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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Almost two thirds of world nations suffer from significant levels of corruption. Transparency International (TI) released a new corruption index on Tuesday.
Lack of transparency, accountability and good governance are behind record levels of global corruption, says the TI report.
This year, TI also mentions the global financial crisis and climate change as phenomena that have fueled corruption in some countries.
For example, for the first time in the 15-year history of the league table,...
Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen -
The Medium Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) occurs in a deepening economic crisis; expressed most notably by the loss of over 1 million jobs in the last year. The prognosis going forward is dire, with government estimates on reaching our developmental goals painting a worrying picture.
According to official projections, as a society, we are unlikely to narrow the income gap, nor reach our employment targets. If there is a silver lining in South Africa’s Millennium Development...
Liepollo Pheko -
Driving past several Johannesburg traffic light intersections, one is constantly reminded of how unequal this country is. “Please Help. I need bail money for my cat,” says one board held up by a beggar. A recent one read, “Help me out. Need money for some weed, to pay my hooker and settle my beer bill.”
They are eye catching and humorously worded, but the intent and concrete realities contained on those placards are desperate and require urgent intervention.
As...
Leonard Gentle -
The successful rescue of the Chilean workers trapped in the San Jose mine was a story of extraordinary courage and self-organisation on the part of the miners, as well as of exceptional engineering expertise on the part of Codelco and the international coalition of forces that hoisted the miners to safety.
Across the world’s media, we were treated to stories of the mineworkers singing the Chilean national anthem and images of the Chilean president, Sebastian Piñera, hugging the...
Saliem Fakir -
We sit amongst the vulnerable beneath the trampling of elephants as they fight it out. South Africa may be a big player in Africa, but is no match for the economic giants in the global arena. South Africa simply does not have the foreign currency reserves or trade power to fight a currency war.
All South Africa can do is watch and hope for the best while attempting to stem the assault on the Rand to some degree -- but it won’t be enough.
The currency war on everyone's lips marks a new...
The online whistleblower WikiLeaks has released some 390,000 classified US documents on the Iraq war - the largest intelligence leak in US history and the greatest internal account of any war on public record. The disclosure provides a trove of new evidence on the violence, torture and suffering that has befallen Iraq since the 2003 US invasion. Despite US government claims to the contrary, the war logs show the Pentagon kept tallies of civilian deaths in Iraq. The group Iraq Body Count...
