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?
Seven of the fastest growing economies in the world are African. As a continent, the African economy is growing at 7-10%, which is faster than any other continent, but Africa’s growth is fuelled by debt and the mass sale of resources. From Chinese and French interests in Africa’s mineral resources to America’s expanding War on Terror, a host of imposing nations are attempting to consolidate their grip on Africa. Marwan Bishara of Al Jazeera’s Empire travels to Kenya,...
Society has changed dramatically, says New York Times journalist James Risen, as he comments on the freedoms that have been ceded to national security since 9/11. The great sin of Barack Obama has been to normalise the War on Terror - to take something that was an ad hock series of emergency panicked moves by Dick Cheney and George Bush and normalise them.
Part of that is the approach to the press and the development of false narratives, such as the narrative of Iraqi weapons of mass...
Medea Benjamin -
Sometimes it just takes one person with a creative mind to shake up the entire legal system. In the case of Costa Rica, that person is Luis Roberto Zamorra Bolanos, who was just a law student when he challenged the legality of his government’s support for George Bush’s invasion of Iraq. He took the case all the way up to the Costa Rican Supreme Court—and won.
Today a practicing lawyer, Zamorra at 33 still looks like a wiry college student. And he continues to think...
When U.S. President, Barack Obama was first inaugurated into office in 2009, he pledged to close the Guantanamo Bay prison. It's 2014 and Guantanamo is still open. Many of its prisoners have been cleared for release by Obama's own intelligence agencies, yet they remain incarcerated. Obama repeatedly makes remarks about closing the prison to no avail. Meanwhile the American Congress is often cited as the obstacle to Obama's pledge on closing Guantanamo. But, British journalist and author,...
War reporting is a difficult and dangerous game, and that's the case when those wars are declared and fought out in the open. Then there are the undeclared wars in countries like Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia fought through drone strikes and black ops teams -- covert military operations that officials barely even acknowledge. Those are the kinds of wars that Jeremy Scahill covers. Scahill made his name in 2007 with a book on Blackwater, the US military contractor that was paid big money by...
Jane Duncan -
The images of 22 year old Londoner Michael Abedowale, hands dripping with blood from his fatal attack on soldier Lee Rigby, created shock waves around the world, including in South Africa. His explanation for his actions, caught on camera, portrayed the attack as revenge for the excesses of British foreign policy in prosecuting the war against terror.
This incident, and the recent bombing of the Boston marathon, have given Britain and the United States (US) the justification to continue...
