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?
Visit the archives.
From the Middle East to the West - a discontent with the status quo. Whether it's with the iron grip of entrenched governments or with the widening economic divide between the rich and those struggling to get by.
Where are those so hungry for change heading and how profound is their long term vision for transformation?
Al Jazeera puts the question to Slovenian-born philosopher, Slavoj Zizej, whose critical examination of both capitalism and socialism has made him an internationally...
Chip Ward -
What if rising sea levels are yet another measure of inequality? What if the degradation of our planet’s life-support systems -- its atmosphere, oceans, and biosphere -- goes hand in hand with the accumulation of wealth, power, and control by that corrupt and greedy 1% we are hearing about from Zuccotti Park? What if the assault on America’s middle class and the assault on the environment are one and the same?
Money Rules: It’s not hard for me to understand how...
Icelandic People Said No -
In Europe, people in many countries are saying no to paying for the crisis and bailing out the banks, and to a large extent, leading the way, are the people of Iceland -- at the ballot box and on the streets.
Michael Hudson, professor of economics at University of Missouri, Kansas City provides some insights into how exactly the Icelandic people have gone about holding their government accountable. "What happened in Iceland is being used as a test case for what is happening in Greece...
Occupy Wall Street received a surprise visit Monday from several leading Egyptian activists, including 26-year-old Asmaa Mahfouz. She is one of the founders of the April 6 Youth Movement, which is the group credited with helping to organize the January 25 protests that eventually toppled the regime of former president Hosni Mubarak.
Prior to the protest in January, Mahfouz recorded a YouTube video urging people to fill Tahrir Square. Democracy Now!'s Amy Goodman spoke to her at Occupy Wall...
Glenn Ashton -
South Africa continues to haemorrhage jobs. This in a country that by the kindest description is already beset by unemployment, with estimates of unemployment varying between an optimistic 23% to a more realistic 35%. What factors underlie our failure to open up employment to more people?
Despite improved levels of education and huge resources being poured into job training schemes through the controversial SETA programmes, opportunities for matriculants – and even graduates - to...
During the past four decades Sub-Saharan Africa has experienced a financial haemorrhage, much of it as a result of corrupt, kleptocratic dictatorships that funnelled money out of the country to international banks during the Cold War. While many dictators have fallen, the results of their corrupt ways still affect the people of the subcontinent. Is it fair to ask Africans to pay back the loans of corrupt dictators?
Africa’s people are poor because “the subcontinent's...
