was elected by my people of zambia. but they only had your name on the ballot. yes, yes. but! yes, yes. but i was a member. when i was there, many other people were there. so many other leaders were there. and they were all playing some role in the politics of zambia.- in the politics of zambia. when ou look in the politics of zambia. when you look at _ in the politics of zambia. when you look at what _ in the politics of zambia. when you look at what happened - in the politics of zambia. when you look at what happened in l you look at what happened in independent africa, do you feel

that the people of africa have enjoyed freedom from poverty? because arguably, they haven't, when you look at the statistics over the past few decades. sub—saharan africa is still the least developed part of the world and people, to this day, still don't get their basic needs met in terms of shelter and healthcare, even food. are people in zambia starving today? are zambian starving? not starving, but there are huge poverty levels. people do not have access to basic needs. you have a short life expectancy in zambia — around 50.

what is taking place now is different from what you are saying. if you look at what the government is doing in terms of agriculture today, it's a real development. real development. looking at zambia, you also see a situation which has been discussed across the continent, ties with china. you were probably the first african leader to bring the chinese into your country in a major project at the time, the railway linking zambia with a port in tanzania. fast forward, and what do you think of the chinese presence in africa? it is fantastic. today, zambia is building schools, hospitals, clinics. zambia is building roads.

in many different parts of the country. zambia is developing very fast, because of china's assistance. but even the governor of the central bank of nigeria has talked about the trade links with china and africa. he says, they take our resources and sell us back cheap manufactured goods. he says that is the essence of colonialism. he is implying that the chinese are practising a kind of neo—colonialism. does he have a point? no. china is not a colonial power.

it isn't. they are good friends of ours. when you, as the key member of the freedom fighters who brought africa to independence in the 1950s and 60s, look at the continent today, you must be dismayed when you see some of the ethnic tensions that we are seeing even today. the central african republic, tensions between christians, south sudan, nigeria and the activities of boko haram against their own people. that must fill you with dismay, when you see that conflict? don't forget that in berlin, 1884...

yes, the conference. what happened there? you shared up africa. it has taken a long time to gain our independence. it took a long time to get our independence. are you saying that the ethnic tensions we see now in several countries in africa is because of the colonial legacy? of course. all those years later? how can you dodge that? you can't. the impact of that conference in 1884. the carving up of africa.

but you are a committed christian. your father was a man of the church. why do you think today we see african muslims fighting african christians in the central african republic? we see the activities of boko haram in nigeria. this is a new phenomenon. it is terrible, i agree. that we should be fighting, islam and christianity should fight for the good of africa. it is terrible.

what the good lord almighty is telling us, do unto others as you would have done unto you. but you see you preached that message of unity and fraternity as nelson mandela, your close friends did, why is it that the message you preached of unity, fraternity, the message of nelson mandela, is not being received? it pains me to see christians and islam in egypt, in syria, all these places, fighting each other. in the central african republic. why are we doing that? why is it happening? christianity and the islamic

faith should find a way of working together. when you were president kenneth kaunda of zambia, who struck an unusual note. one of your ten children died of hiv/aids. you were still president then. you brought him in his dying days, to state house. a lot of people criticised you, asking why you are washing your dirty linen in public. there was a stigma attached to hiv/aids. this disease, hiv and aids, is a disease like any other. my wife and i... so, our son suffered from a disease and because of

the stigma that is put against that disease, any child dying of it, the parents say it's malaria. we thought it was right that we should fight this stigma. my child, his wife was staying with him. we brought his family to come to state house, to demonstrate to the people of zambia that the stigma on this disease is not right. that is how we began

to fight stigma of aids. as a family, as leaders of the nation. we did that. when my boy died, we announced that he died of aids. you said at the time, my child has died, he was a brilliant boy. he was only 30 but he had four children. you will soon be celebrating your 90th birthday. when you look back on your long life, how do you think you can describe your legacy? i thank god that he guided me to help fight apartheid. to bring about a situation where race was not a problem.

where we agreed to work together as human beings and as god's children. i responded to god's teaching. i would like to be remembered, in that i contributed to that situation. kenneth kaunda, thank you for coming on hardtalk. thank you for coming. hello there. friday is set to be another day

of split weather fortunes, with largely dry and often sunny weather across northern and western areas. further south and east, well, the chance once again of some thunderstorms or at least some torrential downpours of rain. feeding up from the near continent, you can see this weather system herejust fringing into south—eastern areas, whereas this ridge of high pressure is going to be keeping things mainly dry settled across a part of scotland, northern ireland, north—west england, wales, and the far south—west, after a fairly cool, fresh start. there will be some spells of sunshine and just the odd shower. but down toward the south—east, you can see more in the way of cloud and some sporadic outbreaks of rain. now, don't take the detail on this chart too literally, it's often hard to pin down the detail in these thundery scenarios, but there will be some heavy bursts of rain, perhaps as far as the west country, the west midlands, up to parts of lincolnshire and east yorkshire. the greatest chance of seeing thunder and lightning is across parts of east anglia and the far south—east, where you will also notice the strength of a keen, north—easterly breeze.

so while it will still feel humid here, temperatures will be a good few degrees down on where they have been. maybejust 16 there in norwich. 20 in the sunshine in plymouth, that's the expected high. but more generally, we're looking at temperatures in the mid—to—high teens. now, as we head through friday night, we'll see this wet weather clearing off into the north sea. still some cloud affecting eastern areas, clearer spells further west and further north and quite a cool, fresh start to the weekend for most. a little bit fresher than it has been, even across the south—east corner. on saturday, we find ourselves between weather systems, so that means, actually, a decent amount of dry weather. quite a cloudy start for some, i think we should see some spells of sunshine, chance of one or two showers here and there, and more especially, creeping up from the south through the latter part of the afternoon. temperatures not doing too badly in the strong june sunshine, maybe 23 degrees there in liverpool. always a little bit cooler the further north you look across the uk. but for sunday, well, the weather picture is a lot more complex. low pressure swinging in from the west, this frontal system driving its way northwards, what it means that is most places will see some outbreaks of rain

from time to time throughout the day, could be some heavy, thundery downpours creeping in towards the south, and those temperatures ranging from 21 in london, 22 in norwich, tojust 12 degrees in aberdeen.

this is bbc news. i am ben boulos with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. cheering and applause the liberal democrats win an historic by—election in buckinghamshire, taking a parliamentary seat that has always been conservative. there will be people who will try to put you down, who will try to block your way and tell you that you can't. i am here tonight to tell you you can, you must, and you will. the us supreme court rejects the latest republican—led challenge to the law known as 0bamacare — the third time the law has survived a vote. nepal calls for international aid to help with a devastating second wave of coronavirus

as cases rise in rural areas with little access to healthcare.