- In Eswatini, an absolute monarchy ruled by King Mswati III since 1986, the year 2023 started with the brutal killing of Thulani Maseko, a prominent human rights lawyer and opposition activist. More than two years after a series of protests, there has been no accountability for the security forces’ crackdown on pro-democracy protesters. As in past elections where political parties were banned from participating, general elections were held in September with little expectation that they would bring about any meaningful change in the country. Two members of parliament, Mduduzi Bacede Mabuza and Mthandeni Dube, who were arrested in July 2021 were found guilty of all charges against them, including murder and terrorism.
- Pictor (Wikipedia)
Pictor is a constellation in the Southern Celestial Hemisphere, located between the star Canopus and the Large Magellanic Cloud. Its name is Latin for painter, and is an abbreviation of the older name Equuleus Pictoris (the “painter’s easel”). Normally represented as an easel, Pictor was named by Abbé Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille in the 18th century. The constellation’s brightest star is Alpha Pictoris, a white main-sequence star around 97 light-years away from Earth. Pictor also hosts RR Pictoris, a cataclysmic variable star system that flared up as a nova, reaching apparent (visual) magnitude 1.2 in 1925 before fading into obscurity.