{"id":11136,"date":"2012-05-31T12:53:10","date_gmt":"2012-05-31T12:53:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.faceofmalawi.com\/?p=11136"},"modified":"2012-05-31T12:53:10","modified_gmt":"2012-05-31T12:53:10","slug":"jb-succumbing-to-western-economic-pressure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/2012\/05\/31\/jb-succumbing-to-western-economic-pressure\/","title":{"rendered":"JB succumbing to Western Economic Pressure?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> The former president BinguwaMutharika refused to abide by western influence and as a result of that, economic sanctions were placed on Malawi. The UK was among those which suspended direct aid to the government last year. Since the president died, the new president Joyce Banda bowed to pressure and these westerners have returned to her as friends. But there are warnings it is too late to save Malawi from economic collapse and social turmoil.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.faceofmalawi.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/banda.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.faceofmalawi.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/banda-295x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"banda\" width=\"295\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8562\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nBritain is calling for urgent action to prevent a Greece-style financial crisis in Malawi, one of the world\u2019s poorest countries, where recent political turmoil, a suspension of foreign aid, and abrupt currency devaluation have conspired to leave the new government with a gaping hole in its budget.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMalawi is at a crossroads today and action in three to six months may be too late,\u201d said Andrew Mitchell, UK Secretary of State for Development. \u201cWe need a lot of support, very quickly \u2013 in the region of $500m,\u201d acknowledged Joyce Banda, Malawi\u2019s new president, who grappled her way to power last month after her predecessor Bingu wa Mutharika died of a heart attack and his aides briefly attempted to subvert the constitution to keep her from taking over.<\/p>\n<p>Privately, western diplomats here are warning of the possibility of economic collapse, and a backlash against President Banda, if the situation isn\u2019t handled firmly and fast. \u201cAn inflationary spiral is a real threat \u2013 if the economy collapses, Banda will lose support and political instability could follow. The cost of rescuing Malawi will be much more expensive than supporting it now,\u201d said one diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The former president BinguwaMutharika refused to abide by western influence and as a result of that, economic sanctions were placed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8562,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[279],"tags":[1599,2504,466,1739,302,258],"class_list":["post-11136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-humor","tag-britain","tag-greece","tag-joyce-banda","tag-libya","tag-malawi-news-2","tag-malawi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11136","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=11136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11136\/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=11136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}