At least 50 Somali and Ethiopian migrants died when a ship carrying 129 people sank off the northern coast of Mozambique last week, media reports said. Reuters reports that survivors, thought to be illegal migrants, have been taken to refugee camps.

Land grabbing in Mozambique by transnational corporations, that hire rural workers who are not able to access lands to produce, is one of the issues that concern peasants of that country the most. Real World Radio interviewed Jose Mateus, leader of the National Farmers Union of Mozambique, member of La Via Campesina, who is participating in activities at the World Social Forum in Dakar, Senegal. Mateus regretted that many peasants of his country end up working for big agribusiness transnational corporations, because they don’t have the support of the State to access lands.

The paper presents a wide range of data on Mozambique and examines what this shows about changes to poverty and income levels over the past decade. The authors point to the lack of changes in farming practice which is contributing to the persistence of poverty and consider cash income and the poverty trap in Mozambique. The paper goes on to discuss the failure of donor-led development models.

As in many African countries, women in Mozambique often give birth outside of a health facility. Factors leading to this decision include having difficult access to health services, being scared of how they will be treated at a health facility, and feeling more comfortable delivering at home. But, when complications occur at home, women and babies are much less likely to receive the appropriate, life-saving care they need. Women Deliver reports that the Mozambique’s government and partners are working to change this trend by improving health care delivery through the Model Maternities Initiative (MMI). The goal of MMI is to improve maternal and newborn health care services while providing a supportive environment in which women give birth.

The Governor of the Bank of Mozambique, Ernesto Gove, has claimed that the economic and social conditions now exist in Mozambique for the government to renegotiate contracts signed with some of the mega-projects that have come to dominate the economy. Speaking on Friday at the closing session of a meeting of the Bank's Consultative Council in Mozambique, Gove said, 'In investment everybody has to win, otherwise social tensions are created.'

Flood alert levels are on orange in parts of Mozambique as disaster management services mobilise to respond to flooding potentially as bad as the catastrophe in 2000. Heavy downpours are steadily swelling the Southern African country’s rivers, while authorities watch rainfall and water level indicators in countries upstream with a wary eye. Some people living in the Limpopo Rver basin in the south of the country have started moving to safer ground after warnings that some 7,000 people could be affected if the river reaches the expected 2 metres above alert levels.

Digital stories are powerful narratives combining images with first hand accounts of people most affected by the topic at hand, in this case the ongoing impact of landmines in post-conflict Mozambique. Since many of the most affected areas are away from urban centres, these views and voices are sometimes forgotten. Community Media for Development did four workshops in which participants from the community recorded and produced a series of personal narratives that were distributed widely to demonstrate the ongoing human impact of landmines.

The first Wikileaks cables from the US Embassy in Maputo revived the discussion on narcotics smuggling that had happened in mid 2010, reports Global Voices. Back then, the US Treasury added Mozambican businessman Mohamed Bachir Suleman to its list of international drug kingpins, sanctioning his businesses by freezing their US-held assets and preventing Americans from doing business with them. Suleman was one of a list of only 87 individuals globally.

Mozambique's parliament has created a committee to draft amendments to the constitution that analysts have warned could be used to allow President Armando Guebuza to stand for a third five-year term. The creation of the committee comes a year after ruling party Frelimo won enough seats to change the charter unilaterally.

Using panel data from Mozambique collected in 2007 and 2008, the authors of this working paper explore the impact of the food crisis on welfare of households living with HIV/AIDS. The analysis finds that there has been a real deterioration of welfare in terms of income, food consumption, and nutritional status in Mozambique between 2007 and 2008, among both HIV and comparison households.

Somali pirates have hijacked a Mozambican-flagged fishing vessel about 200 nautical miles (370 km) southwest of Comoros in the Indian Ocean, the European Union's anti-piracy taskforce said at the beginning of January. The capture of the 140-tonne Vega 5 and its 14-strong crew of unknown nationalities is the second successful strike by pirates off the northern tip of Madagascar in a week.

The United States is concerned that Mozambique could become a narco-state because of close ties between drug smugglers and the southeastern African nation's government, according to US Embassy cables released by WikiLeaks. The four cables released this week cite unnamed officials from law enforcement, the ruling FRELIMO party and business figures, as well as local media reports. The cables say cocaine, heroin and other drugs come in from South America and Asia, and are then flow to Europe or sent overland to neighbouring South Africa for sale.

Diagne Roland Fodé

Baptista Macule is sitting on a sack of groundnuts in a dusty side-alley near the sprawling, makeshift Malanga market on the outskirts of Maputo. He squints into the sun as he tries to explain the extent of poverty in his country. 'People do not have enough food in their house,' he says. 'There are not enough jobs, and even when people have jobs, the salaries are very low. Salaries have not increased, but prices have.'

A coalition of Mozambican non-governmental organisations has reported mining giant BHP Billiton to the Johannesburg Stock Exchange's Socially Responsible Investment Index (SRI) for 'intolerable conduct' in planned pollution at its aluminium smelter in Mozambique, a spokesperson said on Tuesday. The coalition of environmental and human rights NGOs sent a formal complaint to the JSE at the end of October, Vanessa Cabanelas, spokesperson for the environmental organisation Justica Ambiental, told the South African Press Association (Sapa).

Le Protocole de Maputo a été adopté le 11 Juillet 2003 par la Conférence des Chefs d’Etats et de Gouvernement de l’U.A. réunie à Maputo au Mozambique. Par l’adoption du Protocole, les Etats Africains ont reconnu, que malgré la ratification par nombre d’entre eux des instruments juridiques relatifs aux droits des femmes, leur mise en œuvre continue de poser problème et les discriminations contenues dans les différents textes et dans les faits ainsi que les pratiques néfastes à l’égard des femmes persistent encore en Afrique.

Ethiopia is one of the few countries that have not ratified the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa. Fana Hagos Berhane discusses why it ought to.

luminium giant BHP Billiton’s Mozal smelter has begun bypassing its fume treatment centres, emitting potentially dangerous fumes into the air without treating them first – despite a pending court case on the matter. There has been strong opposition from civil society and community groups. A coalition established to fight the bypass, led by local groups Livaningo and Justica Ambiental (Environmental Justice), says that the community has still not been presented with adequate evidence that the bypass will not be harmful to their health.

Reflecting on progress towards the African Union (AU) Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on Women in Africa, Sidiga Washi outlines the steps and provisions which need to be made to move forward the ratification of the protocol in Sudan.

About 800 South African commercial farmers have already signed land deals to expand production in Mozambique, ahead of a conference next week to discuss other possible opportunities in the Gaza province. South African farmers have received new land offers to grow crops in over 20 countries.