A Mozambican court has finally judged a case of corruption - however the man convicted is not a Mozambican official, but a Portuguese citizen accusing of offering a bribe to Interior Ministry officials in order to speed up his request for Mozambican nationality.

Twelve Mozambicans died in the first six months of this year in accidents in South African gold mines, according to a Thursday press release from the Labour Ministry.

The Portuguese government, through its cooperation agency, donated on Wednesday about 13,000 US dollars worth of computer equipment, books and medicines to the Mozambican Practical Police School at Matalane, in Maputo province.

The publicly owned Mozambican mobile phone company Mcel is planning to invest about 70 million US dollars this year in infrastructures for its network in order to improve the quality of its service, and to expand its geographical coverage.

Vietnam has pledged to sell 1.2 million tonnes of rice to Mozambique, at a rate of 400,000 tonnes a year, over the next three years.

A Maputo court on Wednesday sentenced two Turkish citizens, Yener Cubkou and Fatih Kombey, to a year's imprisonment for physical abuse of 17 Mozambican children in their care.

Paulo Estevao ("Dangerman"), one of the six men acquitted on Monday of the attempts against the life of prominent lawyer Albano Silva in 1999 and 2000, has told reporters that he will demand compensation of a million US dollars from Silva.

If all goes according to plan, by the middle of the next decade there could be two oil refineries operating in Mozambique, one at Nacala in the north of the country, and one in the district of Matutuine, in the far south of the country.

Portugal has cancelled Mozambique's remaining debt to Lisbon, estimated at 393.4 million US dollars, accumulated since shortly after independence until 2005.

Mozambican President Armando Guebuza has joined the call for negotiations between Zimbabwe's ruling ZANU-PF and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

The Zambezi University (Unizambeze), a new public higher education institution, is to begin teaching as from February next year, converting part of the Matucauane military barracks in the central Mozambican city of Beira into lecture theatres.

The consultancy company KPMG on Wednesday launched in Maputo the African Enterprise Challenge Fund (AECF), a fund for private sector investment in African agriculture, which is working closely with the Alliance for the Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), chaired by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Heads of Public Services in Commonwealth Africa will be attending a three-day meeting in Maputo, Mozambique, from 8 to 10 July 2008 to discuss ways to improve public sector governance and efficiency in public service delivery.

An independent United Nations human rights expert has called for greater efforts to provide those displaced by floods in Mozambique with adequate housing and other services so they can start to rebuild their lives.

The Australian company Riversdale Mining plans to open its first coal mine in the western Mozambican province of Tete by the end of 2010.

The government of the central Mozambican province of Sofala has lifted the ban on gold mining at Tsiqiuir, in Gorongosa district, that was decreed in 2004 following a fatal accident.

Mozambique and Portugal signed in Maputo this Monday an agreement to set up a fund to support investments in the Mozambican energy sector.

Mozambican civil society organizations are planning to intensify their actions to prevent violence against women and children by increasing the period of advocacy for such cases from a mere 16 day campaign to 365 days a year.

The Maputo City Court on Tuesday acquitted all six men accused of the attempts against the life of prominent lawyer Albano Silva in 1999 and 2000.

Mozambican President Armando Guebuza on Monday urged the African Union (AU) to reaffirm its commitment to place drinking water, sanitation and water resources in general at the centre of the continental agenda.