HEALTH-SWAZILAND: AIDS a Greater Threat Than Ever Before

Swaziland is a small country geographically, and its population numbers less than a million. But, it has an oversized AIDS problem.

ECONOMY-SOUTHERN AFRICA: A Challenging Road Ahead for Truckers

The road transportation business in Southern Africa is fraught with obstacles, in the shape of AIDS and crime. However, industry players say it is also providing opportunities for promoting black empowerment.

POLITICS-SWAZILAND: A Boost for Women in Parliament

Women now comprise 30 percent of Swaziland's legislature, following King Mswati's appointments of new MPs and Senators. For a traditional nation where women are still legal minors, this accomplishment is impressive.

DEVELOPMENT-AFRICA: Scientists Called to Look Beyond the Lab

A panel of prominent women scientists has argued that African researchers need to get out of their laboratories and enter the world of policy-making if they want to be of real benefit to their fellow Africans. The women say that researchers must also learn to market their ideas.

LABOUR-SWAZILAND: Illegal Immigrants Replace Workforce Decimated by AIDS

Samito is a short, good-natured 15 year-old who seeks to support his girlfriend and their eight month-old baby by holding down two jobs.

MEDIA-AFRICA: Financial News Remains Disconnected From the Masses

Economies determine the fates of nations and their people, and yet economic news remains disconnected from the masses of people who need to know developments that touch all their lives, concluded an assembly of African economics editors this week.

RIGHTS-SWAZILAND: Women Candidates Vow to Promote Social Agenda If Elected

In this week's parliamentary elections, the number of women legislators increased by 150 percent in a country where women candidates had complained that it is difficult for them to be taken seriously as representatives or as authority figures because of their gender.

RIGHTS-SOUTHERN AFRICA: Basic Lessons for Potential Legislators

Non-government organisations seeking to have their issues better understood by potential lawmakers are instructing candidates in this week's parliamentary elections about social welfare and health matters the members of parliament (MPs) must know about once in office.

MEDIA: A Bad Week for African Journalists

The African media had a bad week throughout the continent, as governments closed private radio stations and newspapers, and arrested editors, reporters and publishers.
     "It is true that technology has made information exchange easier and more accessible to a wider group of people, but in Africa, governments still have the power to get rid of dissenting views through old-fashioned strong-arm tactics," says Martin Mngomezulu, a Swaziland stringer for an international wire news service.

MEDIA: A Bad Week for African Journalists

The African media had a bad week throughout the continent, as governments closed private radio stations and newspapers, and arrested editors, reporters and publishers in what press freedom organisations consider an effort to eliminate the free flow of information.

POLITICS-SWAZILAND: Women Fight for a Place in the Constitution

The Swaziland branch of Women in Law in Southern Africa is concerned that guarantees of women's rights that were announced in the draft constitution, soon to be ratified by King Mswati, are not as secure as first thought.

RIGHTS: Pressure on Southern African States to Manage Water Resources

Water wars are unlikely to be fought in Southern Africa, but as the region anxiously awaits the return of summer rains to accompany the new planting season, the current ongoing food security crisis has put new pressure on nations to manage their shared water resources.

DEVELOPMENT-SOUTHERN AFRICA: Villages Becoming New Tourist Attractions

As tourism becomes a greater economic force in the region, local empowerment agencies and governments are seeking ways for impoverished people to share in the boom.

ECONOMY-AFRICA: Struggling to Get Money to Make Money

Seeking to create home-grown business people, but lacking in the millions of dollars and years of experience needed to create large companies, African countries have sought to empower small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as a way to achieve an indigenous commercial class that can "take back the African economy."

TECHNOLOGY-AFRICA: Women Find Reason for Optimism in Internet Usage

Slowly, but effectively, the Internet is empowering women in Africa to follow events as they have never witnessed before. The latest case in point is the women in Somalia who have been following their country's peace talks in neighbouring Kenya via Internet usage.

TECHNOLOGY-AFRICA: Internet Creates a New Class of Users

Even critics of massive spending on computer and Internet technology in Africa, at what they fear is at the expense of poverty alleviation efforts, are conceding that so-called "New Media" are helping Africans economically.

RIGHTS-SWAZILAND: Women Battle With Culture in order to fight AIDS

Swazi women are engaged in a quiet cultural revolution with self-empowerment as their goal, but in the face of traditional laws that have long denied them equal rights. The battle directly affects women's ability to cope in the current AIDS crisis.

ENVIRONMENT: African Jumbos Find New Home Overseas

The presence of two Russian-made Aleutian Planes, the largest aircraft to ever fly into or out of Swaziland, attracted the attention of residents living near the small country's one international airport, at Matsapha in the centre of the country.

ENVIRONMENT-AFRICA: Millions of Women Still Trek Farther for Water

The link between environmental degradation and worsening poverty levels in African nations has left the realm of anecdotal evidence and now has the solidity of hard fact, thanks to data collected in a new Human Development Report published by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

DEVELOPMENT-AFRICA: Leaders Appeal for Talks Not War

If Africa is to advance economically and socially, sincere dialoguing must replace armed conflict, strikes and dirty politics, delegates at a heads of state summit held in Swaziland this week agreed.

CULTURE-SWAZILAND: Women in the Forefront of the Battle Against AIDS

Gogo ("Granny") Mkhatjwa, 62, has had enough of watching her grandchildren die of "the disease that cuts you down completely," as AIDS is colloquially known in the SiSwati language.