Swaziland, a small landlocked country in Southern Africa, has a knack for making the news, and, more often than not, for the wrong reasons. However,

Determination to mobilise funds for the child-headed and vulnerable youth has led to an initiative where a young man has walked for 130 kilometres in five days.

The campaign hopes to raise money through an online platform where friends and people who are for the cause will make donations through online giving platforms during the walk.
Global Giving, an online giving platform, has been engaged to facilitate the fund-raising initiative.
The walk is envisaged to raise at least E350 000 in order to implement the project well.

Johannesburg (AFP) - South African Nobel peace laureate Desmond Tutu and a raft of human rights organisations have signed an open letter demanding reforms from Swaziland's King Mswati III, denouncing arbitrary arrests and prosecutions.

"We write to express our concern about the state of freedom of expression, judicial independence, and the rule of law in the Kingdom of Swaziland," reads the letter, whose authenticity a Tutu spokesman confirmed Friday.

As we dust our church gowns and march towards various church services to remember the death and rise of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, let us not forget to pray for our dear Swaziland and its leadership.

As a Kingdom, we need to pray for His Majesty King Mswati III and Her Majesty the Indlovukazi. That they are Christians and preach the Word of God themselves should not make us think that they don’t need our prayers, they do.

One is probably asking him/herself, what sort of prayer do we need? Hey, indications are that the future does not look rosy; the threats looming over the Africa Growth Opportunity Act (AGOA) and the Economic Partnerships Agreements later in the year are a threat to our economic survival as a people.

Swaziland has officially opened the newl King Mswati III International Airport. The newly constructed airport cost about $150 million and fulfills part of the country’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), says Percy Simelane, spokesman for the government.

The airport is also a component of King Mswati III's $1 billion millennium investment initiative which is aimed at boosting the country’s position as a tourist destination and serving as a gateway to Swaziland’s game parks.

The airport construction took longer than was expected but the government spokesman says, “It’s complete now, and we are happy that finally we have a modern airport. It comes after another huge water project called the Lower Usuthu Irrigation Project, which is benefiting thousands of people downstream.”