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.
Pepe Escobar -
History will register his plane struck by lightning on the way to Berlin, no fancy kisses, and asparagus with veal schnitzel on the menu. This is the way the eurozone ends (or begins again); not with a bang, but a ... lightning strike. Merkollande - the new European power couple drama interpreted by French Socialist President Francois Hollande and German Christian Democrat Chancellor Angela Merkel - is a go.
Trillions of bytes already speculate whether former President Nicolas Sarkozy...
Walden Bello -
The freer flow of commodities and capital has been one of the features of the contemporary process of globalization. Unlike in the earlier phase of globalization in the 19th century, however, the freer flow of commodities and capital has not been accompanied by a freer movement of labor globally. The dynamic centers of the global economy, after all, have imposed ever tighter restrictions on migration from the poorer countries.Yet the demand for cheap labor in the richer parts of the world...
Richard Pithouse -
On the first day of March in 1981 Bobby Sands, imprisoned in the Long Kesh for links to the armed resistance to the British occupation of Northern Ireland, began a hunger strike. For seventeen days he was able to keep a diary. The first entry begins with two lines that have become immortal: “I am standing on the threshold of another trembling world. May God have mercy on my soul.”
In 1976 Margaret Thatcher's government had introduced a policy of 'criminalisation' that denied...
Leonard Gentle -
The Presidential elections in France and the general elections in Greece are seismic events, which have significance way beyond the characters involved. After three years of austerity programmes throughout Europe characterised by billions of Euros worth of public money redirected towards protecting bankers and speculators who indulged in an orgy of reckless bond buying, people are simply defying an elite consensus.
This consensus brought together all the politicians, economists and media...
Panos Garganas -
The results of the Greek general election have exploded in the face of the ruling class. The parties that had supported the “technocratic” coalition government, headed by former banker Lucas Papademos, suffered a crushing defeat.
In 2009 these parties controlled 266 of the 300 seats in the Greek parliament. Now they are down to 149 seats between them.
Bonus
And even this figure is misleading, as it includes 50 seats given as a “bonus” by the electoral...
Conn Hallinan -
On one level, April’s hemispheric summit meeting was an old-fashioned butt kicking for Washington’s policies in the region. The White House found itself virtually alone—Dudley Do-Right Canada its sole ally—on everything from Cuba to the war on drugs. But the differences go deeper than the exclusion of Havana and the growing body count in Washington’s failed anti-narcotics strategy. They reflect profound disagreements on how to build economies, confront inequity,...
