Lusaka  - Zambia has selected a Singapore-based company, Nava Bharat (Singapore), from ten firms vying for a stake in the country's biggest coal mine, it was announced Wednesday.

The semi-state owned Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines-Investment Holdings (ZCCM-IH) - which owns the Maamba mine - said Nava Bharat, a wholly-owned subsidiary of India-based Nava Bharat Ventures, had been chosen from a total of ten local and foreign firms as its strategic equity and technical partner.

India's Vedanta Resources PLC and London-based energy company Aldwych International were among the unsuccessful bidders.

ZCCM-IH did not stipulate how big Nava Bharat's stake in the mine would be, nor put a value on it.

Lusaka - Zambia's Luanshya Copper Mines (LCM) wound up operations Wednesday, citing the sharp drop in copper prices on the international market due to the global recession.

Company spokesperson Sydney Chileya told private radio that LCM would finish paying off its 1,740 workers Wednesday and ruled out any possibility of reopening the mine.

Last month, LCM, a joint venture between Swiss-based International Mineral Resources and Bein Stein Group Resources of Israel, already shut down one of its copper mines at Baluba and its Chambishi cobalt smelter, the country's largest.

Lusaka- Copper-rich Zambia will fall far short of its target of raising half a billion dollars in mine taxes this year because of the significant drop in international copper prices caused by the global economic downturn, it emerged Wednesday.

Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA) commissioner Chriticles Mwansa told reporters that the commission had only managed to collect 293.1 billion kwacha (about 63 million dollars) so far this year, far short of its 415-million-dollar target.

Lusaka- Zambia's newly-elected President Rupiah Banda on Friday fired finance minister N'gandu Magande, who ran against him for the presidential nomination of the ruling Movement for Multi-Party Democracy.

Announcing his cabinet, Banda said Situmbeko Musokotwane, a former treasury secretary in the finance ministry and former advisor to deceased ex-president Levy Mwanawasa, would take Magande's place.

Lusaka- Hundreds of protesters took to the streets in Zambia's north-central Copperbelt region Thursday to demand the release of a local radio journalist who was arrested Wednesday for alleged incitement in a post-election programme.

The protesters, who chanted anti-government slogans, brought business in the town of Kitwe to a standstill, privately-owned Radio Phoenix reported.

No injuries were reported in the demonstration that passed off with only minor rioting.

Lusaka, Zambia - The Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) Thursday suspended the verification of votes cast in last week's disputed presidential election after supporters of new President Rupiah Banda and opposition leader Michael Sata traded punches.

State radio reported that a number of election workers got caught in the middle when fists started to fly at the hall where the verification was taking place.