Bank of England aid package has 'no limit'

[TriWooOx]

The Bank of England has announced an unprecedented cash injection for banks in an effort to revive the declining housing market - but warned that taxpayers could be hit with a bill higher than the initial

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Barclays' millions help to prop up Mugabe regime

Three British firms provide key finance, allowing the Zimbabwe leader to defy world condemnation

Antony Barnett and Christopher Thompson
Sunday January 28, 2007
The Observer

Barclays bank is helping to bankroll President Robert Mugabe's regime in Zimbabwe, providing millions of pounds of support for his vilified land reforms, The Observer can reveal. Mugabe's opponents describe the bank's activities as a 'disgrace' and an 'insult' to the millions who have suffered human rights abuses.

Barclays is the most high-profile of three British-based financial institutions, which, in total, have provided more than $1bn in direct and indirect funding to Mugabe's administration. The other two companies are Standard Chartered Bank and the insurance firm Old Mutual. According to influential newsletter Africa Confidential, that first disclosed the Barclays' loans, the British organisations provide an economic lifeline keeping Mugabe's regime afloat.

A spokesman for Zimbabwe's main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, likened the bank's actions to its support of South Africa's apartheid regime and urged a boycott.

One of the most controversial of Barclays' Zimbabwe loans is the