The Ministry of Foreign Affairs was recently asked about possible plans to source workers from Eswatini. Eswatini is Taiwan’s only diplomatic ally in Africa...
President Lai Ching-te returned on Tuesday this week from a whirlwind trip to Eswatini. This occurred after Lai’s previous trip to Eswatini was cancelled due to Chinese pressure. Lai was scheduled to visit for King Mswati III’s 40th anniversary of accession to the throne, as well as his 58th birthday...
A planned trip by President Lai Ching-te to Eswatini has been cancelled. This apparently took place due to Madagascar, Mauritius, and Seychelles retracting overflight permission for Lai’s plane to pass over their airspace on his way to Eswatini...
Lai Ching-te is set to travel to Eswatini next week in the second overseas trip of his presidential administration. Lai’s trip will be to mark King Mswati III’s 58th birthday, as well as Mswati’s 40th year as Eswatini’s monarch...
New Bloom editor Brian Hioe interviewed Tanele Maseko, human rights defender from Swaziland and the wife of Thulani Maseko. Thulani Maseko, an opposition politician and human rights lawyer, was killed by unidentified gunman in January of this year. As this took place after comments by Swazi monarch King Mswati III suggesting that critics of his should be killed, it is thought that this killing was ordered by the monarch. Tanele Maseko was visiting Taipei for the Oslo Freedom Forum on October 18th. Despite the questionable human rights record of Swaziland, which was renamed Eswatini by Mswati III in April 2018, it is one of Taiwan's diplomatic allies. Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen most recently visited Eswatini this September. ...
A recent visit to Eswatini by Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen saw Tsai praise Eswatini for its support of Taiwan, while lauding the relationship between Taiwan and Eswatini as “the epitome of progress and development”. However, what Tsai did not mention in her comments was the fact that Eswatini’s government is an authoritarian one, as a country in which freedom of political association is forbidden and ruled over by one of the world’s last absolute monarchs...
The killing of Eswatini opposition politician Thulani Maseko by unknown gunmen should raise questions for Taiwan’s backing of the Eswatini monarchy, one of the world’s last absolute monarchies. Maseko’s killing came only hours after the country’s monarch, King Mswati III, threatened activists opposed to his rule...
King Mswati III visited Taiwan last month as part of the first visit to Taiwan by the monarch of Eswatini since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Mswati III was a frequent visitor to Taiwan in the past, visiting on 17 other occasions...
The Tsai administration announced a donation of 637 million NT to Eswatini last week. The donation is earmarked for a fund for reconstruction work in Eswatini that will take place under the auspices of King Mswati III, following some of the largest protests to take place in Eswatini in its 53 years of independence. The donation was the largest contribution to the fund, with other donations coming from state-operated enterprises in Eswatini and the military...
Demonstrations that have rocked Eswatini in past days are among the largest protests to take place in the African country in its 53 years of independence. That being said, they have scarcely been commented on in Taiwan, despite that Eswatini is one of Taiwan’s few remaining diplomatic countries—and despite the fact that such protests have strong parallels to Taiwan’s history of democratization...
