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Across history, and particularly in periods of criminalization, the gay community have often been forced to resort to public spaces—"beats"—to clandestinely seek out anonymized sex with partners who share their sexual preference. This article reframes the construction of gay beats as ephemeral spaces that prevails in existing sexuality literature. Instead, it shows that Brisbane's beats were semi-permanent spaces with subcultural meaning to the local gay community—a fact that was used by police to target gay men during law enforcement's attempts to reestablish a moral order in the postwar era. Using a combination of archival material, personal narratives and secondary sources, this article effectively reframes the concept of gay beats as transitory spaces, and instead argues that it was their permanence and resilience in Brisbane's gay subculture that made them a perfect hunting ground for police looking to target a vulnerable homosexual community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The year 1994 saw South Africa having a black president, in the person of Nelson Mandela, for the first time in its history. It was also the first time that black South Africans voted, since prior racist laws denied them this right. These developments created hope for betterment in the political, economic, and social lives of black South Africans. However, other Africans in the rest of the continent also found hope for better prospects in this new situation, and this saw Africans from outside South Africa flocking to the country. Soon, tensions, caused by resentment on the part of South Africans, who saw their fellow Africans as invaders taking their jobs and livelihoods, spilled over into conflicts that became known as "xenophobic". In this article we argue that the media did not inform the world about these conflicts in a dispassionate and objective way, as they are expected to do. Instead of helping audiences to better appreciate the issues at hand, the media exacerbated the conflicts through sensational reporting. Through an examination of certain sections of the media in KwaZulu-Natal, this article demonstrates how the media failed to live up to their commitment to the public. The study provides an insight into government agencies at the local level and the importance of involving the local print media in their social cohesion programmes. It aspires to fill the void of research at the local level through a case study on xenophobic influences in townships in the KwaZulu-Natal province. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An unprecedented expansion of global anti-terrorist policing took place after 1900, although the security forces projected outside their borders by Russia, Italy, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Spain, and Argentina displayed an enormous diversity in size and effectiveness. Crucial to successful policing was how these countries improved their intelligence through recruiting and handling informers, maintained secrecy and good relations with local police, and handled the media. The British approach to anarchist control was arguably the most successful. Italian international policing was the most far-reaching, while the United States long remained the world's most under-policed large country. On examination, the view that anti-anarchist policing was a case of conservative imperial regimes versus the Western democracies loses validity. During this period, a general trend saw the transfer of anarchist surveillance from the hands of diplomats into those of interior ministry officials and the police, all in the name of greater centralization, professionalization, and efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Oglala Sioux Indian tribe has accused the FBI of covering up the homicide of their members in the 1970s. In an ongoing attempt to force the authorities to investigate these homicides on the Pine Ridge Reservation over three decades ago, the tribe wants the cases to be reopened and a full disclosure made as to who was behind these killings. There is a suspicion of official involvement by the refusal to set up an inquiry about the deaths that followed the surrender of the American Indian Movement (AIM) members after the Wounded Knee protest. It has caused loss of faith by the conviction of an Indian activist Leonard Peltier on testimony that is not conclusive on the forensic tests. There is evidence of an agent provocateur on Pine Ridge that has made DNA an absolute priority in the impending trial of John Graham who is accused of killing Mae Ann Pictou, an AIM member. There is suspicion of subversion by the FBI based on case law and by the findings in the Church Report of 1985. By its repressive tactics, the USA has executed a neocolonial policy on Native Americans, of which this is an example and its inception lies in the genocidal policies of forced removal, dismemberment, and assimilation. The unsolved murders, upcoming prosecution, and the defamation of activists on Pine Ridge need an official inquiry to wipe the slate clean of the persecution and the miscarriages of justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]