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?
South Africa plays an important role in the Southern African region and on the African continent, as a whole. SACSIS will provide news about the region and the continent, with a particular focus on South Africa's relationship to the rest of the African continent.
Kwei Quartey -
As early as the 11th century, Timbuktu was a hub for trade in salt and gold between black Africans, the Tuareg, and Arabs from the north. A meeting place for African scholars, Timbuktu was also a center of learning where thousands of manuscripts and books were written, and where universities much older than Harvard or Oxford were founded.
The broad region of West Africa that includes present-day Mali has had its share of geopolitical turmoil since at least the eighth century. From around...
Kwei Quartey -
Ghana held its general elections on December 7 and 8, 2012, reelecting incumbent President John Dramani Mahama. However, Nana Akufo-Addo, flag-bearer of the opposition New Patriotic Party, is challenging Mahama’s narrow win and intends to contest the result in court, a legal process that is sure to be prolonged. The verdict could potentially challenge Ghana’s generally stable and peaceful political environment. What will not change are the country’s close economic ties to...
Cynthia Burack -
In the past week the Family Research Council has been busy praising Uganda’s commitment to Christian faith and “national repentance” -- even as the Ugandan Parliament once again takes up a bill that would legally mandate the persecution of LGBT people. The bill appears to be part and parcel of dictator Yoweri Museveni’s “repentance” program, and its reappearance before the legislature has drawn no criticism from FRC or the other Christian right groups...
James North -
At first, the latest awful news from the Democratic Republic of Congo sounds like just another installment of an ongoing saga common in the Western media, “Vicious African Tribal Factions Hate Each Other.” Several thousand armed predators who call themselves the M23 Movement and are inappropriately described as “rebels” have just seized control of Goma, a regional capital, and the renewed fighting is adding to a death toll that has already risen above 5 million since...
Jos Martens -
Once again, Zimbabwe is experiencing a drought with famine affecting at least 1.4 of the 12.6 million people still living in the country. USAID estimates that the country produces just over half the two million metric tons (MT) of cereal needed to feed the entire population. Those most affected are the people in the rural areas located in the drier regions of the country, the estimated 350 000 farm workers and their families, most of whom lost their jobs under Zimbabwe’s “Fast...
Michelle Pressend -
President Zuma was hob knobbing at the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) Heads of State Summit in Maputo while our country went up in flames a fortnight ago. Sadly, the 32nd Session of the SADC Summit turned out to be just another uninventive event where governments discussed more of the same – economic growth driven by the extraction of natural resources and infrastructure development to facilitate the expansion of corporate interests.
Top of the agenda was the SADC...
