THEATRE-SWAZILAND: Educational Plays Bring In Audiences

Like many actors in impoverished countries in Southern Africa, where few people are able to buy theatre tickets to support the performing arts, jobs and theatrical experience are coming from commissions from Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and government ministries for plays with educational and social messages.

RIGHTS-SWAZILAND: Traditionalists, Reformists Lock Horns over Abortion

Traditionalists who hold sway over public opinion in Swaziland, the last African nation to be ruled by a hereditary monarch, reject abortion as a woman's right over her body.

POLITICS-SWAZILAND: Lawyers Lead Democracy Fight

The lawyers of this small African kingdom, the last country south of the Sahara to be ruled by a hereditary monarch, have emerged this month as the leading activists in the pro-democracy fight.

RIGHTS: New Luxury Jet for the King as Famine Stalks Swaziland

The timing could not have been worse. The week that UN agencies at work in the kingdom called for 19 million U.S. dollars in emergency food relief from international donor source to prevent hundreds of thousands of Swazis from starving, government announced it is purchasing a 50-million-U.S.-dollar luxury jet for King Mswati.

RIGHTS-SWAZILAND: Church Advices Girls about Sexual Abuse and AIDS

Churches in Swaziland are going beyond their traditional functions as places of religious and social congregation to assist young women.

POLITICS: Armed Bandits in South Africa Target Swazi Travellers

A spectacular attack by armed bandits in South Africa on prominent visitors heading for Swaziland has renewed concerns in the small landlocked country that its national interests are threatened by crime and neglect from the large neighbour that surrounds it on three sides.

RIGHTS: U.S. Labour Union Challenges Swaziland’s Trade Benefits

û The call this week by the America Federation of LabourûCongress of Industrial Organisations (AFL-CIO) to challenge Swaziland's continuing trade benefits with the United States is the latest indication that King Mswati's new constitution may not receive a warm reception in the world community.

HEALTH-SWAZILAND: NGOs Spearheading the Fight Against AIDS

Non-government organisations in the health sector are spearheading the fight against AIDS in one of the worst affected nations in the world.

RIGHTS: Snake Charming Kenyan Lawyer Tackles Govt Intrigue

Intrigue is nothing new in any government, but the degree of conspiracies swirling around Swaziland's ministry of justice has surprised local legal and media observers who say they have seen everything.

/CORRECTED REPEAT/RIGHTS: Abandoned Babies Trend Worries Swazis

The drama of a terrified crying baby abandoned in the arms of a stranger in an Mbabane hospital last week, while the mother walked away never to return, prompted front-page news coverage in Swaziland. Such cases continue to provoke shock in this nation of strong family values.

RIGHTS: Abandoned Babies Trend Worries Swazis

The drama of a terrified crying baby abandoned in the arms of a stranger in an Mbabane hospital last week, while the mother walked away never to return, prompted front-page news coverage in Swaziland. Such cases continue to provoke shock in this nation of strong family values.

TRANSPORT-SWAZILAND: New Highway Offers Opportunities and Dangers

Sociologists, rights activists, law enforcers and government officials from several fields will be watching the impact of a new highway that will open the northern portion of this small, traditional African kingdom to modern transportation.

RIGHTS-SWAZILAND: Women Immigrants Counter Injustice with Hope

Of all the causes for the spread of the HIV virus in Swaziland, so that now one-third of the country's population is infected, no health organisation ever lists the presence of immigrants from Mozambique as a significant contributing factor.

RIGHTS-BOTSWANA: San Bushwomen Face New Discrimination and AIDS

The nomadic bush people of Botswana's Central Kalahari Desert have won certain legal rights this year that will help preserve their traditional way of life and custodianship of parts of their environment, which is inhospitable to all but these diminutive people.

CULTURE: The Saga of the Swazi King’s Many Wives

They are called Emakhosikati, literally "the females of the king (ikhosi)". As of this month, they now number nine.

RIGHTS: Swazi King Braces for Reaction to Latest ‘Oppressive’ Law

The British ambassador to Swaziland, David Reader, used the occasion of his speech at the kingdom's celebration of Queen Elizabeth's jubilee this week to caution the authorities of his host country that Britain will be reviewing a new Internal Security Act.

HEALTH-SWAZILAND: Chastity Rules for Unmarried Women Yield Mixed Results

Swaziland's return to tradition to curb HIV/AIDS with the revival of chastity rules for girls and single women eight months ago has drawn praise and brickbats in a country where one in three people are infected with the virus.

DEVELOPMENT: Swaziland Copes with Famine Threat

The smallest country in the Southern Hemisphere is rarely in the news, but reports aired this week included the little dot of a kingdom at Africa's southern extremity on a map of locations deemed by the United Nations to be in danger of widespread famine.

TECHNOLOGY: African Culture Gets a Media Boost

How is a small African nation that believes its colourful indigenous culture is its foremost economic asset to get this message across to an unaware world?

TRANSPORT: African Truckers Seek New Ways to Combat Highway Crime

In a highly competitive and sometimes dangerous business, road freight companies and drivers are strategizing new ways to combat crooks set on stealing their vehicles, contents and all, and operate safely on Africa's pot-hole pocked and sometimes non-existent roads.

ENVIRONMENT: Southern Africa Ablaze with Manmade Bush Fires

From Johannesburg to the Indian Ocean, with the same seasonal precision that brings the winter solstice to the Southern Hemisphere, the veld is ablaze.