World Tour: Malawi mourns the loss of the vice president

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: WORLD Tour with our reporter in Nigeria, Onize Ohikere.

ONIZE OHIKERE: Malawi funeral — Today’s roundup takes off in Malawi’s capital of Lilongwe at the state funeral for Vice President Saulos Chilima.

AUDIO: [Choir singing]

Chilima and eight others—including a former first lady—died in a plane crash last week while traveling to a former minister’s funeral.

All passengers on board died on impact when the twin-propeller aircraft crashed in a hilly, forested area.

President Lazarus Chakwera said air traffic controllers had told the plane to turn back due to bad weather and poor visibility.

Hundreds of soldiers and forest rangers searched for more than 24 hours before finding the wreckage in a forest plantation south of its destination.

Rebecca Adda-Dontoh is the United Nations resident coordinator in Malawi.

ADDA-DONTOH: He was a go-getter for Malawi, and had confidence that Malawi was on the right path. So, it means a lot. Many people are mourning, especially young people who also identified with him.

The 51-year-old Chilima was serving his second term as vice president when he died. President Chakwera declared three weeks of national mourning.

AUDIO: [Welcome ceremony]

Australia-China relations — We head over to Australia, where Chinese Premier Li Qiang wrapped up a four-day visit on Tuesday with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to mend diplomatic tensions.

Li is the highest-ranking Chinese official to visit Australia since 2017. Relations soured between the countries in 2020 after Australia proposed an investigation into COVID-19 origins. Australia was also the first nation to ban Chinese telecommunications provider Huawei from its 5G network.

China has lifted most of its punitive trade barriers since Albanese assumed office two years ago. Li said China will grant limited visa-free access to Australians.

But Albanese still affirmed the two countries’ lingering differences. Both leaders agreed to improve communication between their militaries after recent clashes in the South China Sea and Yellow Sea.

Here’s Albanese.

ALBANESE: Without dialogue, we can’t address any of the differences that arise between us, Australia and China have renewed and revitalized our engagement.

The leaders also visited the Adelaide Zoo, where Li offered to send two new pandas to the country.

Europe update — Now to Europe, where leaders of the EU met Monday evening to divvy up top jobs in the European Commission. They also discussed which direction the bloc will take, after voters chose a hard shift to the right in recent elections.

WORLD collaborator Joel Forster of Evangelical Focus says that, while President Ursula von der Leyen will likely keep her job, there will be new priorities.

FORSTER: The European machine will continue to work in the same direction, probably with a higher emphasis on controlling immigration while building military power to prepare for whatever scenario opens with Russia in the years ahead.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni also won big in the EU elections. Despite low voter turnout, Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party took 29 percent of the vote. Here’s WORLD’s Italy correspondent, Chiara Lamberti:

LAMBERTI: Italy’s right wing government emerges much stronger from the EU elections. And Italy’s prime minister emerges as a stronger leader in Europe.

Forster says that Meloni and von der Leyen will need to work together to develop a working alliance to inspire Europeans during what he called ‘global uncertainty.’

FORSTER: Millions are becoming more and more frustrated in the continent, and may be ready to go to the hard right alternatives to lead sooner than later.

AUDIO: [Crying]

Sweden-Iran swap — We wrap up today with tears of joy in Sweden after Iran released two Swedes in a prisoner swap over the weekend.

Iranian authorities had detained Johan Floderus two years ago during a holiday trip. They also released dual citizen Saeed Azizi, who received a five-year sentence in Iran.

In exchange, Sweden released Hamid Noury—an Iranian former prison official who received a life sentence in Sweden over mass killings in Iranian jails in 1988.

Here’s Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson.

KRISTERSSON: [Speaking Swedish]

He says here that the swap has sparked some mixed feelings, but added that it involved some significantly difficult government decisions.

That’s it for today’s WORLD Tour. Reporting for WORLD, I’m Onize Ohikere in Abuja, Nigeria.

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