Why are condoms so unpopular? This question has baffled and discouraged health experts for a decade, but in Swaziland the mystery of why men and women refuse to use condoms is slowly being unravelled by a project that is getting Swazi men to open up about their condom use, or lack thereof.

The purpose of this workshop is to mobilise NGOs and other civil society actors and equip them with requisite information and skills regarding the electoral law and the Constitutional provisions to be able to use their development/advocacy platforms to mobilize communities to assert their rights to vote and fully participate in the 2008/09 elections by making informed choices during the elections.

We the participants gathered at the Forum on the Participation in the 43rd Ordinary Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, held in Ezulwini, Kingdom of Swaziland, from 3-5 May 2008:

Mindful of the important progress made by the African Union through its adoption in 2002 of the Declaration on the Principles Governing Democratic Elections in Africa which provides therein that "the holding of democratic elections is an important dimension in conflict prevention, management and resolution";...

As is traditional, the African Centre will host the 43rd Forum on the participation of NGOs in the Ordinary session of the African Commission. The forum will deliberate generally on the human rights situation in Africa in general and attempt to bring to the fore specific situations that need to be highlighted in order to attract the attention of the African Commission in particular and the international community and other concerned bodies.

Swaziland’s timber plantations have been held up as a model of sustainable forestry management, where other plantations around the world are considered to have had negative environmental and social impacts. However, the authors of this report argue that these plantations are sustainable in the narrowest sense of the term, that of “long-term productivity” rather than “sustainability” as it is understood in a development context.

Swaziland’s timber plantations have been held up as a model of sustainable forestry management, where other plantations around the world are considered to have had negative environmental and social impacts. However, the authors of this report argue that these plantations are sustainable in the narrowest sense of the term, that of “long-term productivity” rather than “sustainability” as it is understood in a development context.

Thamie Simelane, 12, is among hundreds of thousands of orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) in Swaziland who might not be going to school, despite government assurances that the tuition fees of these children would be covered. Headmasters rely on school fees to run their institutions, but limited government funds have materialised sporadically, often forcing schools to start sending children home.

As the new school year begins here many destitute or orphaned children are in need of assistance to pay for their educations. An unknown number of urban youngsters, however, are slipping through the social welfare net. "Impoverished children in the country’s urban areas might run into the thousands," Juanita Mkhonta, a social welfare worker in the central commercial town Manzini, told IPS.

Ten years ago, attempts by businesses to talk about AIDS in the workplace were enough to make workers down tools. But after a decade in which Swaziland's AIDS epidemic has devastated its workforce, labour and management are finally starting to work together to reduce the spread of the disease. "AIDS is as much an economic problem as a health problem in Swaziland," said Musa Hlope, former executive director of the Federation of Swaziland Employers and Swaziland Chamber of Commerce (FSE/SCC).

The impact of HIV/AIDS in southern Africa, which has nine of the world's most affected countries, needs to be reassessed as a "humanitarian emergency" on its own, enabling interventions to be made timeously, a leading AIDS researcher argues in a new paper. For this to happen, Alan Whiteside, director of the Health Economics and HIV/AIDS Research Division of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, said in the paper, co-authored by researcher Amy Whalley, the conventional understanding of a humanitarian emergency has to be rethought.

The Swazi media faces a new threat following a call by Parliament for government to pilot the contentious Media Council Bill within eight weeks. A Parliament Select Committee recently constituted to probe Times Sunday editor, Mbongeni Mbingo, on charges of contempt of Parliament, whilst clearing Mbingo on the charges, called on government to pilot the Media Council Bill within eight weeks of the adoption of its report by Parliament.

The government of Swaziland announced this week that it would be allocating thousands of hectares to a private company to cultivate cassava for biofuel. About 40 percent of the country's one million people are facing acute food and water shortages. "The cassava ethanol project has restarted the debate on how the country should use its agriculture land," said Sipho Mthetfwa, an agriculture extension officer in Shiselweni Region in the south of the country.

Small teams of Israeli doctors will travel to Swaziland to perform circumcisions for two-week stints this year under a program organized by the Jerusalem AIDS Project and financed by Hadassah, a US-based Jewish organization, and other donors. The effort to circumcise Swazi men is being carried out in the hopes of curbing the spread of HIV/AIDS in a country with the world's highest HIV infection rate.

The Swazi media faces a new threat following a call by Parliament for government to pilot the contentious Media Council Bill within eight weeks. A Parliament Select Committee recently constituted to probe Times Sunday editor, Mbongeni Mbingo, on charges of contempt of Parliament, whilst clearing Mbingo on the charges, called on government to pilot the Media Council Bill within eight weeks of the adoption of its report by Parliament.

The discovery of about eighty foetuses in a stream used by a peri-urban community in Swaziland has raised disturbing questions about the desperation of women in a country where unwanted pregnancies are common, abortion is illegal and two-thirds of the population live in poverty.

One in every three female Swazis has experienced some form of sexual violence before turning 18, and two out of three aged 18 to 24, according to the first national survey to chart the scope of sexual and other types of violence perpetrated against women and girls, according to the National Survey on Violence Experienced by Female Children and Youths in Swaziland, conducted by the government, UN agencies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

Despite the worst harvest in the country's recorded history and the aftermath of fires that destroyed crops and plantations, Swaziland's appeals for international assistance are falling on deaf donor ears. In July UN agencies appealed for US$18 million to feed about 40 percent of Swaziland's one million people, who are facing acute food shortages. So far, only $3.1 million has been forthcoming, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)

Swaziland is ripe for a revolution following widespread pro-democracy protests that brought the tiny kingdom to a standstill. The capital Mbabane ground to a halt last week as thousands of workers took to the streets - in what has been described as the biggest demonstration in a decade - pushing for multiparty democracy. Led by unionists, the protesters demanded an end to monarchical rule and the lifting of a ban on political parties imposed in 1973

Felix Matsebula, a subsistence farmer in Swaziland's eastern Lubombo region, near the Mozambique border, always suspected that the columns of smoke rising from the surrounding sugarcane plantations and blackening the sky were harmful to his crops, and a reason his harvests have been declining for years.

The Swazi Parliament is seeking to sanction the editor of the privately owned Times of Swaziland Sunday newspaper, Mbongeni Mbingo, for expressing himself about the affairs of the House of Assembly in a recent commentary in his publication.