News

Flames towered into the sky above the bay of Maputo on Friday night, and loud explosions could be heard across the city, awakening memories of the carnage on 22 March, when a military arsenal exploded, scattering death and destruction across the Mozambican capital.

The Mozambican government is committed to reducing the waiting time for medical consultations at the country's health units, declared Health Minister Ivo Garrido on Thursday.

First National Bank, one of the largest South African financial groups, has taken an 80 per cent stake in one of Mozambique's smallest commercial banks, the Development and Commercial Bank (BDC), which will now be renamed FNB-Mocambique.

Mozambique's Environment minister, Luciano de Castro, on Wednesday suggested that the natural disasters that have struck Mozambique in recent years are in fact not entirely natural, but are linked to man-made climate change.

The World Bank, in partnership with Mozambican institutions, launched in Maputo on Monday the "Innovation Fair 2007" open to Mozambican and foreign individuals and organizations.

Mozambican President Armando Guebuza inaugurated the eighth edition of the National Festival of School Games in the central city of Quelimane, on Saturday, declaring that the event celebrates national unity and is a unique opportunity for the demonstration of physical aptitude, knowledge and talent by young Mozambicans.

The Mozambican government on Friday formally pledged to host the 43rd Annual Meeting of the African Development Bank (ADB) in May 2008.

Mozambican President Armando Guebuza on Friday inaugurated a new water supply system for the city of Quelimane, capital of the central province of Zambezia, which cost over 320 million meticais (about 13 million US dollars).

The World Bank's Board of Directors on Wednesday approved two loans to fund the building of new transmission lines between Mozambique and neighbouring Malawi.

Cane cutters at the Mafambisse sugar plantation in the central Mozambican province of Sofala went back to work on Wednesday after a two day strike, but other seasonal plantation workers are continuing their industrial action.

Mozambique needs to invest around 300 million US dollars a year in urban infrastructure up until 2020 in order to improve what are politely described as the "non-urbanised" parts of the cities, and to prevent other slums and shanty towns from springing up.

Mozambique will still need to hire foreign medical specialists until 2017 - only then will the country's internal medical training capacity allow it to dispense with the need to recruit doctors from abroad, according to Health Minister Ivo Garrido.

The Mozambican government and the United States Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) on Friday signed an agreement under which the MCC will make a total of 506.9 million dollars available to Mozambique over the next five years.

The Mozambican government has given a deadline of two months for consultants from the American company Ecoenergy to deliver their proposal for a biofuels strategy and policy for Mozambique.

The Italian government has pledged 11.4 million Euros (about 16 million US dollars) for direct support to the Mozambican state budget for the next three years.

The Mozambican government is studying ways to reduce the tax on diesel used by vessels fishing for prawns.

The Mozambican Ministry of the Environment plans to eliminate in the coming months 334 tonnes of obsolete pesticides, collected from all over the country in the third phase of the project to remove these dangerous chemicals.

The Mozambican government signed with the World Bank on Monday an agreement for funding of 100 million US dollars for the second phase of the country's road and bridge management and maintenance programme to run between 2007 and 2011.

A higher school of rural development, offering university degrees, will begin operating next year in the southern Mozambican province of Inhambane, under a memorandum of understanding signed in Maputo on Tuesday between the country's oldest university, the Eduardo Mondlane University (UEM), and the Sichuan Agricultural University of China.

"There is another war on now, the war against AIDS, and we have agreed to fight this war very vigorously". declared Andrea Riccardi, one of the founders of the Italian non-governmental organisation, the Sant'Egidio Community, in Maputo on Monday.