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?
Last week high-ranking officials from football’s governing body, FIFA, were arrested in an overnight raid in Switzerland – the result of a sweeping FBI investigation. “I don’t know what I’m more surprised by; that FIFA officials were actually arrested or that America was behind it. It took the country that cares the least about football to bring down the people who have been ruining it,” jokes comedian John Oliver in his hilarious take down of FIFA and...
Sonali Kolhatkar -
Soccer (or football, as the rest of the world refers to it) is the most popular sport globally. But can you love the game while hating the World Cup?
The 2014 World Cup tournament in Brazil has attracted record numbers of American viewers, with reports of 23 million people having tuned in to a single match between the U.S. and Portugal alone. Worldwide, the numbers are expected to be even more staggering over the course of the entire tournament, given that half the planet tuned in to the...
Glenn Ashton -
There is widespread outrage at the exposure of collusion by South Africa’s largest construction companies, including the so-called “big six,” by our competition authorities. What is really interesting is that anyone is surprised about these revelations. After all, is this not how business is done?
The primary prerogative of any corporation is to return a profit on investment; everything is subordinate to that objective. We can have as many King III’s, as many...
Dale T. McKinley -
The ghosts of the 2010 Soccer World Cup are coming back to haunt South Africa. Less than two years on and with preparations for the 2013 Soccer African Cup of Nations (AFCON) underway, the key lesson that should have been learnt from that grand orgy of egoism and money-grubbing appears to have already been stuffed right back into the closet. The lesson was that as long as the ‘game’ being played is one in which a domestic and international elite is the player, referee and owner,...
Dale T. McKinley -
There are few conflicts - especially when money, power and ego are at their centres - that are more intense, brutal and destructive than those involving family members. In this sense, and in case we might have forgotten, at the heart of the more recent and ongoing battles between the incumbent ANC leadership and their Youth League counterparts lies a long-running and ongoing internecine war within the broad ‘family’ of the ANC itself. As shocked and disappointed as many - both...
Jane Duncan -
In an editorial in March this year, the Sunday Times newspaper warned against “a culture of political assassination,” becoming entrenched in the Mpumalanga province of South Africa, after the paper published allegations of the existence of a hit list of officials blocking access to tenders linked to the 2010 World Cup.
By that time, seven officials had died in mysterious circumstances, including the Mbombela Municipality's Speaker, Jimmy Mohlala.
The World Cup tender...
