Genetically modified maize tested in Chokwe

Testing of genetically modified maize is taking place at the Chokwe Agricultural Station, in the southern province of Gaza. The purpose is to identify a strain of maize, suited to Mozambican agro-ecological conditions that can tolerate drought and resist insect pests.
The first sowing of this trial maize, imported from the United States, took place in Chokwe on 18 February, in the experimental field run by the Mozambican Agricultural Research Institute (IIAM). It is part of the programme WEMA (Water Efficient Maize for Africa).
WEMA involves researchers from the IIAM, Tanzania, South Africa, Kenya and Uganda. The Chokwe experimental field was established recently by the IIAM specifically for trials of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs).
The first sowing was focused on a strain of the crop resistant to insects. Drought tolerant strains will be planted during the cool, dry season when, in much of Gaza, there is virtually no rainfall at all.

AIM

Mustang Resources Discovers Graphite

The Australian mining company Mustang Resources has discovered high-grade graphite at its Caula project in the northern Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado.

According to a company press release, “spectacular grades of up to 26 per cent Total Graphitic Carbon demonstrate the potential for Caula to become a low-cost supplier to the lithium battery industry”.
The cores from the drilling programme are being sent to Perth in Australia for testing and will be used to estimate the deposit’s reserves in line with the Australian code for reporting mineral resources.
Mustang has observed that the graphite deposit contains large flakes, and it will carry out a comprehensive analysis to confirm this finding.

c
Graphite is a form of carbon that is highly valued due to its properties as a conductor of electricity. It is used in batteries and fuel cells and is the basis for the “miracle material” graphene, which is the strongest material ever measured, with vast potential for use in the electronics industries. Graphite is also used for high-quality steel production.


AIM

German aid for Inhambane

The German government is making a further €1.18 million available for food aid and the acquisition of seeds in the southern Mozambican province of Inhambane.
This aid follows €550,000 donated last year, via the NGO Welthungerhilfe (German Agrarian Action), for food aid and combating the effects of the El Nino weather phenomenon in Inhambane. Last year’s project reached over 10,000 people in the drought-stricken districts of Mabote and Govuro. The new finance will allow German Agrarian Action to extend its
support to Massinga district, and to cover 25,000 people.
The food aid provided through this project will be supplemented by the provision of seeds to small farmers.
Massinga was one of the districts worst hit by cyclone Dineo, which struck Inhambane on 16 February.
Germany has also recently provided €500,000 to the NGO CARE-Mozambique, and €13 million to the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), to improve the food situation of people affected by last year’s drought, and, over the medium term, to make them more resilient to drought.
German Agrarian Action has been operating in Mozambique since the late 1980s, providing emergency aid, and supporting rural development, and the provision of water and sanitation services.
AIM

posted from Bloggeroid

Rehabilitation of Manica power stations

The Mavuzi and Chicamba hydro-electric power stations, on the Revue River in the central province of Manica, have been delivered to the publicly-owned electricity company, EDM, after a complete rehabilitation.
Rehabilitation and modernization of the two power stations was in the hands of a consortium of French and Norwegian companies. It cost US$120 million and took three years. Although they will not be formally re-inaugurated until late March, they are already in use.
According to the project coordinator, Abraao Rafael, who is also EDM’s deputy director for electrification and projects, the final certificate testifying to receiving the stations after their rehabilitation was signed on 20 February.
EDM uses Chicamba and Mavuzi to supply electricity to Manica and the neighbouring province of Sofala, and the power is only sufficient with the interconnection with the Chibata sub-station which draws its power from the Cahora Bassa dam on the Zambezi.

The modernisation was important in order to prolong the life of the two power stations, which were in danger of shutting down entirely due to the obsolescence of their components. Because the original parts no longer exist on the international market, the consortium had to design and make new parts. EDM claims that the work has given Chicamba and Mavuzi an additional 30 years of useful life.

The work also allows the stations to generate almost 20 megawatts more than they could prior to the rehabilitation. Thus the maximum generating capacity at Chicamba has risen from 38 to 44 megawatts, and that at Mavuzi has risen from 30 to 41 megawatts.

AIM

posted from Bloggeroid

Swedish support for safe abortion

The Swedish government and the international NGO Ipas, which works around the globe to support the sexual and reproductive rights of women, are now collaborating to ensure the access of Mozambican women and girls to safe abortion and contraception services.
According to a press release from the Swedish embassy, this programme began last December and will run until December 2019. Sweden is contributing about US$5 million to the programme.
It is intended to increase the knowledge, opportunities and capacities of women and girls to take informed and safe decisions about abortion and contraception.
In Mozambique, Ipas works with the Ministry of Health and is a member of the Ministry’s Technical Group on Abortion, which is developing norms and directives for the provision of comprehensive abortion services.
Abortion was decriminalised under the new Penal Code, approved by the Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, in 2014.
The Ministry of Health estimates that about 11 per cent of all maternal mortality in Mozambique is due to unsafe, clandestine abortions.
The Swedish release notes that currently, safe abortion services are only available in the urban areas of southern Mozambique. So the programme supported by Sweden will focus on the northern province of Nampula, and on Zambezia in the centre of the county, where there is little or no abortion service. Between them, these two provinces account for about 40 per cent of the Mozambican population. But they have some of the worst sexual and reproductive health indicators in the country.
Sexual and reproductive rights “are fundamental human rights for attaining gender equality, poverty reduction and sustainable development”, declared Swedish ambassador Irina Schoulgin Nyoni. “This support is a fundamental part of Sweden’s feminist foreign policy”.

Source: AIM

posted from Bloggeroid

Top official denounces prison overcrowding

Serious overcrowding in Mozambican prisons hinders the rehabilitation of prisoners, damages their dignity, and imposes extra costs on the State, denounced the President of the Supreme Court, Adelino Muchanga, on 1 March.
Speaking at the ceremony opening the 2017 judicial year, Muchanga pointed out that total capacity in Mozambican jails was for 8,188 prisoners, but they are now holding over 18,000 people – more than twice the installed capacity.
He blamed the overcrowding on excessive use of preventive detention, the slowness in bringing prisoners to trial, and the use of imprisonment, rather than alternative forms of punishment, for petty offences.
In 2016, Muchanga said, 35 per cent of those in the country’s jails had not been tried but were in preventive detention. Many of them had not even been charged, and of those facing charges many could be released on bail and told to await their trials at home.
In addition, there has been a substantial increase in the number of habeas corpus requests reaching the Supreme Court. “We receive 15 habeas corpus requests in 2015, and the number rose to 61 in 2016, almost all of them based on the fact that the limits on preventive detention had been exceeded”, he continued.
Most detainees cannot afford a lawyer, and know nothing about the habeas corpus rules: if they did, the number of requests would certainly be much larger.
Attorney-General Beatriz Buchili also denounced prison conditions, noting that the number of people now incarcerated was higher than it had been for the last three years. She agreed with Muchanga that the situation could be minimised by reducing the number of illegal detentions, speeding up judicial procedures, and using alternative punishments (such as community service) instead of imprisonment.
Buchili hoped that a new Penal Procedural Code and a Code on Alternatives to Prison, now under consideration by the country’s parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, will significantly improve prison conditions.
She also denounced the “countless reports” of inhuman treatment of detainees in prisons and police cells. A major challenge for the bodies of the administration of justice, she said, was to eliminate these situations, since “people who are incarcerated, although they have committed offences, are still human beings and deserve full respect and dignity”.

Source: AIM

posted from Bloggeroid

Unions suggest two wage rises in 2017

Mozambique’s main trade union federation, the OTM (Mozambican Workers’ Organisation) has suggested that, if the country’s current financial situation prevails, then the minimum wage should be increased twice this year.
OTM General Secretary Alexandre Munguambe made this call public on 3 March, during a meeting of the Labour Consultative Commission (CCT), the tripartite negotiating forum between the government, the unions, and the employers’ organisations.
The standard practice has been for the CCT to agree on a set of minimum wages by sector, which the government then puts into law. The new wages take effect as from 1 April each year. But the OTM is now suggesting that in times of high inflation, wages should be adjusted more frequently.
“We recall that in the past when annual inflation reached two digits, the minimum wage was increased twice a year”, said Munguambe. “If the current situation continues, there is every reason to return to this practice”.
In 2016, inflation rose, largely because of the depreciation of the Mozambican currency, the metical. According to the National Statistics Institute (INE), based on the consumer price indices of the three largest cities (Maputo, Nampula and Beira), inflation for the year reached 25.27 per cent.
Munguambe stressed that workers’ living standards had tumbled. “2016 was characterised by politico-military instability, natural disasters, a financial crisis, depreciation of the metical and unsustainable foreign debts”, he said. “These factors raised the cost of living to unbearable levels, and worsened the poverty of the majority of Mozambicans”.
Labour Minister Vitoria Diogo, who chairs the CCT, gave a much rosier picture, claiming that 277,647 jobs were created in 2016. In addition, 106,749 citizens, mostly young, had attended professional training courses, thus increasing their chances of obtaining good jobs.

Source: AIM

posted from Bloggeroid