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?
Ben Terrall -
Haiti watchers in the U.S. repeatedly hear several questions from North Americans new to the island nation’s history: Why is Washington obsessed with containing any legitimate pro-democracy movement in the hemisphere’s poorest country? How is a nation state the size of Maryland with a mostly destitute population of 9 million a threat to the U.S.?
Classified U.S. diplomatic cables recently released through Wikileaks provide some interesting insights into how to answer such...
A British judge has ruled that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange can be extradited to Sweden to face questioning on allegations of sexual crimes. Assange plans to appeal within ten days. His defence team had argued against the extradition, in part, by citing the potential he could wind up being extradited to the United States and prosecuted for publishing classified government documents, a crime that could result in the death penalty.
Deamocracy Now speaks to constitutional law attorney and...
Jason Hickel -
The last decade has seen a remarkable surge in U.S. economic interest in the continent of Africa. Policymakers who once considered Africa the languid backwater of global economics are now rushing in to stake a claim in the continent’s enormous resource endowment. Most of this effort operates with a rhetoric focused on “partnership” and “development,” with the vision of using US trade and investment to lift Africans out of poverty. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary...
Katie Halper -
I first heard of Jeff Halper at Israel-Palestine-related events, where people would ask me if I was related to him. It took me 30 seconds of Googling to realize that I’d love to be related to this Minnesotan anthropologist, activist, writer, Nobel Peace Prize nominee, and founder and coordinator of Israeli Committee Against Housing Demolitions (ICAHD).
Though kindred spirits, we don’t seem to come from the same Halper stock. But we are Facebook friends, and it was through a...
In recent weeks, popular uprisings in the Arab world have led to the ouster of Tunisian dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the imminent end of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s regime, a new Jordanian government, and a pledge by Yemen’s longtime dictator to leave office at the end of his term.
Amy Goodman of Democracy Now speaks to MIT Professor Noam Chomsky about what this means for the future of the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy in the region. When asked about...
Fazila Farouk -
Forty years ago, musician and poet, Gil Scott-Heron wrote, “The revolution will not be televised,” as he encouraged an awakening of activism amongst disenfranchised African Americans whose sense of indignation had been dulled by that opiate of the masses, television.
In the four decades since those words were penned, they’ve assumed a global significance for the downtrodden and disenfranchised of our world, who, for too long have borne the burden of a jaded public...
