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/ 13 November 2006
A judge began hearing a closed-door legal challenge on Monday to pop star Madonna’s bid to adopt a baby boy from Malawi. The Human Rights Consultative Committee claims the government broke its own laws by granting an 18-month interim adoption order which has allowed the singer to bring up David Banda outside Malawi.
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/ 7 November 2006
A Malawi opposition politician and popular musician convicted of faking credentials so he could run for Parliament won his appeal on Tuesday, and a high court judge added he was shocked that the singer had received such a harsh sentence. Lucius Banda had been sentenced to 21 months in prison with hard labour.
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/ 30 October 2006
The United Nations’ special envoy for HIV and Aids in Africa accused the world’s wealthiest countries on Sunday of failing to deliver on promises to increase aid to the most impoverished continent. ”Where is the G8 money ? Where is the promise?… The world is running out of patience. Why has the G8 defaulted?” Stephen Lewis told reporters in Malawi.
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/ 27 October 2006
A judge in Malawi adjourned to November 13 a hearing into an application by child rights groups trying to block the adoption of a Malawian boy by pop star Madonna. Yohane Banda, father of one-year-old David, went to the court in Lilongwe, saying his presence was a symbolic protest against the legal moves to halt the adoption.
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/ 26 October 2006
The father of the African baby Madonna wants to mother appealed for an end to legal challenge to her adoption bid, fearing the singer could react by sending the boy back to his impoverished homeland. Speaking on the eve of a hearing in Malawi’s administrative capital, Lilongwe, Yohane Banda said the case should be dropped ”for the sake of my child’s future and health”.
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/ 23 October 2006
The biological father of 13-month-old ”Baby David” said on Sunday that he was misled into agreeing to give up his son to American pop diva Madonna, injecting new controversy and confusion into the adoption saga. Yohane Banda said that authorities had not made it clear to him that he was giving up his only son ”for good”.
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/ 20 October 2006
A judge on Friday postponed a hearing on a lawsuit by human rights groups challenging the government’s decision to allow American pop star Madonna to start adoption procedures for a motherless, 13-month-old Malawian boy. Judge Andrew Nyirenda postponed a hearing on the case until next Friday.
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/ 17 October 2006
A Malawian court agreed on Tuesday to hear arguments by a coalition of local rights groups seeking to block ”Queen of Pop” Madonna’s fast-track adoption of a 13-month boy from the poor African country. ”The court wants to hear our locus standi and why we should be appointed guardians of the child,” Justin Dzodzi, chairperson of the Human Rights Consultative Committee, said.
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/ 16 October 2006
Human rights groups want Malawi’s courts to review a ruling allowing Madonna to adopt a child from Malawi, an impoverished, Aids-stricken Southern African country, according to one of dozens of organisations involved. Boniface Mandere of Eye of the Child, a local child protection society, told the media on Monday a coalition had banded together.
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/ 13 October 2006
Pop diva Madonna left Malawi on Friday after receiving official permission to adopt a one-year-old boy from the impoverished Southern African country. Her departure brought to a climax a controversial week-long charity visit during which her aides denied earlier reports by government officials that she planned to adopt a child.
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/ 11 October 2006
Caroline Chileka has had to adapt her lifestyle to look after her four brothers and sisters following their parents’ death from HIV/Aids. The schoolgirl, who comes from the southern Mwanza province, is one of 700Â 000 youngsters in Malawi who have been left orphans by the disease which has ravaged so much of Southern Africa.
Madonna’s mission to help Malawi’s Aids orphans remained shrouded in mystery on Friday with a scheduled meeting between the pop star and a government minister failing to take place. The celebrity made a secretive visit to an orphanage near the capital, while rumours that she was to adopt a child persisted.
Pop diva Madonna arrived in Malawi on Wednesday to adopt an African child and fund an orphan centre for 1 000 children, many of whom lost parents to HIV/Aids. A fleet of cars and trucks whisked the Material Girl and her entourage to an undisclosed location soon after their private plane landed at Lilongwe.
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/ 2 September 2006
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank on Friday announced a ,9-billion debt-cancellation deal for Malawi, one of the world’s poorest countries where 60% of the population lives on less than per day. ”This is a historic moment and very exciting news,” Finance Minister Goodall Gondwe said.
A Malawian opposition lawmaker who is also one of the country’s most popular singers was on Thursday sentenced to 21 months of hard labour for faking his educational qualifications. Chief resident magistrate Luke Mabowoza Gama told a packed courtroom that he found 35-year-old Lucius Banda guilty of forgery and lying.
Malawi president Bingu wa Mutharika on Thursday demanded the resignation of a top prosecutor for withdrawing corruption charges against the nation’s former president. Director of Public Prosecutions Ishmael Wadi last week unconditionally dropped all 42 counts of corruption, fraud and abuse of office filed by the Anti-Corruption Bureau against former president Bakili Muluzi.
The village headman of Mphandula, Malawi, has never heard of Madonna, the pop star. But he knows Madonna the philanthropist. Madonna has announced plans to raise at least -million for programmes to support the nearly one million children in Malawi who have lost parents to Aids.
A Malawian court on Wednesday gave a two-year jail sentence to a principal secretary earlier suspended for corruption, making him the most senior bureaucrat to be netted in a sweeping anti-graft drive. High court Judge Richard Chinangwa found Sam Safuli guilty of ”aiding and abetting the theft of public funds”.
Malawian President Bingu wa Mutharika has suspended the head of the national graft-fighting agency just hours after the Southern African nation’s previous president was charged with stealing aid money. Wa Mutharika suspended Gustave Kaliwo, the head of the Anti-Corruption Bureau on ”disciplinary grounds”, a brief statement by the president’s office said.
Malawi’s former president Bakili Muluzi was arrested on Thursday on fraud and corruption charges amid questions about millions of dollars in donor funds that allegedly ended up in his personal account. A team from the state Anti-Corruption Bureau took Muluzi to their office in the commercial capital, Blantyre, for over an hour of questioning before releasing him, his lawyers said.
Malawi on Monday launched a week-long HIV testing campaign amid fears the fight against Aids is being hampered by people not knowing whether they have the virus. The campaign follows the revelation that only 15% of the country’s population of 12-million people have been tested for HIV/Aids.
Veteran politician Chakufwa Chihana, who rallied opposition to the iron-fist dictatorship of the late Hastings Kamuzu Banda, died in South Africa early on Monday after an unsuccessful attempt to remove a brain tumour, the government and relatives said. He was 67. He died at about 8am at Johannesburg’s Garden City clinic.
Veteran politician Chakufwa Chihana, who rallied opposition to the iron-fist dictatorship of the late Hastings Kamuzu Banda, died in South Africa early on Monday after an unsuccessful attempt to remove a brain tumour, the government and relatives said. He was 67. He died at about 8am at Johannesburg’s Garden City clinic.
Muslims in Malawi are urging the government to ban the movie The Da Vinci Code for portraying Jesus as a married man who fathered a child, the head of a national association said on Wednesday. ”It is clear that the contents of the film are acts of blasphemy,” said Shareef Mahomed, of the Muslim Association of Malawi.
A Malawian court on Monday put Vice-President Cassim Chilumpha under house arrest for allegedly plotting to kill President Bingu wa Mutharika by hiring South African hitmen. Chilumpha will be ”confined to his official residence and will not leave his house without authority from the president” until the treason trial finishes, said high court judge Charles Mkandawire.
A mausoleum to Malawi’s founding president and one of Africa’s most repressive leaders, Kamuzu Banda, will be inaugurated on Sunday, stirring mixed emotions over the dictator’s legacy in the impoverished Southern African nation. Banda, popularly known as ”Ngwazi” or conqueror, died in South Africa in 1997 at the age of 99 and was one of Africa’s most controversial leaders.
Ten opposition leaders and businessmen detained last week in Malawi in connection with an alleged plot to assassinate President Bingu wa Mutharika have been released due to lack of evidence, police said on Monday. ”Police have not found sufficient evidence to prosecute them,” police spokesperson Willie Mwaluka told Agence France-Presse.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Thursday opened a road named after him in Malawi, accusing those who criticise his human rights record of "speaking for their white masters". Cheered on amid heavy security, Mugabe unveiled a plaque to open the newly constructed road between Malawi’s commercial capital Blantyre and the Mozambican border.
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.