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/ 30 November 2004
Afonso Dhlakama, a former rebel leader turned opposition leader who is contesting the Mozambican presidency in polls on Wednesday and Thursday, swears that his bloody past is well and truly behind him. ”I love peace, African music, my family and my country,” he once said. ”I do not like to speak about war because war is not good for Africa.”
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/ 25 November 2004
Fewer than 10 people have died and 50 injured in pre-election violence in Mozambique, according to an election official who said on Thursday that the toll showed a ”more peaceful” climate than in previous elections. Voters in Mozambique will go to the polls on December 1 and 2 to choose a successor to President Joaquim Chissano, who is stepping down after 18 years in power.
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/ 23 November 2004
Former United States president Jimmy Carter will lead a delegation of foreign observers monitoring elections next week in Mozambique that will mark the end of President Joaquim Chissano’s 18-year rule, officials said on Tuesday.
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/ 19 November 2004
Teodósio Alexandre (21) spends his days knee-deep in garbage. Picking through rubbish at the dump in the Maputo township of Hurlene, he makes 30 000 metacais (about R10) on a good day, selling scrap metal. He believes that Mozambique’s governing party, in power for 29 years, has done nothing for him. But he will vote for it anyway. ”Whether I vote for Frelimo or Renamo, it will be the same.”
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/ 16 November 2004
The Mozambican Parliament on Tuesday unanimously adopted a new Constitution for the first time since the advent of multiparty politics in the Southern African nation. The new Constitution adopted on Tuesday will come into force after elections on December 1 and 2 to elect a successor to President Joaquim Chissano.
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/ 12 October 2004
Mozambique’s National Elections Commission has announced it will not give observers access to all stages of the vote counting in December’s presidential and parliamentary elections. The decision has prompted an angry objection from the European Union, which plans to send one of the largest observer missions to the election.
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/ 12 October 2004
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe wrapped up a three-day state visit to Mozambique on Wednesday by playing down the economic and social turmoil in his country. Mugabe told journalists the meeting with Mozambique President Joaquim Chissano was very fruitful and the two had discussed the state of his own country.
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/ 14 September 2004
Mozambique and South Africa have decided to abolish visas for their citizens visiting each other’s countries, a senior Mozambican official said on Tuesday. A joint technical team is finalising arrangements so that the new system can come into force soon, even in as little as a month, deputy minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation Francis Rodrigues said on Mozambican television.
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/ 1 September 2004
When her husband died two months ago, Albertina Come did not only lose him. She also lost their house and belongings acquired through hard work over ten years of marriage. Come’s husband is among some 97Â 000 Mozambicans who health authorities say will die of HIV/Aids this year alone. And Come’s situation is not unique.
Thousands of cattle in Mozambique’s central Sofala province have been hit by an outbreak of bovine tuberculosis which can also affect humans if they eat contaminated meat, a provincial governor said on Thursday. ”The disease is a serious threat to the economy of the province and to human life as people have generally defied appeals not to eat any meat before being tested by the veterinary experts,” said provincial governor Felicio Zacarias.
Mozambique’s national police chief on Wednesday called on armed members of a former rebel movement to surrender their weapons following a gun battle in Sofala province last week that left one policeman dead. ”It’s about time the Renamo men give up their weapons and join the police as the [1992] peace accord envisaged,” he said.
A ,2-billion natural-gas project led by South Africa’s petrochemical giant Sasol in neighbouring Mozambique has fuelled hopes for the economic recovery of the country’s once-vibrant southern hub. With the Matola gas project, Mozambique also hopes to cut its annual fuel imports by about -million.
Police in northern Mozambique have enlisted the help of local hunters to kill lions and other wild animals following a recent spate of attacks on locals, a spokesperson said on Wednesday. ”The populations of these areas have lived in an atmosphere of fear because of the high presence of wild animals out of control,” police said.
The Aids pandemic has taken a particularly heavy toll on Southern African countries — not least Mozambique. According to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/Aids latest statistics indicate that about 13% of the country’s 19-million-strong population is infected with HIV.
Vodacom Mozambique, a subsidiary of South African mobile services provider Vodacom, last week reached the 100 000 customer milestone after commencing commercial operations in one of Africa’s most promising economies in December last year.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Thursday said he would not allow ”former imperialists” to monitor parliamentary elections in his country next year, a declaration which drew a sympathetic response from a summit of 79 poor and developing countries.
Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano, who is retiring at the end of the year, says he is leaving the country in safe hands, praising his chosen successor Armando Guebuza as a leader who will build on his legacy. ”We have taken all the precautions and studied the succession issue carefully,” said Chissano.
At an average of 2,5% of gross domestic product, levels of foreign direct investment (FDI) flows into Africa are not as low as generally believed, especially relative to Africa’s market size compared with the rest of the world, according to the World Bank’s Alan Gelb. But South Africa in particular has recently recorded FDI flows that are well below their potential.
Nigeria plans to launch software that would help catch people who send scam letters via e-mail, known as the 419 advance fee fraud, a meeting on the sidelines of Africa’s World Economic Forum has heard. The new technology, which would identify key words used in the e-mails, is likely to be made available to internet service providers and government departments.
South Africa on Thursday called for a tough stance on corruption, a key barrier to economic growth in Africa, proposing a name-and-shame campaign against big companies involved in the practice. ”Clearly, corruption is a very big issue,” South Africa’s Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel said at the World Economic Forum for Africa.
African governments will work with big business to launch projects that will shore up the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) continental economic rescue plan, Mozambique’s President Joaquim Chissano said on Tuesday at the opening of a three-day World Economic Forum for Africa conference.
Botswana ranks as Africa’s top competitive economy, ahead of other powerhouses such as South Africa and Nigeria, according to a survey by the World Economic Forum released on Wednesday at the opening of a three-day conference on business in Africa in the Mozambican capital of Maputo.
The World Economic Forum conference on Africa was due to open on Wednesday in Mozambique to work out how a homegrown economic rescue plan could turn the world’s poorest continent into a global player. A focal point is the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad), an amibtious plan to pull the continent out of poverty by encouraging investment and embracing good governance and financial transparency.
Police in Mozambique helped the convicted murderer of an investigative journalist escape from jail earlier this month, the attorney general said on Thursday. Anibal Antonio dos Santos (33) better known as Anibalzinho, broke out of Maputo’s maximum security prison on May 10 while serving a 28-year sentence for organising the murder of journalist Carlos Cardoso in November 2000.
Three Mozambican police officers have been arrested in connection with the escape on Sunday of the convicted murderer of investigative journalist Carlos Cardoso from a maximum security jail. Anibal Antonio dos Santos was serving a 28-year prison sentence for the 2000 murder of Cardoso, an investigative journalist who was reporting on Mozambique’s biggest bank fraud.
Police in Mozambique’s northern Nampula province have detained 14 people after body parts and organs were found in a house, apparently for use in witchcraft. ”These people claim the organs were extracted from their dead relatives, not through murder but through magical techniques,” said Acting Provincial Attorney Daniel Magula.
Mozambique said on Friday it is stepping up a prevention campaign against malaria, the country’s third-biggest killer after cholera and Aids, by encouraging the use of mosquito nets and looking at new treatments. Malaria killed 3 200 people in Mozambique last year out of a total of 4,5-million cases.
Two South African men were killed when their light aircraft crashed in the northern Mozambican town of Nampula shortly after take-off, the state-run Noticias newspaper said on Wednesday. The twin-engined Cessna 40 crashed in the town’s main Liberdade Square on Tuesday, shortly after leaving Nampula airport about 2 000km north of Maputo.
The Roman Catholic Church in Mozambique’s northern Nampula region on Thursday insisted its claims of a human organ-trafficking network operating in the province and targeting children were true. The church demanded a continued probe to bring the alleged criminals to book.
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/ 24 February 2004
A probe into allegations by Roman Catholic nuns of trafficking in human organs in northern Mozambique has turned up no evidence of any such sales, prosecutors said on Monday.
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/ 18 February 2004
President Joaquim Chissano appointed Mozambique’s first woman prime minister on Tuesday to replace fellow independence war veteran Pascoal Mocumbi, who is leaving to take up the top position in an international health body. The new prime minister is Planning and Finance Minister Luisa Diogo, who will retain that portfolio, state radio reported.
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/ 15 February 2004
South Africa’s Deputy President Jacob Zuma promised Mozambicans on Saturday that the truth about an air crash that claimed the life of their communist leader Samora Machel in 1986 would be uncovered. Machel died when the plane he was travelling in crashed in northern South Africa on October 19 1986.