The government’s affirmative action policy is cruel, heartless and immoral, argues Martin Brassey. Why are its victims so silent? OFFICIAL job reservation, scrapped in 1987, was reintroduced to South Africa a fortnight ago. Yet not a word has been said in protest. Where once the policy provoked uproar, now it evokes mere silence. Silence from […]

Pat Sidley SPORTS sponsorship received a major boost this week when the Department of Health announced stringent new regulations for advertising and packaging tobacco products. With both packets and adverts re-quired to carry visible health warnings, sports sponsorship may look to the to-bacco companies as the only way to go. The new regulations take effect […]

ATHLETICS: Julian Drew THE annual Soweto Marathon takes place for the second time on Sunday and despite the teething problems with the organisation of the race, it is fast becoming South Africa’s premier city marathon. Last year the race did not obtain official sanction from the South African Road Running Association. The Transvaal Amateur Athletic […]

The formation of a House of Traditional Leaders in kwaZulu/Natal has created conflict between the ANC and IFP, writes Farouk Chothia BEHIND the ANC’s opposition to a House of Traditional Leaders in kwaZulu/Natal lies realpolitik: it wants to prevent its newly-acquired asset, Zulu king Goodwill Zwelithini, from being exposed as a monarch without a crown, […]

Media and Marketing Clive Simpkins MARKET-SHARE greed versus service standards calls for scrutiny in the cellular telephone industry. I was advised by an overseas cellular guru that on the launch of cellular services, the existing telephone network operator is usually in a better technical position for the first year or so. It is then typically […]

CINEMA: Stanley Peskin OLIVER STONE’S Natural Born Killers portrays a Darwinian vision of modern society as an inferno in which only the most brutal survive. America is perceived as a war zone, not unlike Vietnam territory, that encourages guerrilla warfare and mass slaughter. In a florid and tendentious treatment of the career of two serial […]

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 […]