Despite the Malawi government's move to suspend a law banning same-sex relationships, activists say winning a total repeal will be an 'uphill battle' in a country where homosexuality is considered a sin. 'Malawi culture remains conservative,' Billy Mayaya, a leading rights activist, told AFP just hours after President Joyce Banda's government announced the suspension of tough anti-gay laws, pending a parliamentary debate. Despite the jubilation, Mayaya and others are far from confident that a full repeal is in the cards, and until that happens gay Malawians still face the threat of up to 14 years in jail with hard labour.

Police in Malawi's commercial capital, Blantyre, Wednesday arrested a number of former ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) officials in pre-dawn raids of people fingered in an inquiry into the mysterious death of a 25-year-old Malawi university student. Robert Chasowa, a fourth-year engineering student at the Polytechnic, a constituent college of the University of Malawi, was found dead on campus on 24 September last year. Police immediately dubbed it suicide and produced two suicide notes and a post-mortem report to buttress their claims. But pathologist, Dr. Charles Dzamalala, who conducted the autopsy on Chasowa's remains, contradicted them and said the student was in fact bludgeoned to death.