China turns back on embattled Mugabe

"...“China in the past provided substantial development assistance but owing to the dramatic currency revaluations and rapid deterioration of economic conditions, the economic outcomes of these projects have not been so good.”

The decision deals a heavy blow to a country where unemployment is 80 per cent, inflation hit 7,600 per cent in July and the value of the Zimbabwean dollar on the black market recently fell to 500,000 to the pound...

With the Olympic Games less than a year away China may not want to be associated with a state leader regarded by many nations as a pariah. China is Zimbabwe’s largest investor and its second-biggest trading partner – after South Africa....