Dépassés par l’enthousiasme du pays hôte, les hommes d’Hervé Renard, qu’on a connu plus alertes, ont tout simplement bafouillé leur football. Heureusement pour eux, la Libye n’a pas réussi à battre le Sénégal. La Guinée équatoriale et la Zambie sont donc qualifiés, la Libye et le Sénégal sont éliminés. Mauvaise nouvelle cependant pour les locaux, ils vont sans doute devoir se farcir la Côte d’Ivoire lors du prochain match.

“I met the two parties yesterday and we are having another meeting this morning. I am very confident that this problem will be resolved,” Labour Minister Fackson Shamenda told Reuters.

Workers at the Kansanshi mine, Zambia’s largest copper mine which produced 231,000 tonnes of the red metal in 2010, downed tools on Tuesday demanding 100 percent pay rises and bringing production to a halt.

Reuters.

Mulenga suffered a knee injury in action for FC Utrecht in October but Zambia were hopeful he would return after surgery in time for the tournament in Equatorial Guinea and Gabon, which starts on January 21.

However, coach Herve Renard has confirmed Mulenga’s recovery would take longer than expected and that he would miss the Nations Cup for a second successive time.

Striker Jonas Sakuwaha had been recalled to the squad, which will be cut to 23 from 28 on January 10, officials said.

Zambia began preparations in Johannesburg on Wednesday and play a warm-up against South Africa in Pretoria on January 11.

At the Nations Cup, Zambia compete in Group A along with co-hosts Equatorial Guinea, Libya and Senegal.

Reuters.

Investors have been rattled by the doubling of royalties on copper to 6 percent in the November budget unveiled by Finance Minister Alexander Chikwanda.

The move is part of a wave of resource nationalism sweeping Africa as governments in the world’s poorest continent aim to extract more revenue from the mining industry.

Treasury sources have said the Zambian government opted to hike the revenue-based mineral royalties as a way of collecting more revenue from the mines because it was difficult to implement a profit-based system.

“Some parties have expressed concern as to whether the mining companies are honest enough in their voluntary declarations,” the chamber of mines said in a statement.

“For this reason mining companies strongly recommend that government appoints independent international auditors to carry out compliance audits,” the chamber said.

The previous government had been carrying out audits on the industry to ensure taxes were being properly paid.

Copper accounts for three-quarters of Zambia’s export earnings, but the mining industry contributes only about 10 percent of tax revenue.

Mines Minister Wylbur Simuusa told Reuters in London last week that the new royalties could be rolled back if copper prices collapsed.

Copper producers operating in the country include Canada’s First Quantum Minerals, London-listed Vedanta Resources and Glencore International AG.

Reuters.

In a report likely to pile more pressure on Chinese firms to clean up their labour practices, the New York-based body urged newly elected president Michael Sata to follow through on campaign promises to stamp out abuse of workers in the sector.

The 122-page study detailed persistent abuses in Chinese-run mines, including poor health and safety conditions, and regular 12-hour and even 18-hour shifts involving arduous labour — all in violation of Zambian law.

Furthermore, HRW said mine bosses routinely threatened to fire workers who refused to work in dangerous locations underground or tried to report their grievances to mining regulators.

The four Chinese-run copper mining companies in Zambia are subsidiaries of China Non-Ferrous Metals Mining Corporation (CNMC), a state-owned enterprise.

CNMC in Zambia did not respond to requests for comment.

Copper mining is the lifeblood of the landlocked southern African nation’s economy, contributing nearly three-quarters of its foreign exchange earnings, while China is the biggest investor, having sunk more than $2 billion into the sector.

“China’s significant investment in Zambia’s copper mining industry can benefit both Chinese and Zambians,” said Daniel Bekele, HRW’s Africa director.

“But the miners in Chinese-run companies have been subject to abusive health, safety, and labour conditions and long-time government indifference.”

Opposition leader Sata came to power in September on the back of a populist election platform that included virulent criticism of Chinese mining investment.

Since taking office, he has toned down his rhetoric and stressed the need for foreign investment, but has made clear that all companies must observe labour laws.

After his victory, analysts said Sata was unlikely to make drastic changes for fear of derailing an industry goal of doubling annual copper output to 1.5 million tonnes by 2016 — an increase that will also yield fruits to Zambia’s treasury.

Other mining firms in Zambia include Canada’s First Quantum Minerals and Barrick Gold, London-listed commodity giant Glencore and Vedanta Resources, South Africa’s Metorex.

HRW said its research was based on three field visits between November 2010 and July 2011 and drew on more than 170 interviews with workers from both Chinese and other companies.

Eleven workers were shot and injured during a pay dispute at a Chinese-run mine last year. Five others were hurt during a similar confrontation at a different mine in 2005.

in Reuters.

Sata did not give details about what he wanted to change although much of his September election victory was built on a platform of re-balancing the economy in favour of local investors rather than foreigners.

He said the government would appoint a committee to come up with a new nationally acceptable constitution for Zambia within 90 days.

Foreign investors, especially in the key mining sector, have been nervous about what policies Sata would introduce but he said any changes would be preceded by consultations.

At the opening of parliament on Friday, Sata criticised the policies of the previous government for stifling local enterprise.

“This has been largely due to lopsided policies of the previous government, which tended to favour foreigners at the expense of local investors,” he said, adding he would encourage joint ventures between foreigners and locals.

“While Zambia will continue to welcome foreign direct investment, it must be understood that the most sustainable and lasting investment must come from Zambian people,” he said.

Sata won the presidency largely supported by the youth and said he owed young people jobs and would introduce programmes that empowered them.

Part of his plan is to lower interest rates at commercial banks, although he did not give a time-frame.

Currently, Zambia does not use a key lending rate as a monetary policy tool but has been talking about introducing it since 2009.

in Reuters.

“I’ve consulted with the Electoral Commission of Zambia and I am informed that most of the logistics for holding the elections are now in place,” Banda said in a speech broadcast on state media.

Banda’s Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) is expected to win the election on the back of the southern African country’s strong economic growth and the recent collapse of an alliance between the two main opposition parties.

Patriotic Front leader Michael Sata, a gruff populist who has been fiercely critical of Asian investment in the mining sector, gave Banda a close run in Zambia’s last two elections in 2008 and 2006.

Analysts had predicted a serious challenge to Banda from an alliance between Sata and the United Party for National Development, led by Hakainde Hichilema, although the union unravelled earlier this year.

Zambian elections since independence from Britain in 1964 have tended to pass peacefully and the central bank says this year’s race may even boost growth through increased demand for goods and services during the campaigning.

However, violence-free elections are not guaranteed.

Dozens of people were injured in April 2010 during clashes between rival parliamentary by-election supporters, and Sata’s narrow 2008 loss prompted accusations of MMD electoral fraud.

The opposition and some civil society groups have also expressed distrust in the election commission and its vote counting, although their requests to have a parallel tally overseen by independent groups have gone nowhere.

Reuters.

The cause of death was not immediately clear. Chiluba suffered from a chronic heart problem and had been hospitalised in the past.

A former trade unionist, Chiluba led the copper-rich country for just over a decade after ousting liberation hero Kenneth Kaunda in multi-party elections in 1991.

Hailed as a democrat for helping dismantle Kaunda’s socialist single-party rule of 27 years, Chiluba was later charged with stealing nearly $500,000 of public funds.

He was acquitted of all charges in 2009, while two business executives accused with him were found guilty and sentenced to three years in prison.

Foreign governments, including the United States, questioned Zambia’s commitment to fighting graft after the ruling.

In 2007 a British judge ordered Chiluba to repay $58 million to compensate for money he was accused of stealing during his decade in office.

That ruling, hailed as a turning point in Africa’s fight against corruption, was made in London, where Zambian officials filed a civil case to try and recover assets owned by Chiluba and his friends in Britain and other European countries.

A Zambian court later decided that local laws did not allow the enforcement of overseas rulings.

A popular figure in Zambia, Chiluba remained a close ally of the current president, Rupiah Banda. Chiluba had maintained the charges against him stemmed from a political witch hunt.

Reuters.

Michael Sata, who will be running against President Rupiah Banda in polls later this year, told Reuters he did not believe the export copper data released by the country’s central bank.

Sata, the president of the Patriotic Front party who narrowly lost a disputed 2008 poll, said as taxes were not collected, copper exports were not being properly accounted for.

“If you don’t tax anything, where do you get your statistics from? If you don’t tax them, you don’t have any interest in where they are sending their copper,” he told Reuters in an interview in his modest and cramped office in downtown Lusaka.

He said the export and production data released by the mines themselves were “for public relations, not for tax revenue”.

Zambia is Africa’s top copper producer but while the commodity accounts for 70 percent of its export earnings it only provides about one percent or so of its tax revenue.

Zambia’s mine taxes include a 15 percent profit variable tax, 25 percent corporate tax and a 3 percent mineral royalty. But NGOs and other campaigners have said miners have used creative accounting or inflated their costs to pay less.

Sata was short on specifics on how he would remedy the situation but said he would root out graft and make the companies “transparent and answerable to the government”.

He said he would boost the country’s thin revenue base by getting miners to pay what they owe under existing rules and accurately recording exports rather than raising taxes.

He made a policy u-turn last year on the revenue issue, saying he no longer supported higher mine taxes

HOT ISSUE, WORKING-CLASS APPEAL

But getting mines to pay what they owe is a different issue and is currently a hot one that could appeal to the Patriotic Front’s urban base on the country’s Copperbelt.

Zambia has asked commodity trader Glencore’s Mopani Copper Mines for unpaid taxes after an audit of the subsidiary, leaked earlier this year, said it had underpaid mining dues, the country’s finance minister said.

President Banda told Reuters earlier this year an audit of three mines should enable the government to recover more than $200 million in unpaid dues

Sata has also in the past accused Chinese companies, which are hungry for Zambia’s resources, of being exploitative and creating “slave conditions”.

China-bashing appeals to Sata’s urban working-class base but he said a non-corrupt government would make the Chinese “behave” and their investments would be welcome.

“It is the corruption which leads the Chinese to behave with impunity. If there was no corruption the Chinese would respect our laws, would respect our people, would respect our country.”

Reuters.

Zambia’s main supplier of power to the mines, Copperbelt Energy Corp. (CEC) and state-owned Zesco Ltd. said in a joint statement the price hike would be backdated to take effect from January 2011.

Reuters.