{"id":1770,"date":"2011-05-09T11:10:45","date_gmt":"2011-05-09T11:10:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.faceofmalawi.com\/?p=1770"},"modified":"2011-05-09T11:10:45","modified_gmt":"2011-05-09T11:10:45","slug":"malawi-president-says-uks-expelled-envoy-insulted-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/2011\/05\/09\/malawi-president-says-uks-expelled-envoy-insulted-him\/","title":{"rendered":"Malawi president says UKs expelled envoy insulted him"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The president of Malawi has explained his decision to expel the British High Commissioner for the first time. \"\"<\/p>\n

Fergus Cochrane-Dyet was told to leave after he was quoted in a leaked cable as saying President Bingu wa Mutharika does not tolerate criticism.<\/p>\n

President Mutharika said he would not accept insults just because Britain was the country’s largest aid donor.<\/p>\n

Britain ordered the acting High Commissioner of Malawi to leave the UK in response to the move last month.<\/p>\n

According to the diplomatic cable published by the local Weekend Nation newspaper last month<\/a>, Mr Cochrane-Dyet described President Mutharika as “becoming ever more autocratic and intolerant of criticism”.<\/p>\n

He said local civil society activists were afraid after a campaign of threatening phone calls and said the government was restricting the freedom of the media and minorities.<\/p>\n

Following the move, Foreign Secretary William Hague said: “It is a worrying sign that the Malawian government is expending its energies in this way, rather than focusing on the real and substantial challenges facing it, including the need for improved governance.”<\/p>\n

Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world, with an estimated 75% of the population living on less than $1 (60p) a day.<\/p>\n

The UK recently expressed its disappointment with Malawi and reduced aid after the government purchased an extravagant presidential jet.<\/p>\n

It is also among the countries which condemned a new law which gives ministers power to ban publications deemed not to be in the public interest.
\nSourced From BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The president of Malawi has explained his decision to expel the British High Commissioner for the first time. Fergus Cochrane-Dyet […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[274],"tags":[454,455,337],"class_list":["post-1770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dpp-3","tag-diplomats","tag-high-commissioner","tag-uk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1770","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=1770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1770\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}