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LUSAKA (AFP) — Zambia’s main opposition Tuesday called for a medical investigation to determine whether President Levy Mwanawasa is capable of ruling the country after suffering a stroke.

Michael Sata, leader of the Patriotic Front, said there was an urgent need to establish the condition of Mwanawasa, who is in intensive care in France since suffering a stroke over two weeks ago.

“The doctors should examine him and inform the nation the correct position over his sickness,” Sata said in a radio address.

He said Vice-President Rupiah Banda should immediately convene a special meeting of cabinet and appoint a medical team to travel to France to examine Mwanawasa, following reports that he is in a critical condition.

“The nation wants to know the truth. Nobody believes the statements being given by government,” Sata said.

But Banda told state radio that Zambians should not panic because the updates that he has been giving on the condition of the president were correct.

“He is sick but in a stable condition,” Banda said.

Prominent Zambian medical expert, Francis Manda, also questioned the updates given by government saying they lacked detail as Mwanawasa could be in a “stable condition but critical”.

“We want to know what sort of stroke he suffered. It is not good enough to say he had a stroke,” Manda said.

Mwanawasa suffered a stroke while attending an African Union meeting in Egypt two weeks ago and was evacuated to France where he was admitted to the Percy Military Hospital outside Paris.

Copyright © 2008 AFP. All rights reserved.

Please keep the first family in your thoughts and prayers; they need them more than any insinuations and innuendos right now. Honoring and praying for those who are ill is the most honorable Zambian thing to do … 

Get well soon, Mr. President; can’t wait to fly you back home so you can continue kicking some butt, you got a lot of work cut out for you.

Live Long & Prosper; Long Live Levism … thanks a trillion. 

Brainwave R Mumba, Sr.  

CEO  & President – Zambian Chronicle

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LUSAKA (Reuters) - Zambia’s Konkola Copper Mines (KCM) said on Monday it had resumed full production in its Nkana business unit after shutting down some operations as a precaution following a labour protest.

In a statement a KCM spokesman said the unit’s operations, located about 350 km (219 miles) north of Lusaka, have now resumed and production is normal. The spokesman added that 12 workers had been fired as a result of the protest on Monday.

KCM, majority-owned by London-listed Vedanta Resources Plc, did not say what impact the one-day shutdown had on production.

It forecast on Monday that it would raise cathode copper output to 250,000 tonnes in the 2008/2009 fiscal year from 150,000 tonnes the previous year.

The labour protest was prompted by reports that union representatives had agreed to a deal that fell short of workers’ wage demands.

Union officials are continuing to brief members on the details of a new collective bargaining agreement that was negotiated last week.

© Reuters 2008. All Rights Reserved.

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By Shapi Shacinda

LUSAKA, July 14 (Reuters) - Zambia’s Konkola Copper Mines (KCM) will raise copper cathode output to 250,000 tonnes in 2008/09 from 150,000 tonnes last year and started commissioning a major smelter, a senior company official said on Monday. 

Sam Equamo, KCM’s communications advisor, said the southern African country’s largest copper producer had also completed some shafts at the Konkola Deep Mining Project (KDMP), which is touted to become the country’s largest copper producer. 

Output would peak at 500,000 tonnes by 2010, he added. 

KCM, which is majority-owned by London-listed Vedanta Resources Plc (VED.L: Quote, Profile, Research), operates the Nchanga open pit mine, Konkola copper mine, Nkana Smelter, Nampundwe pyrite mine and a satellite unit known as Fitwaola mine, which reopened in June after it was shut down last year. 

Equamo said construction works as the Nchanga Smelter was at an advanced stage, with some parts such as the Oxygen Plant and Acid Plant, already commissioned. 

The Nchanga smelter will have an annual processing capacity of 300,000 tonnes copper cathode. 

“It is expected that commissioning of the entire plant will start in a month or two with full operations starting later, depending on the smoothness of the commissioning stage,” said. 

The total amount to be spent on the smelter project is $372 million, he added. 

Equamo said the KDMP, where the company has previously said it would spend at least $1 billion on development, had made tremendous progress. 

“The sinking of number 4 Shaft is at around 450 metres while the headgear is at 60 metres of the ultimate height of 81 metres,” Equamo said. 

He said operations at Fitwaola Open Pit resumed last month and with the expected arrival of new equipment production should pick up. 

Equamo said KCM’s future looked bright due to major upgrades and expansion projects currently underway. 

“With the projects that we are undertaking, KCM is poised to produce around 500, 000 tonnes of copper per annum by 2010,” Equamo said. 

Copper mining is Zambia’s economic mainstay and the vast copper and cobalt mines are a major employer in this southern African country of 12 million people. 

Zambia’s other major copper producers are Mopani Copper Mines, a unit of Swiss firm Glencore International AG and Canada’s First Quantum minerals, Kansanshi mine, which is owned by First Quantum and Lumwana mine, a unit of Australia’s Equinox Minerals Ltd. (Reporting by Shapi Shacinda, Editing by Peter Blackburn)

Meanwhile … Konkola Copper shuts plant after protest continue reading below.

LUSAKA, July 14 (Reuters) - Zambia’s Konkola Copper Mines (KCM) said on Monday it had shut down a plant in its Nkana business unit as a precaution after a protest by some of its workers. 

KCM, which is majority-owned by London-listed Vedanta Resources Plc (VED.L: Quote, Profile, Research), did not say what impact the shutdown would have on production or when the plant, located about 350 km (219 miles) north of Lusaka, would be back in operation. 

“A small section of workers at the Nkana Business Unit of Konkola Copper Mines Plc. today staged an illegal assembly in connection with the just concluded negotiations for a new collective agreement between the two unions that represent mine workers and KCM management,” a KCM spokesman said in a statement. 

“The plant was shut down as a precaution.” 

Zambian state media said the workers were upset by reports that their representatives had agreed to a deal that fell short of their basic wage demands. 

There was no immediate comment from the leaders of the Mineworkers Union of Zambia (MUZ) and the National Union of Miners and Allied Workers (NUMAW), which represent workers at KCM. (Reporting By Shapi Shacinda; editing by Paul Simao and Peter Blackburn) (Lusaka newsroom + 260-977843609/260-955779523) 

© Thomson Reuters 2008 All rights reserved.

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By Janice Kew

July 15 (Bloomberg) — Celtel Zambia Plc, the Zambian phone company that started trading last month, was rated “overweight” in new coverage at Morgan Stanley, which said it and MTN Group Ltd. are “top mobile picks in still-booming Africa.”

“Celtel Zambia is attractively valued,” analysts including Sean Gardiner wrote in a note to clients today. Celtel Zambia has a “dominant 84 percent market share” in the country, according to the note.

Mobile-phone use in sub-Saharan Africa will rise to 42 percent of the population by 2012 from 19 percent last year, Morgan Stanley said. Operators increasingly are targeting rural areas where payback periods are short and demand is high. New services such as mobile banking are also making owning a mobile phone “even more essential,” the analysts wrote.

Celtel Zambia, the southern African nation’s biggest mobile- phone company and a unit of Kuwait-based Zain, raised 665.6 billion kwacha ($205 million) in the country’s biggest initial public offering and attracted applications for more than twice the number of shares offered.

MTN, Africa’s largest wireless carrier, was upgraded to “overweight” from “equal-weight”, meaning investors’ funds should hold more of the stock than the weighting in benchmarks. MTN “is a great play on mobile growth in sub-Saharan Africa,” the analysts wrote.

MTN on July 9 agreed to extend exclusive merger talks with India’s Reliance Communications Ltd. for two weeks in a bid to reach an agreement. This could “help resolve the disputes over right of first refusal claims by Reliance Industries,” according to the note. Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd. in June said it may block any deal which doesn’t give it a first chance to buy a stake in Reliance Communications.

“Even if talks collapse, we do not think there is any positive expectation for a tie-up reflected in the current share price,” the analysts wrote.

Morgan Stanley also initiated coverage of Safaricom Ltd., east Africa’s biggest mobile-phone company, rating it “equal- weight.” The firm cut Orascom Telecom Holding SAE, the biggest mobile-phone company in the Middle East and North Africa, to “equal-weight” from “overweight.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Janice Kew in Johannesburg at jkew1@bloomberg.net.