Timeline Swaziland
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Swaziland: http://www.africanet.com/africanet/country/swazi/home.htm#History
A kingdom in SE Africa between S. Mozambique and
SE Transvaal in the Union of South Africa. The capital is Mbabane. The
population was about 1.1 million.
(WUD, 1994 p.1436)(Econ, 10/25/03, p.43)
1967 Apr 25,
Britain granted internal self-government to Swaziland.
(http://flagspot.net/flags/sz.html)
1968 Swaziland in southern Africa
gained independence from Britain.
(SFC, 7/1/97, p.A9)
1973 In Swaziland political
parties were banned and a state of emergency was declared.
(Econ, 2/18/06, p.48)
1980 Apr 1, The southern African
Development Coordination Conference was established by 9 countries with
the Lusaka declaration (Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique,
Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe). On August 17, 1992, it was
transformed into the Southern African Development Community. By 2008 it
included 15 members.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_African_Development_Community)
1997 May 27, Health authorities
were shocked by chief Jameson Ndznnatabantfu Maseko who banned the use
of condoms on the basis of biblical law.
(SFC, 5/28/97, p.A12)
2001 Sep 29, It was reported that
Swaziland King Mswati III had told the country’s young women to stop
having sex for 5 years to help stop the spread of AIDS. 25% of the
country’s 900,000 people were estimated to be infected.
(SFC, 9/29/01, p.B2)
2002 Aug 2, A government plan to
buy Swaziland's King Mswati III a $250 million luxury jet, a price five
times the nation's national deficit, drew protests in this South
African nation, which has been plagued by severe food shortages.
(AP, 8/2/02)
2002 Jun, Bruce Wilkinson, Georgia
preacher and author of “The Prayer of Jabez,” used a US government
grant of $108,000 to fund a conference on AIDS for ministers in
Swaziland. Wilkinson proceeded to embark on a mission to save children
in Swaziland orphaned by AIDS in a program that he called Dream for
Africa.
(WSJ, 12/19/05, p.A1)
2002 Swaziland's King Mswati III
abducted a schoolgirl for his 10th wife.
(Econ, 2/18/06, p.48)
2003 Sep 11, Swaziland's King
Mswati III selected his 12th bride, less than a week after he picked
bride No. 11 from thousands of young Swazi maidens.
(AP, 9/11/03)
2003 Oct 18, In Swaziland voters
chose a new parliament in one of the world's last absolute monarchies,
while pro-democracy groups denounced the vote as a sham. Political
parties were banned and King Mswati III ruled by royal decree.
(AP, 10/18/03)
2003 Oct, Swaziland's King Mswati
III dismissed the entire government and named an ex-police chief as
interim leader.
(Econ, 10/25/03, p.43)
2004 Jan 13, A senior Swaziland
aide said King Mswati III has ordered nine palaces built within
existing royal compounds to house seven of his 10 wives and two future
brides. Some $15 million of his impoverished kingdom's national budget
would be used on the project.
(AP, 1/13/04)
2004 Jan 23,The World Economic
Forum began in Davos, Switzerland. The war in Iraq and the threat of
terrorism dominated the Forum as the US appealed for cooperation on
both issues and the U.N. chief warned that an overly narrow focus could
worsen global tensions.
(AP, 1/24/04)
2004 Jul 15, The Gates Foundation
announced a $44.7 million award at the AIDS Conference in Bangkok to a
consortium of TB and AIDS researchers. The 2 diseases were often
linked. A UN report cited 7 countries as the hardest hit by the AIDS
pandemic: Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Lesotho, Zambia, Malawi, the Central
African Republic and Mozambique.
(WSJ, 7/15/04, p.B1)(SFC, 7/16/04, p.A6)
2005 Feb 23, Bruce Wilkinson,
Georgia preacher and author of “The Prayer of Jabez,” gave the
Swaziland government a 34-page proposal for his Dream for Africa
program. It included demands for a 99-year lease on 32,500 acres
between 2 game parks and control of the game parks. The government did
not accept the proposal. In October Dream for Africa announced that Mr.
Wilkinson had resigned, but that the program would continue.
(WSJ, 12/19/05, p.A1)
2005 Nov 24, The UN food agency
said the United States has thrown a lifeline to six southern African
countries, donating food aid valued at $45 million. The food will be
distributed across Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia and
Zimbabwe.
(AP, 11/24/05)
2005 Swaziland adopted a new
constitution which included guarantees of basic freedoms.
(Econ, 11/29/08, p.52)
2006 Feb 8, Swaziland’s new
constitution went into effect.
(Econ, 2/18/06, p.48)(http://tinyurl.com/kcm8a)
2006 Dec 20, It was reported that
Swaziland had the worst AIDS problem in the world with one in 3 Swazis
between 15 and 49 infected with HIV.
(WSJ, 12/20/06, p.A1)
2006 Swaziland’s population was
about 1.1 million. 40% of the population was unemployed and about the
same proportion had HIV/AIDS.
(Econ, 2/18/06, p.48)
2007 Aug 9, Officials said a total
of 28 people died and hundreds of homes were destroyed by a series of
forest fires which swept through parts of South Africa and Swaziland
since the end of last month.
(AP, 8/9/07)
2007 Sep 1, Life expectancy in
Andorra was reported to be longer than in any other world country,
while the same in Swaziland was reported to be the shortest.
(Econ, 9/1/07, p.14)
2007 Nov 23, A study commissioned
by the state's emergency response council said nearly a third of
Swaziland's children are considered orphaned and vulnerable as AIDS
takes its toll on the country. Close to 40 percent of Swaziland adults
are living with HIV and AIDS, the highest infection rate anywhere in
the world.
(AFP, 11/23/07)
2008 Jul 16, The United States
signed a pair of agreements to boost trade and investment ties with
countries in southern and eastern Africa. These included the Trade,
Investment and Development Cooperation Agreement with the Southern
Africa Customs Union (SACU), which includes Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia,
South Africa and Swaziland; and the Trade Investment and Framework
Agreement (TIFA) with the East African Community, which includes
Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.
(Reuters, 7/17/08)
2008 Sep 6, Swaziland King Mswati
III celebrated his 40th birthday and the nation’s 40th year of
independence in a lavish extravaganza officially estimated at $2.5
million, but widely believed to have cost 5 times more. Mswati remained
Africa’s last absolute monarch and lived a luxurious lifestyle with his
13 wives. Some 70% of the population of 1 million lived below the
poverty line and nearly 40% of adults were infected with the AIDS virus.
(SFC, 9/7/08, p.A9)
2008 Sep 10, Officials said at
least 89 people have died in wildfires sweeping through Mozambique,
South Africa and Swaziland.
(AP, 9/10/08)
2008 Nov 15, Mario Masuku
(b.1951), Swaziland leader of the opposition People’s United Democratic
Movement (Pudemo), was jailed.
(Econ, 11/29/08,
p.52)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Masuku)
2009 Feb 20, A Swaziland
government report said about 42 percent of pregnant women in the
country are infected with the virus that causes AIDS, a 3 percent jump
in a single year. An estimated 185,000 of Swaziland's 1 million people
are HIV positive, and about 30,000 are receiving antiretrovirals.
(AP, 2/20/09)
2009 Jun 16, The US added six
African countries to a blacklist of countries trafficking in people,
and put US trading partner Malaysia back on the list. Chad, Eritrea,
Niger, Mauritania, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe were added to the list in
the annual report. Removed from the list were Qatar, Oman, Algeria, and
Moldova.
(AFP, 6/16/09)
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Subject = Swaziland
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