Maputo - Three children were killed and two seriously injured in northern Mozambique after accidently exploding a mortar bomb left over from the country's past wars, a local newspaper reported Friday.

Noticias daily reported that the children in Niassa province found the explosive while they were playing on Tuesday and threw it against a tree, causing the device to explode.

Three children died instantly and two others were still being treated for their injuries at a hospital.

Maputo  - Partial results from Mozambique's presidential and parliamentary elections released by Friday showed President Armando Guebuza and his ruling party Frelimo poised to be re-elected by a landslide.

Preliminary results released by the National Electoral Commission (CNE) from Wednesday's vote show Guebuza polling 74 per cent in the presidential ballot, or 536,440 votes, based on results from 18 per cent of polling stations.

A new challenger, Daviz Simango, mayor of the port city of Beira, was in second place with 17 per cent, or 121,543 votes , and longtime opposition leader Afonso Dhlakama was trailing in third place with 9 per cent, or 64,893 votes.

Maputo - A day after Mozambique's presidential and parliamentary elections, provisional results showed incumbent President Armando Guebuza and his party Frelimo poised for a clean sweep, local media reported.

Results trickling in from individual polling districts around the country showed Guebuza enjoying a commanding lead over his rivals, longtime opposition leader Afonso Dhlakama and the leader of a new party, Daviz Simango.

The results had yet to be tabulated and announced by the central electoral commission.

Maputo  - Mozambicans went to the polls Wednesday to elect a president and parliament in a vote expected to endorse President Armando Guebuza's leadership of the emerging energy power and rising star among African nations.

Guebuza is leader of the ruling Frelimo party, a former Marxist liberation movement that freed the south-east African nation from Portuguese rule in 1975 and has won every election since the first multi-party ballot in 1994.

Maputo, Mozambique/Hanoi  - As West and East Germans reunited across the rubble of the Berlin Wall in 1989, tens of thousands of contract workers from East Germany's (GDR) Socialist allies were preparing to say their goodbyes.

For these migrants from Mozambique, Cuba, Vietnam, Angola and other Socialist states, the collapse of the GDR meant a one-way ticket home.

Beginning in the 1960s, initially mainly to give them training and then, as time went on, to fill a hole in its own workforce, the GDR brought in hundreds of thousands of workers from friendly countries through agreements with their governments.

Maputo  - The European Union and the United States are pressuring Mozambique's National Election Commission (CNE) to revoke a ban on some political parties contesting certain seats in the country's upcoming general elections.

EU and US diplomats met CNE President Joao Leopoldo da Costa this week to voice their concerns at a ban on the new Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM) and other parties contesting certain constituencies in the October 28 polls, local media reported Friday.

Maputo - Three days of talks on forming a unity government intended to restore stability to Madagascar after months of political turmoil ended inconclusively on Friday.

The chief mediator, former Mozambican President Joachim Chissano, gave the four rival parties until September 4 to present their composition for a power-sharing government.

"We could not reach a consensual power sharing structure. The pending issue is still who's going to occupy the presidency, the vice presidency and the post of prime minister," Chissano said.

Maputo, Mozambique  - A man who gained notoriety for killing a leading Mozambican journalist and then escaping from jail multiple times has been arrested once again in South Africa, reported Mozambican broadcaster STV Monday.

Anibal dos Santos Junior was convicted in November 2000 for leading a death squad that murdered prominent investigative journalist Carlos Cardoso.

According to the broadcaster, quoting sources in South Africa's police and Anibalzinho himself, he was arrested on Friday.

Maputo  - Mozambique's first quarter exports fell 36 per cent compared to the same period last year due to the global financial crisis, a top government official revealed.

Joao Macaringue, chief executive of the Export Promotion Institute (IPEX), said that during the first quarter of 2009, Mozambique's exports slid from 543.1 million dollars in the first quarter 2008 to 347.6 million this year.

Maputo - Four attackers killed in the mountain kingdom of Lesotho during a failed assassination attempt against Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili in April were from Mozambique, a senior Mozambican official was quoted as saying Tuesday.

At a press conference in Mozambique's capital Maputo Monday, High Commissioner to South Africa Fernando Fazenda said the four men killed in a shootout with Mosisili's guards at his residence in Lesotho's capital Maseru, were Mozambican mercenaries.

Chimuara, Mozambique  - Tourists visiting Mozambique will now find it much easier to travel the length of the southern African country following the inauguration of a long-awaited, 2.4-kilometre bridge over the mighty Zambezi river that cuts the country in the middle.

Named Armando Emilio Guebuza bridge, after the president of the vast former Portuguese colony, the bridge is one of the longest in Africa and took three years to build. The European Union, Sweden, Italy and Japan footed the cost of 78 million dollars.

Maputo - Gastronomic tastes in the south-east African country of Mozambique, home of succulent jumbo prawns and peri peri spice, are coming back down to earth. Literally.

Stroll around any food market in the capital Maputo and you will come across small paper packets or coffee cups of refined earth - white, red or yellow - starting at around 1 metical (4 US dollar cents) for 50 grammes.

"Area delicioso (delicious earth!)," vendors call out to passersby.

Maputo  - Members of Mozambique's main opposition party Renamo allegedly abducted several members of the country's new opposition Democratic Movement of Mozambique (MDM) during campaigning and held them hostage for hours, reports said Wednesday.

Mozambique's daily Noticias newspaper said the MDM members were campaigning for presidential, parliamentary and local elections in October in Buzi district, central Sofala province when they were intercepted by members of Renamo.

Maputo - European Union ambassadors in Mozambique have condemned a failed assassination attempt on the leader of a new opposition party who is running for president later this year, local television reported Friday.

Daviz Simango, mayor of the port city of Beira and leader of the Democratic Movement of Mozambique (MDM), escaped an attack Tuesday in the northern city of Nacala-Porto.

Maputo  - A series of explosions at an ex-guerrilla base belonging to Mozambique's rebel-movement-turned-opposition-party Renamo sent former fighters fleeing for their lives this week and partially gutted the armoury, local media reported Saturday.

The explosions at the secretive base, which occurred on Wednesday but were reported Saturday for the first time by Mozambique's daily Noticias newspaper, were believed to have been caused by defective storage of old weaponry.

Maputo  - Mozambique's Tourism Minister Fernando Sumbana on Monday appealed to the business community of the southern African country to build more world-class hotels and resorts before the World Cup in neighbouring South Africa next year.

Sumbana said Mozambique's existing tourism infrastructure, which was ravaged by a 16-year civil war between 1976 and 1992, was insufficient.

In order to woo some of the around 400,000 foreign visitors expected at the World Cup in South Africa to its shores, Mozambique needed more attractive, modern facilities, he said.

Maputo - The United States embassy in Mozambique is threatening to cut financial aid to key development programmes in the country if Maputo does not back down on blocking the hiring of 40 Americans to work in the programmes, the German Press Agency dpa learned Saturday.

A US embassy press officer, speaking to the private STV channel this week, reiterated the decision to freeze funds to programmes in the country if the government did not reconsider.

Maputo  - The global economic crisis has hit Mozambique hard, with losses of up to 100 million dollars in tax revenue expected this year, media reports quoting government officials said Wednesday.

Rosario Fernandes, head of the Mozambican Tax Authority, was quoted in reports as having said: "Calculations made so far, indicate that the tax losses as a result of the effect of the global financial crisis on Mozambique will be around 100 million."

Maputo - African countries should adopt pricing systems that allow the widest possible access to telecommunication services, said an official with Mozambique's telecommunications regulating authority on Monday.

Isidoro Pedro da Silva, chairman of the board of administration for the Instituto Nacional das Comunicacoes de Mocambique, made the comments at the opening of a four-day conference organized by INCM.

Maputo  - Through a combination of improved prevention, diagnostic and treatment methods Mozambique is finally turning the corner on malaria, the biggest killer of children in Africa.

The number of malaria dead in the south-east African country fell for the first time in 20 years last year - from 3,998 in 2007 to 2,949 in 2008, or about one-quarter, Health Minister Ivo Garrido was quoted by the Noticias newspaper Wednesday as saying.