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?
SACSIS seeks to examine global issues, particularly as they relate to South Africa.
Chris Hedges -
Israel has been poisoned by the psychosis of permanent war. It has been morally bankrupted by the sanctification of victimhood, which it uses to justify an occupation that rivals the brutality and racism of apartheid South Africa. Its democracy—which was always exclusively for Jews—has been hijacked by extremists who are pushing the country toward fascism. Many of Israel’s most enlightened and educated citizens—1 million of them—have left the country. Its most...
Jodie Gummow -
When Americans think of Australia they generally imagine a vast and arid desert, inhabited by killer wildlife and famous for Crocodile Hunter, Sydney Opera House and glorious beaches. However, the land Down Under is far more progressive than many countries care to understand and in fact could actually teach the United States a thing or two about how to look after its own population. Here are some interesting facts and policies found in Australia that you probably haven’t head...
Matthew Deaves -
Over the last decade Iceland, more than any other country, has been held up as a model of how to do things right. Pre-crash Iceland was championed by the Right as a shining example of the benefits of liberalized finance. After the financial crisis of 2008 proved them disastrously wrong Iceland was again touted as an example to emulate, this time by the Left. It was lauded as the country that had not taken the crash lying down. According to this narrative, Icelanders had with righteous fury...
Laura Carlsen -
Without a doubt, the 68th UN General Assembly will be remembered as a watershed. Nations reached an agreement on control of chemical weapons that could avoid a global war in Syria. The volatile stalemate on the Iran nuclear program came a step closer to diplomacy.
What failed to make the headlines, however, could have the longest-term significance of all: the Latin American rebellion.
For Latin American leaders, this year’s UN general debate became a forum for widespread dissent...
Jodie Gummow -
1. United States Signs Arms Trade Treaty Despite NRA Opposition
The United States, the world’s number one exporter of weapons, celebrated joining 106 other countries in finally signing the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), AFP reported. The ATT is the first global attempt to regulate the illicit trade in conventional weapons by requiring signatory countries to abide by rules and conditions to control the international transfer and flow of arms.
While human rights groups cheered...
Richard Pithouse -
Pablo Neruda, the great Chilean poet, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971 for “a poetry that with the action of an elemental force brings alive a continent's destiny and dreams". In his acceptance speech in Stockholm he cited Arthur Rimbaud, the wild teenage poetic genius of the Paris Commune of 1871: "In the dawn, armed with a burning patience, we shall enter the splendid Cities." Neruda declared that “my duties as a poet involve friendship not only...
