No image available
/ 14 January 2008
Malawi has cut diplomatic ties with Taiwan after 41 years and established links with China, which has become a major economic power in Africa. ”We have decided to switch from Taiwan to mainland China after careful consideration of the benefits that we will be getting from mainland China,” Foreign Affairs Minister Joyce Banda told a press conference on Monday.
No image available
/ 14 January 2008
Tobacco production in Malawi is expected to rise to 150-million kilograms this season, encouraged by higher prices and good rains, the Tobacco Association of Malawi said on Monday. The expected increase in prices follows a slump in production last year, when growers only managed to produce 140-million kilograms.
No image available
/ 11 January 2008
A uranium mining project by an Australian firm due to begin in northern Malawi next year will boost the country’s exports by 25%, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In a new country report released this week, the IMF said the -million project by mining firm Paladin could add up to 10% of the Southern African country’s overall GDP and 25% to exports.
No image available
/ 24 December 2007
Nadège Shabani, a refugee from Burundi, is a successful businesswoman plying her trade in Malawi’s capital, Lilongwe. She owns a thriving beauty salon, restaurant and a clothes shop. She is an example of the foreigners who are being accused of ”taking away” business opportunities from locals.
No image available
/ 20 November 2007
Education authorities in Malawi on Tuesday voided the results of examinations sat by 80 000 students after it emerged that copies of the papers were leaked and sold beforehand to some pupils. Education Secretary Anthony Livuza said fresh senior secondary-school certificate examinations will now be drawn up.
No image available
/ 14 November 2007
Malawi, which is severely affected by corruption, has appointed a seasoned anti-graft lawyer as its new Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), a parliamentary spokesperson said on Wednesday. The spokesperson of Parliament’s public appointments committee said that Alexious Nampota has been confirmed as the new DPP.
No image available
/ 25 October 2007
Malawi’s anti-corruption agency has arrested the head of the country’s electricity-generating company over allegations of graft, officials said on Thursday. A spokesperson for the Anti-Corruption Bureau said Kandi Padambo was arrested late on Wednesday in the commercial capital, Blantyre.
No image available
/ 20 October 2007
Twenty-six Malawi opposition supporters died on Friday night when the vehicle they were travelling in to a party conference overturned, police said on Saturday. The Alliance for Democracy members were travelling to Lilongwe from Blantyre for a meeting to elect a new leadership ahead of Malawi’s 2009 presidential elections.
For Malawian nurse Hilda Maganga, the financial pull of a spell in a ward in Britain is close to overwhelming her desire to tend to patients in her Aids-stricken and impoverished homeland. ”I would like to do a two-year stint in the United Kingdom, make my money and come back to retire for good,” says the 54-year-old.
Malawi, one of Africa’s poorest nations, said on Monday that despite recent efforts to grow the economy, it would be unable to meet the United Nations target date of halving poverty by 2015. A welfare-monitoring survey conducted by the Ministry of Economic Planning and Development indicated that poverty dropped to 45% in Malawi in 2006, from 53,9% in 1998.
No image available
/ 5 September 2007
Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame said on Wednesday that his country was no longer interested in joining the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in order to avoid ”overlapping” roles with other blocs. ”As a country we need to rationalise on which organisations to join in order to avoid overlaps,” he told journalists.
No image available
/ 4 September 2007
The senior Malawian child welfare official who was to go to London to assess whether Madonna could adopt a little boy from the Southern African country has been removed from the high-profile case following allegations he solicited money from the singer for the trip.
Malawi’s President Bingu wa Mutharika threatened on Tuesday to close Parliament if a budget crisis threatening to cut off services in the impoverished nation was not resolved within two days. The 2007/08 budget debate, which should have been concluded by June 30, was suspended last month because the opposition first wanted a dispute settled.
Malawi’s Parliament reconvenes next week to debate and pass the impoverished African nation’s already delayed budget after the Supreme Court ordered the opposition to end a boycott, an official said on Friday. Malawi’s opposition, which holds 105 of the Parliament’s 193 seats, had earlier obtained a court injuction barring debate on the country’s budget.
Malawi police and anti-corruption authorities have raided the house of a judge who ruled against President Bingu wa Mutharika in a row with the opposition over the country’s budget. Fahad Assani, a lawyer for High Court Judge Joseph Mwanyungwe, told Reuters police and members of the Anti-Corruption Bureau raided the judge’s house on Monday night.
Malawi will have its first-ever modern mining project located in the northern town of Kayelekera in Karonga by early next year if plans by an Australian mining company, Paladin (Africa), are successful. However, controversy has been dogging the project since its hatching stages.
Malawi’s Supreme Court granted powers on Friday to the speaker of Parliament to fire defecting MPs in a move likely to lead to the collapse of President Bingu wa Mutharika’s minority government. Chief Justice Leonard Unyolo determined that the speaker could use a controversial constitutional provision to expel any lawmaker who had changed party affiliation.
Ethel Mutharika, wife of Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika, will be buried next week, as the country started a month of mourning for the first lady. Mutharika, a Zimbabwean national who was married to Malawi’s president for 37 years, died in the capital, Lilongwe, on Monday after a long battle with cancer.
Small Aids organisations in Malawi are being monitored after a recent move by the National Aids Commission to suspend financial aid.
Malawian President Bingu wa Mutharika, who has pledged to bring economic stability to the impoverished nation, announced a Cabinet reshuffle on Thursday. The president created two new ministries and appointed 11 lawmakers as deputies, chief secretary to the government Bright Msaka said in a statement.
Chaos erupted in a small village in rural Malawi on Tuesday when Madonna and the one-year-old boy she hopes to adopt arrived at the orphanage where she found him. Scores of international and local journalists tried to force their way into the orphanage to get closer to Madonna, and were confronted by about 500 angry orphans.
The head of a Malawian orphanage refuted reports on Monday that Madonna was to adopt a young girl from her children’s home as the United States pop diva flew into the Southern African country. British newspaper the Sun reported that the London-based singer wanted to adopt a three-year-old girl called Grace from the Consol Home.
Madonna arrived in Malawi on Monday with the young local boy she is adopting, amid rumours she intended to adopt a second child from an orphanage the impoverished Southern African nation. Wearing dark glasses and a black outfit, Madonna carried Banda, now about 18 months old, as she walked onto the tarmac.
An Australian mining firm said on Thursday it had received a licence to construct a -million project to mine uranium in northern Malawi. The project, hailed as Malawi’s biggest investment to date, had been delayed by an an environmental impact assessment.
The African adage that ”when two elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers” is currently particularly apt in Malawian politics. The fall-out and subsequent power struggle between the country’s two foremost leaders — President Bingu wa Mutharika and his predecessor, Bakili Muluzi — have detrimentally affected one specific group of people: poverty stricken citizens.
At least nine people were feared dead on Thursday after a private plane hired by the Australian mining firm Paladin Africa crashed in the centre of Malawi. A police spokesperson said that there was no sign of survivors on the plane, which was known to have been carrying eight engineers as well as the pilot.
No image available
/ 28 February 2007
Aids-ravaged Malawi launched a two-day national debate on Wednesday on whether to adopt male circumcision in a bid to reduce the levels of HIV infection in the south-east African country. Around 14% of Malawi’s population of 12-million is infected with HIV, according to official figures.
No image available
/ 22 February 2007
Grace Kafere is tired. She has been on her feet for close to five hours, bending over as she moves up and down in a forest gathering twigs and branches to sell as firewood. The 45-year-old single mother of five lost her job as an administrative assistant three years ago when the firm where she was working was restructured. She has been unable to secure another job since then.
No image available
/ 19 February 2007
Malawi, which has the highest deforestation rate in Southern Africa, has roped in its army to save the trees, environmental officials said on Monday. The Natural Resources Ministry over the weekend inked a deal with the Malawi army for soldiers to be deployed to protect 16 of the country’s prime forest reserves and step up reforestation.
No image available
/ 8 February 2007
Malawi’s Vice-President, Cassim Chilumpha, on Thursday refused for a second time to enter a plea to charges of plotting to kill President Bingu wa Mutharika through South African hit men. Lawyers representing Chilumpha told the Malawi High Court that the charge sheet by the state was defective and should not be admitted in court.
Two people have been killed and hundreds more left homeless after flash floods swept through large parts of southern Malawi, local officials said on Monday. Major roads in the districts of Chikwawa and Nsanje were also rendered impassable as a result of incessant rain since the new year, but the full impact of the floods was still unknown as areas had been completely cut off.
Chicken was once considered a delicacy that rarely graced tables in Malawi. Now fish has taken over this position, despite Malawi being famous for its lake — which is the fifth largest in the world by volume and contains an estimated 1 000 fish species. The lake is central to the livelihoods of many Malawians.