`Insubordinate' editor sacked by African king

INTRUSIVE TABLOID reports that expose the secrets of members of a royal family are not a new phenomenon in Britain. But in an outpost of the Commonwealth, it seems they're unheard of and it's the perpetrators who pay the price for such an invasion of privacy.

In a royal scoop to eclipse even the pictures of Sophie Rhys-Jones going topless in a former life, The Times of Swaziland revealed that the little southern African kingdom's powerful monarch has married a high-school drop-out. And Bheki Makhubu, editor of the Sunday edition of the newspaper, yesterday lost his job after he refused to apologise for the "insubordinate'' report, revealing the background of the eighth wife of King Mswati III, the Commonwealth's only absolute monarch. Mr Makhubu said he ran the story because it responded to natural reader curiosity about the King's latest choice of wife.