Blantyre

Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe has called for bygones to be bygones between black and white in his country, saying the two sides have to live together. The 82-year-old veteran, scheduled on Thursday to open a road named after him in Malawi, said late on Wednesday that black and white ”cannot avoid each other”.

Rights groups in Malawi on Wednesday protested against the naming of a new highway after Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, saying he does not deserve the honour because of his poor human rights record at home. The long-time Zimbabwean leader is to start a four-day state visit to Malawi on Wednesday.

Malawi’s embattled Vice-President Cassim Chilumpha was arrested on treason charges on Friday night, after a court prevented the government from firing him, his lawyer said. Chilumpha is accused of conspiring with members of his United Democratic Front party to topple President Bingu wa Mutharika’s government.

Africa needs the capacity and donor aid to react swiftly to deal with a potentially large-scale outbreak of bird flu, a conference of experts from 19 African countries heard on Monday. ”Africa needs a rapid response to the disease and must draw up practical measures to control and prevent the disease,” Malawi’s Agriculture Minister, Uladi Mussa, said on the opening day of the conference in the capital, Lilongwe.

Police in the southern African country of Malawi have arrested a priest for ordering 15 women to strip while he conducted special prayers for them, a spokesperson said on Tuesday. The priest from the Bible Believers, one of several Pentecostal churches that have mushroomed in the country, was arrested in the central Salima district after one of the women filed a complaint.

About 2 000 people have lost their homes in floods that have hit central Malawi after storms in the south, a government official said on Thursday. The latest flooding came just a few days after heavy rains in the south left 6 000 homeless, destroyed crops and washed away bridges and roads.

A Malawi court on Friday quashed a decision by President Bingu wa Mutharika to dismiss his vice-president and asked the Constitutional Court for a ruling in the political feud. Mutharika on Thursday sacked Cassim Chilumpha, accusing him of insubordination and of running a ”parallel government”.

The collapse of an impeachment bid against Malawi’s President Bingu wa Mutharika has set off a flurry of resignations by opposition parliamentarians distancing themselves from the parties that had sponsored it. The United Democratic Front MP who introduced the motion in Parliament last year has quit his party to become an independent.

A Malawian opposition lawmaker said on Monday he has written to Parliament to withdraw a motion to impeach President Bingu wa Mutharika. ”Impeachment is not in the interests of Malawians … it has not been wholly accepted by Malawians,” Maxwell Milanzi, an MP of the former ruling United Democratic Front, said in a letter.

Malawian veterinary experts on Thursday said a ”heavy downpour of rains” caused thousands of migratory birds to drop dead, then to be eaten by locals, ruling out fears that bird flu may have reached the country. Malawi has not reported any cases of avian influenza.

Eleven people were killed and eight injured when lightning struck a church in northern Malawi where services were being held, hospital and church leaders said on Sunday. About 40 people had gathered in the Church of Central African Presbytery in Mzimba, about 300km north of the capital Lilongwe, when lightning struck on Saturday afternoon.

Malawi dispatched blood and tissue samples to neighbouring South Africa on Friday to be tested for avian influenza after thousands of migratory birds were found dead on a hill in the central Ntchisi district. Agriculture officials expressed alarm after local villagers started scooping up the dead fork-tailed drongos — known locally as namzenze — to eat earlier this week.

Malawi police on Tuesday fired on a mob outside the home of a Chinese businessman rumoured to have abducted and eaten a number of boys in the southern tea-growing town of Bvumbwe. Two people were rushed to a hospital after they were shot in the melee, said police spokesperson Willy Mwaluka.

Anglican leaders have rejected the appointment of a British reverend to head a diocese in southern Malawi over his support for gay rights, an official said on Friday. Bishops meeting in the capital Lilongwe last week found that reverend Nicholas Henderson was ”unsuitable for confirmation” as bishop of the diocese of Lake Malawi.

Two sisters from Napasha Village in southern Malawi wake up before the sun rises and start walking to the maize fields a few kilometres away. Along the way they stop to eat a slice of bread with the anti-retroviral medicine given them by the Malawian government.

Malawian police and members of a corruption-busting unit on Thursday searched the home of former president Bakili Muluzi, who is being investigated for alleged graft, his lawyer said. ”They took a few documents,” said Dave Kanyenda, a lawyer for Muluzi, outside Muluzi’s mansion in Limbe.

Malawi has temporarily suspended its Parliament after a violent protest by supporters of embattled President Bingu wa Mutharika, who faces the threat of impeachment. Speaker Louis Chimango suspended Parliament late on Monday after demonstrators smashed at least five cars belonging to opposition lawmakers.

The twin infants wrestle for their mother’s breasts as the young woman stops to catch her breath. Weak and exhausted she is standing in the shade of a large tree at the United Nations food distribution centre in rural Malawi, one of Africa’s poorest
countries.

A Malawian woman dies every hour during childbirth or complications during the process, the country’s health minister said on Monday, adding that the situation is ”tragic and obscene”. ”There must be something we are doing wrong,” Minister of Health Hetherwick Ntaba said.

Malawi’s police have jailed a former veteran opposition figure on charges of insulting President Bingu wa Mutharika, who was allegedly called a ”drunk” and a ”brute”, the man’s lawyer said on Wednesday. ”Gwanda Chakuamba surrendered himself to police this morning,” lawyer Viva Nyimba said.

A 25-year-old woman has been arrested for allegedly hacking her nine-month old son to death with an axe and attempting suicide after they both tested positive for the Aids virus, police said on Friday. Police spokesperson Enock Livason said the woman and her son had tested positive for the virus at a government hospital.

The United Nations has launched an appeal for -million to help 4,2-million people threatened by hunger in Malawi amid a general warning about looming shortages elsewhere in Southern Africa. Funding shortfalls mean that only a fraction of those needing food aid in Southern African countries will receive it.

Malawi is to close four of its 19 embassies and recall 35 diplomats from Canada, France, Kenya and Libya as a cost-cutting measure, the foreign minister said on Monday. Foreign Minister Davies Katsonga said ”financial hiccups” had forced the closure.

Up to 4,2-million Malawians face food shortages in the wake of a drought that reduced the poor Southern African country’s staple maize output by 24%, a report to assess Malawi’s harvest said on Tuesday. ”Malawi will require food aid of some 271 970 tonnes until the next harvest,” the Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee said.

Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika on Wednesday pardoned 413 prisoners convicted of minor offences to mark the country’s 41 years of independence from British rule, his office said. He also said that celebrations will be low-key, as the government wants to use the money to buy maize for Malawians in need of food aid.