Last Monday, Madonna arrived in Malawi a VIP. Last Saturday, she left the country with her VIP status revoked.

Sure, Madonna created a whole (possibly shady) charity to raise money for schools in Malawi, but do you know how she raises money for daughter Lourdes Leon's schooling? By selling her old Chanel boots.

All Madonna wanted was her own private school for impoverished African girls, just like Oprah has (minus the molesty stuff). What she got is a PR nightmare. Her mismanaged charitable foundation, Raising Malawi, is on the verge of collapse, and $3.8 million designated for the school have all but vanished into thin air.

A proposed law in Malawi would ban, among other things, the public passing of gas. If farting is criminalized, only criminals will fart. And criminals have really stinky farts because of poor dietary habits. [via]

One half of the Malawian couple who were convicted, and then pardoned, for being gay now has a girlfriend. Shortly after being pardoned, Steven Monjeza left his old partner for a woman because he "had enough" of being harassed.

Under pressure from the international community, Malawi's president Bingu wa Mutharika ordered a gay couple, jailed for 14 years for "unnatural acts and gross indecency" to be pardoned and released. But kind of grudgingly.

The two men, convicted of "unnatural acts and gross indecency," have been given the maximum sentence permitted by law: 14 years of hard labor in prison. The judge said of his ruling, "Let posterity judge this judgment." It will. [NYT]

In order to "protect" the public, a judge in Malawi has sentenced a gay couple to 14 years in prison with hard labor for "gross indecency" and committing "unnatural acts." Somewhere, Rev. Rick Warren is smiling. [BBC, pic]

More than 200 villagers have to move from land Madonna bought from the government for a $15m girls' school just outside the capital, Lilongwe. Don't worry though, they got 16m Kwacha in compensation. That's a lot of Kwacha. [AP]

Simpson-Wentz loses her role on Melrose. Madonna is building a school in Malawi. Lindsay Lohan coaxes a club into lifting its ban on her presence. Come, enjoy the fruits of Friday's gossip.

Not that charity is ever bad in any form, but Madonna could probably do better than sending old clothes and her own damn children's book to the Malawi orphanage where she found her son, David.

Yohana Banda, the biological father of Madonna's Malawi-born adopted son David, is worried about the tot's future now that David's crazy pop icon mother seems to relish fighting an ugly divorce battle in public. "I am still a poor farmer with nothing to offer, but maybe he would be better off back with us," Mr. Banda…

Heroic woman of dance Madonna has been working for almost a year on a documentary about the obscure African nation of Malawi, her pet cause ever since she adopted a son from the country in 2006. The Material Girl tells Interview magazine (in editor Ingrid Sischy's farewell issue) that, at the time, she "didn't know…

Gucci's new flagship store on 5th Avenue [Photo via Racked] opened today&mdash the one that was in no way related to the blockbuster luxury bash at the UN Wednesday night, which was done only with the children of Malawi in mind. And coverage of that fabulous night keeps on coming, today in the form of an ET video…

Well, you'll be happy to hear that the purely altruistic GUCCI/ Unicef fundraiser for Malawi went off smashingly last night at the UN; no thanks to you, cheapskate, who didn't even buy a single $2000 ticket. Luckily for Africa, people like Madonna, Ashton Kutcher, Tom Cruise, and J-Lo are willing to put the welfare…

It's great that Tea Leoni, Madonna, Timbaland, and Alicia Keys can take time out of their shiny lives tonight to attend a fundraiser for UNICEF. Because they all support UNICEF, and are each determined to raise money for the suffering people of Malawi, you see. Purely coincidental is Gucci's co-sponsorship of the…

Us mag kindly supplies this photo of Madonna arriving at "the airport" in New York today with her recent Malawian acquisition. Note the Kabbalah-fied red string on little David Banda's wrist, said to ward off the evil eye, bad luck, unfortunate publicity, etc. Three cheers for prescience! Talk about too little, too…

Despite initial denials from Madonna's publicist, various Malawian relatives of the alleged newest addition to the Ciccone-Ritchie household claim that the adoption of one-year-old David Banda is proceeding apace. Madonna's publicist, Liz Rosenberg, earlier tried to finesse the adoption thing as Madonna's metaphorical…