The Tanzanian activists had entered Malawi legally for a cross-learning trip with Malawian colleagues at the defunct Kayekera uranium mine in the Karonga region. Malawian authorities had approved the mission beforehand. The arrest and detention comes at a critical time during Malawi’s own domestic debates about the harmful impacts of mining on local communities.

Almost four million Malawians are battling severe famine due to poor or no harvests because of the effect of El Nino, which last year affected most of the country’s southern and northern regions. The numbers of those starving could double by the end of the year.

The government has lifted its ban on oil exploration on Lake Malawi in the hope of entering the seemingly lucrative business of oil export. But a number of reasons, including falling oil prices, predict that the people of Malawi will not profit from this undertaking.

Communities living along the northern part of Lake Malawi in Karonga district have launched a spirited campaign to stop Uranium Miner Paladin Africa Limited from dumping ‘toxic’ waste into Lake Malawi.

The law that attempts to address a serious human rights abuse like child and forced marriage would then also target Malawians for discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

New report shows that resources are transferred from small-scale farmers to multinational agribusinesses. The farmers are trapped in a cycle of debt and dependency on costly external inputs with limited long-term benefit.

The new policy ignores serious systemic challenges within Malawi’s education system. It discourages the use of local languages in favour of English, a fact that has important cultural ramifications. In sum, the policy makers have misdiagnosed the problem and prescribed the wrong medicine

Previously touted as transparent, Malawi’s recent election proved chaotic amid polling day havoc and vote counting anomalies. Incumbent Joyce Banda cried foul over preliminary results, but an electoral commission recount upheld opposition leader Peter Mutharika’s win. Malawi’s leaders, the AU and SADC must now continue to promote stability to protect democracy and the will of the Malawian people.

As Malawians prepare go to elections on May 20, a new comprehensive report shows that important electoral reforms have not been put in place. And the country’s politics is driven by regionalism and ethnicity

Debate on homosexuality in Malawi is complex. The unpredictable and sometimes tense course of the debate provides a snapshot of the difficulties encountered when confronting the dilemmas and anxieties around the issue in Africa

The South African sugar giant Illovo has 6159 hectares of sugarcane in Malawi, where it is a monopoly with an annual production of 2.8 million metric tonnes of sugar. The company denies persistent claims that it has grabbed land from smallholder farmers

The Malawi Young Pioneers Movement, which unfortunately became a terror militia to prop up the Banda regime, should be revisited by the Malawi government with the goal of involving youth in the county’s development

The question of whether or not Malawi should start considering the feasibility of providing free secondary school education is really one of whether or not Malawi should consider strengthening its human capital

Malawi has gone from bountiful maize crops to renewed uncertainty: Strong, democratic leadership and sound policies are essential for ensuring food security

Problems in Malawi’s education sector are tied to the country’s governance and have their roots in a broader global context of economic and education policy prescriptions

The debate about decriminalising homosexuality must be strategically taken to Malawian people. One cannot simply change the law on such a sensitive issue without first addressing attendant social and religious concerns

At the heart of the quota system debate is the incredibly small number of students who are admitted to Malawi’s public universities. Malawi ranks bottom in the university-age cohort of young people enrolled annually.

Despite the Malawi government's move to suspend a law banning same-sex relationships, activists say winning a total repeal will be an 'uphill battle' in a country where homosexuality is considered a sin. 'Malawi culture remains conservative,' Billy Mayaya, a leading rights activist, told AFP just hours after President Joyce Banda's government announced the suspension of tough anti-gay laws, pending a parliamentary debate. Despite the jubilation, Mayaya and others are far from confident that a full repeal is in the cards, and until that happens gay Malawians still face the threat of up to 14 years in jail with hard labour.

Malawi has suspended laws against same-sex relationships pending a decision on whether to repeal the legislation, the justice minister has said.

Police in Malawi's commercial capital, Blantyre, Wednesday arrested a number of former ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) officials in pre-dawn raids of people fingered in an inquiry into the mysterious death of a 25-year-old Malawi university student. Robert Chasowa, a fourth-year engineering student at the Polytechnic, a constituent college of the University of Malawi, was found dead on campus on 24 September last year. Police immediately dubbed it suicide and produced two suicide notes and a post-mortem report to buttress their claims. But pathologist, Dr. Charles Dzamalala, who conducted the autopsy on Chasowa's remains, contradicted them and said the student was in fact bludgeoned to death.