{"id":11069,"date":"2012-05-31T07:51:12","date_gmt":"2012-05-31T07:51:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.faceofmalawi.com\/?p=11069"},"modified":"2012-05-31T07:51:12","modified_gmt":"2012-05-31T07:51:12","slug":"british-secretary-of-state-visits-malawi-in-talks-with-jb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/2012\/05\/31\/british-secretary-of-state-visits-malawi-in-talks-with-jb\/","title":{"rendered":"British Secretary of State visits Malawi, in talks with JB"},"content":{"rendered":"

A top British official visited Malawi on Wednesday to meet President Joyce Banda, in another move rehabilitating Malawi’s battered image after its former president pursued increasingly hardline policies.
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In Malawi<\/p><\/div>
\nBritish Secretary of State for International Development Andrew Mitchell was due to meet with Banda and gain “first-hand experience of Malawi’s challenges”, a statement from his office said.<\/p>\n

His visit follows a diplomatic spat last year during the tenure of late president Bingu wa Mutharika.<\/p>\n

Relations between the two countries grew strained when Malawi newspapers published a diplomatic cable of the British ambassador accusing Mutharika of “becoming ever more autocratic and intolerant of criticism”.<\/p>\n

Among the laws drawing international ire were clampdowns on press freedoms and a gay ban. Banda has said she supports the repeal of Malawi’s “bad” laws.<\/p>\n

Mutharika died in April and was succeeded by Banda.<\/p>\n

Mitchell’s visit comes after the British Department for International Development said it would provide Malawi with \u00a330 million (38 million euros, $47 million) to help it manage the effects of devaluation of the country’s currency, the Malawi kwacha.<\/p>\n

At the time of the spat, Malawi expelled the British ambassador and London retaliated by ejecting Malawi’s envoy.<\/p>\n

Britain was one of the countries that suspended aid to Malawi, citing concerns about Mutharika.<\/p>\n

Since taking office, Banda, the country’s first female president, has been working to restore relations with donor nations.<\/p>\n

Mitchell is in the country until Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A top British official visited Malawi on Wednesday to meet President Joyce Banda, in another move rehabilitating Malawi’s battered image […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11072,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[207],"tags":[2384,300,1599,466,258],"class_list":["post-11069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-2","tag-andrew-mitchell","tag-bingu-wa-mutharika","tag-britain","tag-joyce-banda","tag-malawi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11069\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}