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/ 24 February 2005
There are several reasons why women’s rights activists might welcome Swaziland’s new Constitution, intended to replace the document that was suspended by King Sobhuza in 1973. Then again, there are also reasons why they might not. "The only way to see if the Constitution’s promise can be fulfilled is to test it once it is the law of the land," says a teacher from Manzini.
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/ 22 February 2005
Foreign ministers from 15 African countries have agreed to press demands for Africa to be granted two veto-wielding permanent seats at the United Nations Security Council, ambassadors said on Tuesday. The ministers are to draw up a response to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan’s blueprint for UN reform.
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/ 21 February 2005
Swazi King Mswati III has bought a new Mercedes limousine, the latest in a string of luxury car purchases for himself and his 10 wives in the Southern African kingdom. The 36-year-old king caused a stir on Friday when he turned up at the opening of Parliament in his latest acquisition and ordered his bodyguards to block photographers from taking pictures of the new Mercedes S-Class Pullman.
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/ 15 February 2005
The local and international community should take action against Swaziland’s King Mswati III’s ”insensitive expenditure”, the Swaziland Solidarity Network said on Tuesday. This comes after the monarch spent R5-million on 10 BMWs for his wives and R6-million on a Chrysler Maybach for himself.
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/ 3 February 2005
Said to be one of the 10 most expensive cars in the world, the Maybach 62 is sleek, glamorous and — some might argue — a little out of place in a country where two thirds of the population lives below the poverty line. ”The king drove up the main street of the capital in this beautiful car…” said cashier Martha Dlamini.
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/ 28 January 2005
A coroner’s inquest has accused the Royal Swaziland Police Force of torture and neglect in a case that has highlighted human rights groups’ concerns over the treatment of suspects in custody. Mandla Ngubeni died in June last year after the police interrogated him over the disappearance of R28 000 from his place of employment.
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/ 24 January 2005
In May last year, teachers in Swaziland were at loggerheads with the government over the delicate matter of admitting Aids orphans to schools free of charge. With the new academic year looming, has the situation improved? Certainly, Minister of Education Constance Simelane is making all the right noises.
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/ 14 January 2005
South Africa’s agreement to take seriously Swaziland’s claim to its national territory has implications for all of Africa, and the pledges African countries have made to honour boundaries drawn up during the colonial era, diplomats have said. Because of colonial-era territorial gerrymandering, more Swazis live outside Swaziland than in the small country left behind within diminished borders.
An upbeat New Year’s message by Swaziland Prime Minister Themba Dlamini has been rebutted by the kingdom’s pro-democracy groups, with labour unions calling for a general strike in January to protest lavish royal spending and a controversial draft Constitution. The nationwide general strike is set for January 25.
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/ 13 December 2004
Opposition leaders on Monday slammed King Mswati III for spending millions of lilangeni on a luxury car at a time of food shortages in his impoverished Southern African country. Africa’s last absolute monarch spent more than four million lilangeni (about R3,96-million) on a state-of-the-art DaimlerChrysler Maybach 62 last week.
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/ 2 December 2004
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/142915/aids_icon.gif" align=left>Read the obituaries in Swaziland, and you will discover that many people here die from unspecified "lingering illnesses". Attend funerals, and you may hear that tuberculosis, dysentery, diaorrhea — even flu — are also proving exceptionally lethal. Virtually no-one, it seems, is dying of Aids. This is despite the fact that an HIV prevalence of 38,8% has given Swaziland the highest Aids infection rate in the world.
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/ 11 November 2004
Swaziland’s highest court finally resumed hearings on Thursday after a two-year feud between its judges and the monarchy was resolved. The six judges of the Appeal Court took up their jobs again after resigning en masse in 2002 when the monarchy refused to abide by a court ruling that effectively scrapped an eviction order from King Mswati III.
Heterosexual men need to take more responsibility for trying to stop the spread of HIV/Aids in Southern Africa, according to regional health experts. At a workshop held in Swaziland’s capital, Mbabane, on Thursday, health workers, government officials and Aids activists called on men across the region to assume a greater role in tackling the disease. At 38,6%, Swaziland has the one of world’s highest rates of HIV infection.
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/ 23 September 2004
The Swazi government and the United Nations Children’s Fund are canvassing the country’s 55 rural districts in a novel initiative to collect ideas for developmental programmes aimed at orphans and vulnerable children. Out of a national population of 970 000, Swaziland has an estimated 50 000 orphans.
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/ 14 September 2004
National airports are the primary gateways to nations today. From the design of a terminal building to the swiftness of baggage retrieval, airports give visitors an all-important first impression of a country’s modernity and capacity to provide services. They are also prestige projects for governments, however, which can lead to problems. Take the situation in Swaziland, for example.
Africa’s last absolute monarch, Swaziland’s King Mswati III, has lashed out at being named one of the world’s 10 worst dictators, a Mbabane-based newspaper reported on Sunday. The all-powerful king, who has ruled by decree since his coronation in 1986 at the age of 18, rejected a report by the Daily Mirror in London last week listing him as one of the 10 worst dictators.
Swazi police clashed at the weekend with protesters demanding political reform in Swaziland, where King Mswati III wields absolute power, witnesses, anti-monarchist activists and reports said on Sunday. A gunbattle broke out after police fired tear gas during a protest held on Saturday in a township in Matsapha in central Swaziland, eyewitnesses said.
Southern Africa is responding to its Aids pandemic with new programmes that promoters say must be as adaptable as HIV itself. "Just as HIV mutates, frustrating efforts to come up with a vaccine, so do our prevention, mitigation and treatment efforts have to be flexible and innovative," says Sylvia Kunene, a counsellor with a voluntary testing centre in Nelspruit, South Africa.
Anglican bishops from five nations, including the United States, Scotland and South Africa, have completed a two-day fact-finding mission to Swaziland. The delegation examined issues such as constitutional reform, economic development and the high HIV/Aids rate.
Swazi police assaulted five opposition supporters on Saturday and prevented an outlawed political party from holding a rally to celebrate the 21st anniversary of its creation. The party’s secretary said from his hospital bed that he and other supporters were beaten with batons after refusing a police order to disperse.
A traditional cleansing ceremony to honour the memory of 50 South African freedom fighters, killed by forces of the apartheid regime in collaboration with Swazi security forces, concluded at the weekend in Swaziland’s central commercial town, Manzini.
The government of Swaziland has allocated R2-million in its budget for an anti-corruption office that does not function, but is sorely needed. "Corruption is part of any national government, any business, any place from a school headmaster’s office to a religious organisation where money and influence are found," says an Mbabane attorney with the Swaziland Law Society.
Under intense criticism from government, the Swaziland press faces the challenge of reporting the country’s difficulties without infringing proposed legislative constraints. Reports in recent years have covered issues ranging from criticism of plans to buy the king a multimillion dollar jet amid grinding poverty, a largely unchecked HIV/Aids epidemic and widespread food shortages.
Swazis tired of hearing their country condemned for having a traditional African monarchy for its governing system are countering that this very culture makes Swaziland a unique place any tourist would want to visit. Swaziland’s new tourism board wants to reverse the declining fortunes of the national tourism industry.
Between a quarter and a third of Swazis are said to be in need of food aid. Food shipments are managed by the United Nations World Food Programme. But, the smooth functioning of this aid operation belies tensions among donor nations and groups over Swaziland’s human rights record and government spending on behalf of the royal family.
It may be a dim silver lining to a particularly dark cloud, but one apparent result of the Aids pandemic in Swaziland is that fewer people in the country are smoking. Although the Council on Smoking, Alcohol and Drugs (Cosad) has no statistics on the reported decline in smoking, it says there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to buttress the claim.
Swaziland’s nurses remained on strike for a second day on Thursday amid a last-ditch effort by the government to have the protest for wage arrears dating back to 2001 declared illegal. Last week’s crippling protest claimed the lives of at least seven patients, according to the strike organiser, the Swaziland Nurses Association.
King Mswati III on Tuesday postponed the opening of Parliament in this tiny Southern African nation without explanation. No new date was announced. Mswati, Africa’s last absolute monarch, had been expected to preside over the opening session on Friday and address the nation on government plans for the year ahead.
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/ 26 February 2004
Swaziland’s Red Cross society has issued an SOS to retired nurses to help revive public health services, crippled by a nurses’ strike that entered a third day on Thursday and has claimed at least six lives, according to media reports. Swaziland’s Red Cross officer said if no volunteers come forward, more people will die.
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/ 17 February 2004
”Ritual murder is a fact in Swaziland. Our only protection is to adopt a defensive attitude,” says Robert Dube, a businessperson in the capital city, Mbabane. ”Ritual murder” has allegedly long been a dark and secret part of politics in Swaziland, a conservative kingdom where traditions good and bad are a key part of life.
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/ 3 February 2004
A new education initiative has been started in Swaziland to assist children who have lost parents to the Aids pandemic. The government says it will start paying the tuition fees of all Aids orphans, many of whom would not be able to attend school otherwise.
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/ 23 January 2004
Swaziland is currently in the midst of its sacred Incwala ceremony, which many believe is crucial for the welfare of the country. However, the celebrations have not been without controversy. Variants of Incwala, a harvest festival, are celebrated by a number of ethnic groups in Southern Africa.