A top-secret Armscor document contains startling information about arms sales. Gaye Davis reports ARMSCOR sanctioned the sale of military materiel to repressive dictatorships like Haiti, to countries on the brink of civil war such as Somalia and Sudan, and sold weaponry to Warsaw Pact countries — though not the Soviet Union — well before the […]

Jacques Magliolo `ALL I owed was R5 000 — that’s all! And now I’ve lost my business.” Renowned South African couturier Hilton Weiner was placed in liquidation by holding company Bergers before it too was placed under final liquidation.Like so many professionals Weiner concentrated on his craft and neglected making it a priority to understand […]

The prison service is breaking its own guidelines on the treatment of HIV-positive prisoners, reports Mark Gevisser WHEN the kitchen staff of Johannesburg Prison were told, in September last year, that blood would be taken from them as part of a routine annual medical checkup, “Gerrit” thought nothing of it. Two weeks later, he was […]

Mduduzi ka Harvey THE Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru) has split, amid accusations that the leadership has given undue priority to police issues, misused union money and failed to resolve internal problems. The newly formed breakaway group, the Correctional Officers Union of South Africa (Cousa) — launched last week by prison staffers and […]

A modelling roadshow gives rural women a chance to become Cinderellas of a screen fantasy. Ann Eveleth reports GROWING up in the Transkei village of Lusikisiki, Pamela Mandisa-Singenile and her four brothers had to huddle around a small television set connected to a car battery to get a glimpse of the modern world. Now 22-year-old […]

WE have sympathised with new cabinet ministers who have had to grapple with sometimes recalcitrant departments as they try to take hold of the machinery they need to implement their policies. So we are quite taken aback at Minister of Defence Joe Modise’s frank admission that he seeks no such control over his charge, the […]

The West Indies are taking on India at the moment in a country where cricket is the greatest uniting force CRICKET: Mike Marqusee `THERE is simply nothing in cricket which matters more than a series for the Ashes,” declares Christopher Martin- Jenkins, the authorised voice of English cricket’s ancien regime, in his new anthology, The […]

Vuyo Mvoko STORMY petrel of the North-West, Rocky Malebane-Metsing, still expects to be reinstated as the regional government’s MEC for agriculture — despite premier Popo Molefe’s pledges to the contrary. Molefe, who fired Metsing two weeks ago, has insisted that the latter cannot be accommodated in the provincial cabinet but may be given a lesser […]

Eric Naki THE yet-to-be-established House of Traditional Leaders in the Eastern Cape looks set to be a thorn in the flesh of premier Raymond Mhlaba. Rhetoric from traditional leaders in the province indicates that the government may face a drawn-out battle. The Congress of Traditional Leaders of South Africa (Contralesa), which represents a majority of […]

The release this week of Natural Born Killers raises the question of whether violent films encourage violence in real life and should be censored. They don’t and they shouldn’t, argues Shaun de Waal (also see film review below) OLIVER STONE’S film about a pair of casual serial murderers, Natural Born Killers, opens in South Africa […]