The South African Civil Society Information Service
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
SACSIS promotes the principle of just economies. We are opposed to economic development that violates social and economic rights and increases inequalities in the pursuit of economic growth.
Mohamed Motala -
The National Planning Commission’s “Diagnostic Overview” report is a welcome policy discussion-document that has been needed for a long time in South Africa. It deserves praise for putting forward some important policy considerations that warrant closer examination. The diagnostic report is an important milestone in that it opens up the “big questions” about our post-apartheid democracy in a coherent and complete manner.
For too long now there has been...
Richard Pithouse -
The spirit of Tahrir Square continues to animate resistance to dictatorship in the Middle East and is now also inspiring experiments with insurgent and popular democratic practices in Greece and Spain. A number of writers have described the rebellions in Southern Europe as being characterised by a “ferocious resistance” to the political class across its ideological spectrum.
Similar sentiments are expressed in South Africa from time to time. But the dominant thrust of popular...
Saliem Fakir -
About 2.5 billion cups of coffee are consumed every day.
Culture and coffee are treated as synonymous. Ever since the first coffee shops opened doors in the Middle East, around the 15th century onwards, coffee culture spread like wild fire in the western world.
Coffee houses are places where artists, writers, intellectuals and those seeking the pleasures of good conversation are meant to hang out. However, this image of civility belies the real world of coffee trade, which is far more...
Khadija Sharife -
If recent media reports are correct, Walmart, both the world's largest private employer and its largest company, has threatened to pull out of the R16.5 billion merger with Massmart if the South African government insists on imposing conditions to protect local manufacturers. According to Massmart’s CEO, “It would be disruptive of the competition process championed under the Competition Act to impose local procurement targets on one retailer to the exclusion of its...
Les Leopold -
The verdict is in: Raj Rajaratnam, the billionaire head of the Galleon hedge fund, was found guilty of 14 counts of securities fraud and conspiracy on Wednesday: 5 counts of conspiracy, and 9 counts of insider trading – which means he could be joining Bernie Madoff in prison for the rest of his life. The prosecution, which played 43 secretly recorded conversations that revealed how insider information was sought, received and covered-up, provides the clearest view to date of how far...
Liepollo Pheko -
In April this year, it was widely reported that agricultural talks for the Doha Round had yet again failed to advance. After a decade of unproductive negotiations to conclude the World Trade Organisations (WTOs) Doha Development Round of multilateral trade talks, the recent failure of talks on agriculture appears set to push the entire Doha talks over the edge.
Recent media reports suggest that the “Doha Round is Doomed.” Its failure to emerge with a common vision for global...
