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Starvation disaster grips Malawi By David Blair, Africa Correspondent (Filed: 17/10/2005) A national disaster has been declared in Malawi where five million people - almost half of the population - are threatened by starvation. Poor rains have produced the worst harvest in more than a decade. President Bingu wa Mutharika broadcast to the country saying: "We are facing a national disaster affecting the lives of our people." He added that the "food crisis has escalated and we need more assistance". The crisis is exacerbated by the Aids epidemic. About 16 per cent of adult Malawians are infected with HIV or...

Shaded by a grove of mopane trees, the village cemetery was strewn with fresh graves, most filled by victims of Africa's Aids epidemic who never reached the age of 30.Fanny Mbewe knelt in silent prayer beside her husband's unmarked resting place.   Fanny Mbewe [right] was forced to submit to ritual ‘cleansing’ Anyone who wonders why Aids has spread faster in Africa than anywhere else in the world needs only to consider her experience.With millions of other women, Mrs Mbewe fell victim to a tradition known as "kulowakufa" which dictates that any woman whose husband dies must submit to sex...

LONDON (August 18, 2005)--AS THE urbane vicar for Ealing, in West London, the Rev Nicholas Henderson might not have seemed the obvious first choice to become bishop of one of the most conservative provinces in Africa. But electors in the diocese decided otherwise. Based on his 18-year relationship with Lake Malawi diocese in the province of Central Africa, Malawi, during which time he visited regularly, giving help and raising £250,000 for religious, social and humanitarian projects, they elected him to be the next Bishop of Lake Malawi. But few knew of his record as a leading liberal theologian and, until...

Rose was raised as a good Catholic schoolgirl by her grandparents, but now the 18-year-old orphan survives by selling sex in a Ugandan slum with scant regard for the teachings of the church. Yahoo! Health Have questions about your health? Find answers here. Whatever the next pope says about condoms, she believes they are the only way to stop an AIDS epidemic that killed more than 2 million people in sub-Saharan Africa last year. "I'd like to follow the Church's teachings, but with condoms you can stay safe," she said. "Maybe I'm already sick, but I don't think so. You...

LILONGWE, Malawi - Malawi's president has temporarily moved out of his 300-bedroom state mansion, claiming it is haunted by ghosts, a senior aide said Saturday. The Rev. Malani Mtonga, presidential aide on Christian affairs, said that President Bingu wa Mutharika had asked the clergy to pray to "exorcise evil spirits." Mtonga refused to give further details about the ghosts. But another aide, who asked for anonymity, said that the president hears footsteps and strange noises at night. Nobody else, including the president's wife, hears anything, the aide said. He said it had been decided that the 71-year-old president would sleep...

Kenya's government, which was elected on a pledge to fight corruption, has been hit by the resignation of its chief anti-corruption official John Githongo this week. Donor countries have threatened to suspend aid if they cannot be sure that their money will be well spent. Kenya's leaders are not the only ones to find that eradicating corrupt practices is a tall order. Sceptics fear that the UK-led move to increase aid to Africa and forgive their debts will only make more money available to corrupt elites. Western governments are increasingly linking aid to good governance, and in particular to efforts...

"There are more Ethiopian doctors in the United States than there are in Ethiopia," Prime Minister Meles Zenawi told a forum on Africa's brain drain meeting in Addis Ababa last week. Africa has the "most mobile population in the world," according to Ndioro Ndiaye, deputy director general of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), whose presentation provided the statistical basis for the two days of deliberations. Hilde Johnson, Norway's minister of international development, said she learned on a just-completed visit to Malawi that more Malawians practice medicine in Manchester, England than in Malawi, where most received at least some of...

Anglican Communion: an imminent parting of the ways? by Margaret Rodgers Will the Anglican Communion see an imminent parting of the ways? British newspapers have, on more than one occasion in the last few weeks, predicted that the worldwide Anglican Communion is moving closer to a break-up. The Telegraph (London) said in early March that Anglicanism was edging ‘closer to disintegration’. This came in the context of their report of the Canadian General Synod announcement that their General Synod, to meet in Ontario next month, would debate a motion that affirmed there was no bar to Canadian dioceses authorising the...

Blantyre - Shortly before leaving home for the Commonwealth Congress in Nigeria on Thursday, Malawian President Bakili Muluzi warned Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe it was time he got his house in order. "My brother, comrade Mugabe, and his Zanu-PF must realise the world is changing in the direction of democracy. Laws that don't benefit the people should be scrapped," he said. This is the first time an African leader has publicly opposed Mugabe to such an extent. But Muluzi said he did not think Zimbabwe should be isolated by the international community. Malawi feels the international community should offer Zimbabwe...

Muslims protested after the men were taken Five foreign Muslims arrested in Malawi last month on suspicion of belonging to al-Qaeda have been flown into the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, officials say. A senior police spokesman said investigations had cleared the men - one Sudanese, a Kenyan, a Saudi, and two Turks - of terrorism charges. In June, the five men living in Malawi were arrested in a joint operation mounted by United States Central Intelligence Agency and Malawi's security organisation. Very little information should be given which would make the investigations with the American authorities difficult. The Americans wanted to...

The President of Malawi, Bakili Muluzi, has told security forces to arrest anyone suspected of involvement in religious violence, after a second day of rioting in the southern African country. Troops were deployed after Muslim mobs went on the rampage in the district of Mangochi, about 180 kilometres (120 miles) north-east of the capital, Blantyre. Protesters took to the streets in anger over the deportation of five suspected members of Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda network. Malawian officials say the five suspects - two Turks, a Kenyan, a Saudi Arabian and a Sudanese - were arrested in a joint operation with...

BLANTYRE (Reuters) - Malawi sent the army in on Saturday to quell a second day of riots by Muslims protesting against the arrest and alleged extradition this week of five suspected members of al Qaeda, police said.One witness said the rioting in the lakeside resort district of Mangochi, 120 miles northeast of the commercial capital Blantyre, injured at least three people.``Three people were injured as they tried to protect their personal property,'' Alex Maneno, who works with aid organization Save the Children, told Reuters by telephone.Six churches and an office belonging to Save the Children Fund were also reported to...

Police in the Malawi city of Blantyre have fired tear gas at Muslims protesting against the arrest and deportation of five suspected al-Qaeda members. The al-Qaeda suspects are now in US custody The Muslims, coming from Jumm'ah, or obligatory Friday prayers, chanted slogans against the government and their own association, the Muslim Association of Malawi (Mam). They accused the government of losing sovereignty by secretly handing the suspects over to American CIA agents, despite a High Court ruling ordering the government to charge or release the men. They also accused their association of failing to protect fellow Muslims, despite the...

<p>BLANTYRE, Malawi  — Five men suspected of running charities that funneled money to Al Qaeda have been arrested in Malawi and were to be deported from the southern African nation, intelligence officials said Monday.</p> <p>The men, all foreigners, were arrested Sunday night in the southern city of Blantyre in a joint operation involving the CIA and Malawi's National Intelligence Bureau, the intelligence officials said.</p>

President Thabo Mbeki, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and Malawi's Bakili Muluzi are to visit their Zimbabwean counterpart, Robert Mugabe, in the next few weeks to work out an exit plan for the ageing leader. In an interview with the Zimbabwean state broadcaster this week, Mugabe hinted that he was considering stepping down because the land issue had been dealt with. He said there was nothing wrong with people openly debating succession. The Sunday Times has learnt that an agreement was reached to reschedule a meeting between Mbeki, Obasanjo, Muluzi and Mugabe to discuss the matter. The new date has not...

Date: 2002-02-18 Malawi Urged to Act as Deadly Famine Sinks In Religious in Lilongwe Issue a Plea LILONGWE, Malawi, FEB. 18, 2002 (Zenit.org).- Religious of the Lilongwe Diocese say the government should declare the famine in Malawi a national disaster, the Misna agency reported. "In numerous parishes, the elderly drag themselves with difficulty to the churches where they sit and say they are prepared for death," the religious said in a statement. "In some areas, such as the Dowa district, people eat only leaves and roots." "In the village of Nauchi, Madisi, a mother and son were killed, poisoned," the ...

Muluzi says the West wants Malawi as a puppet state President Bakili Muluzi has told Western governments not to interfere in Malawi's internal affairs. He took particular exception to outside comment on efforts by his ruling United Democratic Front party to change the constitution so that presidents may serve more than two terms. Mr Muluzi - whose second five-year term of office ends in 2004 - was apparently reacting to a statement from the US embassy in the capital of Lilongwe. That release followed one by Britain - the former colonial power - which cautioned Malawi against adopting any constitutional...

African crisis: Aid donors and government engage in a war of words while famine and brutality stalk a once-bountiful nation By Declan Walsh in Lilongwe , Malawi 28 April 2002 James Black paid a high price for three cobs of maize. After accusing him of stealing from their field, four men launched a vicious attack. Ignoring the farm labourer's protestations of innocence, they bound him, beat him bloody and dragged him down a dirt track. Then, using a razor, they sliced off his ears. When a friend found James, one ear was stuffed in his pocket. "It is the hunger,"...

Government to Lower Maize Prices Daily Times (Blantyre) April 18, 2002 Posted to the web April 18, 2002 By Thomas Chafunya Blantyre GOVERNMENT has started working with donors and international agencies on modalities to reduce the current high maize prices from K850 per bag to an affordable price, Finance Minister Friday Jumbe said in Blantyre yesterday. Jumbe said during the opening of the 2002/03 pre-budget consultations that there is a general agreement between donors and government to make prices of maize affordable. He said signs have already started showing that another maize crisis which may spur an increase in prices....