Talk:Swaziland

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Contents

[edit] Politics

The following sentence appears a little bit opinionated: His (King Mswati's) fleet of luxury cars, and the millions spent towards refurbishing his numerous wives' luxury mansions, are at odds with the approximately 34 percent of the nation that stand unemployed, nearly 70 percent of which live on less than a dollar a day, and with around 39 percent of adults who are afflicted by HIV. Although the statistics themselves are certainly worthy of inclusion in the article, this use of them reads more like a political soapbox than an objective encyclopedia article. Can I delete it? Walton monarchist89 13:48, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

go for your life mate...

rather than deleting it, would it be possible to reinclude it with a modified usage? The ordinairy person using this page for research, such as a high school student, would find those statistics both interesting and useful. I won't revert it, but I'm just putting it out there.


The sentence

Left in this way, Swaziland has the potential of becoming another war-torn country, which will reveal the bankruptcy of so called "conflict prevention."

also seems to be a political statement. There is no justification of the potential for war. I have no knowledge about this subject though and am therefore leaving any necessary modifications to more knowledgeable contributors. --WizzardofOz 06:32, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Official language?

The Swaziland infobox says that only English is an official language, but the Swazi language site says that Swazi is an official language of both South Africa and Swaziland? Joziboy 24 March 2006, 17:56 (UTC)

Actually Siswati(swazi) and English are both official languages of Swaziland. The Swazi language site is correct in stating that it is an official language of both countries.

[edit] Discrepancy in facts?

In the introduction to this article, someone has stated that Swaziland's average life expectancy is 33 years, and that this was the lowest in the world until it was surpassed this year by Zimbabwe. On the Zimbabwe page it says the average lifespan is something like 37...therefore the facts in one article do not conform with statements made in the other. Coolcamxl 10:17, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Zim does not have a lower life expectancy than Swaziland, according to most sources. [[1]]. There was some news about Zim WOMEN having the lowest life expectancy [2], which is probably where this misconception comes from. Greenman 22:00, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

thanks for clearing that up Flage 08:02, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Question, does anybody ever verify CIA factbook statistics? I've noticed recently that (especially with smaller african countries) the CIA fact book is statistically incorrect and updated infrequently. Projecting gdp and trade statistics is understandable because reliable data does not exist out there for countries such as Swaziland or Lesotho, but misspelling and incorrectly labeling cabinet members/ambassadors is a big problem. I don't know if there is a discussion about this, but I thought I would bring it up.

[edit] Discrepancy in facts II

There appears to be a contradiction in terms of Mbabane's population with this article stating a figure of 50,000, and the Mbabane article itself preferring circa 70,000. I appreciate these statistics are only estimates, but surely there need not be a gulf of 20,000 between predictions? 86.138.137.123 16:20, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] can someone add citations for this article?

Later this week I'll add a few. 203.214.133.242 10:12, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Switzerland/Sweden?

Do you really think someone confuses switzerland with swaziland??? Or even Sweden???

- No. i was thinking of removing it 172.201.231.216 10:58, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Just reading through the comments here, and YES... ABSOLUTELY they are confused frequently, in my personal experience. I lived in Mbabane for 2 years, and on more than one occasion, the United States Postage Services directed packages intended for Swaziland to Switzerland, delaying their delivery by 5 months! (it happened to my friends, too). I think the origin of this comes from the fact that many people I encounter are not even aware that Swaziland is a country, and automatically revert to saying Switzerland, or recognizing it as such, which is what must have happened with the postal worker directy my packages. Furthermore, it took me 6 months to train my parents to tell people I wasn't living in SOUTH AFRICA, because that's how they dealt with the fact that people (at least suburban Coloradoans) have literally no knowledge of Africa. I don't care what/how you change this page, but from my personal experience, confusion and lack of knowledge about Swaziland abounds. On that note, I have never heard of anyone confusing Sweden with Swaziland. But Switzerland/Swaziland... yes, and it's a real problem. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.116.156.2 (talk) 20:02, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] mix up of dates

the article reads: "The head of state is the king, who since 1986 has been King Mswati III who succeeded King Sobhuza II upon his death in 1968."

Is it a mix up or did he only become king in '86 but was referred to as something else from '86 to '68? --Aliwalla 19:47, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Demographics Omission

Can anyone explain why there is a complete omission of a Demographics section on the Swaziland article, contrary to every other country article I have read? 86.138.137.123 10:51, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Probably because no one has yet created one :) Be bold! Greenman 17:48, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed WikiProject

In my ongoing efforts to try to include every country on the planet included in the scope of a WikiProject, I have proposed a new project on Southern Africa at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Southern Africa whose scope would include Swaziland. Any interested parties are more than welcome to add their names there, so we can see if there is enough interest to start such a project. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 16:41, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Discrepancy in HIV prevalence

The Economy section says

In 2004 Swaziland acknowledged for the first time that it suffered an AIDS crisis, with 38.8% of the population infected with HIV

But the Politics section used to say (now I moved this as a comment to the Economy section):

The nation has the world's highest HIV infection rates at 42.6%.

I cannot find the correct figure. Perhaps estimates vary, in which case we should state various estimates. Someone more knowlegeable please correct this. -Pgan002 10:30, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Use of African

Just because some isn't black, doesn't mean they aren't African. There's a bit of a bias in this article. ~KTHOMPSON

[edit] Source?

Where does the information come from? As far as I can tell, there is only one citation in the whole article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.53.197.12 (talk) 01:50, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Coca Cola

Is there an article on the Coke factory? If it makes up a significant portion of their economy it seems noteworthy.

[edit] Religion

In the article Islam in Swaziland it is stated that 10% of the population of the country adhere to Islam. Here it says that only 0.95% of the country's population is muslim. So, what do we do with that? --Mocu (talk) 08:47, 30 January 2008 (UTC)