Transportation in Malawi is poorly developed. The country of almost 14 million has 39 airports, 6 with paved runways and 33 with unpaved runways. It has 495 miles (797 km) of railways, all narrow-gauge and about 45 percent of its roads are paved. Though it is landlocked, Malawi also has 435 miles (700 km) of waterways on Lake Malawi and along the Shire River.
The Central Region of Malawi, population 5,491,034 (2008), covers an area of 35,592 km². Its capital city is Lilongwe, which is also the national capital. The region has an outlet on Lake Malawi and borders neighbouring countries Zambia and Mozambique. The Chewa people make up the majority of the population today.
Chileka International Airport is an airport located 16 km from Blantyre, the second largest city in the Republic of Malawi and the commercial Capital of Malawi's Southern Region.
Mchinji is a district in the Central Region of Malawi. The capital is Mchinji. The district covers an area of 3,356 km.² and has a population of 324,941. The area's economy is sustained by rain-fed agriculture.
Malawi Railways was a government corporation that ran the national rail network of Malawi, Africa, until privatisation in 1999. With effect from 1 December 1999, the Central East African Railways consortium led by Railroad Development Corporation won the right to operate the network. This was the first rail privatisation in Africa which did not involve a parastatal operator.
Rail transport in Zambia is primarily provided by two companies:
Railway stations in Zambia include:
The Port of Nacala is the deepest port in Southern Africa. It is found in Nacala, Northern Mozambique. The natural deep harbour serves landlocked Malawi with a 931-kilometre (578 mi) railway.
General elections were held in Malawi on 15 June 1999 for President and the National Assembly, having originally been scheduled for 25 May, but then postponed twice as a result of requests by the opposition to extend the voter registration period. Both votes were won by the ruling United Democratic Front, who took 93 of the 192 seats in the National Assembly, and whose candidate, Bakili Muluzi, won the presidential election with an absolute majority.
NBS Bank Limited, commonly referred to as NBS Bank, is a commercial bank in Malawi. It is licensed as a commercial bank, by the Reserve Bank of Malawi, central bank and national banking regulator.
Malawi is primarily a source country for men, women, and children subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically conditions of forced labor and forced prostitution within the country and abroad. Most Malawian trafficking victims are exploited internally, though Malawian victims of sex and labor trafficking have also been identified in South Africa, Zambia, Mozambique, Tanzania, and parts of Europe. To a lesser extent, Malawi is a transit point for foreign victims and a destination country for men, women, and children from Zambia, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe subjected to conditions of forced labor or commercial sexual exploitation. Within the country, some children are forced into domestic servitude, cattle herding, agricultural labor, and menial work in various small businesses. Exploited girls and women become "bar girls" at local bars and rest houses where they are coerced to have sex with customers in exchange for room and board. Forced labor in agriculture is often found on tobacco plantations. Labor traffickers are often villagers who have moved to urban areas and subsequently recruit children from their original villages through offers of good jobs. Brothel owners or other prostitution facilitators lure girls with promises of nice clothing and lodging. Upon arrival, they charge the girl high rental fees for these items and instruct her how to engage in prostitution to pay off the debt. South African and Tanzanian long-distance truck drivers and mini-bus operators move victims across porous borders by avoiding immigration checkpoints. Some local businesswomen who also travel regularly to neighboring countries to buy clothing for import have been identified as traffickers. Reports of European tourists paying for sex with teenage boys and girls continue.
Theresa Gloria Mwale is a nurse who entered politics in Malawi, and was appointed Deputy Minister of Health in 2009.
Zomba Airport is an airport serving Zomba, Malawi.
According to 2012 statistics about 85% of Malawi's 11 million people are Christian, with over half of the population Protestant and another 20% Roman Catholic. Of the Protestant churches the Church of Central Africa, Presbyterian is one of the largest Christian groups, but here are also smaller numbers of Anglicans, Baptists, evangelicals, Seventh-day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses and African independent churches.
Emmanuele Kanyama was a Roman Catholic bishop.
The geology of Malawi formed on extremely ancient crystalline basement rock, which was metamorphosed and intruded by igneous rocks during several orogeny mountain building events in the past one billion years. The rocks of the Karoo Supergroup and newer sedimentary units deposited across much of Malawi in the last 251 million years, in connection with a large rift basin on the supercontinent Gondwana and the more recent rifting that has created the East African Rift, which holds Lake Malawi. The country has extensive mineral reserves, many of them poorly understand or not exploited, including coal, vermiculite, rare earth elements and bauxite.
