- The United Nations has asked Africa to go beyond agricultural productivity and focus manufacturing in order to fight poverty in the continent.
Deputy Director of the United Nations Millennium Campaign (UNMC) Charles Aburge said in the sidelines of the Global Campaign against Poverty (GCAP) retreat in the Malawian capital Lilongwe African countries have been failing to go out of poverty because they have focused much on agricultural production.
The three day retreat that started on Wednesday has drawn participation of GCAP campaigners from Africa and is expected to end today with reviewing their work strategy for 2009 and planning the 2010 strategy.
Aburge said Africa needs to move fro…
Muslims in Malawi are denying the 2008 census results saying they were doctored to deny Muslims opportunities in the society. The Malawi National Statistical Office (NSO) has since brushed aside the allegations. - The director of NSO, Charles Machinjiri, said it was unfortunate that the Muslim community was trying to deny the census report. He has since advised the community to come with an alternative census results.
The 2008 census report put the number of Muslims in the country at 1,690,087 and Christians are estimated at 10,770,229. However the Muslims say this is not a fair representation of facts on the ground.
The Muslim Association of Malawi (MAM) said in a press statement sign…
- Despite the Malawi proposal hitting a snag, the global fund has given Malawi a second chance to re apply for grants to assist in its HIV and AIDS programmes.
Michael Kazatchki said in the sidelines of the southern Africa global fund meeting being held in Lilongwe that Malawi still had a chance to reapply for the grant.
This news comes just barely a few days after the long serving director of the national AIDS body Biziwick Mwale resigned from his position.
Kazatchki said it was very sad that despite the success in combating HIV and AIDS Malawi’s proposal had hit a snag.
He said Malawi was free to appeal to the global fund for the grants and the proposal will be reviewed by a new…
- Oh no, delays in any way is not good especially on public situations like this. What could be causing the delay? Expenses of printing documents should not be an issue. Prices of ink/toner for printer gets too high nowadays.
- A man died while his three children are battling for their lives after being struck by lightening in Lilongwe district in central Malawi.
Central region police publicist John Namalenga said the Man, Master Edison Mpanje 44 was struck by lightening after returning from a friend’s funeral.
He said Mpanje who was working at Chitedze research station was struck by the lightening at his home together with the children.
He said a postmortem at the Kamuzu Central Hospital indicated that the man had died of suffocation and burns.
Incidents of people being killed by lightening are very common in Malawi during the rainy season.
- Malawians will now be able to enjoy live internet phone connectivity following the launch of 3G services by one of the country’s leading mobile service providers in Malawi, TNM.
TNM chief executive officer Werner Schrijver said in Blantyre the coming of 3g services to Malawi offered hope to the business community as communications costs are to be drastically reduced.
“The 3G mobile service has more brand width unlimited high speed internet access, streaming video that also includes video calls and mobile internet TV, “he said.
He said the service is currently available in Blantyre but will be extended to other parts of the country early next year.
Malawi has two mobil…
A former officer in the Malawi police service, Oscar Msiska, has been sentenced to 11 years imprisonment with hard labour for his involvement in the death of Stumai Mwalwanda of Kalonga district in northern Malawi. - The high court sitting in Kalonga convicted and handed Msiska the 11 year sentence on his own guilty plea.
Mwalwanda died while in police custody last October and an autopsy conducted by Dr Charles Dzamalala at Kalonga district hospital showed that he died after loosing a lot of blood after being assaulted.
Dzamalala noted that the nature of the internal and external injuries on Mwalwanda suggested traumatic assault in the head, chest and abdomen, most notably from a blow…
A Dutch national Martin Mulder, 26, has been terribly attacked by crocodiles in the Southern region lake district of Mangochi in Malawi. - According to police records, Mulder went swimming with his dog when the crocodiles attacked him and drugged him to a distance of about 3 kilometers.
Mangochi police spokes person, Rodrick Maida said the victim was rescued by his care taker who hit the crocodile by an iron rod. He said Mulder sustained deep wounds in the buttocks, thighs and fingers.
In a related development a woman Sunday Nguluwe was also attacked and killed by crocodiles in the southern region district of Chikwawa.
The Chikwawa police spokesperson said she was attacked as she we…
About 4,000 people from the Kalonga district in northern Malawi are to be relocated following a wave of earthquakes that have been hitting the area since last week. - The District Commissioner for Kalonga Gaston Mcheka said the earthquake that hit Saturday and in the early morning hours of Sunday destroyed seven houses.
He said his office had started relocating people to safer grounds as currently the area is prone to experience more quakes.
“Water has now started immerging from the cracks and no place within the area seems safe, this is a rift valley close to the lake and there could be flooding shortly,” he said.
He said even those whose houses have not been affected b…
- The children parliament in Malawi has asked government to bar People Living with HIV (PLHIV) from having children saying they are increasing the number of children born with HIV.
Speaker of the children’s parliament Clotilde Rebello said the last sitting of the children parliament recommended ten key child rights issues that it regards are vital in the promotion of child rights.
She said the recommendation that people living with HIV should not be allowed to have children comes in the wake of the rising number of children born with HIV in the country.
“A lot of children in Malawi are born with HIV that they get from their parents we therefore believe this can be controlled i…
- Malawian president Bingu Wa Mutharika could just have slipped his tongue when he joked that it was high time Malawians started using traditional travelling methods, including witchcraft now that country was in a fuel crisis.
Little did the president know that one enterprising magician in the southern Region district of Neno seriously took his presidents joke and started strategizing on how he could put it into practice.
Maunyoro Soko, popularly known as Gang’athi (sorcerer) within his Moffat village in this remote Malawian district wants to show the world that witchcraft vessels can also be made into good transportation tools.
Speaking in an interview with Africa news Thursday, So…
- Only poor Malawians are reported to be declaring their HIV positive status a development HIV and AIDS activists say is derailing as it has fuelled stigma and discrimination attached to HIV and AIDS in the country.
Davison Mkandawire a Community Based Care councilor at the National Association of people living with HIV in Malawi (NAPHAM) said in an interview the war on HIV and AIDS in Malawi can not be won only if the poor are disclosing their HIV status.
Mkandawire said declarations by poor people that were not even regarded as role models in Malawian society had done little to change peoples perceptions on HIV positive living and made the pandemic look like that of the poor, yet the tru…
- If claims by Enala Harry Mponda a woman from the Malawian southern region district of Zomba that she is 136 years old be true, then Malawi has beaten the world record of having the oldest person alive.
Mponda of Namakhwa village just some 20 kilometers from the former Malawian capital claims to have been born in 1873 in Mozambique at the time people were still living in caves.
Her 68 year old Mcsherix Mponda said in an interview according to records that he has of her mother, she was born some time around the 1870s some where in Mozambique before migrating to Malawi in the early 1890s after one of the fierce southern Africa tribes the Kafula invaded the region.
Then if this news be true…
- Some medical doctors from the Malawi college of Medicine that are also attached to the country’s main referral hospital the Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital have asked government to make HIV and AIDS testing mandatory for all people seeking services at the country’s public and private hospitals.
The doctors headed by Professor Johnson Kumwenda dean of studies at the Malawi College of medicine say in a petition they have forwarded to government that the initiative would save many Malawians that are ignorantly living with HIV and seek medical services at the latest stages of HIV infection.
The doctors observe that at least 70 percent of patients admitted at the country’s…
- Nanzikabe Theater, a Malawian art development NGO that was formed in 2003 by two Norwegian nationals to promote the culture of performing arts says it wants to tackles social issues surrounding the Malawian society through contemporary drama.
Melisa Eveleigh director of the award winning group which goes on a national tour with its new production ‘the frogs’ an adaptation of the Greek original by Aristophanes said the group wants to show case to Malawians that theater can play a great role in changing the sphere of society.
She said the frog has a charactersation that wants to make people understand that wants to make people understand their role in the development of the soc…
- Malawi National team coach Kinnah Phiri who stole the show at the group draw in Angola is expected to depart for Denmark where he is to be attached to a yet to be disclosed team in preparation for the Angola Africa Cup of Nations early next year.
Football Association of Malawi President Walter Nyamilandu said the Malawi coach was expected to leave the country early next week for Denmark where he is supposed to have a two week attach to a Danish team that they are yet to disclose.
The FAM boss said the trip would sharpen the coach’s skills and knowledge ahead of the Nations Cup.
However while the FAM position is to send the coach on this learning experience the arrangement depends…
- Malawi president Bingu Wa Mutharika is reported to have vowed to deal with northerners who are reported to be enjoying much of the country’s resources Africa news can reveal.
The revelations come amid recent overhauls in the Malawian education system which many feel are meant to target people from the northern region of the country which currently has many educated individuals that also hold influential positions in all sectors of the Malawi society.
Recent developments have seen the Malawi leader replacing many northerners on high government positions replacing them with those from the southern region a development that has irked northerners.
According to Africa news sources a r…
- Malawians positively living with HIV are living in fear following the country’s failure to qualify for the rejection of a US$ 375 million proposal the country submitted to the global fund to scale up HIV and AIDS services in the next coming three years.
An Africa news investigation in the city of Blatyre and Chiradzulu where the Malawi government has implemented successful HIV and AIDS interventions indicated that many people were now worried that the country’s failure to qualify for the access to HIV and AIDs services program will impinge badly on the current successes that the country has in the response to the pandemic.
“Most of us are worried that Anti Retro Viral d…
Malawi parliament has failed to agree on a controversial police bill that was to empower police officers to carry searches without warrant. The bill also seeks to prohibit officers from smoking and suspend officers found to be carrying sexually transmitted infections. - Despite the fact that the government which has majority in the House strongly supports the bill, it has been referred to the legal affairs of the House as many parliamentarians believed it was not in line with democratic principals.
However while the bill is in the parliamentary legal affairs committee, some top government officials believe that the bill would bring some professionalism in the Malawi police service.
Ma…
- Some residents from Chinkhota village where pop star Madonna acquired a 46 hectare piece of land where she intends to build an all girls academy for needy Malawian children have threatened to take the pop star and the Malawi government to court for failing to fairly compensate them for their land.
The threats come barely a week after district commissioner for Lilongwe Charles Chilemba warned the villagers that they will be arrested if the continue protesting over Madonna’s acquisition of the land.
However despite the Commissioner having warned them, the villagers feel that government has not fairly treated them for giving them very little compensation for land they have been stayi…
- Fishing activities have been identified as one of the drivers to the transmission of HIV along the shores of Lake Malawi.
The revelation was made by Tisa Ngoma, Executive Director of Nkotakota AIDS Support Organization at the end of a three day behavior change training workshop for fishermen in the lakeshore district of Nkotakota.
Ngoma said that considering that most of the fishing was done at night, the probability of sexual activities during the sell of the catch were high as usually some sex workers trekked to the fishing lands as fishermen usually more money.
“Sex workers have been trekking to fishing lands in search of the fishermen’s money and realizing that fisherme…
- Fishing activities have been identified as one of the drivers to the transmission of HIV along the shores of Lake Malawi.
The revelation was made by Tisa Ngoma, Executive Director of Nkotakota AIDS Support Organization at the end of a three day behavior change training workshop for fishermen in the lakeshore district of Nkotakota.
Ngoma said that considering that most of the fishing was done at night, the probability of sexual activities during the sell of the catch were high as usually some sex workers trekked to the fishing lands as fishermen usually more money.
“Sex workers have been trekking to fishing lands in search of the fishermen’s money and realizing that fisherme…
- The man looks very simple, but his innovation is that every Malawian secondary school student would be enthusiastic to access .
Alinune Musopole a graduate of the University of Malawi the Polytechnic and his new computer soft ware Computer Package for Secondary School Mathematics (CPSSM) are becoming popular.
As many Malawian students continue to shun mathematics because of the difficulties they find in solving mathematical problems, Musopole said his windows based soft ware will motivate many secondary school going students to have a passion for mathematics.
“Having experienced what it takes to master the science of solving mathematical problems as a secondary school student I f…
Malawian soldiers that fought in the first and second World Wars are receiving a monthly pension of US$1.25 (MK200.00). - This was disclosed by Brigadier John Msothi in Malawi’s capital Lilongwe on Tuesday when the country’s leading mobile service provider Zain Malawi presented a donation in the form of domestic utensils worth US$9,934 (K1.4 million) to the remaining 32 ex-service men.
Msonthi said the pension was very little to meet the up keep and daily domestic demands of the ex-service men that he described as brave men that sacrificed their lives to shape the face of the earth.
A press statement from Zain Malawi said the company had decided to make the donation conside…
Two top opposition politicians have been handed a 20-month jail sentence for utterances that could have incited violence during the Malawi elections this year. They are the United Democratic Front Secretary General Hopmally Makande and United Democratic Party President Kamlepo Kaluwa. - The Chief Resident Magistrate Nyakwawa Usiwa Usiwa said while the law provided for freedom of expression, the conduct of the two politicians was very irresponsible as they uttered their sentiments at a very critical political period.
“The two ought to have observed caution in uttering their campaign messages that might have incited violence and while the court notes that the late Masauko Chipembere a…
