Zimbabwe 'would be shut down if it was a company'

Zimbabwe would be shut down if it were a private company, the finance minister has declared, days after joking that it only had $217 (£138) in the bank account.

Zimbabwean finance minister Tendai Biti Photo: AFP

Tendai Biti warned executives in Harare on Thursday that Zimbabwe is in a permanent economic crisis. He told a meeting of the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries that it was "unacceptable that Zimbabwe continued to be trapped in a cycle of permanent depression or permanent crisis punctuated by periods of growth".Mr Biti added: "It is not sustainable. If Zimbabwe was a private company it would have closed down."

Earlier this week Mr Biti joked with the media that they had more money in their bank accounts than Zimbabwe, which only had $217 (£138) in the treasury on Tuesday although hours later the balance improved by about $30 million.

Zimbabwe is battling to emerge from a decade-long economic crisis after President Robert Mugabe destroyed the agriculture-based economy by evicting about 4,000 white commercial farmers.

Mr Biti slammed commercial banks, most of them foreign owned, for refusing to back treasury bills issued late last year. "They only offered a pathetic amount," he said.

Mr Biti and others in his Movement for Democratic Change party say fears of "indigenisation" stops much potential new investment.

Mr Mugabe's Zanu PF brought in a law that says all foreign companies must sell 51 per cent of shares to black Zimbabweans. So far most large international mining companies have complied with the law, but no locals have been able to afford to buy the majority shares.

The MDC is in an uncomfortable four-year-old inclusive government with Mr Mugabe's Zanu PF party, which ends when Zimbabweans vote in fresh elections later this year.

South Africa frees first batch of miners

Release follows earlier decision to drop murder charges against 270 workers over deaths of colleagues.

South Africa has released the first of 270 miners detained more than two weeks ago after police shot dead 34 of their colleagues in a bid to break up a wildcat strike at Lonmin's Marikana platinum mine.
"The murder charges against the accused are at this point of time withdrawn," Magistrate Esau Bodigelo said on Monday as he released dozens of miners in the court in Ga-Rankuwa near Pretoria.
"You may stand down," he added as applause broke out in the courtroom.
The men were charged last week under an obscure apartheid-era security law with murdering their fellow miners, despite video of the incident clearly showing it was police who fired on the strikers.
State prosecutors provisionally withdrew the murder charges at the weekend following a public outcry.
The releases are being processed in batches with no bail required but the group will return to court on February 12 next year on charges of public violence and for holding an illegal gathering.
"They [the freed miners] were really joyous when they left the court, a sense of triumph even if it is a very small triumph," Al Jazeera's Tania Page reported from Ga-Rankuwa on Monday.
"It vindicates them that they were allowed free after there was such an outcry against that murder charge laid against them by the National Prosecuting Authority."

Kenya tribal killings stain Tana River

Spate of attacks in eastern region has left 110 dead, raising questions as to who is stoking the fire.

Kilelengwani, Kenya - Men with machetes hacked their way inside the mosque's prayer room where the women and children were hiding as the morning light streamed through a jagged hole in the front door.
Village elder Omar Shure, 57, barricaded himself and dozens of others in the adjacent room of the Masjid al-Noor in eastern Kenya, desperately pushing against it as the attackers tried kicking it down. Outside he heard shouting.
"Just kill them," someone commanded. And then another voice said: "Are you still alive? You're lucky."
By the time the tribal militia was finished, 38 bodies were strewn about the village. Shure managed to keep the assailants at bay. But the others in the prayer room were not so fortunate. Five women and two children lay dead on the floor. A young girl, slashed across the face, was the sole survivor.
"They were screaming, so loudly," Shure recalled. "Even now I hear them in my head."
The militia left after 20 minutes. Shure opened the mosque's door and walked out into his destroyed village. He found his wife's body 50 metres from the entrance.

Deadly church bombings strike north Nigeria

At least 21 killed and dozens wounded in three blasts targeting churches in the cities of Zaria and Kaduna.

Three deadly blasts have hit churches in the northern Nigerian state of Kaduna in the latest attacks targeting Christian worshippers in the region, emergency services and residents say.
Two of the blasts happened in the city of Zaria on Sunday and another struck the city of Kaduna, leaving a total of at least 21 worshippers dead and dozens wounded. Residents said they feared many people had been killed.
Police and the military cordoned off the areas. Kaduna state authorities immediately imposed a 24-hour curfew.

Al Jazeera's Yvonne Ndege, reporting from Abuja, said the bombings had led to incresing sectarian tension in the streets.
"What we're told is that there have been a number of retaliatory attacks. Young Christians have taken to the streets and have been attaking people. There could be a signifacant number of deaths from all this," she said.
Residents said mobs barricaded roads in the towns of Trijania, Gonin Gora and Sabon Tasha, attacking motorists who looked Muslim.

UN 'finalising' peace agreement in DR Congo

Sources tell Al Jazeera that the UN is close to signing a new peace agreement designed to end crisis in eastern DRC.

The United Nations is close to finalising a peace deal in the eastern DR Congo, sources have told Al Jazeera.

Sources said on Friday that a group called "eight plus one", which includes the DR Congo, regional countries and the UN, had committed to the peace plan expected to be signed on Monday.
The plan hopes to end perennial insecurity in the eastern parts of the country.
"We have been told that the agreement is still vague, just two pages long, and does not include the specifics like the disbanding of the M23," Al Jazeera's correspondent James Bays, reporting from Addis Ababa, said.
As part of the agreement, the UN will name a special envoy to the great lakes region, to assist with its implementation, our correspondent said.
The latest development comes as the UN Security Council has approved the use of surveillance drones over eastern Congo to monitor rebel groups in the troubled region.

Opposition, rebels take key posts in new Central African Republic government

(Reuters) - Opposition parties and a rebel coalition took key ministerial posts, including finance and mining, in a new government announced on Sunday as part of a peace deal in the Central African Republic.

President Francois Bozize agreed in mid-January to the formation of a national unity government as part of the deal to end an insurgency which swept to within striking distance of Bangui, capital of the mineral-rich former French colony.
After days of tense negotiations, during which Bozize's supporters insisted he had the right to name key ministers, state radio announced on Sunday that opposition Prime Minister Nicolas Tiangaye would take the crucial finance ministry post in the new 32-member cabinet.
Tiangaye, a lawyer and leader of the opposition Republican Convention for Social Progress, was named premier on January 17 with the backing of the Seleka rebel coalition and asked to form a government tasked with leading the impoverished and strife-torn country to parliamentary elections within a year.

French national killed in Senegal's Casamance region

A French national was among four people killed in an attack in Senegal's Casamance region, south of the Gambia, the Senegalese army has said.

Four people, including a Frenchman, were killed in Senegal’s southern Casamance region when suspected separatist rebels clashed with government soldiers, a military source said on Saturday.
The shoot-out took place late on Friday after suspected members of the Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance (MFDC), which has led a low-level insurgency in the region since the 1980s, robbed a bank in the town of Kafoutine.