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?
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Wealthy, influential, international and highly networked is how the elite of the world are described by Al Jazeera's Marwan Bishar. These people have so much money and power that they transcend the laws of national governments, operating at a completely different level according to a set of rules, defined largely by themselves.
In the last three decades, the global economy, global governance and global accountability has increasingly been shaped by a few tightly networked individuals...
Democracy Now -
Amy Goodman of Democracy Now speaks with with Julian Assange, the founder and editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, about the biggest leak in US history: the release of more than 91,000 classified military records on the war in Afghanistan. As the Pentagon announces it is launching a criminal probe into who leaked the documents, Assange asks what about investigating the "war crimes" revealed in the leaked military records? Assange also talks about the media, why he won't be going to the...
Richard Pithouse -
The African National Congress, perhaps buoyed by a renewed sense of public confidence in the wake of the World Cup, is, again, moving against one of our fundamental democratic freedoms.
Amidst a new flurry of indignation, paranoid and hysterical in equal measure, various representatives of the ANC have made it quite clear that they consider some of the criticisms of the party and its leaders that have appeared in the media to be unacceptable. This is not the first outbreak of this sort of...
Imraan Buccus -
Recently we heard the shocking news about a community in the North West that went about burning schools because they were unhappy with a gravel road that was meant to be tarred. To make matters worse school children were prevented from going to school, in an attempt at getting the local authority to act.
Now, sixteen years into democracy, this is very difficult to understand. Why would a community behave this way? Should government respond by saying that those schools will not be...
Saliem Fakir -
The furore over the Protection of Information Bill and its proposed draconian punishments for disclosing classified state documents belies a long simmering tension between the state and South Africa’s free press.
In the background of the parliamentary process to charge through the Bill sits the ANC’s proposal to establish a media tribunal. The resolution was proposed in Polokwane, supposedly to stop media excesses and abuse. After somewhat of a lull, the idea has been revived...
A satirical take on the Obama presidency, but also an advertisement for what appears to be an actual product: The Obama Bumper Sticker Removal Kit.
President Barack Obama has not followed through on his towering rhetoric of change for ordinary Americans. And while this product may have its origins in conservative America, at least one left leaning American commentator feels that it "might sadly have a market among disaffected progressives."
