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.
Commenting on Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi's move to grant himself sweeping powers that has brought Egyptians back to the streets in protest, Hamid Dabashi, Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York, says Egypt has had an "open-ended revolution". After negotiating a ceasefire between Israel and Gaza, Morsi passed edicts, which allow him to overrule any judicial oversight, essentially giving him dictatorial powers.
It is very...
Anna Majavu -
A recent Supreme Court of Appeal judgment has undermined the plight of incest victims who keep quiet about their ordeals after being threatened with death or given tokens by their abusive father figures.
In this recent judgment, Supreme Court of appeal judge Jeremiah Shongwe - with judges Lex Mpati, Carole Lewis, Belinda van Heerden and Nathan Erasmus concurring - reduced a rapist's life sentence to 15 years. The Limpopo High Court had earlier sentenced Edson Ndou to the mandatory...
James North -
At first, the latest awful news from the Democratic Republic of Congo sounds like just another installment of an ongoing saga common in the Western media, “Vicious African Tribal Factions Hate Each Other.” Several thousand armed predators who call themselves the M23 Movement and are inappropriately described as “rebels” have just seized control of Goma, a regional capital, and the renewed fighting is adding to a death toll that has already risen above 5 million since...
To call attention to the oftentimes-salacious methods of fundraisers and campaigns aimed at ending poverty in Africa, which profit handsomely from perpetually presenting Africans as needy, “Africa for Norway”, is a musical parody that turns the tables on convention by showing concerned Africans fundraising for freezing Norwegians. It’s counterintuitive, cheeky and very effective at calling attention to the fact that Africans are tired of negative stereotypes....
Heidi-Jane Esakov and Na'eem Jeenah -
A ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel, which was to come into effect on Tuesday night, was delayed at the last minute due to ‘Israeli requests’. Despite the imminence of a ceasefire, Israel intensified its assault on the tiny, battered coastal strip as part of its ‘Operation Pillar of Cloud’. In response, rockets continued to fly, somewhat ineffectually, from Gaza into Israel. The Palestinian death toll, currently at over 130, will undoubtedly climb as...
Tumi Moloi, a striking miner who works at an Amplats shaft close to Rustenburg spoke at the "Unite the Resistance 2012" conference in London (UK) on Saturday, 17 November. He is a strike committee member in Rustenburg, where 30,000 miners working for Amplats platinum - a subsidiary of global mining giant Anglo American - have been on strike for two months.
Moloi led his shaft's 4,500 workers out on strike in September.
Moloi is a member of the Rustenburg Strike Committee,...
