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?
Tips for watching videos: If you see a message saying that a video clip is no longer available, refresh your browser and the video should become available. If you're having trouble viewing a clip that's already streaming, let the clip play once. It will play fine the second time round.
Tech expert Michael Schrage calls voicemail "an anachronism" whose time has come and gone. Could e-mail be next? Schrage argues that people prefer scanning texts than listening to voice messages. Highlighting it as a demographic phenomenon he says, “I don’t think there’s anybody I know under the age of 30 who listens to their voicemail.” The era of e-mail is going to vanish too because people are using LinkedIn and Facebook, Yammer and other social media...
Seventeen years ago, a warm wind was blowing across the pacific. As it blew, it pushed some warmed waters westwards, piling them high to the north east of Australia. When the winds eased, the warm waters washed back across the vast ocean releasing masses of heat into the atmosphere in what became the mother of all El Niño events. It was 1998 and the climate seemed set on a frightening trajectory. But the years that followed didn't live up to predictions, leading to a crisis of...
Created via a partnership between the University of California (Davis) and vehicle manufacturer Honda, this zero-net energy home is heated and cooled by the earth and also generates enough power from solar energy to run a car and feed energy back into the grid. Scientists took local weather conditions into account when designing the house to optimise heating and cooling. It boasts some of the most cutting edge energy efficiency solutions to date. The project’s collaborators intend to...
According to psychologists, when we're faced with uncertain threats about things we might lose in the distant future, the human brain invents all kinds of excuses not to act on them today. Climate change is one such issue. We respond more to things that are personal, that represent an abrupt change in our environment, that are immoral, and that are affecting us now. At the same time, people also have an optimism bias, which means that we all think that we face lower risks than others....
Last week high-ranking officials from football’s governing body, FIFA, were arrested in an overnight raid in Switzerland – the result of a sweeping FBI investigation. “I don’t know what I’m more surprised by; that FIFA officials were actually arrested or that America was behind it. It took the country that cares the least about football to bring down the people who have been ruining it,” jokes comedian John Oliver in his hilarious take down of FIFA and...
A few months ago, British financial journalist, Felix Salmon served up some career advice to aspiring journalists and the long and short of it was: don't bother. The mock letter made the rounds online and created a healthy debate, so Al Jazeera’s Listening Post decided to get him in front of a camera to deliver his "advice" on screen. Today is a wonderful time for journalism, argues Salmon, who is constantly astonished by the quantity and quality of the martial being produced...
