A deepening chasm threatens to collapse Zambia's copper boom

Zambia's copper mines were on course to deliver an impressive 500,000 tonnes of metal this year, marking the best production performance since the Copperbelt heydays of the late 1960s. But the national copper industry is being rocked by fatal mine accidents, violent strikes, a threatened royalty tax increase and an unwelcome slowdown in output. The copper boom of the past three years has given way to a bitter dose of setbacks, marked by the death of more than 50 workers in an April explosion at the Chambishi Mine operated by Chinese NFC Mining Africa Plc and a lift accident at Mopani Copper Mines Plc (MCM) that killed six workers.