TIME TO TOP UP THE GUNPOWDER
By Peter Honey
The pinch on defence spending over the past 16 years has not only allowed defence force buildings and equipment to deteriorate; it has depleted defence force inventories drastically - while SA's defence suppliers are dying for want of business. ...

PARTIES TEST THE WATER
By Amarnath Singh
Is Swaziland inching towards some form of multiparty democracy? The country's new constitution, finally proclaimed last month by King Mswati III, Africa's last absolute monarch, contains a bill of rights upholding freedom of speech and associa...

NOT A STAR BUT NOT A DISASTER
By Tony Hawkins, Harare
It's normally a safe bet that during election years, IMF programmes in Africa will lurch off the rails. Zambia in 2006, with elections scheduled for October, which incumbent president Levy Mwanawasa is tipped to win (no surprise there), could ...

BILL TO PROTECT PERSONAL DATA
By Prakash Naidoo
If you ever get the sense that Big Brother's over zealous reach extends into your personal life, then help may be on the way. New legislation on privacy and the protection of personal data is in the pipeline and, once enacted, promises to chec...

GIVING SHOULD BE MORE FOCUSED
By Razina Munshi
JSE-listed companies spent about R2,4bn on corporate social investment (CSI) in 2004. But do they always make the wisest decisions about how to give their money and to whom? A new survey finds that CSI decisions are usually taken at the whim o...