Twin blasts kill at least 25 in Kabul
The marches, organised by civil action groups, were against alleged corruption and poor governance under President Peter Mutharika, who has ruled the country since 2014.
“Peter should resign!” chanted crowds dressed in red, as they were accompanied by a heavy police presence in Blantyre, Lilongwe and other cities.
Some members of Mutharika’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) had threatened to disrupt the protests, but the event passed off without clashes.
At the July 2011 anti-government protests, police opened fire killing 20 unarmed civilians in scenes that shocked the country and saw international donors cut aid.
Malawi is one of the world’s poorest and most aid-dependent countries.
Former president Joyce Banda returned to Malawi on Saturday after four years of self-imposed exile, despite facing the threat of arrest over corruption allegations. KABUL - At least 25 people were killed, including Agence France-Presse chief photographer Shah Marai and five other journalists, when two suicide blasts ripped through Kabul yesterday, police and AFP have confirmed.
The attacks, claimed by the Islamic State group, are the latest deadly assaults on the Afghan capital and have spurred an outpouring of grief among journalists, many of whom took to Twitter to post tributes to their colleagues.
Kabul police spokesperson Hashmat Stanikzai said the second explosion came minutes after the first, and targeted reporters at the scene.
"The bomber disguised himself as a journalist and detonated himself among the crowd," he said.
The interior ministry con- firmed the death toll and said six journalists were among those killed. It also said 49 people had been wounded, amid fears the death toll could rise.
AFP confirmed that, along with Marai, two journalists from 1TV, one from Tolo news and one from Jahan TV were among the dead.
Marai joined AFP as a driver in 1996, the year the Taliban seized power, and began taking pictures on the side, covering stories including the US invasion in 2001.
In 2002 he became a full-time photo stringer, rising through the ranks to become chief photographer in the bureau. "I taught myself photography, so I am always looking to improve," he said in a company profile in 2015. "Now my photos appear around the world.
The first blast came shortly before 08:00 hours near the headquarters of the Afghan intelligence services, when a motorcyclist detonated his explosives, the interior ministry said.
It comes days after the Taliban kicked off their spring offensive in an apparent rejection of calls for the militants to take up the Afghan government's offer of peace talks.
A Taliban spokesperson told AFP they were not involved in the attack. However, Western and Afghan officials suspect that the Taliban's Haqqani Network sometimes assists ISIS in carrying out attacks.
The blasts follow several bloody attacks across the country including a bombing that targeted a voter registration centre in Kabul killing 60 people last week. - AFP