MOZAMBICAN riot police were called in to rescue 30 senior Concor site managers after they were taken hostage by 400 striking construction workers at the R7,5-billion MOZAL aluminum smelter near Maputo city on Tuesday, African Eye News Service reports. The demonstrators held the group of Mozambican and South African managers hostage for seven hours after […]

MOPPING up began in the Eastern Cape on Tuesday after a tornado killed 21 and left 309 injured in Kokstad, Mount Ayliff and Tabankulu on Monday. SABC TV news reports that most of the dead were crushed when the walls of their homes collapsed. Others were hit by flying corrugated iron while fleeing their houses. […]

MOZAMBIQUE registered minus 1,3% inflation in 1998, according to the Bank of Mozambique. Bank spokesman Adelino Pimpao, cited in Tuesday’s issue of the daily paper, Noticias, said the rate was much better than the government had expected, even in December. Prime Minister Pascoal Mocumbi had then told the Mozambican parliament that the government expected 1998 […]

THE Law Commission has released a discussion paper on the need to pass a law on Aids-related offences. The move follows reported incidents of deliberate transmission of HIV, the virus that causes Aids. A number of political parties have called for legislation making willful spread of HIV a criminal offence. The Law Commission was formally […]

THE Central Bank of Nigeria said on Wednesday it hopes to introduce a 100 naira note, worth around $1,2 — which is double the value of the highest denomination note currently in circulation. CBN governor Paul Ogwuma is “hopeful” military ruler General Abdulsalami Abubakar “will approve the proposal before the end of this quarter,” CBN […]

MALAWI’S sole cigarette manufacturing company, British American Tobacco, has halted production, citing a 40% decline in sales volume. Reacting to the closure of the factory, the Consumer Association has blamed the government for pursuing unfettered liberalisation. It argues that it is better to protect the industries which are already in the country and Malawi cannot […]

FLOODING on the Pungue and Buzi rivers in the central Mozambican province of Sofala has continued to worsen, reports Tuesday’s issue of Noticias, the Maputo-published daily. The Pungue river water has covered and inundated a 2-3km stretch of the Beira-Zimbabwe highway, making it unadvisable for anything other than four wheel drive vehicles to attempt to […]

CONTROVERSIAL canned lion hunter and banana farmer Roy Plath accused the Mpumalanga Parks Board on Tuesday of attempting to destroy private sector lion farmers and of waging a vendetta against him. Plath said in a statement that the MPB had interests in private game parks in the region and had laid criminal charges against him […]

President Nelson Mandela on Tuesday unveiled a memorial at the site where former Mozambican president Samora Machel was killed.

CAPTAIN Bennie Lategan, who led the investigation by Western Cape police into the pipe-bomb explosions at the Cape Town Waterfront, was buried on Tuesday in Belville, Cape Town. Lategan was shot 11 times while waiting at a Cape Flats intersection last Thursday. Among those attending the funeral were Western Cape premier Gerald Morkel, MEC for […]