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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Using current technology, Mars could be colonised within decades, argues Adam Steltzner engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where he led the design of the Mars Curiosity "sky hook" landing system. Steltzner projects how humans might be able to make a home beyond the confines of the Earth, but questions the motivations for such an endeavour. He argues, that a lot of people are attracted to the idea of colonising Mars because we are going to overpopulate or pollute this...
Once upon a time, not so long ago, world leaders gathered to make an agreement to fight climate change. They met in Japan and agreed to the famous Kyoto Protocol. A principal feature of the Protocol turned out to be carbon trading: a magical solution to curb CO2 emissions. It was presented as a flexible market mechanism able to tackle climate change in a cost effective way. The magical elements were carbon credits, who reached the status of superheroes once their full potential was...
Relations between the U.S. and Iran reached a historic level after a deal was signed on Sunday. The deal calls for Iran to halt most of its uranium enrichment efforts, eliminate its stockpiles of uranium, open its facilities to daily monitoring by international inspectors, and significantly slow the construction of the Arak reactor. Robert Kelley, a nuclear engineer who has worked in the U.S. nuclear complex for more than 30 years and assisted the IAEA as the director in the Iraq Action Team...
South African contemporary rock fusion band, All Clear, has just released a superb rock song, Amandla Marikana - from their Faster than Light album - that remembers the slain miners of Marikana and draws attention to the ongoing struggles of minerworkers today.
All Clear is a three-year-old band that describe themselves as, "dedicated to producing original but popular and accessible music with powerful rhythms that draw on many traditions - rock, reggae, folk, ska, jazz and pop - and...
Bandile Mdlalose is the Secretary General of shack dwellers movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo. In an interview with Fazila Farouk of SACSIS, she talks about her involvement in the struggle for a democracy that respects the rights and dignity of the poor in South Africa.
Mdlalose voluntarily swapped life in a township house for life in a shack in order to better understand the challenges faced by shack dwellers. A leading voice in her community, she talks about the intimidation and...
The world faces two problems in education, says Vikas Pota, chief executive of The Varkey GEMS Foundation. One is that there are many children, about 57 million, who are not at school. The bigger crisis, however, is the fact that there are hundreds of millions of children who are at school, but who aren’t learning anything.
The Varkey GEMS Foundation conducted a global study to find out how to improve the quality of teachers in the classroom. Overall they found that solving the...
