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 Nineham -
The global demonstrations on 15 February 2003 formed the biggest protest event in history. Researchers have estimated that up to 30 million people marched in around 800 cities. The day evokes an unusual mix of emotions in those who remember it. On the one hand hope and pride in the spectacular turnout and the magnificent feat of global co-ordination involved, on the other, a heavy heart that it failed to stop the Iraq catastrophe.
However, there is a history that can now...
Alternet Staff -
Hospital facing lawsuit after complying with a swastika-tattooed father's request that only white nurses care for his child.
In Michigan (USA), a neonatal nurse reports that she was removed from her job because of a Swastika-tattooed father who didn’t want his daughter treated by any African Americans.
The nurse, Tonya Battle, had been working at Hurley Medical Center in Flint, Michigan, since 1988. Yet when a newborn girl came into the neonatal intensive care unit recently,...
Adele M. Stan -
Not since the 15th century has a pope resigned his throne. Speculation abounds regarding the pope's unusual decision. Was it the sex-abuse scandal?
Pope Benedict XVI stunned the Roman Catholic Church -- and the world -- with his announcement that he would turn in his sceptre, effective February 28. To find a precedent for Benedict's action, one needs to go back through six centuries of history to Pope Gregory XII's resignation in 1415.
In a statement issued in Latin, the pope wrote:...
Conn Hallinan -
Back in the 1960s, the U.S. peace movement came up with a catchy phrase: “What if the schools got all the money they needed and the Navy had to hold a bake sale to buy an aircraft carrier?” Well, the Italian Navy has a line of clothing, and is taking a cut from a soft drink called “Forza Blu” in order to make up for budget cuts. It plans to market energy snacks and mineral water.
Things are a little rocky in Europe these days.
Unemployment is over 25...
Nicola F Pritchard -
The Why Poverty project is a recent collaboration between the Open University and the BBC that attempts to highlight the causes of global poverty and explain the different contexts in which it is experienced. The project was extensive, including a detailed website, radio programmes, and a BBC4 television series which will undoubtedly have had an impact on how poverty is understood by a wide audience. In my view, however, parts of the BBC 4 series, as well as the overall narrative of the...
Heidi-Jane Esakov -
The story of Israel’s 22 January national elections was to be that of a right-wing government shifting even further to the right. In an unexpected outcome, political newcomer and suave former television talk-show host Yair Lapid scuppered that story when his ‘centrist’ and secular party, Yesh Atid, came second after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s party Likud Beiteinu (formed with extreme right-winger, former foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman). Although Yesh Atid...
