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?
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Is the War on Drugs doing more harm than good? In a bold talk, drug policy reformist Ethan Nadelmann makes an impassioned plea to end the "backward, heartless, and disastrous" war on drugs.
He highlights many reasons to end the global obsession with stamping out drug use, amongst them, raising the important point that current drug laws are driven by racism. According to Nadelmann, “If the principle smokers of cocaine were affluent older white men and the principle consumers...
Wouldn’t you want to know if your doctor was a paid spokesman for a drug company? Or held personal beliefs incompatible with the treatment you want? Right now, in many parts of the world, your doctor simply doesn’t have to tell you about that. And when physician Leana Wen asked her fellow doctors to open up, the reaction she got was unsettling. There's a code of silence amongst doctors whose attitudes and behaviour challenge conventional notions of transparency and...
Back in March 2012, a good five months before the Marikana massacre exposed the internal weaknesses of the South African trade union sector, SACSIS’ Fazila Farouk interviewed labour expert, Ighsaan Schroeder, who said that Cosatu was well on its way to demise and could collapse within a mere 15 years due to serious structural weaknesses in the trade union sector. Soon after the Marikana massacre, Schroeder revised his prediction saying that he gives Cosatu just another five years before...
Author and lecturer Charles Eisenstein speaks to Earth Focus about transitioning to a new kind of economics that privileges sustainability and penalizes pollution. He traces the history of money from ancient gift economies to modern capitalism revealing how the money system contributed to alienation, competition and scarcity destroying communities and the planet through endless growth. Eisenstein says today’s conventional economic growth trends have reached their extreme. But, in the...
Antibiotic drugs save lives. But we simply use them too much - and often for non-lifesaving purposes, like treating the flu and even raising cheaper chickens. The result, says researcher Ramanan Laxminarayan, is that the drugs will stop working for everyone, as the bacteria they target grow more and more resistant. He calls on all of us (patients and doctors alike) to think of antibiotics - and their ongoing effectiveness - as a finite resource, and to think twice before we tap into it....
Grammy Award-winning singer and songwriter Angélique Kidjo gave an interview earlier this week about headlining the Carnegie Hall’s tribute to Miriam Makeba, the legendary South African singer and activist who died in 2008. Numerous international artists as well as South Africa’s Vusi Mahlasela joined Kidjo in performing, "Mama Africa: A Tribute to Miriam Makeba", on Wednesday, 5 November at Carnegie Hall in New York City. The concert was presented as the...
