Lesotho beyond the elections
Abstract This article examines the mammoth political challenge facing the Basutoland Congress Party‐led government in Lesotho, assessing in particular the regime's capacity to deliver on its key election promises. Thus the main argument is that Lesotho's newly won democracy will mean little or nothing to the people of Lesotho unless it can address their future as a nation within a politically transformed South Africa and their country's seething economic, political and social problems, namely the deepening joblessness, falling agricultural production coupled with malnutrition, stagnant industrial growth, declining living standards, especially among the poorer sections of the population, recurrent political instability and the increasingly inadequate health and education facilities.
Economic Aspects of Lesotho's Relations with South Africa
Lesotho has long had the distinction of being one of the more anomalous states not only in Southern Africa, but in the world. It is entirely surrounded by another country, the Republic of South Africa. It is ethnically and linguistically very homogeneous. It is a monarchy. Physically, the lowest point in Lesotho is higher, in vertical distance above sea level, that that in any other country. Its economy is marked by some extraordinary paradoxes, such as agriculture being the main economic activity of the bulk of the labour force albeit the origin of a small fraction of total income, imports enomously exceeding exports and being larger than domestic output, and fewer citizens working for cash inside the country than outside.
How the other half dies: the real reasons for world hunger
Why are so many people hungry? Susan George affirms with conviction and with evidence that it is not because there are too many people on the planet, nor because of bad weather or changing climates, but because food is controlled by the rich.