Swaziland News
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Mbabane - Thousands of people are participating in a second day of demonstrations in the small kingdom of Swaziland over the king's handling of an economic crisis.
More than 3 000 demonstrators gathered across the country on Thursday, accompanied by armed police.
Protesters blame the absolute monarch for a shortage of essential medical
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About 100 Swazi AIDS activists Thursday marched to the finance ministry to demand that the kingdom not allow a crippling financial crisis to interrupt the supply of life-saving drugs.
The AIDS activists were joined by labour leaders and representatives of the banned Pudemo opposition party, who rallied behind the call to salvage the country's floundering health
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Swaziland's King Mswati III called Friday for his male subjects to get circumcised as he endorsed a campaign aimed at tackling the world's highest HIV infection rate.
Flanked by a large royal contingent including his mother, who rules alongside him, four of his 13 wives and several children, Africa's last absolute monarch said men and boys
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A teenage rhino calf died of stress and hunger last week in Swaziland after poachers slaughtered its mother, the first rhino killed in the tiny kingdom in two decades.
At the same time, a 16-year-old boy lay in hospital, a tube draining the fluid from his lung, lacerated by a bullet from a ranger's gun.
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High Court Judge Thomas Masuku has been here before. Yesterday (1 July 2011), he was indefinitely suspended with immediate effect from the bench and accused of a number of 'serious acts of misbehaviour', including 'insulting' King Mswati III and 'actively associating with those who want to bring about unlawful change to the regime'.
This is not
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Mbabane - Swaziland's health minister says the government has run out of money to send its cancer patients to better equipped clinics and hospitals in neighboring South Africa.
Swaziland is in economic crisis linked to a drop in customs revenues amid a worldwide recession. Speaking to parliament earlier this week, Health Minister Benedict Xaba said the
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National Treasury has refuted claims that it has granted Swaziland a R1.2 billion loan.
In a statement on Tuesday, the ministry said a report had stated that government had indeed issued the loan to the one absolute monarchy on the continent.
"While the South African government is in receipt of a loan request
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National Treasury has refuted claims that it has granted Swaziland a R1.2 billion loan.
In a statement on Tuesday, the ministry said a report had stated that government had indeed issued the loan to the one absolute monarchy on the continent.
"While the South African government is in receipt of a loan request
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Johannesburg - Swaziland is too scared to slash civil servant wages to resolve an acute budget crunch because of the fallout that could accrue to Africa's last absolute monarchy, Finance Minister Majozi Sithole has said.
In a parliamentary address reported in Swazi media on Tuesday, Sithole said the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was putting the screws
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Swaziland is an absolute monarchy of just under 1.5m subjects. King Mswati III is famous for his annual selection of a freshly minted virgin as his wife [He has 13 I believe which must require some serious mojo his personal wealth is estimated at $200m.
Swazi's royal house already has made some cutbacks. King Mswati III
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Mbabane — More than 300 Swazi cancer patients being treated in South African hospitals have been repatriated according to Swaziland the Cancer Association of Swaziland, (CANASWA), after the government of King Mswati III could not meet their medical costs.
Swaziland is experiencing acute financial pressures. "The entire fleet of [government] cars, except for emergency vehicles" and
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Catholic bishops are urging reforms in Swaziland, calling sub-Saharan Africa's last absolute monarchy a police state that's "tearing itself apart."
A statement issued on Thursday after a Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference visit to Swaziland says the king should lift a state of emergency that has been in place for nearly four decades, reinstate "the full
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About 3,000 Swazi teachers marched to the South African and US embassies here Wednesday to appeal for an international asset freeze against King Mswati III, Africa's last absolute monarch.
"We appeal to you to identify and freeze assets owned by the ruling elite and invested in the US resultant from their looting of our economy over
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Mbabane - Africa's last monarch King Mswati III of Swaziland has cancelled plans for a lavish "silver jubilee" as his kingdom tries to claw its way out of a financial crisis, the government said on Monday.
"The silver jubilee has been postponed indefinitely," Home Affairs Minister Chief Mgwagwa Gamedze said in a statement sent to AFP.
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Average life expectancy in Swaziland has plummeted from around 60 years in the 1990s to just over 30 years today. Few would deny that HIV/AIDS is largely to blame, but the reasons why the epidemic has devastated this tiny, southern African country more than any other are less clear.
"Foreign observers look at Swaziland and can't
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Mbabane - The prime minister of sub-Saharan Africa's last absolute monarchy says Swaziland will resist pressure from the West over democratic reforms.
Asked about reports that the US has developed a road map to democracy for the southern African country, Sibusiso Barnabas Dlamini told newspaper editors that "we would wish to emphasise that the way our
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Mbabane - Swaziland may be forced to devalue its currency unless the crisis-hit southern African kingdom can urgently cut government spending, a World Bank economist warned.
"It is getting to the point of reckoning - when Swaziland will no longer be able to sustain its deficit," visiting World Bank economist Jean van Houtte told AFP, ahead
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The International Monetary Fund has suggested that the Swaziland government, already facing protests from its citizens, may have to slash the government payroll by U.S. $35 million.
In a statement issued this week after an IMF delegation visited Mbabane, the fund said the country faced "a severe fiscal crisis". It said, as well as cutting the
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Mbabane - Two leaders of last month's pro-democracy protest in Swaziland had their bail appeal delayed on Friday, after the judge recused himself because he lives near one of the activists.
Student leader Maxwell Dlamini and fellow activist Musa Ngubeni were arrested on April 13 in possession of what police claim was bomb-making material, following rare
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The International Monetary Fund gave Swaziland's financial reform programme a harsh review Wednesday, a major blow to the crisis-hit kingdom's urgent attempts to secure international loans.
"A large fiscal adjustment is needed to bring the programme back on track and reduce the fiscal deficit in line with available financing," said mission head Joannes Mongardini in a
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Mbabane — Swaziland's deepening financial crisis has already eroded public services, but those services may shut down entirely if the government fails to find money to pay its wage bill.
Finance minister Majozi Sithole told a state-run radio station on 9 May that the government would struggle to pay public service salaries at the end of
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Mbabane - A Swaziland court on Friday denied bail to two activists arrested in pro-democracy protests last month on charges of illegal possession of explosives.
Maxwell Dlamini, president of the Swaziland students' union, and Musa Ngubeni, a member of the banned opposition People's United Democratic Front (Pudemo), were arrested on April 13 in a clampdown on
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Human rights activists and southern African exiles, organised by the Swaziland Vigil, are planning to protest outside one of London's most expensive hotels this evening to condemn the decision to invite King Mswati III to the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton.
The Swaziland Vigil co-ordinator Thobile Gwebu said: "King Mswati is making our
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Swazi activists vowed to stage new protests on Wednesday against King Mswati III, Africa's last absolute monarch, after a day of mass arrests, teargas and water cannons against their backers.
"We have planned to go ahead today despite what happened yesterday," said Mduduzi Gina, secretary general of Swaziland's Federation of Trade Unions.
"We
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Authorities have warned that they cannot guarantee the safety of those who will participate in the planned protests in Swaziland today.
Civil servants, unionists and students are expected to take to the streets today in Mbabane demanding a democratically elected government be put in place and that King Mswati III and his cabinet step down.
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An African ProverbWhen a king has good counselors, his reign is peaceful.- Liberia
