Maputo  - Mozambique's government announced a string of measures to improve access to energy for millions of Mozambicans and to reduce the burden of the sector on state finances, local media reported Wednesday.

The government of President Armando Guebuza announced plans to dismantle the monopoly on fuel imports, invest 8.5 billion dollars in the implementation of a four-year plan to expand electricity nationwide, and expand natural gas output for the domestic and export markets.

Maputo - The Mozambique Red Cross said Friday that it was suspending its relief work in a crisis-hit northern district after three volunteers were killed by mobs accusing them of deliberately infecting water sources with the agent that causes cholera.

Two policemen that were trying to protect the aid workers were also reportedly killed in the attacks in Mongincual district, in the northern province of Nampula.

Maputo  - At least 15 people were killed in Mozambique over the past three months while searching for food after heavy summer rains washed away their crops, television reports said Tuesday.

TVM public broadcaster reported that the victims fell foul of crocodiles while searching for food in the Shire river in Morrumbala district, Zambezia province. The Shire is a tributary of the mighty Zambezi river.

Their deaths were linked to growing hunger in some resettlement areas, where the victims of the annual flooding along the Zambezi had been relocated.

Maputo- Sub-Saharian African countries are currently losing more than 1 billion dollars yearly due to illegal fishing in their waters, a senior government official in Mozambique revealed this week.

Mozambique Deputy Fisheries Minister Victor Borges said that foreign fishing vessels were regularly spotted fishing illegally in African waters, depleting fish stocks.

"Our countries are witnessing without acting the destruction of fisheries in the region. Every year, we estimate that we lose over one billion dollars to illegal fishing."

Maputo - Floods caused by heavy rains in Mozambique have claimed at least 25 deaths since December, officials said in reports published Wednesday, stressing that there was, however, no cause for alarm.

National Disaster Management Institute (INGC), General Director, Joao Ribiero, was quoted in the Noticias newspaper as saying: "The heavy rains that are battering the country do not constitute a cause for alarm.

Maputo  - The death toll from recent flooding in Mozambique has risen to 15, with heavy rains continuing, reported local officials.

The death toll increased by five as deaths from Thursday in the central Mozambican provinces of Sofala and Manica provinces were reported, officials said Friday.

"Four people died and four were injured in the city of Chimoio, Manica province, and one person drowned in the district of Nhamatanda, Sofala province," a source at the National Disaster Management Institute told DPA.