Malawian President Professor Arthur Peter Mutharika
LILONGWE-(MaraviPost)-President Arthur Peter Mutharika has called on the nation to rally together under this year’s powerful theme, “Unite to End Gender Based Violence in Malawi.”
He issued the appeal as Malawi joins the international community in commemorating the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.
This global observance, initiated by the United Nations, highlights the deep and lasting impact that gender-based violence continues to have on women and girls across the world.
Malawi has embraced this moment as a renewed call to action, placing unity, awareness, and collective responsibility at the center of the national response.
First Lady Gertrude Mutharika also emphasized the significance of the day and the beginning of the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence.
She noted that these 16 days offer an important opportunity for communities, institutions, and leaders to strengthen advocacy and amplify the voices of survivors.
She stressed that every Malawian—regardless of age or position—has a responsibility to support the fight against gender-based violence.
She reminded the nation that true progress can only be achieved when women live free from fear, intimidation, and harm.
She reaffirmed her belief that “A safe woman is a strong nation,” a statement that reflects the broader national vision of safety, dignity, and empowerment.
She urged citizens to speak out against abuse, challenge harmful norms, and take meaningful steps toward protecting the rights and wellbeing of women and girls.
She encouraged Malawians to work together to build communities where victims are heard, perpetrators are held accountable, and prevention becomes a shared national value.
She concluded by calling for unity, compassion, and commitment as the country embarks on the 16 Days of Activism.
She extended her prayers and well-wishes to all Malawians as the nation recommits itself to building a safer future for every woman and girl.
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LILONGWE-(MaraviPost)-Malawi Vice President Jane Ansah has issued a passionate appeal to all Malawians to strengthen their collective resolve in ending violence against women and girls as the nation joins the global observance of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.
In her message, the Vice President reminds the country that no woman or girl should ever live under fear, abuse, or silence. She stresses that this annual commemoration is not a routine observance but a serious reminder of the realities many women still face across Malawi.
Ansah calls on families, schools, workplaces, religious communities, and traditional leaders to actively confront harmful attitudes and practices that tolerate violence or discourage survivors from seeking help.
She warns that silence remains one of the strongest tools protecting perpetrators while deepening the trauma of victims. The Vice President therefore urges Malawians to stand with survivors, speak out against abuse, and demand accountability at every level.
Highlighting the broader implications, Ansah notes that violence against women does not only affect individuals but undermines family stability, weakens communities, and slows national development. “A nation cannot progress when its women and girls remain unsafe,” she emphasises.
She calls for stronger legal protections, better enforcement, and increased support for community programmes that prevent violence and assist survivors. Justice, she says, must be accessible and free from intimidation so that survivors can confidently seek help.
Ansah stresses that public institutions must fulfil their responsibility to protect women and girls if Malawi is to build a future rooted in fairness and equality.
Despite the challenges, the Vice President expresses optimism in the nation’s ability to change. She envisions a Malawi where every woman and girl can pursue her goals without fear of violence or discrimination.
Ansah concludes by reaffirming her commitment to advancing the rights and wellbeing of women and girls and urges every Malawian to play a role in building a safer, more equal society.
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DHAKA, Bangladesh, Nov 25 2025 (IPS) – COP30 in Belém is not just another annual climate meeting, it is the 32-year report card of the world governance architecture that was conceived at the Rio Earth Summit of 1992. And that is what report card says: delivery has been sporadic, cosmetic and perilously disconnected with the physics of climatic breakdown.
M. Zakir Hossain Khan
The Amazon, which was once regarded in Rio as an ecological miracle of the world, is now on the verge of an irreversible precipice. Even the communities that struggled to protect it over millennia also demonstrate against COP30 to make it clear that they do not oppose multilateralism, but because multilateralism has marginalized them many times.
Rio Promised Rights, Take Part, and Protection, But Delivery Has Been Fragmented
Rio Summit gave birth to three pillars of international environmental control: UNFCCC (climate), CBD (biodiversity) and UNCCD (desertification). Every one of them was supposed to be participating, equitable and accountable. But progressively delivery disintegrated:
• Rio has only achieved 34 per cent biodiversity commitments (CBD GBO-5). • CO₂ emissions rose over 60% since 1992. • The globe is headed to 2.7 o C with the existing policies (UNEP 2024). • The funding obligations are in a chronic state of arrears, adaptation requirements are three times higher than the real flows.
Rio gave the world a vision. COP30 demonstrates the fact that that vision is yet to be developed.
The Rights Gap: The Key Failure between Rio and Belém
Although Rio pledged to involve Indigenous people, Indigenous people today are only getting less than 1 percent of climate finance. In addition, it caused a rising trend of carbon market-related land grabs and resource exploitation, because of the lack of binding power in the decisions regarding climate. This is not a delivery gap but a right gap. COP30 has been improved technically but has failed to redress the inherent imbalance at Rio that remained unaddressed: decision-making in the absence of custodianship.
The Sleepiness Menace Came to Rio and Detonated by COP30
Rio established three overlapping conventions that lacked a single governance structure. Climate to oceans, food, forests, finance, security, and technology; CBD to traditional knowledge, access and benefit-sharing, and UNCCD to migration, peace and livelihoods all increased over the decades.
The outcome is an institution that is too broad to govern effectively, making watered-down decisions and poor accountability. COP30 is being developed, however, within a system that was never intended to deal with planetary collapse on this level.
The Amazon: The Ultimate Test of Rio on Prognosis
Rio glorified forests as the breathing organs of the world. However, three decades later:
• Amazon was deforested by 17 per cent and was close to the 20-25 per cent dieback mark. • Native land protectors become increasingly violent. • Carbon markets run the risk of stimulating extraction in the name of green growth.
Another pledge is not required by Amazon. It requires energy from its protectors. That was missing in Rio. It is still missing in COP30. Indigenous people depicted in CoP30 in all their frustration and agitation are the consequences of the system failure to provide them with a say in the decision-making process and the unceasing denial of their natural rights.
Young: The Post-Rio Generation that was Duped by Incrementalism
The post-Rio generation (those that were born after the year 30) is more than 50 percent of the world population. They left behind a) tripled fossil subsidy regime; b) soaring climate debt; c) ever-turbid biodiversity collapse; d) rising climate disasters; and e) inability to send up $100B/year finance on time.
They are only impatient not because of emotions. They observe that a system that was developed in 1992 to address a slow-paced crisis can no longer be applied to the fast emergency of 2025.
Natural Rights Led Governance (NRLG): Making Good What Rio Left, but Left Incomplete
Natural Rights-Led Governance (NRLG) provides the structural correction that Rio has evaded: a) Nature as a law-rights holder, not a resource; b) Indigenous peoples as co-governors, not consultants; c) Compulsory ecological and rights-based control, not voluntary reporting; d) Direct financing to custodians, not bureaucratic leakage; e) Accountability enforceable in law, not conditional on political comfort. NRLG is not the alternative to the vision of Rio, it is the long-deserved update that will turn the arguments of Rio into reality.
The Verdict: COP30 Moves forward, yet Rio Business Unfinished Haunts it
The advancement of COP30 with its stronger fossil language, more comprehensible measurements of adaptation, new pressure on financing is a reality that is inadequate. It advances the paperwork. It is yet to develop the power shift that would safeguard nature or humanity. As long as rights are not yet non-negotiable, the Rio-to-COP30 trip will be a tale of great promises, half-fulfilled and increasingly dangerous.
What the World Must Do Now
Include nature and Indigenous rights in the COP document; construct governance based on custodianship and co-decision; a system of NCQG to deliver finance to communities; no longer voluntary but obligatory commitments reflecting the final Advisory of ICJ assuming integration of natural rights as a prelude to human rights; and use NRLG as the backbone to all future multilateral climate action.
Rio taught us what to do. COP30 is an education about the consequences of procrastinating. The 30-year period is not going to forgive the errors made in the previous 30. The world should stop being a promise and change to power, negotiate to justice, Rio dream of NRLG deliveries. The deadline is not 2050. It is now.
Rio had sworn justice and rights, but COP30 taught a crueler lesson: the world made promises and not protection. Emission increased, ecosystems failed, money is not spent on fulfilling the finances and Indigenous guardians, to the last remaining forests, continue to get less than 1% of climate money and nearly no say. It is not a policy gap but a failure of rights and governance. If the leaders of the world do not recalibrate climate architecture based on natural rights, since co-decision of the Indigenous and on binding commitments rather than a voluntary one, COP30 will be remembered as the moment when the system was exposed as limiting, not as the moment when the system was fixed. This is no longer a promising problem it is a power problem. And the deadline is not 2050. It is now.
M Zakir Hossain Khan is the Chief Executive at Change Initiative, a Dhaka based think-tank, Observer of Climate Investment Fund (CIF); Architect and Proponent of Natural Rights Led Governance (NRLG).
PRETORIA-(MaraviPost)-South African police have launched an investigation into serious allegations against Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla, the daughter of former President Jacob Zuma.
She is accused of allegedly deceiving 17 men into joining Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Reports indicate that the men were recruited under the pretense of serving as bodyguards for her father’s uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party.
Her stepsister, Nkosazana Bongamini Zuma-Mncube, has claimed that the men were sent to Russia and subsequently deployed to the front lines of the conflict.
Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla has not publicly responded to the accusations at this time.
The 2021 riots in South Africa remain a separate legal matter for which she is already facing trial, reportedly for incitement of violence.
Earlier this month, the office of President Cyril Ramaphosa confirmed that it had received urgent requests for assistance from 17 South African men, aged between 20 and 39, who are trapped in the Donbas region of Ukraine.
The allegations have sparked national concern in South Africa over the recruitment of citizens for foreign conflicts under potentially false pretenses.
Police investigations are ongoing, and authorities are seeking to establish the full circumstances surrounding the men’s deployment and the role of Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla and her associates.
The situation has added to the scrutiny of Zuma-Sambudla’s activities and intensified discussions around accountability for the recruitment of citizens in international conflicts.
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LILONGWE-(MaraviPost)-The country’s Vice President Jane Ansah has delivered a decisive call for practical progress on disability inclusion as she inaugurated the 2025 MACODA Flag Week in Lilongwe.
Rather than treating the ceremony as a routine annual tradition, she positioned it as a moment for renewed commitment and clearer accountability across all sectors.
Dr Ansah emphasised that this year’s theme—advancing disability rights through both reporting and action—must serve as a direct challenge to policymakers and institutions to abandon symbolic gestures and pursue tangible outcomes.
She made it clear that Malawi cannot afford an approach that prioritises statements over results if it aspires to build a genuinely inclusive society.
At the heart of her message was the conviction that national development must benefit every citizen, regardless of disability, gender, or background.
She stressed that this vision should be reflected consistently in both policy formulation and programme implementation.
Reflecting on the recent enactment of the Persons with Disabilities Act of 2024 and the adoption of the National Disability Policy, the Vice President noted that such milestones offer a strong policy framework.
However, she warned that these achievements will remain largely symbolic unless they are enforced with diligence and seriousness.
She urged duty bearers to ensure that the legislation translates into meaningful improvements in the daily lives of persons with disabilities.
Dr Ansah directed local councils to outline precisely how they will integrate disability considerations into the utilisation of public resources.
She pointed particularly to funds such as the Constituency Development Fund and economic empowerment allocations, insisting that persons with disabilities must be deliberately included in these financial interventions.
She argued that disability inclusion should never be left to chance but must be a planned and central element of development initiatives.
The Vice President also underscored the importance of supporting learners with disabilities through the free secondary education programme.
She reiterated that economic hardship must not be allowed to block educational opportunities for disabled pupils.
Turning to agriculture, she highlighted that the reintroduced FISP remains vital for vulnerable households, including those with disabilities.
She urged agricultural and district authorities to ensure that disabled farmers are prioritised and not overlooked when distributing subsidised inputs.
Looking ahead, Dr Ansah reaffirmed the government’s commitment to embedding disability rights within the broader Malawi 2063 vision.
She noted that disability inclusion forms a fundamental part of the country’s long-term development aspirations and must remain central in national planning.
She acknowledged the operational and financial challenges faced by MACODA and appealed to the Ministries of Finance and Trade to support viable initiatives such as the Bangwe Weaving Factory.
To ensure the factory’s sustainability, she encouraged government institutions to procure textiles from the facility, thereby strengthening economic opportunities for persons with disabilities.
Dr Ansah also stressed that accessible infrastructure is essential for real inclusion, noting that progressive policies mean little if public spaces remain physically restrictive.
She called upon construction and transport authorities to make accessibility a standard requirement rather than an optional feature.
In closing, the Vice President thanked participants for their commitment before officially launching the 2025 MACODA Flag Week.
Her address not only outlined clear expectations for disability inclusion but also set a tone of urgency, responsibility, and long-term commitment.
Through her remarks, she positioned disability rights as a vital component of Malawi’s social and economic advancement.
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LILONGWE-(MaraviPost)-President Arthur Peter Mutharika has joined global leaders in commemorating World Children’s Day, marking the occasion with a message of hope, commitment, and responsibility toward the nation’s youngest citizens.
He said that as Malawi celebrates the profound gift of its children, it proudly aligns itself with this year’s global theme, “My Day, My Rights.”
The President emphasised that every child in the country deserves recognition, protection, and opportunities, stating that their voices are heard, their dreams cherished, and their rights remain non-negotiable.
He reaffirmed his administration’s unwavering commitment to building an environment where every child is safe, educated, healthy, and empowered to reach their full potential.
President Mutharika stressed that the future of the nation rests on the shoulders of its young people, and therefore it is the collective duty of parents, leaders, and communities to shape a society that respects and upholds the inherent rights of children.
He further urged Malawians to work together to ensure that every day becomes a day that affirms the dignity, rights, and aspirations of children across the country.
The President concluded his message by wishing all children a joyful World Children’s Day, reminding them that they remain at the heart of national progress and development.
His statement was posted on his official Facebook page as part of the global celebration.
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