NAIROBI, Sept 19, 2007 (AFP) - The United States has granted Tanzania 698 million dollars to improve infrastructure and provision of basic services in the east African nation, an official statement said Wednesday.

The US government's Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) said the funds were released after Tanzania developed a comprehensive programme to help slash poverty.

'Chosen by Tanzanians, the investments to improve the transport, energy, and water sectors will provide a catalyst to reduce poverty and spur economic growth,' the MCC statement added.

NAIROBI, Sept 12, 2007 (AFP) - A Kenyan rights group on Tuesday condemned the killing of 14 people, most of them Kenyans, who were allegedly planning to rob a bank and free prisoners in a northern Tanzanian town.

The Nairobi-based Oscar Foundation said killing last week of the 14 people, of which 12 were Kenyans, was based of shaky intelligence and that some of the bodies bore torture marks.

Tanzanian police said the slain were planning to rob a bank about 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of the Kenya-Tanzania border.

DAR ES SALAAM, Sept 11, 2007 (AFP) - Tanzania is ready to pay for the repatriation of 76 rare tortoises that were smuggled to Malaysia two months ago, an official said Tuesday.

'We are waiting for Malaysian officials to tell us the cost of re-shipment of the tortoises,' Natural resources and tourism ministry spokesman Dominic Kamamba told AFP.

Malaysia customs officials on June 12 discovered the leopard tortoises strapped and cramped in two boxes labelled as clay pots and sent by air mail from the east African nation.

NAIROBI, Sept 8, 2007 (AFP) - At least 27 people were killed and about 20 injured Saturday when a bus collided with a truck in southern Tanzania, police said.

'The accident occurred at Chimala area,' about 810 kilometres (506 miles) west of Dar es Salaam, police spokesman Stephen Mwinamila told AFP, and gave the casualty figures.

The bus was travelling to Dar es Salaam, from Tunduma, a trading post on the frontier with Zambia.

ARUSHA, Tanzania, Sept 6, 2007 (AFP) - Tanzanian police killed 14 people, most of them Kenyans, who were allegedly planning to rob a bank and free prisoners in the country's northern region, security officials said Thursday.

'Fourteen were killed. They are believed to be Kenyans and it is suspected they were planning to rob a bank,' regional police commander Lucas Nghoboko told AFP.

He added that one of the gang members was a woman and that the 14 were killed during an intense overnight gun battle.

DAR ES SALAAM, Sept 5, 2007 (AFP) - The World Bank has granted Tanzania 50 million dollars (37 million euros) to help the east African country in a drive to boost educational standards and school enrolment levels, the body said Wednesday.

The grant by the World Bank's International Development Association was the third and final installment of a 150-million package aimed at financing a five-year plan launched in 2004 to develop secondary education.

DAR ES SALAAM, Aug 29, 2007 (AFP) - Two Tanzanians have died as a result of a new cholera outbreak in the north of the country, health officials said Wednesday.

'Since the beginning of this week, the hospital has attended to 31 people who had contracted the disease,' Kikteto district chief medical officer Moses Halelwa told AFP on the telephone from Kibaya hospital.

He said two of the patients had died.

DAR ES SALAAM, Aug 29, 2007 (AFP) - A Tanzanian farmer is facing trial for removing the heart and liver from a freshly buried infant in a suspected witchcraft case, police told AFP on Wednesday.

Ardon John, 21, from Lula village in southwestern Tanzania, is accused of having dug out the grave on Sunday of an infant who had died the previous day, police inspector Magai Chassa said.

'John was arrested on the same day with the organs after police were informed of the incident,' he said, adding that the suspected witchdoctor was remanded by the court on Tuesday.

DAR ES SALAAM, Aug 28, 2007 (AFP) - A traditional medicine man in Tanzania drowned after jumping in a river and promising to resurface three days later with relevations from ancestral spirits, police said Tuesday.

The local witch doctor, named as Nyasio Alfonso, staged his ill-fated stunt last week at the village of Masingo in the western Mpanda district near Lake Tanganyika, Rukwa regional police commander Daudi Siadi told AFP.

Dozens of villagers chanted and drummed as the fortune-teller dived to confer with the riverine spirits, he said.

DUBAI, Aug 15, 2007 (AFP) - A Tanzanian woman has been jailed for 14 years after being caught trying to smuggle heroin out of Dubai, local media reported on Wednesday.

The woman was arrested at Dubai International Airport attempting to board a flight to Hong Kong with 23 capsules of heroin inside her stomach, the 7Days newspaper reported.

NAIROBI, Aug 14, 2007 (AFP) - The United Nations on Tuesday made an appeal for urgent funding to assist Burundian refugees under increasing pressure to leave their main host country Tanzania.

Both the UN food and refugee agencies said they needed 20 million dollars (14.7 million euros) to ensure that rations could continue to be delivered to returnees in Burundi, a key factor in speeding up repatriations.

GEDE, Kenya, July 26, 2007 (AFP) - Beating the air with her homemade net, Aicha Ali chases a swirling black and turquoise butterfly. Far from indulging in a frivolous pastime, this Kenyan mother is earning crucial family income.

'I like capturing butterflies, it`s fun because I make some money,' she says, puffing as she wipes the sweat pearling on her nose after a frantic chase in the forest`s sandy trails.

DAR ES SALAAM, July 22, 2007 (AFP) - Former US president Bill Clinton launched a programme Sunday aimed at making subsidised malaria drugs available in Tanzania, in a pilot scheme that could spread to the rest of Africa.

Clinton said manufacturers of artemisinin combination therapy (ACT) drugs will receive subsidy which will enable patients to buy the drugs 90 percent cheaper than the current market price.