Features & Analysis

Harvest: A tale of two different outcomes

MASERU — ’Matšilo Taeli from Matšeng in Berea, on the outskirts of Maseru, is a disappointed woman. As she surveys her failed crop, disappointment is written all over her face. “There is not enough food in my two fields,” Taeli says as she picks an underdeveloped cob that has fallen off the maize stock. Most [...]

22 May 2013 | 0 comments

‘How long do we have to wait?’

MASERU — At around 2pm at the Motebang Hospital in Hlotse, Leribe, about 120 kilometres north of Maseru, two female health workers are running around to attend to over 60 people who have come for their Antiretroviral Therapy (ART). The patients, some of whom say have been waiting in the queue since 5am, are increasingly [...]

12 Jul 2012 | 7 comments

Making a killing with expired food

MASERU — When officers from the Maseru City Council raided Fahhida Supermarket last week nothing could have prepared them for the horror they were about to encounter. In the supermarket were shelves after shelves of expired foodstuffs — all being sold on the cheap. About 300 kilometres north of Maseru in Mokhotlong, a Chinese-owned grocery [...]

4 Jul 2012 | 22 comments

Scenes from ‘tsunami-hit’ zone

BEREA — It was like a scene from a tsunami-hit zone. Although there were no fatalities villagers of Ha-Mokhethi have been left devastated after a storm battered their village on Saturday. About 70 families were affected by the storm that blew away roofs and left several houses damaged. Villagers who spoke to the Lesotho Times [...]

28 Jun 2012 | 12 comments

Lesotho scores against Aids

MASERU — A “medical miracle” is taking place in Lesotho. Thousands of HIV positive mothers are giving birth to healthy HIV negative babies. What was virtually unthinkable a few years ago is now happening giving hope to thousands of HIV positive mothers. For a country that has the third highest HIV prevalence rate in the [...]

9 Dec 2010 | 11 comments

Graft takes root in public sector

MASERU — Hundreds of government workers celebrated the annual Public Service Day at Setsoto Stadium last week. Held under the theme “Strengthen leadership management for improved public service delivery in Africa” the occasion was hailed as a success. The civil servants looked delighted. Yet it is hard to imagine that the general public, the people [...]

3 Nov 2010 | 0 comments

The scourge of illegal guns

MASERU — They arrived at Tiping a village in Thaba-Tseka on horseback on Thursday, armed to the teeth. The six men said they were looking for a man who had assaulted one of their own sometime back. Now they wanted nothing but revenge. Police spokesman Masupha Masupha told the Lesotho Times this week that the [...]

11 Aug 2010 | 0 comments

Fighting from within

MASERU — Tselane, like most other girls her age, was once a strong-willed teenager. She would defiantly stand her ground and say no to premarital sex. But that fierce resistance melted and she crossed the red line. Ever since that day, she has regretted her decision to give up her virginity. How could she continue [...]

7 Jul 2010 | 4 comments

Crackdown on illegal clinics looms

MASERU — Three women sit outside a run-down “surgery” in Thibella, a poor working-class suburb notorious for running illegal shebeens, awaiting their turn to get into the “consultation room”. They are holding grey medical booklets in which the nurses scribble some notes for the patients. The women are engaged in small talk as they await [...]

23 Jun 2010 | 1 comment

Aids message hits brickwall

MASERU — Bora, a strong, athletic taxi driver in his late 30s, is not shy to talk about his sexual exploits. He says with a straight face that he has lost count of the number of women he has bedded. He says he is aware that he is putting himself at risk of contracting HIV, [...]

7 Apr 2010 | 1 comment
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