Malawi, one of the world's poorest countries, is losing up to US$26 million for every nurse who leaves the country in search of greener pastures, according to a new research paper. "Better salaries and good working conditions are among the contributing factors for these nurses' migration."

The National Media Institute of Southern Africa (Namisa) - also known as MISA Malawi - petitioned Malawi's President Bingu wa Mutharika on the conduct of the State House Press Officer, Chikumbutso Mtumodzi. The petition is in response to a letter that Mtumodzi wrote to Blantyre Newspapers Limited (BNL) on November 13, 2006, barring its reporter Maxwell Ng'ambi from interviewing the President or attending any State function because, according to Mtumodzi, he is a convict.

Despite being largely preventable, mother-to-child transmission of HIV accounts for 30 percent of all new infections in Malawi and is the second major mode of transmission after unprotected sex. Every year, an estimated 30,000 babies are born HIV positive.

Mr Nkhoma has a big smile on his face as we join him in front of his impressive maize field in the village of Kajintchi, 120 km to the north of Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi. He is the president of one of the 42 clubs in the irrigation project implemented by the Malawi Red Cross with the support of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, who supply them with seed, a pump and give technical advice.

There are over a million orphans in Malawi, half of whom have lost one or both parents to AIDS, according to the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), but only 15 out of almost a thousand orphanages are registered with the Ministry of Women and Child Development.

Madonna's "bending of the rules" in her haste to adopt 13-month-old David Banda is sending a message to child traffickers that Malawi is open for business, a southern African child welfare organisation said. Pop star Madonna, 48, who has an estimated fortune of US$462 million, was granted an interim adoption order last week in the High Court in the capital, Lilongwe, in contradiction of the country's laws, which state that "an adoption order shall not be made to any applicant who is not resident in Malawi".

More women and girls than men continue to contract HIV, the virus that causes Aids due to among other things gender inequality, ministry of Women and Child Development has said. The ministry has since asked organizations in the HIV/Aids fight to mainstream gender issues as one way of reducing the further spread of the pandemic amongst women and girls.

A bumper harvest has pushed the number of needy Malawians down to the lowest level in four years, but pockets of hunger are still a cause for concern, a crop assessment official has warned. Malawi has recorded its biggest ever harvest of 2.6 million mt of maize, at least half-a-million more than its annual requirement of 2 million mt.

Barely a month after President Bingu wa Mutharika suspended Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) Director Gustave Kaliwo and fired Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Ishmael Wadi, a report on the justice sector and rule of law in Malawi says the Executive interferes with and undermines the independence of both offices.

The New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD)’s Information and Technology (ICT) broadband infrastructure network could fail if most African countries do not sign the project’s protocol, press reports said. The Daily Times of Malawi reported that out of 23 NEPAD member states, only six countries have signed the protocol, a development which experts say may jeopardise the project.

Malawi's parliament is stalling the appointment of a new director of public prosecutions until President Bingu wa Mutharika explains why he fired the previous prosecutor. Earlier this month Mutharika gave prosecutions director Ishmael Wadi 24 hours notice after he dropped corruption charges against Malawi's former president, Bakili Maluzi.

Human rights groups and a prominent lawyer said last week (August 17) President Bingu wa Mutharika has gone too far with his constitutional violations and have since called for his impeachment as a lasting solution to the governance crisis rocking his administration. But government has challenged the groups to go ahead, arguing that others have tried the same before and failed.

Members of Parliament (MPs) meeting in Malawi's capital, Lilongwe, to discuss the 2006/07 budget have called for the education system to be overhauled, with the abolition of community day secondary schools (CDSSs) as one of the options. MP Ishmael Chafukira told parliament that the mushrooming CDSSs, which evolved from distance education centres, had contributed to the poor quality of education in the country, and alleged that most of these teachers "do not have necessary qualifications to teach in secondary schools”.

In her opening address to this year’s Information and Communication Technology (ICT) fair in Blantyre in February, Information and Tourism Minister Patricia Kaliati challenged companies involved in the ICT sector to take technology to people on the ground. "As government, we would like ICT products to be enjoyed by many. We would like to see people in Limbuli, Makanjira and Mkando having access to ICT products. We would like to see the local tomato grower in the village using the internet to access markets for his or her products,” said Kaliati.

As the Malawian government takes stock of its anti-AIDS treatment programme, health officials have been faced with the question: how does a poor country with a serious epidemic and an overburdened health system provide indefinite care for up to 200,000 people living with HIV? In a recent article in the medical journal The Lancet, three researchers involved in the country's treatment programme said the answer lies in sticking to a simple public health approach.

Chopping down the forests for charcoal and fuel wood seems so shortsighted, but until there are alternative sources of energy for Malawi's rural poor, the destruction will continue. Malawi loses about 50,000ha of indigenous forest every year - the highest deforestation rate in the Southern African. The government estimates that just 4 percent of the population has access to electricity; over 93 percent depend on wood fuel.

Malawi's Information Minister Patricia Kaliati has disclosed that the government is advertising for the second fixed line operator to enhance competition with the country's only operator the Malawi Telecoms Limited (MTL), 'The Chronicle' has learnt. "If we can have a competitor in this area, then the quality of service would subsequently improve," said Minister Kaliati

Malawi is one of the countries that ratfied to the African's Women's Protocol in June, 2005. Since then Malawi has created awareness to a number of groups/institutions.

The Ministry of Gender, Child Welfare and Community Services as a National Gender Machinery in Malawi has conducted a number of workshops aimed at creating wareness on the provisions of the Protocol. The following have been sensitized so far

1. Media Houses: almost all media houses
2. NGOs working on gender/women issues
3. Policy Makers particularly Principal Secreatries and Chief Exceutive of Statutory Bodies
4. Parliamentary Caucus on Social Affairs
5. Parliamentary Women Caucus

Future Plans

1.Translation of the Protocol in three local languages to ensure that all stakeholders use the same version without losing sense of the provisions
2. Sensitisation of communities at large

All these have been possible through funding from Joint Oxfam Malawi.

Findings of a recent forest assessment in Malawi show "increasing deforestation rates and unsustainable exploitation of non-timber forestry products" in the country's protected areas. The report indicates that Malawi's valuable national parks soon could be degraded entirely.

There was a heavy police presence at Lilongwe Magistrates’ Court Monday as two Blantyre Newspapers Limited (BNL) journalists appeared before the court to answer criminal libel charges. BNL General Manager Jika Nkolokosa and Lilongwe Bureau Chief Maxwell Ng’ambi are accused of publishing an article in Malawi News last year that allegedly defamed Health and Population Minister Hetherwick Ntaba, reports Malawi's Daily Times newspaper.