Gustav Thiel ARMS manufacturer Armscor sold bulletproof vests to the police, army and the prisons service – ignoring concerns that they were sub-standard. The vests were produced for Armscor by a now-defunct firm. Johannesburg-based Ballistic Body Armour, which supplies body armour, said this week that the vests “could endanger the lives of people who wear […]
Lesotho’s leaders play at politics, civil servants sit disconsolate in bars and a blanket of despondency AT Sparrows and at the Lancers Inn, two popular downtown bars where civil servants and the sundry elite of Maseru gather every evening to down beer and gossip, they talk of Lesotho as a land of “political wonders”. They […]
Efforts to reform rugby, apartheid’s sporting religion, have foundered on old attitudes in high places. Donald McRae analyses the shaky progress so far AS white South Africa slipped into its usual breathless fervour for the first Test between the Springboks and the Lions, Brian van Rooyen sighed wearily. “I’m just an ordinary guy,” he said. […]
FRIDAY, 2.00PM HIGH Court Judge Edwin Cameron has ruled that Mineral and Energy Affairs Minister Penuell Maduna flouted basic legal rights when he fired the CEO of the Diamond Board. In overturning Maduna’s dismissal of Gerhard Bindeman, who had been CEO of the board since 1989, Cameron found the minister to have acted in breach […]
FRIDAY, 3.30PM GAUTENG Premier Tokyo Sexwale told the Gauteng Provincial Legislature on Friday that the reign of terror of taxi warlords has ended with the passage of amendments to the Road Trasnportation Act of 1977. The amnendment Bill, rushed through the provincial legislature on Friday, its last day of business before recess, gives Transport MEC […]
The race is on for 40 new casino licences, with black empowerment bidders in the forefront – but are casinos productive money-spinners? Ferial Haffajee reports SUNDAY afternoon and the millions are calling. Although it’s a week before the end of the month, scores of cars hurtle past Pretoria, past the barren squatter camps of Hammanskraal […]
Richard Cornwell FIGHTING resumed in Congo-Brazzaville this week, shattering a seven-day truce and fuelling international fears about the ripples of instability and violence spreading across Central Africa. Troops loyal to President Pascal Lissouba opened fire on French ambassador Raymond Cesaire as he left Lissouba’s palace, while Lissouba’s opponent, former president Denis Sassou-Nguesso, launched an assault […]
Marion Edmunds ALARMED by increasing internal tension and a range of government crises, the African National Congress is embarking on a soul- searching, stocktaking campaign to draw the party together in the run-up to its national congress in December. The head of the ANC’s political education department, Joel Netshitenzhe, said this week that the party […]
GWEN ANSELL took some top SA jazzmen to watch Kansas City THE first jazz shot in Robert Altman’s Kansas City is of James Carter, natty in a sharp suit, legs crossed insouciantly, sax gleaming, wreathed in cigarette smoke, looking for all the world like a Herman Leonard photograph come to life. Visually, the whole movie […]
FRIDAY, 8.30AM AN Olympic bid assessment team, appointed to examine the socio-economic and environmental impact of the Games in Cape Town, has accused the Development Bank of over-optimistic predictions. The Development Bank’s macro-economic predictions on job creation and revenue inflow played a key role in bringing Cabinet support to the bid, and were prominently used […]