Iden Wetherell in Harare ZIMBABWE’s human rights record has taken a hammering with a United States official report detailing violations ranging from police brutality to interference in the media. The US State Department’s 1996 Country Report on Zimbabwe criticises the government for failing to pursue past allegations of torture and refusing to prosecute police and […]

Jacquie Golding-Duffy BROADCAST RESOURCES (BR), the network programming services arm of Primedia Broadcasting, is reassessing its role in the market with rumours persisting that the network may even shut shop. Resources managing director Chris Gibbons this week said the network is “reconfigurating”. BR is operating at a loss and the market it was planning to […]

The struggle for democracy in Swaziland is becoming increasingly violent, reports Ruaridh Nicoll in Mbabane INTERNATIONAL trade union leaders flew out of Swaziland this week threatening to blockade the kingdom unless its monarch, King Mswati III, releases four of their colleagues from prison and reforms the archaic system of government. Four union leaders were jailed […]

Fay Davids SOUTH AFRICA’S fastest-growing farmworkers’ union – the South African Agricultural Plantation and Allied Workers Union (Saapawu) – is meeting on Friday, February 21, in its first-ever congress. At the top of its agenda is a plan to counter the South African Agricultural Union’s (SAAU) lobby against the Security of Tenure Bill. Union representative […]

Stefaans Brmmer FLIGHT SA 232 from Johannesburg to London on February 6 1993, two months before Chris Hani was assassinated, had three passengers of note – the South African Communist Party leader himself; right-wing journalist Arthur Kemp, who was later arrested in connection with his murder; and Inkatha Freedom Party militarist Philip Powell. This “coincidence” […]

Lesley Cowling THE Agricultural Research Council wants to recruit the nation’s flies to help track down murderers. The council applied for R140 000 this week to study forensic entomology – the use of insects to investigate death, particularly of people whose bodies are found outdoors. It was pitching, along with other science councils, for a […]

With market sentiment on its side, now would be a good time for South Africa to act on exchange controls, a USeconomist tells Madeleine Wackernagel THE subject on everybody’s lips at this year’s Socit Gnrale Frankel Pollack investment conference was exchange controls. But the governor of the Reserve Bank wasn’t talking, and neither was the […]

An advocate disbarred for cheating is forgiven because of `extraordinary circumstances’ in the closing days of apartheid.Mungo Soggot reports THE Pretoria advocate who was disbarred for cheating former defence minister Magnus Malan by charging him exorbitant legal fees has been reinstated by a trio of Pretoria judges including Transvaal Judge President Frikkie Eloff – the […]

Zaire’s government and the rebels who have captured a large part of the country have agreed to talk peace in Cape Town, reports Chris McGreal PRESIDENT Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire has agreed to peace talks with the growing rebel army in the east after he secretly despatched a special envoy to seek South African […]