Peter Kenworthy

There are not enough books coming out of Swaziland to describe what is, after all, a unique culture and society that is, in its present absolute-monarchy-dictated form, in many ways brutally detrimental and stifling to its population.

‘When we are talking about gay issues in Swaziland, people are uneasy. They know we are there but they deny it,’ says Sibusiso Masango, Secretary General of Swazi Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) organization, House of Our Pride (HOOP).

“The Coca-Cola Company commits to zero tolerance for land grabbing,” Coca-Cola said in a statement last week, the company promising to stop all business dealings with subsidiaries that are involved in land grabs, where land is taken from poor people in developing countries without their consent.

Swaziland's elections have started, elections that many people in the small absolute monarchy jokingly refer to as “selections”, not elections.

During meetings with diplomats from the embassies of several Western countries, held in Pretoria last week, representatives from Swaziland's civil society warned that Swaziland's government was actively trying to obstruct their work and shut them down.

“Swaziland Youth Congress (SWAYOCO) calls upon all youth to a national rally at Msunduza, Mbabane on the 6th of April 2013 to launch an anti-Tinkhundla elections campaign – a call for multi-party democracy,” SWAYOCO said in a recent press release.

‘The people in the refugee camps are starving,’ Minister of Public Health in the government of the Western Saharan government in exile, the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic, Mohamed Lamin Dadi, told Danish NGO Africa Contact on Tuesday.

Young Saharawis are fed up with the United Nations-led peace process between the leaders of the Western Saharan liberation movement, Polisario, and the Moroccans who have colonized most of their country since 1975.

“As we wind down the day, it would be folly for the government to think we’ve retreated.

The German multinational, Siemens, has landed an order for the construction and maintenance of 22 windmills to be built in a wind farm in Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara. The order is part of a larger deal with Moroccan company Nareva Holding.