News

In 2005, the Mozambican police force lost 620 of its members to AIDS, declared Interior Minister Jose Pacheco on Thursday.

A former manager of the Bank of Mozambique, Adelino Pimpao, has been detained, accused of the theft of 50,000 US dollars in 2004, according to a report in Friday's issue of the independent weekly "Savana".

By the end of September, the Mozambican government had built or repaired 744 water sources (wells or boreholes) out of the 1,330 planned for this year, according to the Minister of Public Works Felicio Zacarias.

Mozambique's first lady, Maria da Luz Guebuza, on Wednesday delivered 50 head of cattle to peasant farmers in Macossa district, in the central province of Manica.

The authorities in Pemba, capital of the northern Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado, have seized large quantities of products that were still on sale in some shops although they were past their expiry date, reports Wednesday's issue of the Maputo daily "Noticias".

The Finnish-based mobile phone company Nokia on Tuesday announced the opening of an office in Maputo, to service the entire southern African region, except South Africa itself.

An earthquake measuring 5.1 on the Richter scale struck the Machaze region, in the central Mozambican province of Manica, on Monday night.

The Mozambican government is organizing as from this Monday an international conference on rural roads to learn from the experience of other countries on the best and least expensive techniques for rehabilitating and maintaining such roads.

The Mozambican Ministry of Energy has raised the prices of petrol, LPG domestic gas, and fuel oil, but reduced those of diesel and jet fuel.

The Chinese government is to finance the construction of a national stadium for Mozambique with the capacity to hold 42,000 spectators, the Minister of Youth and Sport, David Simango, announced on Saturday.

Most beneficiaries from the Mozambican government's Economic Recovery Support Fund (FARE) in the central province of Manica are not repaying their loans, according to a report in the Beira daily paper "Diario de Mocambique".

The Mozambican Human Rights League (LDH) has called for an urgent "integrated and multi-sector methodology" to eradicate or diminish the problems affecting the country's prisons.

Armed thieves broke into the offices of the Alfa Seguranca private security company in Pemba, capital of the northern Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado on Sunday, stealing at least eight million meticais (about 320,000 US dollars), reports Tuesday's issue of the Maputo daily "Noticias".

Former Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano on Friday made an impassioned call on members of the ruling Frelimo Party to take HIV tests and thus know their HIV status.

Mozambican Labour Minister Helena Taipo on Wednesday insisted that she is determined to ensure that the labour inspectorate does its job properly.

Mozambican President Armando Guebuza inaugurated on Tuesday the Maputo Municipal Cultural Centre, called "N'tsindza", which he described as a place for dialogue between generations.

Expert witnesses, on the second day of the trial, in the southern Mozambican city of Inhamnbane, of four policemen accused of drug trafficking, have denied the defendants' claims that large quantities of hashish could have been removed from a police warehouse by persons unknown who broke in through a window.

A new report published Sunday by the United Nations warns that costal cities in Africa face being inundated by the sea as climate change melts the polar icecaps, and it names Maputo as one of the cities most at threat.

The Maputo municipal authorities have decided to introduce a new rubbish collection fee as from January next year, based on the principle that those who use more electricity will pay more to have their rubbish collected.

"We need lots of Noras, hundreds of thousands of Noras - that's what's missing in Mozambique", declared the country's former First Lady, Graca Machel, in Maputo on Monday.