Mswati III, King of Swaziland, and his wife disembark a plane after arriving at Katunayake International airport in Colombo, Aug. 13, 2012.
Whatever King Mswati III will have to say at the U.N. General Assembly, it’ll likely be less interesting than the sheer fact of his existence. The world’s most anachronistic politician, Mswati, 45, is an absolute monarch with a personal fortune worth hundreds of millions in a country where many still live below the poverty line and some 30% of adults have HIV or AIDS. He has resisted reforms and last week held parliamentary elections that critics deemed a sham. Oh, right. He also just got engaged to his 14th wife, an 18-year-old beauty pageant contestant.