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?
An Al Jazeera feature that follows 24 hours on a weekend shift in the trauma unit of Soweto's Baragwanath hospital, one of the biggest trauma units in the world. This clip (part two) shows the night half of the shift. One doctor and a handful of interns with faulty equipment and limited nursing support swim against a tide of patients. To watch part one of "Saving Soweto," please click here.
Adam Parsons -
Since the Israeli onslaught against Palestinians began on December 27th, a true interpretation of the battle inside the Gaza Strip is deeply complicated by the surrounding barrage of vehement words and conflicting analyses.
Certain facts are incontestable; the present siege is the deadliest since Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, with the number of Palestinian casualties increasing in their hundreds each day and already topping several thousand injuries. Gaza faces a...
Richard Pithouse -
When the post-apartheid deal went down, the demands for social justice that survived the negotiations were written into the rights enshrined in our new legal order. At the same time, the popular struggles that had forced key issues onto the national agenda were demobilised. It was often assumed that because the rights that had been won were backed by the law, the rule of law over the messiness of social life would ensure that these rights would be prescriptions rather than aspirations.
But...
Glenn Ashton -
This year is the first that school students – or learners as they are now known - are to matriculate under the new Outcomes Based Educational system. OBE was adopted as one of the first major policy innovations under the newly democratic government in South Africa, under the ideological guidance of the first minister of education, Sibusiso Bengu.
The demand to meaningfully change the educational system in South Africa was a priority intervention. The old system, irrevocably...
Davinder Kaur -
As the United Nations seeks increased financial assistance from donor countries to help meet the flagging Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the inadequacy of international aid and fairer trade agreements has never been so clear. In 2007 alone, aid to developing countries fell by 8.4%, leaving huge challenges ahead to meet the Gleneagles G-8 target of doubling aid to Africa by 2010. In July, the Doha round of trade talks collapsed again for the third time as developing countries...
Dean Baker -
Imagine that the United States was researching biological weapons and it inadvertently allowed a deadly bacteria to get into the atmosphere. The bacteria quickly spread around the world, leading to sickness and death everywhere.
Fortunately, US scientists have developed a drug to treat the disease, which the United States generously shares with the other wealthy countries and a select group of developing countries. Unfortunately, there are a number of developing countries with whom the...
