On October 14th the Malawi Police Service arrested 21 year-old Gabriel Kondesi for owning and operating a radio station in Soza Village in the southern district of Mulanje, without a licence from the Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (MACRA). On Friday October 16th Mulanje Second Grade Magistrate Aristotle Lameck Mkwapatira ordered Kondesi to pay a MK50,000 fine ($357), or serve a 10-month imprisonment sentence, according to an October 20th story by journalist Lucas Bottoman in the print edition of The Daily Times. Unable to pay the fine, Kondesi was sent to jail, and a media frenzy erupted.

Kondesi interviewed. Photo by Jack Mcbrams.

The story stunned Malawians both online and offline, who expressed their shock and anger on blogs, listservs, chat forums and other social media forums such as facebook. By Monday October 19th Kondesi was released after his family and well-wishers in his village raised the money and paid the fine. His family sold their television set, a DVD Player, bags of cement, and also borrowed money from other members of the community, according to Nyasatimes, The Nation and The Sunday Times. Details about the story have since been emerging, and a facebook group has been created, by Daud Suleman, to express support for Kondesi, and raise awareness about “what African youths can achieve through applicable necessary technologies.” The group had 380 members as of Friday (Oct. 30).

Thus far it has emerged that Kondesi dropped out of school in the 7th grade, and has since been operating his Pachikweza Radio Station, made out of crude gadgets that included “an old cassette player, a Nokia 1110, capacitors, two aerials and transistors,” according to Clifton Kawanga in The Sunday Times. Kawanga writes that Kondesi was employing up to ten other young people, whom he paid whenever he had the money. Listeners in the community were paying MK20 (approx. $0.007) to have letters read, and MK50 (approx. $0.003) for letters advertising business. Kawanga adds that MACRA charge $150 for community radio licences.

Malawian papers differ on which frequency Pachikweza was broadcasting, with one paper saying it was on 98.5FM, and another paper saying it was on 105.1FM. The radio station could be heard well beyond his village, crossing the national border into Mozambican territory.

It has also transpired that Kondesi did visit the offices of MACRA in 2007, but no one there helped him. “I travelled to Blantyre two years ago and the people at Macra said they would communicate with me through the Mulanje District Commissioner but I have got nothing up to now,” The Nation quoted him as saying.

Immediately the story broke out, blogger Clement Nthambazale Nyirenda wrote on his blog:

This guy is a genius! Why condemn him to prison when he did not know that what he was doing was wrong? A suspended sentence would have been better.

I, therefore, would like to call for his immediate release from prison. These are the kind of guys whom we should sponsor to ensure that their spirit of innovation is well nurtured for the good of the country and the world at large.

Also reacting to the story and calling Kondesi a genius was Joe Mlenga, writing on his blog:

I'm glad to learn that well-wishers and his family have managed to pay the 50-thousand Kwacha fine imposed by a court for the unlicensed radio. I appeal to the broadcasting community and business fraternity to help this young man achieve his dream of operating a radio station. Who knows what innovation Gabriel will come up with next given proper resources.

Other Malawians have expressed their support in various ways, including Gospel Kazako, Managing Director of Zodiak Broadcasting Station, who contributed money to reimburse the family for the loss they incurred in trying to find the money to pay Kondesi's fine. Kazako was quoted by Nyasatimes as saying: “As broadcasters, we need to support fellow broadcasters whenever they are in trouble. I don’t actually understand when courts should grant suspended sentences but, as a radio man, I am here to appreciate that this boy is a genius.”

And according to the facebook group “in support of Pachikweza Radio Station“, more support from other Malawians has been pouring in already, with several people drawing inspiration from the success story of William Kamkwamba, who also had to drop out of school before his genius could unleash itself. Eddie Mombera has written on the group's page that Kaphuka Private Secondary School, one of Malawi's elite private secondary schools, has offered Kondesi “a scholarship for all his secondary education,” promising to support him through to the University of Malawi's Polytechnic, Malawi's premier engineering school. An article by Lucas Bottoman in The Daily Times of Friday October 30th quotes both Kondesi's father, Jonas Kondesi, and the Managing Director of Kaphuka Private Schools, Mr. Jackson Kaphuka, as confirming the scholarship.

Mombera later added on the facebook page:

There is a small grouping of people running SMEs accross the country which i belong to. We had a summit in Btown this week and we were so moved by the boys arrest such that we contributed over a Mk100,000 [approx. $714] for his release but when we heard that he was… out, we decided to run a fund for him so that he can go back to school.

On Wednesday October 28 Caroline Kandiero reported in The Daily Times that MACRA had since given Kondesi a free licence, and had also promised to fund the radio station for up to MK10 million (approx. $71,500) in equipment and infrastructure. The article quotes MACRA's Acting Director General Mike Kuntiya as saying, “We do not expect to spend more than K10 million, but we also need to visit the place and conduct surveys to see what will be needed.” And on the facebook page started to support Kondesi, McDevis Kamende, who once taught secondary school mathematics and geography, and now works as a micro-finance banker, has offered to help Kondesi with school lessons to enable him study toward Malawi's secondary school exit examinations: “I will donate 40 hours of part time education -Maths & Geography to Gabriel so that he sits for MSCE in three years time.”

Bloggers around the world are writing about climate change today, October 15, as part of Blog Action Day. One less obvious potential solution to climate change is related to the availability of contraceptives and reproductive health services. Many studies in the past few months have examined the relationship between population growth and climate change, some in support and others against using family planning as a method of emissions reduction and to minimize the impact of climate change. EJ, blogging on New Society Publishers in Canada, elaborates:

“This issue of who lives and who dies, who can have more children and who should have less children, is also beginning to raise its head in the climate change movement…

…Global population is a serious consideration for the future of our ecosystem. We have been debating this issue since at least 1972 when the Club of Rome published Limits to Growth, and yet solutions continue to evade us as we become embroiled in the emotional debates around reproductive choice, euthanasia and quality of life. The issue is so gnarly that some environmentalists refuse to discuss it.”

The world's population is expected to reach more than 9 billion people by 2050, with 95 percent of this growth in developing countries. Those in support of investing in reproductive health services and contraception to combat climate change argue that having fewer children means less carbon emissions and less strain on diminishing natural resources.

An editorial in the medical journal Lancet last month called attention to the links between rapid population growth and increased vulnerability to the consequences of climate change, such as food and water scarcity and environmental degradation. It suggested that by reducing unintended pregnancies, we could slow the high rates of population growth and possibly ease pressure on the environment. The Lancet says that over 200 million women want, but currently lack, access to modern contraceptives, resulting in 76 million unintended pregnancies every year.

An economic case was made for investing in reproductive health by a recent study from the London School of Economics (LSE) and commissioned by the UK-based Optimum Population Trust. It showed that contraception is almost five times cheaper than leading green technologies, such as wind and solar power and hybrid or electric cars, to combat climate change. Specifically, the study found that each $7 (£4) spent on basic family planning over the next four decades would reduce global carbon dioxide emissions by more than a ton, but it would cost a minimum of $32 (£19) to achieve the same result with low-carbon technologies.

Matthew Yglesias, blogging on Yglesias in the United States, supports the study's finding:

“The evidence is pretty clear that in societies where women are empowered and have access to contraception, that on average they want modest-sized families. And what this study is talking about is specifically what could be accomplished by closing the gap between the level of contraception that people want to have and the level of contraception they’re actually able to maintain. There are dozens of good reasons to think closing that gap would be beneficial, the impact on the environment is one of them.”

Still, Ann, blogging on Feministing in the United States, remains wary of the study's recommendations, saying:

“The LSE report contains a prominent caveat that this is about non-coercive family planning, but using fears about climate change as a way to expand contraceptive use is eerily reminiscent of ‘population control' policies, some of which were coercive and all of which were rooted in the idea that certain people should be having fewer babies…

…We all understand that empowering women to determine their own reproductive fates leads to other benefits — economic, societal, and yes, environmental. But given the history of population policy, to me the only acceptable international family planning policy is one that is motivated by increasing the empowerment and choices for women. Full stop.”

The New Security Beat says that countries such as India are objecting to bringing population into the climate change debate without more focus on reducing consumption in developed countries. A recent study supports this assertion. Published in the journal Environment and Urbanization, it shows there is at most a weak link between population growth and rising emissions of greenhouse gases. The study's researchers say the real issue is not the growth in the number of people, but the growth in the number of consumers and their consumption levels.

Simeon, a reader of Malawi's NyasaTimes commented on the study:

“The West needs to learn to live simply if we are ever going to cut these green house emissions. This may sound like moralising, after all Africans envy the western lifestyle and see it as a model of prosperity and happiness. We waste time connecting population growth climate change. I am happy that the study has finally exposed the lie behind this long held fallacy. President Yoweri Museveni recently at the United Nations asked a very tough question: ‘If the whole world were to have access to the western lifestyle, would the planet be able to support us?' I see that in the years to come the concept of development needs to be seriously reviewed and changed. Maybe to develop may mean living healthily and not necessary having everything”

Ruth Limkin, a pastor blogging from Australia, says maybe we should take a different approach altogether, where people are the solution and not the problem:

“What if we invested in innovation and respected reproduction?

The inherent potential in humanity itself is stunning if ever appreciated in its breadth and depth. The genesis of a truly great, revolutionary idea for energy generation, for agricultural technology, for waste reduction or for recycling methods may lie in the person you met yesterday.

Or it may lie in the fourth child of a family in Africa or India. What if, instead of controlling population, we created opportunities for education, established cultures of creativity and encouraged responsible, careful use of the natural resources around us?”

Photo of Friendly Condoms by Alaskan Dude on Flickr, Creative Commons.

Just this past weekend, Malawi drew 1-1 against the much feared Elephants of Cote d'Ivoire which features the Chelsea player Didier Drogba. The game took place Kamuzu Stadium in Malawi. Buckaro Thandi made a post praising Malawi's hard work against the Elephants:

In a brief post she writes:

congratulations on the draw with Cote d'Ivoire. That's super. Flames woyee, inenso woyee!

In an earlier post, she laments at the lack of seriousness of the electricity generating body in Malawi ESCOM. She does not seem to believe the report that only 2 percent of Malawi have access to electricity (the truth being 8 percent). On this she then diverts to one of probably the most inspiring stories about the 21-year old William Kamwamba who about seven years ago made a windmill-a development after which a book has just been published.

The book is titled The Boy who Harnessed the Wind.

The windmill he made was able to generate electricity to light bulbs and run a radio set in his home. William came to limelight about three years ago when a Daily Times reporter followed his story in Kasungu  about 150 kilometers north of Malawi's capital. Now a student at the Africa Leadership Academy, William has made Malawi proud as he makes headlines and becomes more present online.

Ndagha captures his personal interaction with the boy:

As I interacted with him, I could sense the passion he has for making a difference in the eletronics in Malawi and beyond. He has a heart for the underprivileged especially that his own story illustrates the challenges facing his family and many Malawi. He is a young man that is determined to see change regardless of the status quo. It appears to me that as he gets more and more exposed, his anger at the energy situation in Malawi is increasing. When the right time comes, for sure he will do greater things.

So while the blogosphere may have been quiet, a lot of action is on and the world is talking.

Chiluba was accused of stealing about $500,000 to support his extravagant lifestyle when he served his two term from 1991 - 201 after defeating Zambia's first President, Dr. Kenneth Kaunda, in Zambia's first multi-party elections.

Although Chiluba supported his successor, the late Levy Mwanawasa, it was Mwanawasa who pushed for the Parliament to lift Chiluba's immunity in 2002 to facilitate criminal proceedings against him. Earlier this year, the London High Court found him guilty and ordered him to pay back the money he stole from the government.

Following the judgement that cleared him of corruption charges, Chiluba's lawyers have written to the Speaker of the National Assembly demanding the restoration of his presidential immunity.

In Malawi, the former President Bakili Muluzi is also facing corruption charges.

Let's see what Zambian bloggers and their readers say about the judgement and the future of the fight against corruption in Zambia.

“Justice by executive order- The Era of Bwezani Banda”, is the title of a post by Mwankole in reaction to the ruling. Mwankole argues that the current President, Rupiah Banda, influenced court's judgement:

Despite the overwhelming evidence presented, which in some bizarre fashion was sufficient to convict his principal accomplices Faustin Kabwe and Aaron Chungu to 3 years of hard labor prison sentences, Chiluba come off without the slightest pretense of a reprimand. Chiluba was the President in charge when Kabwe and Chungu were stealing; further the evidence for all intents and purposes points to the duo carrying water on Chiluba’s behalf.
Doesn’t he bear some responsibility, if not all? Does the buck not stop at plot one?

Proof that it is not the weight of evidence that determines the outcome of significant legal cases in Zambia; it is the executive that calls the shorts.
It therefore follows, that Magistrate Jones Chinyama had to buy himself more time before passing judgment on Chiluba, a whole weekend to consult the almighty Rupiah Bwezani Banda [The President of Zambia]. He then had, come up with 6 hours long blah…blah, that let loose without so much as a slap on wrist, one of Zambia’s most unscrupulous plunderer simply because the current plunder did not want a precedent set.

A reader at Zambia Watchdog says:

The mess Levy has left behind is that on one hand we have a London Judgement while on the other hand we have a Zambian Judgement. Which one does one go for. The Post and the like obviously will be full of praise for the London judgement while people like me prefer the Zambian judgement. We all know that the British and American would not agree to have anyone of their own tried in a foreign country. Remember those 2 black British School girls who some two years or so were caught in Accra with drugs. The British Govt fought hard to have them tried in Britain and not Ghana. Why then should we subject our former presidents, no matter how bad one might be to a foreign court if others can refuse to have mere school girls tried abroad? What arrogance. Levy got it wrong. In any case apart from shoes and shirts what else is there to show that FTJ stole.

Another one warns African dictators:

Dictators of Africa who are stealing from their pipo should not liken Chiluba’s judgement will apply to them too. Muluzi’s case is in Malawi and Malawi is not Zambia. I feel the prosecuting government in Malawi will tighten the loose ends and send Muluzi to jail after learning that Zambia has failed to send Chiluba to jail.
Chiluba will enter jail briefly and am seeing it. The London court is not silly to have judged him that way after having enough evidence that he stole from the Zambian pipo. Not all Zambians are happy with the Jones Chinyama ruling so far. RB should not cheat that Zambians ve accepted the ruling, we are still following up and if he had a hand to this judgement, time will catch with him also. His on record already, ‘Chiluba good damn president’.

Ben Israel is disappointed at the ruling but not shocked:

It is extremely disappointing to hear such news BUT am personally not shocked, Chiluba’s freedom was inevitable… I mean this case was supposed to have been over the moment they (prosecutors) started probbing. There was truely enough evidence to use against Chiluba but the moment they started dragging shoes in the issue we should have known it was a lost cause.
Perhaps if Levy was still alive the outcome might have been different because it seems like he was the only one brave enough to do the Zambian people Justice. Chiluba destroyed many lives and I know this for certain because I come from the copperbelt, Luanshya to be exact and I saw first hand the kind of confusion which arose during the privatisation era (people lost houses and Jobs and mining towns became Ghost towns).
Now suddenly Chiluba is the victim, this my people is pure evidence of how corrupt Zambia really is. We need to do something radical about this cancer (corruption), our leaders have no will to serve us – the only thing that concerns them is money and power.

Zambia Watchdog writes about the call for restoration of Chiluba's immunity:

Speaker of the National Assembly Amusaa Mwanamwaambwa is reportedly under pressure to immediately convene parliament to restore former president Fredrick Chiluba’s immunity.
Sources at Parliament have told the Watchdog that the speaker has problems convening parliament because of the way the demand has been made.
Chiluba’s lawyers Simeza Sangwa and Associates wrote to the speaker on Tuesday for him to convene parliament.

Ulemona responds to the news:

Is there no one left with a back bone and integrity? Twachula pafula [It means “We have suffered enough” in Bemba). Pls Mr Speaker, save Zambia and stop this nonsense!

Zambiano says:

The MPs should for once stand for the Zambian people and reject this. It would deny those of us who want government to appeal our chance. Too much money was stolen and these guys have either walked Scot free or got cosmetic sentences. We are watching!

B M says:

Nkole [Nkole is the Chairman of the Task Force on Corruption] must shutup,how much taxpayers money do they want worst on cases they can’t win in our courts,he’s mentioning other cases how far have they gone?the Task Force chairman is very mean,taskforce must be dissolved forthwith..these prosecutors must find jobs elsewhere.Chiluba has suffered alot under these political cases that even from the onset direction was difficult to tell…Can Nkole tell the the nation for the past 8years what has happened to the remaining cases,why the delay?its simple it benefitts him and other collegues at Taskforce!

Zambian Progress thinks that the ruling is an indication of Zambian government weakness on corruption:

While many Zambians will point accusing fingers at Ndola High Registrar. We must realise that FJT's free ride is not about the presiding magistrate but MMD government and its plans which has proven itself in this case that it is weak, soft and legally incompetent to prosecute corruption cases.We not blame for the magistrate for acquittal; but hold MMD accountable for failing to prove the case.

Then, there is RB telling the nation that he is happy for Zambians to accept Chiluba walk to freedom; please!!! Chiluba was already accepted by Zambians. We Know he destroyed the economy through credit privatisation of the companise withour oversight and accountability. Zambians accepted him when he wanted a Third Term and we accepted him when Zambian had no medicines in hospitals, Chiluba was buying designer suits and shoes.

Zambians must respect the ruling of court but hold MMD government accountable in the manner it handled this case. MMD government has wasted taxpayer's money with this case which many top MMD officials knew it was a dead end. Zambians deserve to know who how much MMD government has spend on this case since it started. This is total wasteful spending by the government.

Dr. Kalua examines Malawian kids. Photo: Vision2020 IAPB

We start with Dr. Khumbo Kalua, an eye care specialist, university professor and researcher. Dr. Kalua informs that The University of Malawi's College of Medicine has recently introduced a graduate training program in Ophthalmology. The number of ophthalmologists in the country has also increased, with three new ophthalmologists trained within the last two years. One of them is Dr. Khumbo Kalua himself. The new Minister of Health, who is also a new member of parliament, Dr. Moses Chirambo, is himself an ophthalmologist, and for many years was the only one in the whole of Malawi.

The new developments in the training program and increase in specialists are a result of a program known as Vision 2020 Right to Sight, which Malawi has been pursuing for a number of years now. Dr. Kalua writes:

Malawi has been active in VISION 2020 activities since 2000, and has successfully organised VISION2020 workshops for Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Malawi completed the VISION 2020 five year Eye care plan in 2004, and progress has been made towards achieving goals to eliminating avoidable blindness by the year 2020 in Malawi.

Based on the 3 pillars of VISION2020, in terms of disease control, Childhood blindness was set as one of the major priorities and a Paediatric Ophthalmology unit was planned to be developed in Blantyre.

Another Malawian blogger also blogging about health care issues is Stabbily Msiska, a Malawian nurse currently studying in Norway. Stabbie, as she addresses herself, started blogging in March this year after arriving in Norway. Her 15 years as a midwife-nurse, she writes, have taught her about the simple, free things that matter to women whether in Malawi or in Norway:

As an experienced para 3, i really missed the support of a midwife who could greet me and put herself in my shoes during antenatal, labour and postnatal periods. Having travelled miles away from my home and live in this scandinavian country, i have really appriciated that there are some things that cost nothing but are important for all midwives to do in the whole world. A smile, greetings, giving of comprehensive information, explaining procedures, respect, empathy, sympathy.With these little non costly commodities, our hospitals will be wonderful places for women.

Malawian Nurse-Midwife, Stabbie Msiska

But health care in Malawi also presents difficult problems especially to ordinary Malawians who cannot afford expensive private doctors. Joe Mlenga writes about a distant relation of his who recently hanged himself to escape deep financial problems he was ensnared in. According to Mlenga, the man was still alive when people found him. They quickly took him to the hospital, where they found nurses and other medical personnel having their dinner.

They reporterdly went on with their business of eating the evening meal as Rogers lay in poor condition. By the time the medical staff had finished enjoying dinner and started to check on Rogers, he was no more.

Sadly, Joes writes, such stories of negligence are not uncommon in Malawian hospitals, as per an incident he personally witnessed.

On one occasion I personally saw a mother holding a very ill young son rush into the hall of the referall hospital in Blantyre, QECH, to alert medics about the need for a trolley or a wheel-chair. Nobody seemed to care and the woman ended up handling the trolley herself…she was later assisted by a minibus conductor whose vehicle had kindly agreed to make a diversion to the hospital!

Another blogger, Kondwani Munthali, expresses his frustration with a Government plan to study the feasibility of turning an old ship on Lake Malawi, the MV Chancy Maples, into a mobile hospital. According to Munthali, the idea has been proposed by some Scottish donors, who want the Malawi government to pay for the study at a cost of MK50,000,000 (US$357,143).

As much as I have respect for the Ministry officials K50 million can do a lot. Train at least 10 doctors, 200 medical assistance and 100 Nurses. Or better still can equip Lifuwu Hospital with drugs for five months.

How we lay our priorities should reflect the poverty and needs of Malawians. I find it very sick to spend over US$300,000 to conduct a feasibility study of a ship and may be another US1 million to rehabilitate and equip a vessel when there many urgent needs including a need for a cancer machine.

This sickness mr. president should be stopped. Save the lives of the poor first and let the Scots pay for their own pet projects without invloving the poor. How many people will the mobile hospital on the lake serve, how much will it cost to operate and how will it generate sustainance income. In the end we will spend more on maintaining this odl vessle over peoples lives.

The plight of the health industry in Malawi is making one blogger skeptical of the entire image Malawi is building about its economic gains in the last few years. Alick Nyasulu, an economist, raises questions about the much-touted economic growth Malawi is said to be experiencing. He argues that the economic growth is not benefiting ordinary people, especially the poor, as indicated by socio-economic ills which appear to be on the rise, including cases of armed robbery and domestic abuse. He particularly cites problems in health care as evidence.

An emergency case in Ntchenachena, Chididi and Mposa are a death sentence though the economy is growing.

Their is a health and education crisis in this country. Rich folks go to those elite facilities to access health services and education for their families. I am not being jealousy wish for the riches. Over 80 per cent of Malawi’s population lives in rural areas whose health centres are often manned by an enrolled nurse without adequate medication. Distances to such facilities plus the state of rural roads complicate the situation. I am not being sadistic but to say that health services are equally bad as education especially in the rural areas. Unfortunately, this is where the majority of our people live and resigned to a life that offers no hope and future.

For Mzati Nkolokosa, HIV/AIDS is still on the rampage, but there is light at the end of tunnel. He starts with the devastation the epidemic has caused:

I have lost friends and relatives to AIDS. This condition has devastated us. AIDS has killed professionals who will never be replaced.

Those of us with some knowledge of the University of Malawi understand that AIDS has devastated the education sector. As students we could see a professor losing weight, his hair becoming pale, missing classes, or a course being missed by students because a professor (the only one who can teach that course in Malawi), is not well.

Hard times. In my village in Liwonde, people with money are gone. Business men who were flourishing in late 1980s and early 1990s, are all gone.

He ends on a positive note:

Now there is hope. Treatment is making parents llive longer and raise their chidlren, kids who would otherwie have been orphans. Awareness is also high. My generation is making brilliant choices. Prevalence is now at 12.5 percent in Malawi.

But the sweeter news is that in the age group 5 to 11, prevalence is one percent. This means that if we can raise this age group with meaningful education that helps them avoid AIDS, we can create an almost AIDS free generation for the future.

It appears that the generally many Malawians are happy that the Madonna is able to adopt needy children from Malawi in spite of the fears of what this trend may create.

When she first appeared in Malawi to adopt David Banda in 2006, there were mixed reactions. When the debate over her adoption finally died down, rumors started appearing that the pop star was actually dating Malawi to pick another child: this time a girl Chifundo (Mercy) James.

Blogger Rex Chikoko reported that however the journey seemed a bit tough this time as the High Court Judge Esme Chombo said that according to Malawi's intercountry adoption laws, Madonna could not take the child as she had resided in Malawi for about 18 months. However, an appeal to Supreme Court saw Chifundo get mercy on the basis that residence in modern day world can be anywhere and someone can have more than one residence.

Reactions have been many and many continue debating and discussing what will become of Malawi with such a Supreme Court ruling.

Meanwhile Chifundo has arrived in London.

Madonna's new daughter has flown out of her native Malawi on a private jet headed for London, an airport employee and a person familiar with Madonna's adoption proceedings in this southern African country said Saturday.

The airport employee, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter, said 3-year-old Chifundo “Mercy” James left late Friday headed to London, with a stop in neighboring South Africa. The girl, the second child Madonna has adopted from Malawi, was reportedly accompanied on the flight by a nanny, a child nurse and a third aide.

A jounalist and regular blogger Kondwani Munthali while writing about the Madonna, was angered by an article in The Gurdian by one Jacques Peretti , which mocks Malawi and another in the Mirror which claims Madonna bribed Malawians with US$19 million to get the child. Sick and very sick reports.

Mr. Peretti when he comes back to Malawi we will take him back to our schools of Journalism that he can learn to report “facts” and not his own creations as he has done. He claims there is a mass grave in Malawi which we bury three babies everyday, my foot.

Munthali says that he wrote his post merely to put the record straight about Madonna's latest adoption.

Given the context of the debate, another blogger, Ndagha stated that he could not understand why Madonna was granted the second child.

Some Malawians have equate Madonna to ‘Ma Donor' meaning she is a donor of funds to the Malawian people especially the lucky few children are under her Malawi Raising Project.

It has to be pointed out that there are more reactions that are not documented in Malawi on Madonna's adoption of children.

While reactions are many, what remains in the mind of Malawians is whether Madonna or other celebrities will not get to Malawi to adopt more children based on the precedent set by the Supreme Court of Malawi ruling.

Through her eponymously titled blog, Ms. Semu-Banda blogs with a purpose to “bring awareness and change to Malawi's social and economical problems,” according to a description from her nomination published in an announcement on the BlogHer website. The description goes on to say that Semu-Banda's writing has influenced development projects, citing “the improvement of monitoring programs to get rid of child labour in the tobacco industry”, and “an increase of treatment to women suffering from fistula,” as examples.

Pilirani Semu-Banda

In her most recent blog post, Semu-Banda wrote about poverty as the key issue that was “uppermost” in the minds of most Malawians as they prepared to vote in Malawi's fourth multiparty presidential and parliamentary elections on May 19, 2009.

Semu-Banda is an award-winning journalist whose stories focus on marginalized groups and individuals, and on social problems including child labor and exploitation, inequality, and human rights abuses. In December 2008 she received an ‘Every Human Has Rights' Media Award, presented by Internews Europe, in France, for her story “Playing with Children's Lives: Big Tobacco in Malawi.” Attending the ceremony and presenting the awards to her and other winners were The Elders, who according to The Daily Times included former US president Jimmy Carter, former Irish President Mary Robinson, and former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Also receiving an award at the event was Malawian journalist Gabriel Kamlomo, of Zodiak Broadcasting Station (ZBS), for an investigative radio report he did on a clinic that accidentally transfused HIV-infected blood to a then 2-year old child, in May 2007. ZBS is so far the only Malawi-based radio station that transmits both on airwaves and on the Internet in real time.

Semu-Banda has previously won an Education Journalism Award, and has on two occasions been voted Malawi’s best female journalist. The BlogHer International Activist Scholarship award is the first known international award to be won by a Malawian blogger for a blog. At this year's BlogHer annual conference Semu-Banda will join fellow award winners on a panel titled “Leadership: The BlogHer ’09 International Activist BlogHer Scholarship Winners Share Their Work”, on Saturday July 25, 1.30-2.45pm. The BlogHer conference will be held at The Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers, in downtown Chicago.

The Selection Committee for the 2009 International Activist Scholarship comprised 7 judges, who included Georgia Popplewell, the Managing Director for Global Voices Online. The other judges were Denise Tanton, Elisa Camahort Page, Julie Ross Godar, Kim Pearson, Nelly Yusupova, and Jenifer Scharpen. The selection committee “were looking for sites that were, in fact, bloggy, and for those that had a specific activist intent.” And they have high hopes for what this award entails for other bloggers: “We are convinced that we can all learn practical advice about affecting social change via blog from our scholarship winners…and we can all walk away inspired by their courage, their perseverance, and their accomplishments!”

The blog Chingwe's Hole reacts to both disproved predictions, then goes through a list of six aspects that make the May 2009 elections historic. According to Chingwe's Hole, key structures of Malawi's institutions performed well. And in marking the probable end of the political career of the 77 year-old leader of the Malawi Congress Party (MCP), John Tembo, these elections also ended the era of the nationalist generation that has ruled Malawi since 1964, a point also made by Paul Tiyambe Zeleza. Tembo is reported to have already been put forward as the MCP's candidate in the next elections in 2014, according to Chris Banda on the Internet forum Malawitalk. Chingwe's Hole's third aspect is that the voting pattern was driven by substantive matters of development, over personalities, and more poignantly for many bloggers as well, over ethnicity, Chingwe's Hole's fourth and fifth historical aspects of these elections. The last aspect deals with how the punditry overestimated the strength of the main challenger, John Tembo, in his party's alliance with the United Democratic Front (UDF). On this point Chingwe's Hole unleashes pointed criticism:

And finally the elections have exposed the vacuity of some of the political punditry in Malawi. Our most cited political pundits simply do not know what they are talking about… They kept analsising politics along the same old lines and seemed to base their views based only on whim srather than research and reflection. Listening to our oft cited “political analysts” the coalition was supposed to be a formidable force; the elections would be a a”close call”; Bingu had made a fatal mistake chosing a Southern as running mate; the economy growth had not benefitted the majority etc . . .

As one of the pundits who predicted a strong showing for the MCP/UDF alliance and its candidate John Tembo, Boniface Dulani makes a confession mid-way through the vote counting when it is becoming apparent that Bingu wa Mutharika is defying expectations:

I must confess I did not expect the margin of victory that appears to be emerging from the election results as currently being announced. For all intents and purposes, Mutharika appears to be headed for a strong landslide performance. While Bingu is performing strongly in the northern region as predicted, he has also performed just as strongly in the central region and the southern region.

For Greenwell Matchaya, the incumbent's victory across the entire nation might be the beginning of the end of politics of ethnicity:

In the first place, the size of Bingu’s victory in the presence of a seemingly powerful opposition alliance is the first I have ever heard of in Africa. Furthermore, the fact that there were no any reported cases of rigging, makes his win even more credible and even more and more wonderful. Bingu’s party, the DPP, won the presidential election with roughly 2,730,630 votes while the MCP/UDF alliance scooped circa 1,270,057, almost 200,000 votes below half of Bingu’s votes [. . . ]The strong message arising from these figures is that Bingu was voted into power by the entire nation, raising postulates about whether good leadership styles could obliterate the tribal cancer that many of us thought was out to consume our political and everyday lives.

Clement Nyirenda also remarks on how the punditry got it wrong, and finds the voting pattern for the incumbent president's win epochal:

[. . . the pundits thought that John Tembo would garner more votes from the Southern region while beating Mutharika comprehensively in the Central Region, MCP’s stronghold. Mutharika was expected to carry the day in the less populous Northern Region.

At the end of everything, the pundits have been proved wrong because Dr. Mutharika was proclaimed the winner with more than 6o% of the vote. Since the advent of multiparty democracy, I have never seen a presidential candidate getting votes from all the corners of the country like this.

And words of awe continue with Cryton Chikoko, who writes in the third person with the alias “Rambler”:

Rambler has to confess he was not expecting Malawians to vote on merit. Admittedly Rambler wrongly thought that just like in the previous elections regionalism will rule the day. The 2009 elections have come to him as a pleasant surprise. A fresh breath in our politics.

Victor Kaonga pays tribute to the role that radio stations played in informing listeners of the results during the long breaks waiting for the Malawi Electoral Commission. On Malawian Internet listserv forums, appreciation for the role of radio stations has especially focused on Zodiak Broadcasting Station, which broadcasts across Malawi, and recently started streaming live on the Internet. Listserv discussions have also widely debated what parliament might look like, given the large number of highly educated Malawians who have been elected to parliament, a topic also discussed by Chingwe's Hole. On the Internet forum Nyasanet, the question of who will be chosen to fill cabinet posts is being debated on the basis of the intelligentsia voted into the legislature, which is being likened to an academic symposium. Blogger Kondwani Munthali has already provided his dream cabinet list.