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/ 18 January 2004
This year is shaping up as the year of prison reform in Swaziland, and Aids is the catalyst. ”We have come a long way in acknowledging the impact of Aids within prisons,” the head of Correctional Services said. Legal observers say this has resulted in an end to the denialism that previously characterised the debate about HIV in jails.
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/ 16 January 2004
This year is shaping up as the year of prison reform in Swaziland, and Aids is the catalyst. ”It would be wrong to suggest that prisons are inhumane in Swaziland, but there is much room for improvement to make them safe from HIV infection, inmate abuse and other ills that are more or less endemic to African prisons,” said an officer with the Correctional Services.
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/ 17 December 2003
How does it feel to be an orphan in a country where by tradition there are no orphans? ”The extended family has completely broken down today. There is no place for orphans,” says Dr Martin Weber of the International Red Cross’s Swaziland branch. ”Aids is creating these orphans.”
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/ 5 December 2003
Swaziland’s new Constitution has been delayed again, as Prince David Dlamini conferred with constitutional experts. About R112-million has been spent on the exercise, which was decried from its inception by pro-democracy groups as a ”non-starter”.
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/ 1 December 2003
As the international community marks World Aids Day on Monday December 1, Swaziland has reached an unhappy milestone. The country now has the same proportion of adults infected with HIV as Botswana, the country with the greatest HIV prevalence rate.
Aids in Ethiopia
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/ 25 November 2003
The road transportation business in Southern Africa is fraught with obstacles. It is a risky profession characterised by trucks getting hijacked at gunpoint, and a high incidence of HIV infection among workers. However, industry players say it is also providing opportunities for promoting black empowerment.
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/ 2 September 2003
Doped up on the tranquiliser Azaparone 11 glassy-eyed ”baby” elephants stood as still as a life-size frieze on a Lost City hotel wall inside their individual metal shipping crates. An operation that Swazi conservationists said saved the lives of these elephants was carried out in secret last week.
Swaziland’s largest minority group by 2010 will be children under 15 who will have lost both their parents to Aids. The kingdom faces a boom of parentless children as more adults succumb to HIV/Aids.
Africa’s editors are today communicating more and more through the internet, forming members-only chatrooms to exchange thoughts on the issues that confront the continent. But while such an exchange is welcome, the editors are worried that their privileged access to the internet may distance them from the vast majority of Africans.
As awareness of the Aids crisis breaks in Swaziland like a blinding dawn, measures that would have been unthinkable a year ago are now being initiated.