While in Malawi civil society is driving an effort to get female candidates into office, regardless of their political party, there still remain obstacles. This is despite the existence of the 50/50 programme: a campaign which aims to meet the Southern African Development Community Protocol on Gender and Development, which commits countries to work towards the goal of having 50 per cent women in political and decision-making positions by 2015.

Fuel has become so precious in Malawi that it is now being rationed. People park their vehicles at service stations overnight, forming long queues as they wait for petrol tankers to arrive. The Council for Non-Governmental Organisations in Malawi (Congoma), an umbrella body representing non-governmental organisations, has blamed the shortage of foreign exchange on President Bingu wa Mutharika who they accuse of undertaking too many international trips that waste foreign exchange.

Thousands of freshly molded reddish-brown bricks lie baking under the hot Malawian sun. Residents of Manase, like too many other villages in Malawi, have seen members of their communities die while travelling to faraway medical clinics. But the Manase residents are determined to see themselves into better health, even if it means building their own hospital from scratch.

At the age of 13, Chantal Kifungo* is mother to a ten-month-old baby girl. It wasn’t her choice. Almost two years ago, she was raped by her stepfather – and fell pregnant with his child. "My mother was in hospital because she had complications with her own pregnancy. I was left alone with my stepfather. One night, he came home and raped me. I tried to shout for help but nobody heard me," Chantal says while nervously playing with her hands in her lap.

Malawi will not make it an official policy to promote and encourage circumcision among men as a way of preventing the spread of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, two government officials announced. 'We have no scientific evidence that circumcision is a sure way of slowing down the spread of AIDS,' said Dr. Mary Shaba, Principal Secretary for HIV and AIDS in the Office of the President and Cabinet.

Andrew Adam is 12 years old, and a fisherman by trade. In Malawi’s southern district of Zomba, Lake Chilwa is the lifeblood of its villagers. Since Adam left school more than a year ago, he has been working as a bila boy – a worker who dives underwater and pulls the nets in.

It is mid-morning and the workday is underway. People are moving in all directions, going about their daily chores. But it is mostly women who move the fastest, many of them carrying water through the impoverished and overcrowded streets. In Mgona, on the outskirts of Lilongwe, most men have ignored the many problems faced by the community, chief amongst them issues of waterborne disease.

For two years, Rozina Chimbalani has struggled to feed, clothe and school the four grandchildren left in her care after her daughter died. Across Malawi, this has been a painfully common story, as for more than two decades HIV has shattered families and left more than a million children orphaned.

With International Literacy Day having taken place on 8 September, Steve Sharra considers the significance of ‘literacy’ in the Malawian context. Literacy – understood in a broad sense to include more than merely the capacity to read and write – should be at the heart of efforts to improve livelihoods and rights, while the country’s domestic book industry and greater digital resources should be embraced, Sharra contends.

Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika has said Malawi cannot afford life ministers. Swearing in new ministers, some of them returnees into his cabinet, he said nobody should think ministerial posts are for life. He also defended his inclusion of his wife, First Lady, Callista Mutharika, on the cabinet list. "As President, I am in the saddle where I have the opportunity to look at the whole Malawi and the world to correct things. You need to understand that the posts are not your personal possessions," he said at Sanjika Palace in the commercial city of Blantyre.

It is 11 am and Mary Jusa seems unconcerned by the sun beating hard on her back. Humming a traditional tune, she carries on uprooting weeds in her maize field between two water canals. One of 24 members of this irrigation scheme in the rural district of Thyolo, Jusa’s plot measures just 50 by 20 metres. But she says it gives her enough income to meet the basic needs of her family of three children. She attributes her success to agricultural extension services.

Reflecting on discussions at a Malawian ‘unconference’ on information technology, Steve Sharra considers IT’s future role in the lives of Malawians. With ‘billions of kwacha’ leaving the country in the form of software licences to northern companies, considerable Malawian taxpayer money ends up being spent on proprietary software, despite governmental indifference. As Sharra emphasises, Malawian ingenuity around application development and the use of open source software should be much better supported in the struggle to improve the country’s education system.

The Malawian government has again stood firm in the face of calls by the European Union (EU) to sign an economic partnership agreement (EPA) -- even after top-level EU officials visited the southern Africa to convince it to put pen to paper. The EU delegation, led by the European Commission’s (EC) director for development and EPAs Peter Thompson and EU Ambassador to Malawi Alexander Baum, engaged Malawi’s top trade officials at a two-day meeting on Jul 26 and 27 in the country’s commercial capital, Blantyre.

Over 25,000 cases of measles and 121 deaths have been recorded since the outbreak of the highly-contagious disease was reported in Malawi in February. Director of Preventive Health Services, Dr. Storn Kabuluzi, said the disease was still spreading but government was doing all it could to contain it.

As government implements a new HIV/AIDS treatment regimen according to latest world standards, a major grouping of non-governmental organisations are concerned that the high cost of the new medication will mean government will no longer be able provide free treatment to as many people as before. The Malawi Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS (MANET+) advocacy officer George Kampango told IPS that the new drugs, which cost three times as much as the current regime used, will be too expensive for government to manage providing free treatment to the poor and children.

A measles outbreak in Malawi has killed 82 people, mostly children, and infected more than 17,000 others, a senior health official said. Dr Storn Kabuluzi, director of preventive health services in the department of health, said efforts were being made to vaccinate those most at risk.

The Chinese government will fund the construction of a new science university in Malawi as part of the country’s ambitious initiative to open five new institutions of higher learning in the next decade, according to President Bingu wa Mutharika. China is funding major development projects in Africa, in a diplomatic initiative aimed at building good relations on the continent and averting criticism that it is only after Africa’s rich natural resources.

A leading London-based gay rights campaigner has blamed the recent break-up of Malawi's first openly gay couple on what he called the southern African country's homophobia. Peter Tatchell of Outrage! said 26-year-old Steven Monjeza and his 20- year-old partner Tiwonge Chimbalanga caved in to pressure from threats on their lives.

While the two Malawian gay men Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga have been granted a presidential pardon on “humanitarian grounds”, annulling a 14 year sentence for “gross indecency and unnatural acts”, speculation is mounting on the exact conditions of their release.

Amnesty International has warned that a Malawian couple given a presidential pardon following their conviction of “gross indecency” and “unnatural acts” could face further harassment unless the law is changed. Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga were released from prison on 29 May 2010 after President Bingu wa Mutharika pardoned them on humanitarian grounds.