In the past, Malawi's telecommunications system has been named as some of the poorest in Africa, but conditions are improving, with 130, 000 land line telephones being connected between 2000 and 2007.

Relations with the South Africa during South Africa's transition to multiparty state and the subsequent ANC rule became a challenge for Malawi's future.

He won the election with 47 % of the vote, defeating Malawi's leader since independence, Hastings Kamuzu Banda.

Malawi's genre R & B is growing and has been made popular with artists like Maskal, and Dan Lu.

Blantyre or Mandala is Malawi's centre of finance and commerce, the second largest city with an estimated 728, 285 inhabitants.

Today the city is Malawi's main manufacturing core with shoes, cotton, metal and plastic producing factories.

After the independence of Mozambique in 1975, the bulk of Malawi's trade with South Africa went through Rhodesia by road via Tete.

In this deep trough lies Lake Malawi, the third-largest lake in Africa, comprising about 20 % of Malawi's area.

It became a British consular in 1883 and attained municipality status by 1895, making it Malawi's oldest municipality .< ref ></</ ref > Blantyre is one of the oldest urban centre in east, central and southern Africa ; it pre-dates Nairobi, Harare and Johannesburg, hence has the longest historic and cultural heritage in the region.

Muluzi's time as President was marred by controversy and scandal, particularly due to the sale of Malawi's reserves of maize to other countries shortly before the onset of a drought, which resulted in famine throughout the country.

The Malawi Broadcasting Corporation ( MBC ), the country's state broadcaster and the provider of Malawi's only television channel, has its headquarters in Blantyre.

The city's stature as Malawi's centre of commerce and industry began through its role as a centre for colonial trade in ivory.

The Northern Region borders Zambia to the west, Tanzania to the north, Lake Malawi to the east, and Malawi's Central Region to its south.

Malawi's newly written constitution ( 1995 ) eliminated special powers previously reserved for the Malawi Congress Party.

Malawi's former President Bakili Muluzi continued the pro-Western foreign policy established by former President Hastings Banda.

The refugee crisis placed a substantial strain on Malawi's economy but also drew significant inflows of international assistance.

The population of Lilongwe — Malawi's capital since 1971 — exceeds 400, 000.

Blantyre, Malawi remains Malawi's major commercial center and largest city, having grown from an estimated 109, 000 inhabitants in 1966 to nearly 500, 000 in 1998.

Malawi's President resides in Blantyre.

Malawi's climate is generally tropical.

After some questions about his health, Banda ran in Malawi's first truly democratic presidential election in 1994.

In 2002 he proposed an amendment to Malawi's constitution that would have allowed him to run for a third term, but this was abandoned due to the move being blocked by the National Assembly of Malawi Members of Parliament, courts, and demonstrations against him.

Despite international pressure, the millions of dollars realized from the sale of Malawi's food reserves have never been turned over, and it is widely suspected that it wound up in foreign accounts belonging to Muluzi and his supporters.

Muluzi is Malawi's first Muslim President.

Due to the period of music suppression, many of Malawi's new and up-and-coming artists are young.

Influenced by the 1980s music from the Congo, Malawi's own kwasa kwasa music grew.

Gospel music is one of Malawi's most popular music forms.

Du Bois, Malawi's Hastings Banda, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, prominent Jamaican barrister Dudley Thompson and Obafemi Awolowo and Jaja Wachuku from Nigeria.

The easiest way to get to Zomba is by kombi bus service from Lilongwe or Blantyre via the M1, Malawi's main north-south highway.

Mzuzu ( formerly called Kaningina ) is the capital of Malawi's Northern Region and is the third largest city, by population, in Malawi.

This push to confine the study of mass behaviour to the measurements of parameters involved in differential equations has led sociology perilously close to the reduction of the word `` mass '' to mean a small group in which certain relations between all pairs of individuals in such a group can be studied.

The father of Julia the Elder was the Emperor Augustus, and Julia was his only natural child from his second marriage to Scribonia, who had close blood relations with Pompey the Great and Lucius Cornelius Sulla.

Adelaide had long entertained close relations with Cluny, then the center of the movement for ecclesiastical reform, and in particular with its abbots Majolus and Odilo.

While still a deacon under Alexander's care, he seems to have been brought for a while into close relations with some of the solitaries of the Egyptian desert, and in particular with the Anthony the Great, whose life he is said to have written.

Pakistan and Bosnia and Herzegovina enjoy close and cordial relations.

Brunei has a number of diplomatic missions abroad and has close relations with Singapore, sharing an interchangeable currency regime as well as close military relations with the latter island-state.

With the coming to power of Thomas Sankara in Burkina Faso in 1983, relations between Ghana and Burkina became both warm and close.

Tacitus ' statement that they were " German in their way of life and types of dwelling " implies a sedentary bias, but their close relations with the Sarmatians, who were nomadic, may indicate a more nomadic lifestyle, as does the wide geographical range of their attested inhabitation.

Chad is officially non-aligned but has close relations with France, the former colonial power.

Cyprus has historically followed a non-aligned foreign policy, although it increasingly identifies with the West in its cultural affinities and trade patterns, and maintains close relations with Greece.

These affiliations remain to this day, and relations with both parties are close.

According to biographer Keay Davidson, Sagan's " inner war " was a result of his close relations with both his parents, who were in many ways " opposites ".

While Djibouti ’ s President Ismail Omar Guelleh has close ties with Ethiopia ’ s ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front ( EPRDF ), he has tried to maintain an even hand, developing relations with Eritrea.

During the first years of the Rivadeneira administration, Febres-Cordero introduced free-market economic policies, took a strong stand against drug trafficking and terrorism, and pursued close relations with the United States.

Contentious issues include Egypt's signing of the Camp David Accords with Israel in 1979, its support for Iraq in Iran's eight-year conflict, the Islamic Republic's hailing of Khalid Islambouli, the late President Anwar Sadat's assassin as a religious hero, seeing as there was both a street and mural named after him ( however, the honorer was changed to Muhammad al-Durrah, the 12-year-old Palestinian boy shot and killed during the outset of the Second Intifada ), and close Egyptian relations with the United States, and most of the Western European countries.

The ancient Puntites were a nation of people that had close relations with Pharaonic Egypt during the times of Pharaoh Sahure and Queen Hatshepsut.

Israeli-Eritrean relations are close.

From 1579 Elbląg had close trade relations with England, to which the city accorded free trade.

Sculpture of King Æthelberht of Kent, an Anglo-Saxon king and saint, on Canterbury Cathedral in England. There are many indications of close relations between Kent and the Franks.

East Pakistan enjoyed a strong interaction, healthy relations and close cultural ties with Republic of India.

The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan has close and friendly relations with a number of countries around the world, including: the United States, Japan, Germany, Turkey, India, China, Canada, Russia, United Arab Emirates and many others.

Following the October 2001 American invasion and the Bonn Agreement the new government under the leadership of Hamid Karzai started to re-establish diplomatic relationships with many countries who had held close diplomatic relations before the communist coup d ' état and the subsequent civil war.