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MBABANE (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 24th January, 2023) Russia and Eswatini have agreed to increase security cooperation, and Moscow is ready to consider Eswatini's applications on any issues that need to be resolved to ensure the security of the state, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday. "We agreed today at a meeting with the military leadership to increase cooperation in the field of security. We have existing intergovernmental agreements on military cooperation, military-technical cooperation, a working group on military-technical cooperation," Lavrov said during a joint press conference with Eswatini Foreign Minister Thuli Dladla. The minister added that...

Gazi Simelane (Dusty) and Linda Msibi (Stones) are country music singers from the Kingdom of eSwatini. The 22-year-old band of two boasts of being the only African band to participate in the Texas Sounds International Country Music Awards, clinching the Duo of the Year Award 2017. Photo: Supplied On 17 November, Dusty and Stones, a feature-length documentary by filmmaker Jesse Rudoy, had its world premiere at New York’s NYC DOC festival, the United States’ largest and most influential documentary festival. Gazi Simelane (Dusty) and Linda Msibi (Stones) are country music singers from the Kingdom of eSwatini. The 22-year-old band of...

JOHANNESBURG — Some South Africa hospital wards are jammed with patients infected with the omicron coronavirus variant as President Cyril Ramaphosa urged South Africans on Monday to get vaccinated. In the past week, cases have reached more than 16,000, up dramatically from 2,300 last Monday, according to South Africa's National Institute for Communicable Diseases. The NICD says the increase in cases in such a short period of time is “unprecedented” in the trajectory of the pandemic, now in its fourth phase in the country. “Unfortunately, we’re seeing a more than doubling of hospital admissions each day,” said Ian Sanne, an...

The US will restrict travel from South Africa and seven other nearby countries from next week as fears grow over the new COVID-19 Omicron variant, the White House said Friday. The travel ban, which doesn’t apply to American citizens or permanent residents, will come into effect from Monday. The new restrictions apply to South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique and Malawi.

Russia has unambiguously stated its position that the self-ruling island of Taiwan is a part of the mainland-based People's Republic of China, as strategic partners Moscow and Beijing seek to further align their positions regarding geopolitical issues across the globe. During his visit Tuesday to the Kazakh capital of Nur-Sultan, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov declared Moscow's stance on the issue. "Russia, like the overwhelming majority of other countries, considers Taiwan to be part of the People's Republic of China," Lavrov said. "We have proceeded and will proceed from this premise in our foreign policy." Only 14 countries today, along...

Africa’s last absolute monarchy has for days been rocked by the largest pro-democracy protests in years. liwe Mathunjwa is in mourning. She is also stuck. Her nephew, 35-year-old Sicelo Mathunjwa, was shot in the head on Tuesday evening when police in Eswatini dispersed crowds with gunfire in Matsapha, a small industrial hub about 35km (21 miles) from the capital, Mbabane. “Sicelo is dead, he died on the spot,” Mathunjwa told Al Jazeera, saying she cannot leave her village of Mazombiswe to head to her nephew’s village of Hosea, some 30km (18 miles) away, and pay her finals respects due to...

"Don't let the fearmongers win..." That's part of the message on Twitter today from Republican US Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky. Paul noting a death rate of .08 percent for the "Delta Variant" of COVID-19 among the unvaccinated... Yesterday Republican US Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin involved in a news conference with families of those injured by COVID-19 vaccines... Maddie de Garay suffering from abdominal, nerve and muscle pain and a host of other issues including loss of feeling from the waist down. Maddie hospitalized three times for a total of two months. She is now confined to a wheelchair....

Secretary General. Joined by 34 other countries, the document enshrines the Trump administration’s pro-life diplomacy on the official record of the General Assembly. “The United States strongly supports the dignity of all human beings and protecting life from the moment of conception throughout the lifespan,” Ambassador Kelly Craft wrote to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres transmitting the Geneva Consensus Declaration on Promoting Women’s Health and Strengthening the Family. Following the letter, the declaration was issued as an official document of the United Nations last week and circulated on December 11, after having been translated into all six official UN languages....

The U.S. government will spend more than half a million dollars to provide residents of a tiny, poverty-stricken African nation with condoms. The money, $700,000, will help fund a National Condom Strategy launched by the Ministry of Health in Eswatini, a landlocked south African country smaller than New Jersey. Until recently Eswatini was known as Swaziland but its tyrannical ruler, King Mswati III, changed it so the country could break with its colonial past. Estwatini is Africa’s only absolute monarchy and most of its population of about 1.4 million lives in poverty with the world’s highest rate of AIDS and...

In an unprecedented move last week, India voted in support of Israel at the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) to deny observer status to a Palestinian human rights organisation named ‘Shahed’. This is the first time India has taken a step back from its decades-old position on the two-state theory under which New Delhi sees both Israel and Palestine as separate and independent countries, seeking to bring peace in West Asia.The vote, which took place on 6 June at the UN, saw countries such as US, France, Germany, India, Japan, UK, South Korea and Canada polling in favour of...