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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. The pageants have a strong supernatural element, relying on ancestral spirits, magic and ritual for success.
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/ 20 January 2004
Africa’s last absolute monarch, Swaziland’s King Mswati III, has deferred the re-opening of schools by a week to next Tuesday as schoolboys have not finished weeding royal fields. Acting Education Minister Themba Msibi said the objective was to allow schoolboys in royal regiments ”to complete royal duties assigned to them by the king”.
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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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/ 30 December 2003
The authorities in Swaziland are doing little to stem a flood of bogus ”miracle Aids cures” in a country with one of the world’s highest HIV infection rates. An ”Aids vaccine” in pill form is being supplied to the Swazi army, and a newspaper has published a report on how marijuana can cure Aids.
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/ 25 December 2003
Swaziland’s absolute monarch King Mswati III was on Wednesday ensconced in a sacred location for an annual ritual to prove he is fit to rule over the landlocked Southern African nation for another year. The king has been widely criticised for refusing to introduce democratic reforms.
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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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/ 4 November 2003
Health and human rights groups are concerned about prison conditions in Swaziland, where alleged torture, lack of basic hygiene and unsafe sexual practices are spreading HIV among inmates.
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/ 4 November 2003
Fifty newly-elected Swaziland parliamentarians were swore into office on Monday, with the speaker in the parliament of Africa’s last absolute monarchy warning the politicians not to be bullied by their ministers.
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/ 20 October 2003
Swaziland was poised on Monday to release the results of parliamentary elections held at the weekend, which pro-democracy groups had urged voters in the tiny southern African country, the continent’s last absolute monarchy, to boycott. ”All the results are in and voting is officially over for now,” said election information officer John Mkhonta.
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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.
King Mswati III is going ahead with the purchase of a controversial multi-million-dollar personal jet that will be used to ferry some heads of state from Johannesburg to attend an international conference in Swaziland next week.
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.
King Mswati III of Swaziland dissolved parliament on Saturday in preparation for parliamentary elections in October and presented a draft constitution for public debate.
The Swazi government has turned down calls for the supply of condoms to prisoners. HIV/Aids awareness campaigners’ calls for the distribution of condoms to prison inmates would not be met as sodomy was a crime.
The Swaziland monarchy has retracted a statement that caused a mass resignation of the country’s appeals court judges last year and plunged the tiny southern African country into a constitutional crisis.
An imposter who for years allegedly paraded as Swaziland’s King Mswati III in suburbs of the town of Manzini, collecting thousands of dollars under false pretences, has been arrested.
Trade union leaders said on Tuesday that the entire country was insulted by remarks made by the king that democracy was unsuitable for Swaziland.
A Swaziland High Court judge who has criticised the government in the past for failing to respect court orders, was transferred to a lower court in another setback to the judicial system
The current turmoil in Swaziland is a result of blurred lines between the powers of the executive, the judiciary and legislature, making it unclear who exactly was making the decisions.
Listeners to Swaziland’s state radio heard ”live” reports from war correspondent Phesheya Dube, purportedly from Iraq, but then saw him walking around Mbabane.
Lawyers from the Southern African Development Community will meet in Swaziland on Saturday to discuss a judicial crisis in the tiny landlocked kingdom sparked by a mass resignation of appeals court judges last year.
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/ 28 February 2003
Swaziland faces a number of serious economic problems, its finance minister warned on Thursday, blaming expenditure on overseas trips for officials and corruption within the government.
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/ 24 January 2003
The International Monetary Fund has blamed wasteful government spending on luxury items for Swaziland’s inability to pull itself out of poverty.
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/ 22 January 2003
President of the Swaziland Law Society Paul Shilubane on Tuesday called for the reinstatement of the full powers of the Swaziland Judicial Service Commission under the Minister of Justice and Sapire.
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/ 21 January 2003
Swaziland’s Chief Justice Stanley Sapire strongly criticised the country’s government on Monday in his speech opening the new session of the Swaziland High Court.
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/ 19 January 2003
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Wednesday warned Swaziland’s absolute monarch against buying a multi-million dollar jet, saying it could jeopardise future donations to the small African kingdom.
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/ 16 January 2003
Two international legal fact-finding missions were meeting Swaziland’s justice minister Chief Mawene Simelane on Thursday morning at the start of their enquiries into the state of the country’s justice system.