Feb 25 (Reuters) - A two-week-old general strike in Guinea will be lifted on Monday or Tuesday after President Lansana Conte agreed to choose a new prime minister from a list proposed by opponents, a union negotiator said on Sunday.
Following are some key facts about Guinea:
GEOGRAPHY: Area is 245,720 sq km (94,870 sq mile). The former French colony lies on West Africa's Atlantic coast in a region shaken by wars and uprisings for more than a decade. It shares borders with Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Guinea-Bissau and Mali.
LANGUAGE: The official language is French but Malinke and Sussu are also widely spoken.
POPULATION: Nearly 10 million people live in a country just slightly bigger than Britain, stretching from coastal mangrove swamps to savannah and forested mountain highlands.
RELIGION: About 65 percent of the population is Muslim. There is a small Christian minority and the remainder embrace traditional African animist beliefs.
ECONOMY: Martial law and the nationwide general strike have floored Guinea's fragile franc currency, sending prices soaring.
-- With inflation already at more than 30 percent, the slumping currency has pushed up prices even further, hurting the majority of the population people who live on less a $1 a day.
-- Officials are also concerned the strike could create a major shortfall in the $500 million national budget -- roughly a quarter of which comes from bauxite mining.
-- Controlled by U.S. aluminium giant Alcoa and Canada's Alcan, the national bauxite firm Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinee (CBG) generates four-fifths of the government revenues from the mining sector, or around $97 million.
-- Guinea was recently named by watchdog Transparency International as the most corrupt country in Africa -- where for most people daily acts of corruption are a way of life. International lenders are demanding the country clean up its finances before they restart loan programmes.
GOVERNMENT: In 2001, a constitutional referendum ensured Conte would extend his rule for life. The opposition called the referendum a "constitutional coup d'etat". Two years later, victory in polls cleared the way for him to rule until 2010.
