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Landlocked in southeast Africa, Malawi lies on the Great Rift Valley and is dominated by Lake Malawi (Nyasa), Africa's third-largest lake. In the 1980s Malawi hosted large numbers of Mozambican refugees, at some cost to its fragile economy; food shortages are a recurrent and serious threat. Three decades of one-party rule under Hastings Banda followed independence from the UK. Democracy was established in 1994.