The new school year opened with hope - and hunger - in Swaziland this week: an estimated 140,000 orphans and vulnerable children are among the small, eager faces in the mountain kingdom's classrooms. Poverty and the AIDS pandemic threaten to make an early mark on the next generation.

Until 2007, when international medical NGO Médicins Sans Frontières (MSF) came to Swaziland to help the Ministry of Health in the response on HIV/AIDS and TB in the Shiselweni region, HIV/AIDS and TB treatment was not available at any of the region’s 21 clinics. Patients had to either travel to the Hlathikhulu Government Hospital or Matsanjeni and Nhlangano health centres. These centres were located in each of the towns of the different regions in the country. A health centre is a facility that is smaller than a hospital with a few beds and does not have a theatre to do operations. MSF worked with government to bring services to the clinics, but this was not enough because some patients were either too weak or too poor to reach even the clinics.

An economic meltdown in Swaziland, exacerbated by a major decline in revenue from the Southern African Customs Union (SACU), is unlikely to leave the national AIDS response unscathed, say local health officials. Revenue from SACU - the world's oldest customs union, comprising Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, Swaziland and South Africa - contributed 76 per cent of the Swazi government’s income in 2009 but dropped in 2010 and is expected to continue declining over the next decade.

Thousands of public servants in Swaziland are due to lose their jobs in cutbacks as part of a government bid to gain approval from the International Monetary Fund for a loan. But some Swazis would rather see the budget slashed for the country’s autocratic royals. The civil service of the tiny Southern African monarchy comes with a high wage bill, as 50 per cent of national spending going towards 35,000 state posts.

Swaziland is one of very few African countries where hunger has become more widespread during the last decades, new evidence shows. But Swazi authorities tried to manipulate data to the UN, saying the opposite. Today, 18 per cent of Swaziland's one million people are suffering from hunger, compared to 12 per cent in 1990. In addition, 6.1 per cent of Swazi children under five are underweight, compared to 8.1 per cent in 1992.

Communities in Swaziland are coming together as never before to tackle the HIV/AIDS epidemic that has so deeply affected them. 'We will defeat AIDS, we the women of this village!' chant a group of older Swazi women wearing voluminous black skirts and bright red wraps in Ka-Vikizuula, near the Mozambique border in the east of the country.

Swaziland unions have condemned the prime minister's suggestion that dissidents should be beaten on their feet with spikes. Barnabas Dlamini also said foreigners who meddled in the affairs of sub-Saharan Africa's last absolute monarch should be subject to the traditional punishment, known as "sipakatane".

The future of Thulani Rudd, a Swaziland lesbian arrested in 2009 following a mysterious death of her girlfriend Pitseng Vilakati, looks bleak since she has been in custody for more than a year now, has no legal representation and it is still unclear when her case will resume. It is alleged that some gay rights groups that earlier assisted Rudd with legal representation have had to withdraw since when she was arrested she made a voluntary statement that implicated her to the murder.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has condemned death threats and outrageous claims made last week by a member of Swaziland's royal family against local journalists over their critical coverage of the country's leadership. During a 21 July public forum called the Smart Partnership National Dialogue in the central commercial city of Manzini, Prince Mahlaba, brother of Swaziland's absolute ruler King Mswati III, was quoted by local media as saying: 'I want to warn the media to bury things that have the potential of undermining the country rather than publish all and everything even when such reports are harmful to the country's international image. Journalists who continue to write bad things about the country will die.'

On 21 July 2010 Swazi traditional authorities threatened Swazi journalists with death if they continued to write stories considered by the authorities as undermining the country's leadership and system of government. The death warning came from Prince Mahlaba, brother to King Mswati III and also a member of the King's advisory council, the Swazi National Council Standing Committee (SNC), which is a highly influential body in Swazi politics.

Swaziland's judiciary is concerned by an absence of detention facilities for children, which forces them to share jail cells with adult criminals. "Do we have facilities for keeping a minor?" enquired presiding High Court judge Thomas Masuku during the recent trial of a 16-year-old boy, when it became apparent that the accused was being held in the same cell as adults in the northern town of Pigg's Peak.

Swaziland's death rate more than doubled in a decade, proof of the toll of AIDS, statisticians in this southern African kingdom has said. Nombulelo Dlamini of the Central Statistical Office discussed a new study comparing censuses in 1997 and 2007 in an interview on Wednesday. The study shows that in 1997, the death rate was 7.6 people in 1,000. By 2007, it was 18.03 per 1,000 people. Life expectancy over the period decreased from 60 to 43 years.

Much to the frustration of gender activists, Swaziland's Supreme Court has reversed a February 2010 High Court ruling that allowed a married woman to register property in their own name. After centuries of being classified and treated as minors, the new Swazi Constitution granted women equal status in 2005. Activist Mary-Joyce Doo Aphane wished to register a house in her own name and challenged the country's 1968 Deeds Registry Act. She was granted a High Court order declaring the section unconstitutional.

At sundown, Thulani Gama tells his 10-year-old twin siblings to collect firewood while he grinds corn for their supper. At sunrise, he wakes the twins and tells them to wash. Without breakfast, all three children begin their hour-long walk to school in rural Swaziland. Thulani, 13, is the head of his small household. He and his siblings Samkelo and Samkelisiw look after one another since, like many parents, their widowed mother left home to look for work in Mbabane, Swaziland’s capital. Thanks to a new programme supported by UNICEF and the Government of Swaziland, Thulani and his siblings are now able to attend school.

The Southern African Catholic Bishop's Conference on Thursday asked President Jacob Zuma to intervene in Swaziland's "political crisis". SACBC president Archbishop Buti Tlhagale said in statement: "I have written to President Zuma to ask the government to take part in normalising the situation before it resembles what happened in Zimbabwe.”I've asked the president to consider a mediating role to facilitate a climate of dialogue among all stakeholders in Swaziland." SACBC leaders recently expressed shock at the death of Sipho Jele after he was arrested for wearing a People's United Democratic Movement T-shirt during May Day celebrations in Manzini on May 4.

Mobile clinics for HIV patients have been benefiting entire communities in rural Swaziland, but tight budgets have scuppered plans to expand the project, or even sustain a fleet of just two vehicles. "Whatever financial problems we have are temporary, I am sure, because the people have responded so well to the mobile clinics," said Siphiwe Hlope, founder and director of Swaziland Positive Living (SWAPOL), an NGO that supports those living with HIV, especially in rural communities, which started the project.

Trade unionists are furious after "the suspicious death" and alleged "killing" in custody of Sipho Jele, an activist of the Swaziland Agriculture and Plantation Workers' Union (SAPWU). Unions are the core of opposition in Swaziland. According to South Africa's powerful trade union COSATU, Swazi unionist Sipho Stephen Jele has died in prison in Mbabane under "suspicious" conditions.

A decade after the African Growth and Opportunities Act (AGOA), a preferential US trade agreement, became law on 18 May 2000, there are questions over the benefits, if any, derived from the initiative. AGOA was touted by the US government as offering "tangible incentives for African countries to continue their efforts to open their economies and build free markets"; in return, selected countries could access US markets without restrictive quotas or import taxes.

Thuli Brilliance Makama is not everyone's idea of an environmental hero. An attorney in Swaziland, Africa's last absolute monarchy, she has made her name not as a conservationist but by investigating the deaths of suspected poachers.

Every Tuesday you will find 70-year-old Precious Dlamini under a tree, weighing children and babies from her local community as she monitors their health and nutrition. Though she may not have any official qualifications to do so, Dlamini is a retired teacher, she devotes much of her time to caring for the orphaned children in her community and educating people about a healthy lifestyle.