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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The problem in Europe has very little to do with Greece says Dr. Heiner Flassbeck (Director, Division on Globalization and Development Strategies, UNCTAD), it has much more to do with Germany, he contends, that deviated substantially from the inflation target set by the European Economic and Monetary Union.
The root of the Eurozone crisis is not a violation of rules of fiscal discipline or of different degrees of public debt in the Eurozone, the core of the crisis is the divergence of wage...
The United Nations Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa, has ended with an agreement to start negotiations for a new legally binding climate treaty to be decided by 2015 — and to come into force by 2020. Negotiators also agreed to a second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol and the initial design of a Green Climate Fund. Many environmental groups say the agreement does not do enough to deal with the climate crisis.
"It is really not the important milestone in...
"Is this what democracy looks like in South Africa?" an activist is heard asking, as volunteers hired by the state (wearing green tracksuits) wrench posters out of their hands at a meeting between civil society and President Jacob Zuma in Durban yesterday.
In a shocking demonstration of the supression of freedom of expression in South Africa, activists were physically attacked at the meeting and some forcibly removed by the police for the perfectly legitimate act of...
A NASA airborne laboratory, flying out of Punta Arenas in southern Chile, is conducting the largest airborne survey of Earth's polar ice caps.
With plans to map three-dimensional views of the Antarctic region and armed with sophisticated radar and altimeter lasers, "Operation Ice Bridge" will enable scientists to compare ice sheets' thickness from one year to the next which will help determining how quickly the ocean may rise.
The study will produce similar data on the Arctic...
Environmental groups in Durban have staged a series of actions in recent days calling on world leaders to agree to a just climate change deal.
Democracy Now! got an inside look at one action staged by Greenpeace to hang a banner off of a Durban hotel where a meeting of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development was taking place, bringing together representatives from a number of large corporations and delegates to the U.N. Climate Change Conference. The banner read:...
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has the world's largest reserve of cobalt, in addition to gold, diamonds, copper and many other minerals. The value of the resources in Congo has been estimated at more than US$23 trillion -- equivalent to the combined GDP of the US and the UK.
In the scramble for the riches of the Congo combined with the fallout of Cold War politics, a war broke out in 1996 that led to the deaths of five to six million people. This war in the DRC continues today.
The...
