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?
Saliem Fakir -
If there were to be a beauty contest, Sarah Palin (formerly Governor of Alaska) would win over ANC Youth League President, Julius Malema by far in the looks department.
However, as political celebrities for a growing anti-intellectual movement in two different parts of the world, they share a real and symbolic place in contemporary popular culture and politics.
Palin, like Malema, shows no great intellectual curiosity. Their erudition of complex geopolitical and economic issues is not going...
Michael T. Klare -
As the second decade of the twenty-first century begins, we find ourselves at one of those relatively rare moments in history when major power shifts become visible to all. If the first decade of the century witnessed profound changes, the world of 2009 nonetheless looked at least somewhat like the world of 1999 in certain fundamental respects: the United States remained the world’s paramount military power, the dollar remained the world’s dominant currency, and NATO...
Michelle Pressend -
After the 1999 WTO meeting in Seattle, the Copenhagen Climate Summit will probably go down as the next biggest multilateral meeting failure of the 21st century, but I wouldn’t say for the right reasons.
In biting cold Copenhagen, there was little recognition that 400 years of capitalism is the underlying cause of global warming and simply not enough understanding that the market-driven solutions espoused by the Kyoto Protocol will only exacerbate the climate crisis and global...
Saliem Fakir -
What do secret declassified documents from the Clinton era tell us about the future of climate negotiations?
While a great hope hung on the Copenhagen Climate Summit, right up to the end, the meeting was bogged down with uncertainty and controversy.
There were no targets, no binding agreements and there was no real money to show. Some governments didn’t even bother with the requirements of science or the immorality of not acting with urgency.
Denmark’s inability to play...
Democracy Now -
As American President Barack Obama winds up his trip to the far East, the rest of the world watches with great interest as the world's current super power meets its successor. In terms of it's size, the Chinese economy will overtake the American economy within the next two decades and is predicted to become twice as big as (double) the American economy by 2050.
Democracy Now speaks to Martin Jacques about China's role in a new world order. Jacques is a British journalist, academic and author...
Gideon Levy, prominent Israeli journalist who writes for the daily newspaper, Ha'aretz, talks to the Real News Network about Israel's addiction to its occupation of Palestine. Levy says: "I think that Israel needs an adult who will save it from its own addiction to the occupation. It needs a guide who would push or lead or any other way to take us out from the impossible situation that we are stuck in. And therefore I think that this balance of power, this really twisted relationship...
