LILONGWE: Malawi plans to use the $15m it gained from selling its presidential jet to feed the more than 1 million people suffering chronic food shortages, the Treasury said yesterday.
Malawi angered Western donors, whose aid typically accounted for about 40 percent of the budget, when the government of late President Bingu wan Mutharika bought the 14-passenger Dassault Falcon 900EX aircraft in 2009.
President Joyce Banda, who took over after Mutharika died of a heart attack in April 2012, made selling the plane a priority as she sought to repair the damage left by the previous president, who picked costly fights with donors that left the economy a shambles.
“The $15 million we got from the sale of the presidential jet will be used to purchase maize locally to help feed the suffering masses and some of it will go towards legume production,” Treasury spokesman Nations Msowoya said.
Judges apologise for inaction during Pinochet era
SANTIAGO: Chile’s judges issued a long-awaited apology to relatives of those who sought missing loved ones under the regime of dictator Augusto Pinochet only to have courts shrug them off.
“To those who were victims of state abuse ...the time has come to ask for the forgiveness of victims ... and of Chilean society,” said the Chilean Judges’ Association in a statement almost 40 years after the September 11, 1973, coup that toppled elected socialist Salvador Allende.
Pinochet then took the helm of the South American country, remaining there until 1990.
“It must be said and recognized clearly and completely: the court system and especially the Supreme Court at that time, failed in their roles as safeguards of basic human rights, and to protest those who were victims of state abuse,” the judges said.
Agencies
