Last year, the aluminum production company Mozal quietly requested authorization to operate with direct emissions (or bypass the filtering system) while repairing its Fume Treatment Centers (FTC) for six months, at a cost of $10-million. "Sub-optimal engineering in the centers," was the bland term used by Mozal assets president Mike Fraser to explain the need for repairs. Translation: shoddy quality.

The smelter, one of the largest foreign investments ever in Mozambique, is visible from the highway linking Maputo to South Africa.

I am the first person in my family and among my friends to go to university. My parents are not schooled. They are peasants. They can’t speak Portuguese, they speak makuhwa. My father, though, was a cheke, a mwalima, learned in the Koran and respected in the village. We lived in Metarica, in Niassa province, in Mozambique s farthest north.

On Thursday afternoon, when Savana hits the streets, a copy is posted outside the newsroom for passersby to read for free. Who knows if it will inspire some to become journalists?

We are 11 siblings and I am the seventh, born in 1983. The eldest went to high school and became a border policeman. My other brothers work on the land. My sisters got married early. Two siblings died of disease.

Editors Note: Six hours of non-stop rain bring city to standstill in Mozambique.

It started with a tap-tap-tap on the window around 3 AM. Half asleep, I thanked the rain as a blessing, a respite from the scorching heat we’ve been having in Maputo, up to 38 Celsius.

The tap-tap-tap became a steady, non-stop, six-hour-long downpour. By 8 am, chunks of the city were cut off. People could not go to work.  In the Baixa, the financial centre downtown, by the bay, people were swimming with water at chest level. Muddy water flooded into banks and shops. Traffic stopped. Schools closed.

Editors Note: New information technologies used during presidential election in Mozambique.Mozambique held presidential elections at the end of October, with the final results announced in mid-November. You couldn’t ignore the campaign buzz in the weeks leading to the polls: horn-honking caravans, city walls covered in colourful posters, supporters wearing T-shirts, caps and kapulanas (African cloth) emblazoned with party colours and logos.