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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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/ 29 November 2004
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Swazi Queen Sibonelo Mngomezulu tackles her kingdom’s record-high HIV/Aids rates with as much passion as she fights to bring women out of men’s shadows in Africa’s last absolute monarchy. Married to polygamist King Mswati III for nearly 20 years, she has broken the mould many times, completing a law degree, speaking out against polygamy, producing her own television show and setting up the first HIV/Aids charities.
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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.
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.
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.
In a country where funds for social programmes are often lacking, volunteers find themselves being called on to fill the gap. Of late, however, the demands placed on these individuals have become increasingly burdensome. These concerns are echoed by the National Emergency Response Committee on HIV/Aids — a body set up by government to coordinate Swaziland’s response to the Aids pandemic.
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.
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.
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.
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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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/ 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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/ 15 November 2003
Africa’s last absolute monarch, King Mswati III of Swaziland, on Friday named a new prime minister for the small African nation, but failed to adopt a controversial draft constitution. The prime minister’s appointment follows parliamentary elections last month, which had been boycotted by pro-democracy groups.
A Swazi judge and the country’s director of public prosecutions who both defied the government in a recent scandal over King Mswati’s newest fiancee have told police that their lives are in danger.
Traditional authorities in the tiny kingdom of Swaziland on Monday ordered the cancellation of a planned two-day strike, saying the labour action would ”disturb the kingdom’s ancestral spirits”.
Swazis in the east of the tiny kingdom are eating wild nuts and berries to supplement an ever-shrinking diet as food shortages take hold with the onset of winter
Libyan leader Colonel Moammar Gadaffi arrived in style in Swaziland on Thursday in a 90 vehicle motorcade from Durban, promising a poor woman on the way that her life would improve.
Tears of joy roll down the cheeks of elderly people who have been surviving on one meal every two days in southeastern Swaziland as trucks carrying donated food arrive.
Just weeks after the king of Swaziland made international headlines when officials from his court were alleged to have abducted an 18-year-old girl as his tenth wife, he is reportedly eyeing up wife number 12.